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[Illustration:  The Markis and the Major.          (_See page 15._) ]




                            THE OPEN WINDOW

                          TALES OF THE MONTHS


                                TOLD BY

                                BARBARA

              AUTHOR OF “THE GARDEN OF A COMMUTER’S WIFE,”
                 “PEOPLE OF THE WHIRLPOOL,” ETC., ETC.





                                NEW YORK
                    G R O S S E T   &   D U N L A P
                               PUBLISHERS




                            COPYRIGHT, 1908,

                       BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

                 *        *        *        *        *

        Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1908. Reprinted
             July, August, November, 1908; February, 1910.


                             Norwood Press
                 J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
                         Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.




                               THIS BOOK

                            IS INSCRIBED TO

                          REV. ALLEN E. BEEMAN

                               IN RETURN

                             FOR A THOUGHT




                                CONTENTS


             I. THE MARKIS AND THE MAJOR            _January_
            II. THE STALLED TRAIN                   _February_
           III. THE VANDOO                          _March_
            IV. THE IMMIGRANTS                      _April_
             V. TREE OF LIFE                        _May_
            VI. WIND IN THE GRASS                   _June_
           VII. THE SIMPLE LIFE                     _July_
          VIII. THE ADOPTION OF ALBERT AND VICTORIA _August_
            IX. GROUNDSEL-TREE                      _September_
             X. THE OPEN WINDOW                     _October_
            XI. THE RAT-CATCHER                     _November_
           XII. TRANSITION                          _December_




                                   I
                        THE MARKIS AND THE MAJOR


                  TOLD BY BARBARA, THE COMMUTER’S WIFE

                        =JANUARY=—THE HARD MOON

When Christmas has passed it is useless to make believe that it is not
winter, even if the snow has merely come in little flurries quickly
disappearing in the leaves that now lie suppliant with brown palms
curved upward.

Early December is often filled with days that, if one does not compare
the hours of the sun’s rise and setting, might pass for those of an
early spring. Sharp nights but soft noon air, meadow larks in voice down
in the old fields, uneasy robins in the spruces, a song sparrow in the
shelter of the honeysuckle wall, goldfinches feeding among the dry
stalks of what two months gone was a scarlet flame of zinnias, or else
in their rhythmic, restless flight binding the columns where the seeded
clematis clings, in chains of whispered song.

All through the month the garden, thriftily trimmed, and covered
according to its need, refused to sleep in peace and thrust forth its
surprises. One day it was a pansy peeping from beneath a box bush, then
a dozen sturdy Russian violets for the man’s buttonhole, that, fading in
an hour, were outlived by their perfume, while on the very eve of
Christmas itself, the frosted wall flowers yielded a last bouquet, just
a bit pinched and drawn like reduced gentlefolks of brave heart, whose
present garb is either cherished or overlooked from a half-reminiscent
pleasure in their society.

Many say that the ending of the year with Christmas week is only an
arbitrary time division, and so is meaningless. But this cannot be so.
The natural year has ended and it begins anew, even though we do not at
once see its processes, for intervals in nature there are none, and the
first law of being is emergence from unseen sleep, wherein is stamped
the pattern for the after-growth.

Thus with Christmas passed, we all must yield to Winter. Playtime with
its dalliance outdoors is over for man, and the little beasts lie in
their lairs, except when hunger prods.

The poor, God help them, drawing their heads down into their garments,
prepare to endure. They have not two or three changes of raiment to
match the graded weather from September to January—the relentless hard
moon of the Indian calendar. Resistance is their final set of winter
flannels, which must be worn sleeping or waking.

With January the rabbit season is over, and the sturdy dogs, the merry,
tireless beagles, left to themselves, abandon the trail after a sniff or
two, or else return from the run with stiff, wounded feet: for does not
a spear lurk in every blade of frozen stubble? and, after nosing into
the house, they lie in relaxed comfort by the kitchen stove. That is,
unless the thaw from their hair-set foot-pads annoys the cook (and few
recognize dog needs and rights as did Martha Corkle), in which case they
slink out again sheepish under reproof, and, loping uphill to the
cottage, charge at Martha’s kitchen door until she opens it, protesting
as usual at their lack of manners and the mess “the beasties” make.
This, however, is wholly from principle, because protest against dirt in
any form becomes a thrifty British housewife, even though transplanted
to America.

In truth all the while her heart is swelling with pleasure at their
recognition, voiced as it presently is in a baying chorus, heads well
thrown back, throats swelling, tails held aloft and firm, for sweet as
the voice of love is hound music to the people of the English hunting
country, however far from it their lives have led them. Then presently,
after a meal of stew seasoned to each dog’s liking (for Lark is fond of
salt and likes to chew his biscuits dry and lap the gravy after, while
Cadence and old Waddles, being scant of teeth, prefer to guzzle the
softened food and like a pinch of sugar), they fall prone before the
fire, their bellies replete, and round, pressing the floor as close as
their heavy heads. Whereupon Martha heaves a sigh of deep content and
seats herself in the window corner of the front room, behind her
geranium pots, with her white needlework of scallop, sprig, and eyelet
hole, a substantial old-time craft lately returned to favour.

This occupation also is a sign that it is winter without doubt, for not
until the Christmas puddings have been made and eaten and the results
have worn away, does Martha Saunders (born Corkle) sit in the bay window
of her front room shedding abroad the light of her rosy face and her
bright geraniums by day, while the gloom of night is pierced by her
clear lamp with its gay shade, whereon an endless steeple-chase is
portrayed against a screen of ruby isinglass. Here in Oaklands whoever
sets a drinking trough before his door in summer-time to succour man and
thirsty beasts receives so much a year from the town fathers. Why should
not those who, in the dark season, set a row of jovial red geraniums
behind the window-pane by day or a well-trimmed light by night, be
equally rewarded? Is not the thirst for light, colour, and other home
symbols as keen a desire of the winter wayfarer as his thirst for water
in the torrid season?

The first New Year callers were out before sunrise this morning while
the hoar-frost lay thick on the porch of father’s office, for here,
Whirlpool customs to the contrary, the country doctor and his tribe
expect a gentle drift of friendly visitors, as much as do the people at
the parsonage, and often with them there come homespun good-will gifts.

These early guests were nameless, and left their gift upon the door-mat,
where father found it. A pair of redheads, duck and drake by chance,
such as the gunners at this season harvest from the still-water inside
the lighthouse at the bayhead.

Any one interested in following backward the tracks these callers left
would have found that they began at the edge of the bare, drifted sand
beach and followed the wavering fence of the shore road until the
outline of that also disappearing, the footprints crossed the upland
fields to the lower end of the village street, where many of the houses,
old, sedate, and self-sufficient in their ancestry, were prouder in
their garb of mossy shingles than the Bluff cottages in all their
bravery of new paint, and porches supported by stone pillars.

Entering by the yard of one of the humbler of these houses, through the
back garden, the footsteps meandered toward the side porch that served
both as well-house and wood-shed; there the owners of the feet left a
similar burden of ducks on the well-worn oak door-sill instead of on the
door-mat, for that was thriftily housed within. To leave it out all
night would be to incur the criticism of the Misses Falcon, dealers in
village patronage and censors in chief, next door, a most disastrous
thing for the single dweller in the house, whose livelihood depended
upon the public, as announced by a quaint glass sign, lettered in black,
that filled the right-hand lower corner of the foreroom window. =C.
Hallet. Tailoring, Nursing, and Accommodating, done with Neatness and
Despatch.= The last of the three accomplishments meaning that in
the between seasons of her more serious work, Charity Hallet would
accommodate her neighbours in any way, from putting up jellies and jams
for the slothful to turning carpets, or setting a house solemnly to
rights for a funeral.

After leaving the yard, also by the back gate, that no telltale prints
might mar the plumpness of the front walk, or jar the white rime that
made mammoth cakes of the box bushes on either side the door, the
footprints took a short cut to the hill road and paused at our steps,
evidently with some scuffing and stamping, and none of the precautions
used in approaching the other door.

Here the two sets of footprints, those of dog and man, alone told of who
had come and gone, and yet we knew as plainly as if the social cardboard
had been left. The overlapping, shifty human footprints, suggesting a
limp or halting gait, were those of a rubber-booted man. The round
pad-marks of a four-foot, with a dragging trail, spoke of a dog either
old or weak in his hind quarters.

As I, answering father’s call, scanned the tracks, our eyes met and we
said, as with one voice, “The Markis and the Major,” whereby hangs a
pleasant winter’s tale. A comedy that was turned from tragedy merely by
the blowing of the bitter northeast wind among the sedge grass. A simple
enough story, like many another gleaned from between the leaves that lie
along the village fences or the lanes and byways of the lonelier hill
country.

Down in a little hut, by the bay-side, lived the village ne’er-do-weel;
this was a year ago. He was not an old man in action, but at times he
looked more than his fifty odd years, for life had dealt grudgingly with
his primitive tastes, and besides being well weathered by an outdoor
life, both eyes and gait had the droop of the man of middle age who,
lacking good food, has made up for it by bad drink. Yet, in spite of a
general air of shiftlessness, there was that about him still that told
that he had once not only been nearly handsome, but had been possessed
of a certain wild gypsy fascination coupled with a knack with the violin
that had turned the heads, as well as the feet, of at least two of the
village lassies of his day who, though rigidly brought up, had eyes and
ears for something beyond the eternal sowings, hoeings, reapings, and
sleepings of farm life. Even in his boyhood he was looked upon as a
detrimental, until, partly on the principle of “Give a dog a bad name
and he will earn it,” he absolutely earned one by default, so to speak,
for the things that he left undone, rather than deeds committed.

He was side-branched from thrifty country stock; his father, a proxy
farmer and the captain of a coastwise lumber schooner, had on a
northbound trip married a comely Canadian-French woman, half-breed it
was whispered, who was possessed of the desire for liberty and the
outdoor life, far beyond her desire to observe the village _p_’s and
_q_’s. This new strain in the cool New England blood caused neighbourly
bickerings, bred mischief, and had finally made the only child of the
marriage a strolling vagabond, who instinctively shunned the inside of a
schoolhouse, as a rat does a trap. So that after his mother died when he
was sixteen, all his after days he had lived in the open by rod and gun,
fish-net and clam fork, berry picking, or playing his fiddle at village
picnics and other festivals.

It was at one of these festivities that he first met Charity Hallet,
called in those days Cheery from her disposition that fairly bubbled
over with happiness. A fiery sort of wooing followed; that is, fiery and
unusual for a staid New England town, where sitting evening after
evening by the best room lamp or “buggy dashing” through the wild lanes
of a moonlight night or of a Sunday afternoon were considered the only
legitimate means of expression. Alack! this man possessed neither horse
nor buggy, or the means of hiring one, and the door of the Hallets’ best
room was closed to him, as well as every other door of the house. What
would you have? Swift dances snatched when some one else relieved the
fiddler; meetings by stealth in the woods, intricate journeys through
the winding marsh watercourses where, hidden by tall reeds, a duck boat
slipped in and out, holding a half-anxious, half-happy girl, while a
tall, bronzed youth either poled the craft along or sometimes pushed it
as he strode beside it waist deep in water, his eyes fixed upon the
merry ones beside him.

Of course discovery came at last, and Charity’s father sent her to spend
a winter with an aunt in another State and “finish” school there.

Meanwhile for half a dozen years the youth followed the sea and on his
return found Charity an orphan in possession of the house and a snug
income, and though she was still unmarried, a vein of prudence or a
change of heart, just as one happens to view it, had at least diluted
her romance.

“Get some employment with a name to it; I couldn’t stand an idle man
hanging about,” she had said when man and dog (there had always been and
always would be a dog following at this man’s heels) for the first time
entered the Hallet front door and prepared, without ceremony, to resume
the boy and girl footing as a matter of course.

The man, of primitive instincts and no responsibility, had looked at her
dumbly for a minute, and then the light of her meaning breaking upon him
he jumped to his feet and bringing his heels sharply together, said, “I
thought you were fond o’ me, Cheery, and that women sort o’ liked
somebody they were fond of hanging around ’em,” and without further ado
he called the dog, and closing door and gate carefully behind him,
turned from the village street to the shore road with easy, swinging
gait; but from that day his fiddle never played for the village dancers.

The thrifty half of Charity Hallet congratulated the half that was
longing to open door and heart to man, dog, and violin in the face of
prudence and the village, upon its escape. But sometimes prudence and
the wind race together, for the next year the most trusted man in the
township, under cover of decorous business, made way with all of
Charity’s little property, except the house; and the glass sign, once
used by a great aunt, was rescued from the attic rafters, placed in the
foreroom window; and at twenty-five Charity, who had been sought far and
near, and had been wholly independent in action, began the uphill road
of being a self-supporting old maid.

The man’s feet never again turned toward her front gate, though the
dog’s did, and many a bone and bit did he get there, for the dog who
grew old, evidently bequeathed knowledge of Charity’s hospitality to his
puppy successor, and so the years went. If mysterious heaps of clams,
big lobsters from the deep fishing, delicate scallops or seasonable game
appeared in the morning under the well house, no word was spoken.

Five, fifteen, twenty years went by, and the very face of the country
itself had changed and Cheery Hallet had almost forgotten how to smile.
The man’s natural hunting grounds being largely reclaimed from wildness,
the game becoming scarcer and the laws of season and selling close
drawn, like many an Indian brother of old, too unskilled to work, too
old to learn, he found himself absolutely facing extinction, while in
these years the drink habit had gradually crept upon and gripped him.

A few days after Christmas he was sitting outside his shore hut, that,
lacking even the usual driftwood fire, was colder than the chilly
sunshine, facing hunger and his old red setter dog, the Major, who gazed
at him with a brow furrowed by anxiety and then laid his gaunt, grizzled
muzzle against his master’s face that rested on his hands. The turkey
won at the raffle in Corrigan’s saloon had been devoured,—flesh, bones,
skin, and I had almost said feathers,—so ravenous had been the pair,
for Charity Hallet being ill was tended by a neighbour, who would rather
burn up plate scraps than feed tramp dogs, as she designated the Major,
who as usual had come scratching at the kitchen door, and so for many
days he had crept away empty.

A few days only remained of the upland open season, but for that matter
the sportsmen speeding from all quarters in their motors to the most
remote woodlands and brush lots had changed the luck and ways of foot
hunting, and what birds remained had been so harried that they huddled
and refused to rise. His duck boat was rotten to the danger point, while
the clam banks that had meant a certain weekly yield had the past season
been ruthlessly dug out by the summer cottagers, who herded in a string
of cheap and gaudy shore houses and knew no law.

This was the plight of Marquis Lafayette Burney, fantastically
christened thus at his mother’s command, and called from his youth “The
Markis,” in well-understood derision.

Feeling the dog’s caress, the man raised his head and gazed at his
solitary friend, then out upon the water. The wind that ruffled the sand
into little ridges raised the hair upon the dog’s back, plainly
revealing its leanness. Out on the bay beyond the bar the steel-blue
tide chafed and fretted; within the protecting arm lay still-water
without a trace of ice on it, while in and out among the shallows the
wild ducks fed and at night would bed down inside the point.

Along the beach itself there was no life or sound, a wide band of dull
blue mussel shells thrown up by a recent storm only intensified the look
of cold, while the gulls that floated overhead carried this colour
skyward, and cast it upon the clouds.

“It’s come jest ter this, Maje,” the Markis muttered, “there’s nothin’
ter eat! nothin’ ter eat! Do you sense that, old man? Come fust o’ the
year, if we hold out to then, we’ll hev to make other arrang’ments, you
and me! Town farm’s a good place fer the winter, some say, and some say
bad, certain sure we won’t be over het up there, that’s what I dre’d in
gettin’ in out o’ the air!” Then as a new thought struck him, he cried
aloud, “God! suppose they won’t take you in along o’ me!” and the Markis
started back aghast at the thought and then peered about with blinking
eyes that he shielded with a shaking hand, for the Major had
disappeared.

The Markis whistled and waited. Presently from behind the dunes loped
the Major carrying something in his mouth; with a cheerful air of pride
he laid before his master a turkey drumstick, sand-covered and dry, the
last bone in the dog’s ground larder; then, stepping back with a short,
insistent bark, he fixed his eyes on the Markis with lip half raised in
a persuasive grin.

As the man slowly realized the meaning of the bone, his bleared eyes
filled and the knotting of his throat half stopped his breath. Pulling
the slouch hat that he always wore still lower to hide his face, though
only gulls were near to see, he drew the Major close between his knees
and hugged him. Who dares say that any man o’ersteps salvation when a
dog yet sees in him the divine spark that he recognizes and serves as
master?

Into the hut went the Markis, took down his gun from its rest above a
tangle of shad nets that he had been mending before cold weather, picked
up a pair of skilfully made duck decoys, and looked at them regretfully,
saying, “A couple o’ dollars would fix that boat in shape, but where’s a
couple o’ dollars?” the last coin he had fingered having gone to pay the
Major’s license on instalments, the final quarter being yet due, and
only two days of grace.

Still rummaging he picked up some bits of fish line and flexible wire;
these he dropped into a ragged pocket together with a handful of
unhulled buckwheat. Then he padlocked the door of the cabin carefully,
threw his gun over his shoulder, and set off along the road that led up
country, with his slow slouching gait, the Major to heel, muttering to
himself,—“I hain’t never done it before, I allers hunted square, but
time’s come when I’ll jest hev ter set a couple o’ snares and see
what’ll turn up. I know where I can place a pair o’ grouse for two
dollars at this time o’ year, and two dollars means another week
together for us,—yes, another week!”

Two hours later the Markis and the Major crept out of the lane that ran
between a brush lot and stubble field on the Lonetown side of the Ridge.
Both master and dog were footsore and weary, while the Markis wore a
shifting, guilty look; for he had spoken truly: pot-hunter he had always
been, but never a setter of snares, except for mink or muskrat. To be
sure he would come to the front door to offer berries that he frankly
said were gathered in one’s own back lot, but this day was the first
time that he had thought to set a loop to catch a partridge by the neck
instead of shooting it in fair hunting.

Straightening himself for a moment he glanced shoreward down the rolling
hills, while the Major dropped upon a heap of dry leaves and dozed with
twitching limbs. The sun came from behind the wind clouds with which he
had been running a race all day, and suddenly the face of nature melted
as with a smile and grew more tender. A big gray squirrel ran along the
stone fence, a blue jay screamed, but the Markis started nervously and
once more looked shoreward.

What was that flickering and glimmering far away upon the beach? Merely
the sunlight flashing upon the single window of his cabin? No, a puff of
smoke was running along the dry grasses from the inlet of the creek,
where the men who watch the oyster grounds had beached their boat and
kindled a bit of fire to heat their coffee.

Another puff, and the smoke arose in a cone the shape of the Markis’s
cabin that the hungry flames were devouring!

With a harsh cry the man dropped his half-made snare and fled
impotently, for now indeed were the Markis and the Major homeless
vagabonds!

                 *        *        *        *        *

When father, being sent for by a farmer of the marsh road who said that
both man and dog had doubtless perished in the hut, reached the shore a
little before sunset, he stumbled over the Markis lying among the broken
sedge and seaweed, numb with cold and despair, the Major keeping watch
beside.

When, after being shaken awake and some stimulant hastily forced between
his lips, the Markis started up muttering a plea to be left alone, and
saw who was bending over him, he whispered, for his voice was hoarse and
uncertain, “It’s you, Doc, is it? Well, I’d ruther you’n another! For
it’s all up this time; it’s either go to the town farm to-night, or be a
stiff, and I’m near that now. We thought mebbe we could pull through
till the next shad run, Maje and me, but now the nets and all hev gone!”
Then, sitting up and pulling himself together with an effort, “Would
you—I wouldn’t ask it of any other man—would you house the Maje, Doc,
until maybe he’d drop off comfortable and quiet, or I get round again?
and once in a time jest say, quick like, ‘Maje, where’s the Markis?’ to
keep me in mind?”

This time the Markis made no effort to hide the tears that washed
roadways down his grimy cheeks.

“But there is no need of this,” father replied, as, clearing his throat
and wiping his nose, he tried to look severe and judicial, (dear Dad!
how well I know this particularly impossible and fleeting expression of
yours)—“I got you the promise of work at Mrs. Pippin’s only last week,
to do a few light errands and keep her in split kindlings for three
square meals a day, and pay in money by the hour for tinkering and
carpentering, and you only stayed one morning! Man alive! you are
intelligent! why can’t you work? The day is over when hereabout men can
live like wild-fowl!”

“Doctor Russell,” said the Markis, speaking slowly and raising a lean
forefinger solemnly, “did you ever try to keep Mis’s Pippin in
kettlewood for three square meals a day, likewise her opinion o’ you
thrown in for pepper, and talk o’ waiting hell fire for mustard, with
only one door to the woodshed and her a-standin’ in it? Not but the
meals was square enough, that was jest it,—they was too square, they
wouldn’t swaller! Give me a man’s job and I’ll take a brace and try it
for the Major here, but who takes one of us takes both, savvy? Beside,
when Mis’s Pippin was Luella Green she liked to dance ter my fiddlin’,
and now she don’t like ter think o’t and seein’ me reminds her!”

Here father broke down and laughed, he confesses, and with the change of
mood came the remembrance that the son of the rich Van Camps of the
Bluffs, whose sporting possessions dot the country from Canada to
Florida, needed a man to tend his boat house that lay further round the
bay, and to take him occasionally to the ducking grounds at the crucial
moment of wind and weather. Thus far, though several landsmen had
attempted it, no one had kept the job long owing to its loneliness, and
the fact that they lacked the outdoor knack, for the pay was liberal.

In a few words father told of the requirements. Shaking the sand from
his garments the Markis stood up, new light in his eyes,—“What! that
yaller boat house round the bend, with all the contraptions and the
tankboat painted about ’leven colours that Jason built? I’d better get
to work smart in the mornin’ and weather her up a bit, it ’ud scare even
a twice-shot old squaw the way it is! The weather is softenin’; come
to-morrow there’ll be plenty o’ birds comin’ in and we’ll soon learn him
how to fetch home a show of ’em, which is what most o’ them city chaps
wants more’n the eatin’,—won’t we, Maje? Yes, Doc, I’ll take the
ockerpation straight and honourable and won’t go back on you! Go home
with you for supper and the night? That’s kindly, we _air_ some used up,
that’s so! And something in advance of pay to-morrow? and he’ll let me
raise a shingle and pick up what I can takin’ other folks fishin’ and
shootin’ when he don’t need me? and he’ll most likely supply me
clothes,—a uniform like a yacht sailor’s, you say? Well, I suppose
these old duds are shabby, but me and they’s kept company this long time
and wild-fowl’s particular shy o’ new things, and the smell of them I
reckon! Weathered things is mostly best to my thinkin’, likewise
friends, Doc!”

When young Van Camp, arriving at the shore one day at dawn for his first
expedition, saw his new employee and his aged dog, he shuddered visibly
and for a moment inwardly questioned father’s sanity; but having been
about with half-breed guides too much to judge the outdoor man by mere
externals, he laughed good-naturedly and abandoned himself to the tender
mercies of the Markis and the Major, saying lightly as he glanced at the
faded sweater and soft hat, “It’s cold down here; I’m sending you a
reefer and some better togs to-morrow.”

So the three went out across the still-water to the ducking grounds and
brought back such a bunch before the fog closed in the afternoon that
Van Camp clapped the Markis on the back and declared the Major must be a
Mascot, and that he deserved the finest sort of collar!

“A Mascot! that’s what he is, in addition to being the wisest smell-dog
on the shore!” affirmed the Markis solemnly, the eyelid on the off side
drooping drolly. “All he has to do is to smell the tide when it turns
flood, and he knows jest where the ducks’ll bed next night!” All of
which Van Camp, Junior, believed, because it seemed suitable that the
dog he hired with the man should be superlatively something; and next
day there arrived, together with the reefer, a yacht captain’s cap, a
set of oil-skins, and a great tin of tobacco,—a broad brass-studded
collar, such as bull-dogs wear, but an ornament unknown to
self-respecting “smell-dogs” even if, like the Major, they were _bar
sinister_.

The morrow was New Year’s day, and the day after, just at evening, the
Markis, clad in a trim sailor suit from cap to trousers, was seen
sauntering down the village street toward the cross-roads at the Centre,
where his tangled trails to and from the two saloons had before-times
often puzzled the Major’s acute sense of smell. Behind the Markis loped
the Major with drooping tail and the heavy collar, too large for his
lean neck, hanging about his ears. But had not his master fastened the
hateful thing upon him? That was reason enough for wearing it, at least
for the time being!

Slowly the Markis passed the two saloons and nonchalantly entered the
market, where he carefully selected a whole bologna and a ham! Crossing
to the grocery he bought a month’s provisions to be sent to “Van Camp’s
Boat House, for Capt’n Burney!” Then pulling on a fresh corn-cob pipe in
leisurely fashion he stopped at the paint shop, from whence he took a
sign board, that he carried, letters toward him; next he repassed the
saloons and gradually gained the wooded lane that skirts the marsh
meadows.

Once under cover he pulled off the new reefer, wrapped it around the
board, and began to run, never pausing until he gained the boat house.

Throwing open the door he quickly stripped off the new stiff, confining
garments, and slipped eel-like into loose trousers and the gray sweater
that made him one with the seaweed and the sands. Then drawing the old
soft hat well down to his very eyes he opened the tool chest that stood
under the window and, taking therefrom gimlet, screw eyes, and hooks, he
mounted an empty box, and proceeded to fasten the sign he had brought
over the door. When it hung exactly even and to his liking, he walked
backward, slowly surveying his handiwork, talking to the dog meanwhile.
“What do you think of that, Maje? You and me hev got a business, we hev!
employment with a name to it! Don’t yer remember what she said? No, you
wasn’t the dog, though; ’twere old Dave, yer granddad! There’ll be jest
two o’ us in the business, man and dog. You know the saying as two’s a
company. Onct maybe I’d chose a woman partner! when they’re young
wimmen’s prettier, but fer age give me er dog! Dogs is more dependable,
likewise they don’t talk back, eh, Maje?”

On the swinging white board, edged with bright blue, in blue letters he
read these words aloud, slowly, and with deep-drawn satisfaction:—

                       THE MARKIS AND THE MAJOR.

                   Decoys and Fishing Tackle to Rent.
      Sailing, Gunning, Fishing and Retrieving done with Neatness
                             and Dispatch.

Reëntering the boat house he gazed about with a sigh of perfect content,
dropped into the ship-shaped bunk that was his bed, hat still on his
head, and stretching himself luxuriously, said to the Major, who
crouched beside, “I reckoned we’d hev ter make a change long first o’
the year, and I reckon we _hev_!” The coffee-pot upon the new stove in
the far corner brooded comfortably and gave little gasps before being
fully minded to excite itself to boiling, while the wild blood, even a
few drops of which often makes its owners think such long, long thoughts
that stretch back to the dawn of things, coursed evenly on its way until
a delicious sleep, such as had been unknown for months, laid its fingers
on the eyelids of the Markis.

Cautiously the Major rose to his feet, looked about the room narrowly,
sniffed the floor and then the air, shook his head and pawed
persistently until the heavy new collar slipped over his ears and
clattered to the floor. For a moment, minded to lie down again, he
paused, sniffed the fresh air from the open window in the corner, then
lifting the offending collar carefully in his mouth he gripped it firmly
and crossed the room, jumped for the open sash, missed, tried again, and
disappeared in the boat house shadows.

A loon laughed far out on the water, and the Major trembled guiltily.
Gaining the beach crest he kept on to tide-water mark, where, digging
deep, he buried the offending bit of leather, covering it well, kicking
backward at it, dog fashion, with snorts of contemptuous satisfaction.
Then trotting gaily back he entered by the window, and soon two rhythmic
snores, added to the bubbling of the overboiling coffee-pot, told that
the Markis and the Major slept the peaceful winter sleep, while the
sharp crescent moon of January slipped past the window, lingering over
still-water to cover the bedded wild-fowl with a silver sheet.




                                   II
                           THE STALLED TRAIN


                        =FEBRUARY=—THE COON MOON

He was no kin to the man of Whittier’s eulogy, though he might well have
been; Jim Bradley was only the conductor on the milk freight that fussed
and fumed its way down the valley of the Moosatuck every evening, at
intervals leaving the single track road of the Sky Line to rest upon the
sidings while a passenger train or the through express took right of
way.

To Miranda Banks, however, Bradley seemed a hero as he sprang from the
caboose, swinging his lantern, when his train took the switch and halted
on the side track below the calf pastures.

To be sure his claim to heroism had, so far, rested upon the fact that
both he and his vocation moved. In Hattertown very few people or things
had moved these ten years past; they had groped as being between
daylight and dark. The beginning of this twilight period was when the
trade that gave the town both its name and reason for being, owing to
change of methods and market, vanished across the low gentian meadows of
the Moosatuck to install itself anew in Bridgeton, fifteen miles away.
The empty factory, long and vainly offered for sale, became a storage
place for the hay that speculators bought on the field from the
somnolent hillside farmers and held for the winter market. At the same
time the hay gave the building a good reputation among the travelling
brotherhood of the back roads, who work a week and tramp on again (an
entirely distinct clan from the hoboes who follow the railroad through
villages and alternate thieving with stolen rides upon freight trains),
and the factory became a wayfarers’ lodging-house, until gradually the
unpainted boards turned black and the building grew hollow-eyed as its
window panes were shattered.

When man wholly forsook it, swallows and swifts brought primitive life
to it again, the one nesting against its warped rafters, the others
lining the chimney, now free from plaster and very hospitable, with
their bracketed homes, until their flocks pouring forth from its mouth
at dawn and swirling and settling at evening, seemed in the distance a
curling column of smoke.

The row of cheap wooden houses where the factory hands had lived, had
also mouldered away and joined the general ruin, only a starved
grape-vine or rose-bush telling that they had once been homes; until, at
the time I first saw the place, the most depressing of all palls seemed
over it,—the shadow of a dead industry.

It was an October morning when Lavinia Cortright and I drove up into the
hill country with father, who went to see a woman who had applied for a
free bed in the Bridgeton hospital, an aunt of Miranda Banks, she
afterward proved to be; and while father went into the little
farm-house, that had bright geraniums in the windows and wore more of a
general air of thrift than any of those we had passed in the last mile
of our uphill ride, Lavinia and I sauntered along the road and finally
settled ourselves on a tumble-down stone wall in the midst of a wild
grape-vine whose fruit was black with sun-ripeness and bore the moist
bloom of the first light frost.

As we gazed idly over the fields toward the river, that seemed, as we
looked down upon it, to filter through the glowing branches of the swamp
maples, washing their colours with it, rather than to flow between banks
of earth, we sipped the pure wild grape wine where alone it may be
found,—between the skin and pulp of the grape itself, a few drops to
each globe,—and fell to moralizing.

“You like to find a reason for everything, Barbara,” said Lavinia
Cortright, after a long pause; “can you tell me exactly why the country
hereabout seems so desolate and impossible? It has all the colour and
atmosphere of the perfect autumn landscape, and yet the idea of living
here would be appalling.”

I had been thinking the same thing as Lavinia spoke; there was something
in the very wind that blew over the ruined factory settlement that was
deterrent; funerals might take place there, but how could enough impetus
ever exist to cause weddings or christenings?

At this moment the door of a small building, the schoolhouse at the
cross-roads immediately below, opened, and a dozen or more children
rushed out pell-mell, followed by the slim form of a young woman,
evidently the teacher, who closed the door and prepared to take a cross
cut through the fields, the worn track leading up to the pasture bars
close to where we were sitting. No bell, no whistle, no exodus of
labourers from the fields to mark the noon hour, the impulsive rush of
childhood breaking bounds was the only clock.

The woman disappeared in a dip of the land, and then presently her head
emerged from it and the whole figure appeared again walking between the
deep green bayberry bushes that make the dark patches in the waste
hillside fields. She walked without either energy or fatigue, looking
neither to the right nor left; the freckled face, tending to thinness,
interested me from the first glance, for though it wore very little
expression, it was in no wise vacant; the chin was firm, and there was a
good space between the eyes, which opened wide and had none of the
squinting shrewdness I have met with in my wanderings with father among
remote rural communities. It was an unawakened face, and as I began to
wonder what could ever come to give it the vital touch, she reached the
bars and seeing us for the first time, paused, scrutinized us slowly,
and then said with a tinge of irritation in the tone:—

“I wish you wouldn’t spoil those grapes, I’m going to spice them on
Saturday. I should have done it last week, but they are always better
for a touch of frost.”

I straightway disentangled myself from the vine with a guilty feeling,
and murmured the usual apology of the roadside depredators; that is,
when they deign to make excuses, about the grapes being wild and not
knowing that they belonged to any one, but my words fell upon deaf ears.

“There were full ten pounds of grapes here this morning, but with what
you’ve eaten and more that you’ve shaken off, there isn’t more than six
pounds left. How came you up here, anyhow? Nobody ever passes this way;
even the mail-man turns ’round below at four corners. I’m Randy Banks.”

This gave me my chance to explain father’s errand. “Do you think Dr.
Russell can get Aunt Lucy in?” she asked, eagerness bringing a pretty
colour to her cheeks. “It isn’t the care of her we mind, Ma and I,” she
added hastily, “but it’s the loneliness for her of days in winter when
I’m at school and Ma out nursing mebbe; being chair-tied at best,
there’s just nothing to break the time, for nothing ever happens.”

“Now that you have the Rural Free Delivery, you get your mail and papers
every day without having to go down to the Hattertown post-office,” I
said, trying to find a cheerful loophole.

“That’s no advantage to us, rather the other way. When town was alive
and we drove down to the post-office, even if we had no mail, and we
never do except the newspaper, somebody else had and maybe opened it
right there and told the news for the sake of talking it over with some
one else. Then market and store were in the same building and chances
were you’d be reminded of something you needed by seeing it, or maybe a
bit of fresh meat would look tempting and be sold reasonable, too, if it
was near week-end. But to go to that box at cross-roads, though it’s
only a step, and find it empty, it’s as lonesome and strange as a
draught coming from a shut-up room.”

Then as she realized that she was in a way complaining of her lot to a
stranger, a thing that the etiquette of the entire hill country quite
forbade, she broke off, and turning toward the house, said in a
perfectly unembarrassed way: “Won’t you come in? Mother will have dinner
ready. She’d be pleased to see you. I have to hurry back to school
to-day, for the committee man is coming to see if the old stove can be
mended or if we must have a new one, for it’s never done well since Joel
Fanton put a shotgun cartridge in it last winter.” Then we went in,
wondering if events would ever so shape themselves that she would become
an active factor on a wider path than that between the corner school and
the old farm-house.

It was three years before I saw Miranda again; meanwhile, a far-away
city had thrown a lariat of steel across country, and it had encircled
Hattertown; a railway that ran down the valley needed a southern outlet.
The survey ran by the ruined factory, and rounding Nob Hill, crossed the
river below the Banks’ farm, and disappeared on trestles over “calf
pastures,” a name given strangely enough to many a bit of waste river
meadow, as if calves did not need the best of material to become
successful cows.

At the sound of the first locomotive whistle, announcing that the branch
road was a thing accomplished and neither a scare nor a phantom boom,
the Rip Van Winkles awoke and rubbed their eyes. They had slept a
half-famished sleep. Rather than push and plan a way to sell their
produce, they had ceased producing.

The Sky Line Railroad had come. Cruft’s store was rented as a temporary
station and the name Hattertown appeared in dazzling white letters on
the black sign over the door. In one room were scales for weighing
freight and a baggage truck, in the other, a ticket booth took the place
of the old post-boxes, while on a shelf behind the little window, a
telegraph instrument ticked and told the doings of the outer world to
the only man in the neighbourhood that could interpret it. Time-tables
were tacked above the two benches in a corner that made the
waiting-room, but the greatest excitement of all was contained in a
great _poster_ that was not only stuck in conspicuous places in all the
settlements along the line, but put in the mail-boxes as well,
announcing that a milk train would be run nightly, Sundays included, and
urging all farmers, if they had no milk to market, to make immediate
arrangements for producing that commodity.

The Widow Banks had three cows. A dealer in Bridgeton had tried to buy
them late in the autumn when fodder was at a premium, but she had
withstood temptation and taken the risk of wintering them; if she had
not, Miranda would never have met Jim Bradley during the negotiations
for the transportation to the city of the polished tin can that cost the
little teacher many days’ pay, and was regarded by her as a speculation
as wild and daring as any gambler staking his all on a throw of dice,
nor would this story have found its way into father’s note-book.

Jim Bradley came of good up-country stock, but the yeast of desire to
see the world had led him upon the shining road, freight brakeman first
and now conductor. Visiting New York every other day, he seemed a
travelled man of the world to Miranda, whose outside life was bounded by
two trips a year to Bridgeton and the paragraphs upon racial traits,
habits and customs, exports and imports contained in the Geography which
she had heard droned and mispronounced annually for the five seasons she
had taught at the corners.

A year had passed, and now when Jim Bradley ran his train into the
siding at Hattertown, he could not have told which light he saw first,
the railway signal or the well-trimmed lamp in the Widow Banks’ kitchen;
this light, being always kept bright and clear, was lit at sunset with
the regularity of a lighthouse beacon, the reflector improvised from a
tin plate being turned so that the welcoming rays met the milk train as
it rounded the hills and left solid ground for the trestles between
eight and half-past every evening.

As the whistle of the eight-fifteen morning train spelt _school_ to
Miranda, so the whistle of the milk freight, one long and two short, not
only spelled but shouted _Jim Bradley_, and as a matter of course, she
took her hand lantern if the night was dark, or else trusted to the moon
and stars and following the now well-worn path through the corn patch to
“calf pastures,” reached the low shed by the water-tank almost at the
moment that the engine gave its final puff, and Jim Bradley swung
himself from the caboose and seeing that his rear lights were properly
set, promptly forgot his train for an interval ranging from twenty
minutes to perhaps half an hour, when traffic on the through express was
heavy.

Widow Banks had long since announced to inquiries both of the really
interested and maliciously curious order, that Randy and Jim Bradley
were keeping company, though, at the same time, regretting with a sigh
that his business didn’t allow of evenings spent in the austere “fore
room” where the one visible eye of the departed deacon’s portrait done
in air brush crayon, might witness the courting. Neither was it possible
for Randy to exhibit him to the neighbours in a bright and shining buggy
with a blue bow tied to the whip, of a Sunday afternoon, nor had they
the chance for the same reason to judge of his capacity at
prayer-meeting.

If either Randy or Jim had been questioned as to their relations to each
other, they would have been speechless upon the subject. Neither had
given the matter a thought, and therefore neither was worried by the
mazes of material analysis.

Miranda simply obeyed a call that made the spot where Jim Bradley was
the only possible place for her to be between eight and half past; but
when the train left the siding, crossed the bridge over the Moosatuck
and disappeared, she returned to the house and gave her mind up to the
correction of the smeared papers whereon the youth of Hattertown were
struggling along the Arithmetic road, and in striving to prepare for the
puzzling questions that the school’s bad boy might spring upon her on
the morrow.

Jim regarded matters much in the same way, that is, all through that
spring, summer, and autumn. When winter set in and the siding grew
chilly, the tank shed with its little stove became the only shelter,
for, without realizing why, it never occurred to the man that the
caboose with its bunk and litter of flags and lanterns was the place for
Randy.

One night she noticed that Jim had a heavy cold, and the next evening
she brought with her a basket in which a little pot of hot coffee and a
generous wedge of equally fresh-baked mince pie kept each other warm.
Jim smiled at Randy with a glance in which feigned indifference and
indulgence struggled, as by way of table-cloth she spread the napkin
that covered the basket, on a barrel top and motioned for him to eat,
saying as she handed him a paper of sugar, “I didn’t know how you like
your coffee sweetened, so I brought some sugar along.”

In some way the steam from that tin kettle as he looked across it,
altered the perspective of his existence and changed his terminal; for
the first time he wished that Hattertown was at one end or the other of
the route instead of a brief turnout in the middle.

Then as Randy under his guidance dropped the lumps of sugar in the pail
(cup and saucer lacking), he suddenly formulated for the first time the
fact of her refinement and the difference between her and the other
women that he met along the route. A sudden vision of a home other than
a caboose with meals taken at depot restaurants blazed comet-like across
his firmament in a way that startled—no, fairly frightened him. That
night the time passed so quickly that they were obliged to hurry up hill
at a pace that left Miranda flushed and with no breath for speech as she
opened the narrow storm door to the back porch and swinging her lantern
on a peg, turned to take the basket.

Jim Bradley looked at the girl, whose cape hung about her neck by a
single fastening, its hood that she had pulled up for her head covering,
falling back so that the glorious hair that was usually plastered and
twisted into the subjection fitting a schoolmarm, was loosed and fell
into its natural curves and waves. Then he looked out into the dark to
where one of his brakemen was waving the “time up” signal lantern
furiously. Buttoning his short coat with the air of making all snug and
fit that a man might have who was about to face some new and dangerous
situation, he stepped into the porch so quickly that Miranda was caught
betwixt him and the inner door at the moment when she had raised her
arms to smooth her rumpled hair.

“I want to tell you something right up and out,” he said, also breathing
hard from his run up hill. “That pie was the best I ever closed teeth
on, better even than ever the old lady made and _she_ took three prizes
for mince pie running at the Oldfield Fair;” then, before Miranda’s arms
could drop, Jim had grasped her in a swift but complete embrace, landing
a kiss at random that all the same fell squarely upon her lips, and fled
down hill through the night without another word.

When Miranda returned to the kitchen this evening, she did not join her
mother where she sat sewing by the reading lamp, but dropped on a bench
before the open wood stove and began following the pictures the embers
painted, with eyes that really took no note of outward happenings.

Widow Banks glanced at her daughter anxiously, then caught a glimpse of
the smile that was hovering about her usually rather set lips, noticed
the ruddy mane from which the hairpins rose in various attitudes of
resentment, and glancing at the untouched task upon the table, gave a
contented sigh and began to knit reminiscences of her own youth into the
muffler she was fashioning for a missionary box. To be sure, she had
planned a theological career for her only daughter. She was to have
married a young theologue who had occupied the pulpit of the Pound Rock
Church for a year and then gone to India, where by virtue of her
experience as a teacher, Miranda was to help him convince the heathen,
do credit to her religious training, and become a factor in the world.
This plan belonged to seven years before when the girl was twenty, and
it had not happened because the stubborn streak inherited from the
deacon, stiffened Randy’s neck and perverted her judgment to the extent
of preferring Hattertown to India, and declaring to her suitor and
mother in one breath that if she ever felt a hankering for the heathen
she could find plenty without leaving home.

                 *        *        *        *        *

When February comes the romance of winter is over in the hill country,
and this long short month brings only the reality. It is a betwixt and
between month, fully as trying as its opposite, August, that time of
general stuffiness, flies, and limp linen.

January had been a month of even snow and good sleighing, but a sleet
storm had made the many downhill roads that converged at Hattertown
well-nigh impassable with glittering ice; while in February, coughing
and snuffling, as much a part of the month as St. Valentine’s Day, sadly
interfered with discipline at the Crossroads Schoolhouse. Miranda, under
pressure, allowed herself to confess for the first time, that seven
years was quite long enough for a woman to sit upon the selfsame wooden
chair, or wrestle with the constitutional peculiarities of a sheet-iron
stove. This stove, having been second-hand upon its arrival, was now
wearing three patches through the ill-fitted rivets of which smoke and
gas filtered, obscuring the wall map of North America that was at least
three states behind the times.

The season and bad weather of course had some effect upon her point of
view, for given June, open doors and windows, and a glimpse of the
Moosatuck to draw the eye from the faded map, the most pressing of
grievances would have vanished.

Somehow Miranda had never realized until now what an exasperating month
February was; formerly she had used the evenings for her spring sewing
and was really glad of the forced cessation of the small events that
made Hattertown’s social life, but now the ice crust upon the hill slope
above calf pastures made walking impossible between the house and the
station siding, so that two or three and in one week five evenings went
by and only the greeting of lantern signals passed between Jim Bradley
and Miranda.

The next afternoon on her return from school, Miranda found a letter in
the box, directed in a round, bold, and unfamiliar hand; moreover, it
was for her. Therefore, as it was a man’s writing it must be from Jim.
Instead of opening it as she walked along, half a dozen children
struggling on before or at her side, she dropped it in her pocket and
then smiled to find, a few minutes later, when she reached her gate and
needed a hand to open it with (the other carrying books) that it had
remained inside the pocket caressing the square of paper.

Widow Banks was then “accommodating” at the house of the new ticket
agent and telegraph operator, who had pneumonia, as his wife was obliged
to fill his place. The Banks’ house was empty save for the cat who
purred before the stove, there was no necessity for seeking privacy; yet
Miranda went through the kitchen and shut herself into the little storm
porch before she opened the envelope, and held the sheet close to the
single diamond pane in the outer door that she might read.

“Respected Friend—” the words ran, “This has been the deuce of a month
with ice and tie-ups. I need to see you _Special_ to-morrow night. If
the run is close so I can’t get up, I’ll fix to have Sweezy’s boy go
fetch you to the depot with a team, so come _down_ sure.

                                            “Yours with Compliments,
                                                         “JIM BRADLEY.”

What did the _Special_ mean? Was her hero going to leave the Milk
Freight for a better job? That meant a passenger or possibly a through
train, and neither of these would pause on the side track at Hattertown.
Or—well, there was no use in guessing; “to-morrow night” was exactly
twenty-eight hours away and that was all there was to it. So Randy put
wood on the fire, skimmed a saucer of cream which she gave to the cat as
if in some way propitiating a powerful domestic idol, lit the lamp,
though it was broad daylight, and began the preparation of curling the
feathers in her best hat by holding them in the steam of the tea-kettle,
and then realized that as the morrow was Saturday, she would have plenty
of time for both housework and preparation.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The last Saturday morning of February did not really dawn, for the
discouraged light merely struggled with a snowstorm so dense that the
rays only penetrated by refraction. A little before noon the fall
ceased, but the sky would not relax, and scowled dark and sullen as if
with the pain of its recent effort, the snow lay heavy on hill and
lowland, covering land and water alike; and, lodging on the ice,
completely obliterated the boundary of the usually assertive Moosatuck.

A few crows, cawing dismally, straggled toward what had been down stream
from their cedar roosts, but all other sounds were muffled. It was
almost noon before the village, headed by the first selectman with two
yokes of oxen and as many ploughs, dug itself out; and a great
snow-plough bound north cleared the rails for the morning mail train,
now hours late. Meanwhile Mr. Sweezy, the host of the “Depot Hotel,” the
wit of the reconstructed Hattertown, did a thriving trade with many
usually abstemious citizens exhausted by the wielding of snow shovels,
in beverages that did not bear the label “soft drinks,” and the ticket
agent’s wife in the little booth struggled with and made more incoherent
the reports that came over the snow-laden wires.

In spite of the storm and the desirability of daylight, there were four
souls under the magnetic influence, as it were, of those bands of steel
rails, that wished it were night. Two that they might meet once more,
and two in order that a distance might reach between them that it seemed
likely would end in a more complete separation.

Neither couple had ever seen or heard of the other, and yet the strands
were fast weaving to draw them together and make it impossible to blot
either from the other’s memory.

The first couple were man and maid, the second, man and wife.

Jim Bradley,—working his way slowly on the morning trip from New York
in dire apprehension that the return trip would be hopelessly delayed as
far as the interval at Hattertown within visiting hours was
concerned,—and Miranda Banks, who looked from her watch-tower of the
kitchen window over the snow waves that had enveloped all below, through
which the various hay-ricks and chimney stacks emerged and seemed to
drift like bits of wreckage in an Arctic sea. As she gazed she brought
New England thrift to bear, and decided that hat and feathers would be
an unseemly head covering on such a night, even if the meeting should be
possible, and straightway put it by and began the freshening of an old
hood with scraps of ribbon.

The second couple, John Hasleton and Helen, his wife, stood looking at
each other across a table in the richly furnished library of one of the
best modern houses of the city that was the Sky Line Railroad’s eastern
terminal.

Everything about the room indicated a soothing combination of good taste
augmented by money; the soft but not too profuse draperies and rugs,
black oak shelves holding books of enticing title and suitably clothed,
unique specimens of bronze and porcelain on table and shelf, prints upon
the walls that through skill of dry point and gravers’ tools reflected
the faces of the past,—poet, king, warrior, gallant, and court beauty,
all given an added touch of reality and animation by the glowing colours
the hearth fire flashed upon them. But on the two faces that gazed
across the table lay an expression of animal hatred,—no, not animal,
for that is direct and primitive, while human hatred is so compounded
that one unimportant ingredient is often the yeast that ferments the
whole inert bulk.

The man was openly furious, both in speech and mien; the woman held
herself verbally within that purely technical and outward quality of
self-control that is so exasperating to the opposite side, who feels
that something is at stake besides success or defeat in argument.

This couple, of the relative ages of twenty-seven and thirty odd, had
been married five years, spent largely in travel and social pleasures,
satisfying their various tastes by acquisitions, and passing brief
winters in the city house given by an indulgent father to his only
daughter on her marriage.

Until this time, no great responsibility had fallen on either to say you
must or must not do this or that. But now circumstances called the
husband to give his time to various interests in New York, necessitating
a permanent removal.

“You forget that I have not refused to leave my home and assured social
position here, and if I am willing to begin again elsewhere, you have no
right to forbid this visit that will not only make everything plain, but
amuse me greatly as well.” The words were reasonable, but the voice was
hard, and the pointed white fingers, heavy with rings that seemed to
touch the table top lightly, but in reality supported the swaying
figure, were tense and cold.

“Social position be damned! I’ve had enough of it these three years and
over, but if not a soul should ever again speak to you in the street,
I’ll not have it said that you have spent a single night in Tom Barney’s
house, much less passed two weeks there and been thrown into the arms of
the crowd they travel with!”

“Don’t be coarse. Mr. and _Mrs._ Barney’s house,” corrected the woman’s
voice; “and when I know that you spent innumerable week-ends before our
marriage at one or more of their country places and that he proposed
your name for the difficult Cosmopolitan Club and engineered your
election. I wish to make this visit, I have accepted the invitation, and
I am going.”

“I repeat, I will not allow my wife to sleep under the Barneys’ roof.
If, with your sharp insight, you cannot grasp the reason, then you must
yield obedience to what I consider seemly.”

“If that is all, the matter is possible of arrangement,” replied the
woman’s voice, growing colder than the February sleet outside.

“Then you will yield this point?”

“Yes, I will yield the point of being your wife,” and the woman,
suddenly feeling the need of greater support than the touch of finger
tips upon the table gave her, moved slowly toward a deep chair before
the fire and dropped from view behind its screening back.

For a full minute the man stood staring at the place where she was not,
then turned and crashed from the room, overturning a porcelain jar in
his blind haste.

Ten minutes later the front door shut.

An hour later, Mrs. Hasleton’s maid was packing a suit case while her
mistress, dressed in a street gown and seated at her desk, wrote half a
dozen notes. Presently looking up, she said: “Elise, you will follow me
on Tuesday, as I had arranged, with the trunks packed for a two weeks’
visit. I have written the directions for you.” Then, glancing through
some time-tables, “Tell Peter to be here at two to drive me to the
station.”

“A bad day for travel? Not at all; the snow packs in the streets, that
in the open country blows off and amounts to nothing.”

Why she did it, she could not have told, but Mrs. Hasleton chose the
least direct way of reaching her destination; and, instead of going as
usual to the parlour car, entered a day coach, where she sat tapping her
foot nervously, waiting for the train to pull out, without so much as
lifting her heavy brown veil.

It was in itself a novel sensation, this leaving with no one to say
good-by, to go to a city where no one expected her; for she had
determined to spend the next two days at a woman’s club to which she
belonged, going to the Barneys’ on the following Tuesday, that being the
time of the invitation. She had not yet told her change of destination
to Elise.

The man strode about the half-cleared streets until he was physically
almost exhausted, and then entered his club, where he hid himself in a
corner, curling up like a half-sick and surly dog who both craves and
resents sympathy. A group of younger men entered, joking each other and
harmlessly boisterous. Spying Hasleton, they proceeded to unearth him
from his lair. Shouted one, “We have a scheme afoot for Sunday, and we
want a steady head like yours to come along and collect us and see that
we start for home straight on Monday morning.”

“Grumpy and got a cold? Nonsense, you want some lunch.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

The Milk Freight crawled in on the slippery rails at the Hattertown
siding only an hour late, which was doing very well, as sleet had
followed the snow and everything was a glare of ice. But now the
threatening snow clouds had vanished and the stars were piercingly
clear.

The Sweezy boy had gone up for Miranda Banks in a sleigh before eight
o’clock, and she waited patiently in the little room outside the ticket
booth, with only the two benches and the air-tight stove for company.
The natives who usually gathered at the station on winter evenings were
mostly in bed, tired out by snow shovelling, the few remaining having
collected at Sweezy’s Hotel to listen to his accounts of other February
storms he had known.

Inside the booth the sick operator’s wife, who was waiting until the
freight and express had passed safely through before closing up,
alternately dozed and started to listen to the tick-tickety-tick, that
sounded to the girl outside as mysterious as the death-watch beetle in a
wall.

Then the milk train came in. Jim Bradley crossed the little room and
inquired the whereabouts of the through express before he saw Miranda.

“I haven’t heard since Oldfield,” replied the tired woman, “but I reckon
you’re good for an hour’s holdup anyway.”

The milk supply was low that night and quickly loaded, then Jim Bradley,
throwing off his outer coat and pitching his cap at it, wholly relaxed
and stretched luxuriously on the bench behind the stove, regardless of
chilblains. For a few moments the unusually bad weather of the month,
the present storm, and various bits of local news held their attention;
then Bradley sat up erect, folded his arms, and said: “Now for my news.
No, I won’t let you guess, for if you hit it, you’d knock half the wind
out of the story. I’m promoted,—first of March I’m boss of the through
morning local No. 11 and can pick my own crew!”

Randy’s heart sank, though she knew that this meant progress. “It’s very
nice,” she stammered, looking down; “they must think a lot of you.”

“Is that all you’ve got to say about it?” and Bradley fixed his eyes
upon her face so that she could not avoid them.

“I guess so. What do you want me to say?”

“Which end of the line you’d rather live at; that’s what’s concerning me
now.”

When Jim Bradley’s arm was free once more, the breathing from the ticket
office was audible and regular, and the instrument also seemed asleep
for a time and ceased its ticking. In fifteen minutes life plans were on
their way to being settled, when in the midst of optimistic happiness
arose a ghost called Theoretical New England Conscience.

Ten long, slender fingers were linked between ten short, heavy ones,
when a few harmless words severed the conjunction. “Tell me, Jim, are
you Methodist or Congregational? Ma heard up Telford way that your uncle
on your father’s side was a Congregational preacher, and it would seem
real suitable, ’cause my father was a deacon.”

Jim Bradley started as if a broken rail had suddenly confronted his
engine on a curve, then he answered quietly: “Yes, uncle was. I’m not
either, Randy, I’m a Roman Catholic. You see mother was out of Irish
stock and she kept to her religion, and I, well, I held to it as long as
she lived, and after because _it_ held to me. It’s a good religion for
us knock-about men,” he added half-appealingly. “It never forgets you
and it’s always there.” But Miranda sat silent and drooping, white to
the lips.

Jim Bradley looked at her and tried to give her time; he well knew from
his early life just what his statement meant to this girl with the rigid
ideas of the hill country; but because he understood, he would not say a
word to force his creed upon her if she would do the same, and he told
her so. Still she crouched on the bench and the only words that he could
get from her were, “What would they all say?” and “Ma would never look
at me again,” repeated over and over.

Suddenly the instrument began a vigorous ticking. The woman started and,
grasping the key, answered the sounds.

“Anything for me?” asked Bradley, glad to move and break the spell that
had fallen over both.

“No—yes—wait a minute,” said the operator, with a puzzled expression
on her face, looking at Bradley with eyes that seemed only half awake.
“You are to go right on to Bridgeton and take further orders there.”

Putting on coat and hat and turning up the wick of his lantern, Jim once
more faced Randy, who stood with her hands clenched in the fringe of her
long cape.

“Well, it’s good-night for now,” he said cheerfully; then as her eyes
met his he added, “Don’t say it’s good-by, girl; for God’s sake, think
it over.”

“It’s—it ought—it must be good-by,” she whispered; “but oh, Jim, I do
care, care _so_ much; if only something stronger than either of us could
decide and say it would be right.”

“Good-night, Randy,” said Jim, and the swing of his lantern was answered
by the train’s whistle. When it left the siding, Randy stood on the edge
of the platform watching it go out over the trestles and gain speed on
the level bit before the bridge, the red and green signal lights
blinking at her like harlequin stars.

Sweezy’s boy, who had gone into the hotel for shelter, emerged slowly
and then disappeared in the barn to get the horse and sleigh. Still
Randy lingered out on the platform end.

The lights were disappearing around the curve and the village lay as
silent and dead as if no railway pierced it, few houses showing any
light. Suddenly three shrill whistles pierced the air, the signal for
down brakes, followed swiftly by a splitting noise, a vibrating crash,
and a roar that was muffled almost immediately.

For a brief second Miranda waited for another whistle. None came.
Glancing toward the station she saw a couple of lighted lanterns, one
red and one plain, that were partly hidden by a baggage truck. Seizing
one in either hand, she started down the track, springing lightly
between the ice-coated ties. When she reached the beginning of the
trestles across the low calf-pastures, she stopped long enough to shake
off her heavy cape, that risked her balance, and then flew on.

The bright starlight showed the outline of the bridge ahead, but where
was the train with its winking lights? Only one dark hump broke the
outline of the trestles. On again over the perilous ice-coated footing
that a man in daylight would have hesitated to traverse. What was that?
A cry? Yes, a halloo, repeated as continuously as breath would allow.

As the girl drew near, she saw that the obstacle in front was the
freight caboose, lying on its side on the bank at the very beginning of
the bridge, and from beside or under it, Jim Bradley’s voice was
calling.

Feeling her way more carefully now, she answered, “I’m coming, Jim;
where are you?” and finding solid earth beneath her feet once more she
crept around the end of the car.

An endless minute told it all; _something_ had caused the engine to
leave the track when halfway across the bridge, the brakes had not
answered, and the six cars had followed their leader into the river, the
caboose alone breaking free—wedging and overturning on the bridge.
Bradley had sprung from the rear steps only to be pinned fast below the
knees, body prone on the frozen earth.

“Oh, Jim! Jim! tell me what to do first! How can I get you out before it
kills you?” she cried, for though Conductor Bradley did not groan, in
spite of himself his arms would twist in his agony.

“Turn the light under here and see what holds me,” he gasped; “there’s
an axe in the caboose if it should be anything you could chop.” Then as
she started for the sidewise door he half raised himself on his elbow to
clutch her dress, and then dropped, ear to ground.

“No, don’t mind me; take that red lantern and run back as far as you can
go above the depot and signal the express—it’s coming—I can hear the
growl of it along the ground!”

“But, Jim, it can’t come this half hour yet; it was to pass you at
Bridgeton.”

“That woman operator’s made a mistake. It’s coming, I tell you, go!”

“I don’t want to leave you, Jim, I can’t,” wailed the girl.

“’Tain’t what we want, Randy, it’s what’s got to be. Go, or if you
won’t, don’t come near me, I couldn’t bear you to touch me!” and the man
threw one twisting arm across his face, for turn away he could not.

Back over trestles and track flew the girl; past the station, from which
suddenly awakened men were stumbling up the track calling; past the
overtasked wife of the station master, who was wringing her hands, but
all seemed unconscious of any danger save the wrecked freight.

Then a broad pathway of light streamed down the track, almost blinding
Randy, who, gaining a firm footing on the side bank and clinging to a
telegraph pole, waved the lantern to and fro—to and fro, until a
whistle answered the signal and the train came to an abrupt stop, with
Randy, her red lantern, and the great, panting engine almost side by
side.

                 *        *        *        *        *

In an instant the track was swarming with people; the conductor of the
express, by chance an operator, went to the telegraph key to summon help
of various kinds, the poor woman who had made the error having utterly
collapsed. The crew, armed with pails and axes, hurried to the wrecked
freight, for now the smell of burning wood came on the air, while the
passengers of the express, satisfied that they had nothing further than
a night’s discomfort to fear, were scattered about, filling the little
waiting room at the station and Sweezy’s Hotel to overflowing, while
looking up the possibilities of food and lodging; fortunately, owing to
the storm, the train was but scantily filled.

A woman from one of the day coaches, evidently a lady from quiet mien
and tone, dressed in a plain cloth travelling suit, went to the bare and
formal hotel parlour, and asked if she could have a room, as she was
travelling alone and did not care to pass the night upon the train.

“I’ll fix yer out if possible,” said Sweezy, “but you’ll have to wait a
bit in here; I’ve got a lot ter tend to first, and most like there’ll
have to be some doubling up.” So saying, he threw open the door between
the long “parlour” and a little office in an alcove where there was a
stove, leaving Helen Hasleton sitting in the dim light of a single
candle, for lamps were at a premium in Hattertown just then.

Choosing the least uncomfortable of the chairs, the woman threw herself
back in it, taking off her veil and hat to ease the strain upon her
aching head.

People passed to and fro in groups, occasionally glancing in, but she
seemed neither to see nor to hear them. At last a familiar voice
speaking her name startled her, and she looked up, facing the door; it
said:

“Hello, Burt, you didn’t tell us your wife was with you,—thought you
were off with the boys alone. Don’t apologize. Everybody gets rattled
when they’re held up like this and know that four or five good fellows
have come to an end a few feet ahead of them.

“Pretty well tired out, aren’t you, Helen?” and there came into the room
her father’s oldest friend and business associate, holding her husband
by the arm, and pushing his wife and daughter before him in his
eagerness.

After a few minutes’ aimless prattle the party of three left, having
decided to spend the night on the train, the elderly man making jocular
remarks about leaving the couple to have a _tête-à-tête_ in peace.

Complete silence for a moment, and then, that being the last thing the
woman’s nerves could endure, she said: “Why did you follow me? What
right have you to put me in a position like this after this morning?”

“I did not follow you, for I did not know that you had left Boston.”

“Then it is as Mr. Dale hinted, you were going alone with some men
without even telling me.”

“After this morning, what right had you to know?” The blow that she had
set in motion, but of which she had not before gauged the full power,
struck her squarely between the eyes.

“At least we must assume a part, not make ourselves ridiculous and start
a scandal here to-night among people that are almost relations,
before,—before things are arranged,” she said, on the verge of tears.

“As you please; creating public comment has never been my plan,” he
answered, and drawing a chair to the feeble light, he took a copy of a
comic paper from his pocket and at least feigned to read, while the
woman closed her eyes, and from holding them closed to keep the angry
tears back, finally fell into a sleep of exhaustion where she sat.

An hour passed. Hasleton went out, but as usual, could gather little
absolute knowledge of the wreck. He saw his companions playing poker in
the parlour car; they, having heard of his wife’s presence and deeming
that she had followed him, winked knowingly, and he, having nothing to
explain and much to cover, drifted back to the hotel. Seeing that the
woman slept, he, in his turn, settled himself as well as might be on the
hard sofa, and, cramped and uncomfortable as he was, dozed, being too
much bewildered by the condition of things to plan or even think.

Twelve o’clock was called slowly and almost spitefully, it seemed, by
the clock in Sweezy’s bar and lunch room; usually this was the signal
for closing, but to-night no excise regulations were enforced. Sweezy,
having sold all the eatables that could be procured and most of the
drinkables, was busying himself disposing of people for the night, as it
was not possible to remove the débris and get the track in shape under
four or five hours. He had spent a profitable evening and was,
consequently, in fine joking humour. Peering into the parlour, he saw
the sleeping couple, and not remembering that the woman had entered
alone and asked for a room, he awakened them, giving the man a cheerful
slap on the back to boot. “Be you folks married?” and upon Hasleton’s
giving a sleepy assent, he continued, “All right, then, I kin double you
up and that’ll take the last room, and then I’ll make shake-downs in
here for half a dozen schoolmarms goin’ to a convention. First to the
right at the head of the stairs, sir.” Then, setting a spluttering
candle on the table at the woman’s elbow, as if he naturally expected
her to take the lead, he disappeared.

Helen Hasleton started to her feet, her face lowering and furious. “You
might have prevented this, it’s taking a mean advantage of me,” she
fairly hurled the words at him. “You can go upstairs, I shall stay down
here with the other women.”

Burt rose with difficulty, stiff and aching in every limb, and taking up
the candle, said, “Very well, it seems rude to leave you here among
strangers and without a bed, but under the circumstances, I can only
obey your wish.”

“Obey!” snapped the woman; “there is no such word, or if there is, I do
not understand its meaning. This morning I was to obey you. To-night you
offer at once to make a spectacle of me and obey me. Rubbish! Go back to
the car with your friends and say there was no room for you here.”

Something moved in the alcove, a long shadow fell upon the floor,
followed by the presence of a tall, clean-shaven man in the garments of
a priest, who stood for a moment looking from one to the other.

“There is a word obey, and it will always have a meaning until the world
falls apart. The question is, whom shall we obey and what,” said a deep
but quiet voice in the perfect accents of well-born speech. “If one
woman had not obeyed to-night, you two perhaps, as well as all on board
the train, would have been lying crushed or burned in the river-bed
beyond, dead, distorted, horrible! Jim Bradley, the conductor, pinned in
the wreck, was found by the woman he was to marry, frantic of course to
rescue him. He told her to leave him, to go back and save this train,
and she obeyed. They have carried him to her home and the surgeons are
at work; the end I do not know. I have left them but now, and with them
the two rites of the Church that best could help, belonging to the two
ends of life, marriage that gives her the right to care for him, and to
him the last sacrament.

“And yet you stand there, man and woman, and bicker and create falsity
from empty words, forgetting that nothing can transpose right and wrong.
Shame on you both!”

For several moments no one moved; then Hasleton replaced the candle on
the table, as he saw the outlines of the man’s face, young in spite of
gauntness and close-cropped gray hair, and in his astonishment almost
whispered, “John Anthony!”

“Father John,” corrected the voice calmly, but in a tone that forbade
further questioning, though recognition gleamed in his own eyes; for
John Anthony had been a college mate of Hasleton’s, who, though always
serious, had, ten years before, suddenly, and to the world in general
unaccountably, given up the brilliant promise of public life for the
priesthood. Two men alone knew that the first motive for his course lay
in that it was the only immovable barrier he could place between his
nature and temptation,—the mad infatuation of a beautiful married
woman, whose husband was his friend.

As all this flashed through Hasleton’s brain, he lowered his gaze and
stood with bowed head. A few more seconds passed. The woman’s clenched
hands relaxed, and raising her eyes, she met those of Father John that
had never moved from her face, and in their depth her woman’s instinct
saw both comprehension and the scars of conquered temptation. Then she
took the candlestick from the table and crossing the room slowly, went
up the narrow, uncarpeted stairs, step by step.

As Hasleton raised his eyes again to Father John’s face, their hands met
in a tense clasp that told its tale to each. No words were spoken, and
Hasleton, in turn, went up the creaking stairs.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Five years passed, and Hattertown looked much the same as of old. The
factory ruins were now but a heap of wood dust where vagrant hens
scratched for slugs. The Milk Freight still ran on the siding every
evening, but Jim Bradley was not the conductor, neither did Miranda
Banks teach the school at the corners.

In one of the offices of an important station of the Sky Line Railroad
works a short, thick-set man, to whom many others defer as their
manager; his face is strong and cheerful, but after noting his chin
lines, very few bigger men would try to browbeat him in spite of the
fact that he moves with a crutch, one leg being shortened almost to the
thigh.

The working day ends, and going downstairs, the man sees a horse and low
buggy driven by a trim woman with glorious ruddy-gold hair turn toward
the platform. She, smiling a welcome, moves the tiny girl beside her to
make place; and the horse, taking his own head, trots to a quiet by-way
apart from the main road that leads past stately country places.

“Where is Jimmy this afternoon? I hope he hasn’t been cutting up,
Randy,” said the father, questioningly.

“Oh, no, but we’ve company at home that I left him to entertain. Guess
who?”

“Your mother?”

“No, Father John, and only think of it, he’s going to stay two days
before he goes up to the Hasletons’ for his usual August visit. On
hearing of it, Mrs. Hasleton brought me some flowers and fruit this
afternoon, and when she had seen the house, asked me if I would let her
John and little Helen come to me of mornings this winter and learn to
read and spell with Jimmy. She said that she knew I had taught school in
the old-fashioned way, and that she preferred it to kindergarten methods
for the boy. Think of my being able to teach the Hasletons’ children
anything. Isn’t it splendid, Jim? How pleased Ma will be.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Jim Bradley, closing one hand over those
that held the reins, “but I know something, or rather somebody, else
that is splendid, even if she couldn’t just at first make up her mind
which end of the line she’d live at.”

Miranda Bradley, not one whit abashed, laughed softly. “It wasn’t really
a matter for me to decide which end, was it, Jim, since Hasleton Manor
Station happens to be almost in the middle?”

Thus it came about that neither the remote hamlet of Hattertown nor a
bleak February day was without influence on vital things.




                                  III
                               THE VANDOO


                   =MARCH=—THE MOON OF SNOW BLINDNESS

“How can you ask me to invite her?” I said, looking up from a letter
Evan had a moment before handed me to read, and blinking at him
reproachfully; for I had been driving about with father all the
afternoon with the brightening March sun reflected by ice-coated March
snow in my eyes, until the lids seemed to be controlled by rusty wires
and everything was enveloped in rainbow-hued mist through which black
spots danced.

“Is it possible that you have read the letter? Hear what she writes:
‘Terry says that you live in the country and that you wouldn’t leave
your home for anything in the world. I want to live in the country
because I was born in the West and lived on a ranch until I was well
grown, and I haven’t yet found a city big enough to give me elbow-room,
much less a comb in a twelve-story beehive, which in New York it seems
is the only available shelter for people like Terry and myself. Besides,
I want room for a riding horse and pasture to turn him out.

“‘We’ve been looking at country places ever since we were married last
March, for Uncle Sandy has promised to buy me a home when I want to
settle, but he doesn’t believe in paying rent; we’ve seen many that
would do, but that isn’t what I want. If we buy a house it must be one
that can—not only make me buy it as a matter of course, but that will
hypnotize me so that I shall never wish, or be able to get away from it
again. Uncle Sandy told me long ago that this was the only way to be
sure about choosing one’s husband, and I know he’s right, because though
there were plenty of men about, I could do very well without them, one
and all, until Terry’s horse stepped into a (prairie) dog’s hole,
throwing him so that his ankle buckled, and they brought him up to the
ranch because Uncle Sandy is a sort of natural bonesetter. That was in
March, too. March has always been a good month to me: that’s why, this
year, I’m building on striking a home in the month. If we don’t, I
foresee a wandering life and bad days for Terry ahead! [“She is
certainly frank,” I interjected.]

“‘I want to see your place and, if possible, find out what it is that
makes you hug it so close, and I want to see it soon; so if you will
please engage a room for us at the nearest hotel, Terry and I will go
down for Sunday, and I can wait behind a bit and look around the
neighbourhood.

“‘I’ve been at him about this for a month, but he always forgets to ask
when he sees you. Then, too, the poor boy is a bit discouraged; we’ve
been to so many places that we know the railway time-tables of all the
villages within an hour of the city as well as we know our twice twos.
He thinks the only possible way to be satisfied is to inherit a place,
and “feel the blood of your people in the soil” as he puts it. But how
can we? I’ve no people but Uncle Sandy at the ranch, which is several
thousand miles inconvenient to Terry’s work, and his people are in the
old country, where, at best, the family nest, though decidedly a last
year’s one, was overfull, and dropped him out (he says you’ll appreciate
that). So you see, we’ve both got to start and make believe until it
seems natural.

“‘I hope I’m not putting you to trouble, but in the West we’re always
glad to step out for a prospective homesteader.

                                “‘Sincerely, your possible neighbour,
                                                     “‘VESTA DONELLY.’”

                 *        *        *        *        *

“I didn’t suppose it would put you out very much to have a jolly sort of
girl here for a few days at this dull time of the year,” said Evan,
regretfully, rather than apologetically, and dodging the real issue.

“It isn’t the trouble. I would welcome any one with open arms who cared
to come here in the first three weeks of March (as to the fourth week,
barring a blizzard, my mind goes back to the earth and revels in the
task of keeping the temperature of the hot-beds equable, an occupation
not naturally appreciated by company). But knowing the country as we do,
can you possibly consider March a good month for exploiting real estate?
Especially a March like the present, that starts by being snowbound in
the fields, and so sloppy in the roads that the wheels of anything but
father’s stanhope are mired and won’t go round, while down in the valley
the light sleigh almost turned into a boat and floated this morning.

“There is nothing attractive of any kind that I know of for sale, and if
there were, it would repel people at this season. Even the Cortrights’
trim, lovely house, standing between the great oaks, looked, this
afternoon, like a belated and bedraggled straggler, propped up between
two policemen waiting for the patrol wagon to come for it. Besides, at
best, this Mrs. Terence Donelly is looking for the impossible with true
Western fervour.

“One must grow up with a place and feel rooted in its earth to love it
in March; she won’t have the ghost of an idea what the garden means to
us by looking at it now, for it isn’t there, only its spirit, and that,
like everything dead, is invisible except to the eyes of those that
love.

“What is Vesta like? How old is she, and who were her people?” I asked,
for optimistic Evan was beginning to look depressed, which is something
wholly against the rule.

Terence Donelly was a college chum of Evan’s at Oxford, and is as
fascinating and warm-hearted as only a well-bred Irishman knows how to
be. He had visited us many times before the Western trip that had
buckled into double harness a spirited roadster who had travelled
straight and true in single harness without either check-rein or
blinders for nearly forty years. Consequently, Mrs. Terence was an
object of an interest that became intense upon the thought of meeting
her.

“She is small, her hair is light brown and her eyes flash and dance so
that I don’t remember anything else about them,” said Evan, slowly,
shutting his eyes, as if searching his memory for an accurate picture.
“I happen to know that she is twenty-six, though she does not look it by
five or six years. I haven’t made up my mind about her disposition; one
moment she has an almost pathetic expression as though she needed
sympathy and protection, and then her eyes blaze, and she runs her hand
through her front hair until it stands on end, and she reminds one of
something as unapproachable as a coil of slender live wire.

“Her people? Her father was a Californian, but her mother was an Eastern
woman by descent, the daughter of a Judge Morland who came from
Massachusetts, and, like many another boy, tired of farm life, taught
school to get his education, and then by the same process worked his way
out West. Terry has tried to look up the family to please his wife, who
seems very lonely in spite of all her independence, but there is no one
left. That is why I thought you might cheer her up from the woman’s side
of things if they settled here. She is unconventional enough to satisfy
you, I’ll warrant, and would be delighted to go up in the attic on a wet
day and dream pussy willows, and the fact that hers may be the western
species of the tree would be a sort of tonic for the dreams.”

“You must have said something to Terry about his wife’s coming here,” I
announced, when he had ended.

“I may have,” Evan answered. “The poor fellow is worried because she is
getting restless, and hasn’t a woman friend in New York, and I thought
if she could meet the Cortrights and Bradfords, Sukey Latham and the
rest, the air might clear in a twinkling.”

“I’ll write to her to-night; imagine you and me, married only a year and
living in Chicago or San Francisco, father dead, and not even Aunt Lot
or Martha Saunders to turn either against or to, and no home to which to
return! _What_ a wretched time you would be having with me!
Nevertheless, upon your head be the failure to find in this
neighbourhood the ideal house built around a magnet.”

“Oh, if you once get her here something will be sure to turn up,” said
Evan. “She may find a few bits of old furniture, or a bargain in a jug
or spoon up at Tucker’s curiosity shop; he’s had a dull season, and the
Donellys are keen about getting old Colony things so that when they find
_the_ house they may have the fittings, as they seem to take it for
granted the house will match.”

Father, who had come in while we were talking, stood with his back to
the study fire rubbing his hands together as if it were midwinter, while
the sleepy dogs only roused enough to wag their tails drowsily, take a
comfortable yawn that arched their backs, easing the muscles, then
settled down again.

“Is it thawing or freezing?” I asked, crossing the hall to him.

“Both,” he answered, laughing, “one overhead, the other underfoot; a
fine climate this, to test the vigour of the New England people. I’ve
just come down from the Dearborn farm from visiting old man Becker, who
is racked by grippy pains. He says there is more snow in the south
meadow than any spring since the old deacon died, and that is forty
years and he reckons March is ‘no good to anybody but for plotting and
planning.’ He gave me this handbill yesterday, which owing to the
weather, it’s several days in advance of its being posted. I was
reminded of it by hearing the words ‘bargains in jugs and old spoons’;”
and father pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper from his side pocket,
which, being spread upon the table, took the form of a tree poster that
read as follows:—

                            “VANDOO! PART I

    “The entire goods and chattels belonging to the estate of Sarah
    Dearborn deceased, will be disposed of on the premises by public
    vandoo on the 12th of March, or if stormy, the first fair day
    thereafter. Goods will go to the highest bidder and must be paid
    for at time of purchase and removed within two days.

    “A list of the property may be seen on the premises.

    “A grand chance for the friends of the late estimable lady to
    obtain souvenirs.”

                            “VANDOO! PART II

    “On Friday, March 15, the real estate belonging to the estate of
    the late Sarah Dearborn, as follows: Parcel I consisting of one
    two-story oak-framed dwelling with attic, wood-shed, and
    buttery, two barns and smaller out-buildings, and seventeen
    acres of land, the same comprising the homestead and to be sold
    together. Parcel II, ten acres of woodland situated on the Ridge
    Road, Parcel III, ten acres of salt meadow, Parcel IV, forty
    acres of plowed and grass land being known as the South Meadows.
    These pieces will be sold together or separate to suit the
    bidder.

    “Grand chance to secure high land for building lots, with a land
    boom and a trolley only a few miles away and coming nearer! Come
    one! come all!

    “These two important vandoos are under the management of Joshua
    Hanks, licensed auctioneer and attorney for the Executors.

    “Oaklands, March, 19—.”

“Here is something, I’m sure, that will interest Mrs. Terry,” said Evan,
who had followed me; “naturally she will not care for the house, for it
is low and rambling, but it will be a chance to go to an auction sale
conducted with strict hill-country etiquette, unless I’m mistaken, for
even the leading word, ‘Vendue,’ is spelled according to the local
pronunciation. It is always as good as a play to hear Hanks conduct a
sale, he is all commercial bathos. Don’t you remember going with me,
Barbara, to an auction on the Ridge where some one complained that a
certain cow was damaged, and not sound as represented because she had a
broken horn, and Hanks gave a thrilling account of how the horn was
broken and tried to prove added value from the happening?”

“But, father,” I asked, “why is the Dearborn farm to be sold? I thought
Miss Sallie had pinched and denied herself even ordinary comforts the
last half of her life to leave the place, with a little sum for keeping
it up, to some grandnephews.”

“It is one of the many cases that come to us all, and especially into
the life of a country doctor, that prove how foolish it is for people to
make plans for those who come after them, or pinch or save beyond the
ordinary bounds of prudence,” answered father. “I knew Sallie Dearborn
for upwards of fifty years. The Lord intended her for a woman to love
and be loved, yet a streak of obstinate martyrdom from first to last
made her lose her chances of happiness one after another, because to
accept them would interfere with some elaborate and prudent plan she had
made either for indefinite posterity, or more often merely on general
principles of thrift.

“After the old people died, they say that Sallie had a chance to marry a
promising young fellow and go out into the world, but to have withdrawn
her interest in the land at that time would have hindered her two
brothers, and after a controversy that no one understood, the lover went
away.

“Presently one brother died, and the other, having married a delicate
wife, broke away from the farm to go to the southwest. For years Sallie
toiled and scrimped to pay him his portion and keep the place of five
generations ‘in the family.’ She has even paid her farmer Becker and his
wife with _post obits_, that she might leave a money equivalent of the
farm in the bank so that the two nephews might have equal portions
without selling the homestead and furnishings. The first choice going to
the elder, with many directions as to the handing of it down being left
to the one who takes it and its quaint furnishings.

“Now, as it turns out, neither man wishes the farm or fixings, nor has
sufficient interest in their fate even to bring them here to oversee
affairs, and everything available is to be sold without reserve and
turned into money!

“Deborah Becker, who lived with Miss Sallie as companion more than
helper these forty years, is almost heart-broken, and told me this
afternoon that such a happening had never entered Miss Sallie’s head,
for that not long before her last illness, she even sent for samples of
wall-paper, labelled and put them away in the old mahogany desk of the
Squire’s that always stood in the best room; this paper for the guest
room, that for the parlour, as a guide for the doing over of the house
when ‘one of the boys’ should take it.”

“Timothy Saunders’ saying is true, ‘The future’s a kittle mare that
travels best her ain gate and lacking both bit and bridle,’” I said,
“but yet it is pathetic when one has sacrificed everything to a sort of
old country land-pride, to have it come to naught. Didn’t she leave you
a letter of some sort, father, that was to remain sealed a year until
everything was settled?”

“Yes, Barbara, a sealed letter enclosing a key; the key of the old desk,
which the will says is to be disposed of according to directions given
me. I hope it may give rise to no complications. Who that saw Sallie
Dearborn during the last half of her life would dream that she was once
full of woman’s romance crossed with chivalry? These have seen her grim,
calculating, measuring every egg or berry that she sold; sending her
weekly paper to the Bridgeton Hospital, but first cutting the white
margins therefrom, and rolling them into lamplighters to save matches at
two cents a box!”

                 *        *        *        *        *

With the prospective “Vandoo” as a motive, I invited Terry Donelly for
over a Sunday and his wife for a week’s visit. When she came, of a
Saturday after dusk, I found, as Evan had said, that one moment she was
tender and almost piteously feminine, so that I was impelled to take her
in my arms as I would a child, while in a moment of animation, a flush
would mantle her cheeks, too thin for her years, the gray eyes would
flash, little bright glints play about her hair, until she was, indeed,
like a bundle of lithe, live wires.

At such moments, Terry’s laughing eyes would grow grave, and the banter,
which was one of his charms, die on his lips; that she was restless and
he apprehensive even through the spell of strong affection, there was no
doubt, and on Monday, when Terry left her with me, there was something
appealing in his glance and the grip he gave my hand.

The day was fairly pleasant out-of-doors in that a frozen crust made
good walking, and, arm in arm, Mrs. Terry and I explored my haunts; I
pointed to the stakes and trellises where the garden had been and would
be again, and for a moment we sat upon the seat where the “Mother Tree”
had been and looked down the walk that had bordered that first garden of
the long ago. Would she understand from these bare outlines the why of
it, the voiceless potency of that which bound me?

If she did she said nothing until afternoon, when I took her to my attic
corner, and building a log fire in the Franklin stove, drew the dumpy
old lounge before it and called the dogs to soothe us with their sleepy
influence.

At first Mrs. Terry sat upright, hands clasped about her knees, gazing
at the fire, and breathing quickly.

“How I love that,” she said; “we have not had these fires since I left
the ranch, and I’ve often slept out by one as high as the wall when
we’ve been on camping trips.”

Then gradually her breath came slower and more evenly, and she dropped
back half against the sweet clover pillows and half against my shoulder.

“When we looked over that rolling icy field beyond the garden this
morning, with the dazzling light on the snow, just as it is at home, and
I shut my eyes, I could see the ranch, and Uncle Sandy and the boys, and
fat Mrs. Malone, the housekeeper, so plainly that I almost put out my
hand to touch them. There’s something queer about March; lots of the
range cattle get through almost until spring and then give out, and the
boys that have held out well all winter often go nearly blind of a
sudden. I guess it’s because by March you’ve braced up and stood all you
can of winter, and because it’s called spring, you lose nerve and can’t
pull the strap up another hole for a fresh grip.”

Then with a sudden movement, burying her face in my shoulder, she half
whispered: “That’s the way it is with me; ever since I left the ranch,
I’ve kept myself braced so that Terry should not know how homesick I
feel. At first I thought it would pass, then I thought if I had a place
where I could strike root the pain might wear away, and so I’ve hunted
and hunted, but now, to-day, coming here and feeling some one else’s
home feeling, but from outside, it’s like March snow to my eyes, I can’t
bear it; there’s not another inch to pull up and the saddle girths are
slipping, slipping under me, and there’s no help. I must go back!

“I was born in March, I met Terry in March, the next March we were
married, and now, oh, Mrs. Evan, unless you can help me and hold me, we
shall part, Terry and I, for no fault, and I shall go back to Uncle
Sandy in March! No, don’t look at me so hardly, I can feel your eyes
right through my hair: you, who have always been at home, can’t judge
me. It isn’t that I don’t love Terry better than any one else, but the
earth loves you, too, and sometimes it won’t let go. I could not know it
would be so until I came away; no one could. Some day it will all be
changed, this coming of a man and taking the woman away; he will come to
her and stay, for home is more to the one who stays in to keep it.”

As she leaned close to me, I could feel the beating of her heart and
with it another sound, a sort of feeble echo as it were. Then I gathered
her up and held her close, and told her of those two first years and of
my own separation from home and country.

“But after that you came back,” she cried, “and Terry can’t go back with
me; we thrashed that out in the beginning, for even Uncle Sandy said
there was no opening for a lawyer in a grazing country, because every
one settles their own disputes quick, unless they are big enough for the
government to butt in, and anyway a lawyer isn’t popular. Well, at last,
thank God, I’ve found some one to understand it, some one who has lived
through that feeling that pulls you back to where you started.” And Mrs.
Terry, clasping her arms around my neck, fell to crying, not
passionately, but comfortably, that blessed outlet that Nature has given
us women in compensation for much pain we may not avoid.

Gradually the sobs stopped, she was asleep. So, laying her carefully
back on the pillows and covering her with an old afghan, I left her to
the dreams bred by the singing of the firewood accompanied by a little,
whistling snore from Peter, the old hound.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The morning of the sale at the Dearborn farm was mild, as though March
was preparing to go out like a lamb that scented green pastures. Two
days of rain had washed the snow from the open places, and though the
roads ran mud, yet it was the mud of promise.

We made an early start, that Mrs. Terry might have a chance to see the
few bits of old furniture likely to attract one who had no association
with the family or place; for the Dearborns were of the plain Yankee
stock that, aside from a few heirlooms kept most of the time behind
drawn blinds, had furnishings of the plainest sort. There was a good
tall clock with a ship atop of the pendulum sailing toward a port it
never reached, a handsome claw-footed table of mahogany, a chest of
drawers, and a dozen chairs of the same wood, patterned diversely, a
four-post bed, carved with some skill, a Davenport sofa with carved
ends, a hooded cradle, a low-boy, and a work table with heavy brass
handles. The silver table ware, worn thin by use, was of a slender
pattern, the ends of the handles of spoons and forks being abruptly
angled; while of china, outside of the modern ware in daily use, there
was a tea-set of Lowestoft with its odd small-necked tea-caddy and
helmet cream-pitcher, and a more complete service of blue and white
India porcelain.

A bevy of neighbours and one or two dealers, including old Pop Tucker,
were buzzing about these things, but what seemed to attract Mrs. Terry
far more, were the pitiful little personal articles that belonged
intimately to the life of Sallie Dearborn, and that she had never
doubted would pass either to her own kin, or, if worthless, be destroyed
instead of being exposed for criticism and sale, as the law ordains in
the settling of an estate where no friendly hand intervenes.

Worn table-linen tied into bundles, underclothing, much darned
stockings, shoes, a well-worn Bible filled with little memory markers
bearing names and dates, a book filled with household recipes copied in
a stiff, exact handwriting, and lastly, resting on the seat of a
chintz-covered chair, as if its owner had left it there for a brief
moment while she went to other tasks, was a deep work-basket, big as a
peck measure. The inside pockets of this basket were filled with spools,
needle-cases, tapes and all such gear; the outside bags held bits of
half-finished work, and knitting, the rusty needles sticking from a ball
of home-dyed blue-gray yarn, just as they had been laid away; while a
thimble of an odd pineapple pattern hung on the top of a long darning
needle that occupied the middle of the pincushion.

“This is simply cruel,” whispered Mrs. Terry, the electric wire look
reappearing as she rumpled her hair and held the basket close to her as
if to protect it. “There is nothing in this basket worth a nickel,
unless that dingy thimble is gold, and to have it put up and sold to
some one of those old cats yonder, who have been going about pinching
and smelling everything, not that they mean to buy, but just to see, as
that one with the green porcupine topknot in her hat said a minute ago,
‘what dear Sallie had that set her up so.’

“A lot of a woman’s secrets drop into her work-basket, and mix up with
her pens and writing things when she’s alone, and it’s wicked to sell
any of these things. I’m going to buy this basket, Mrs. Evan, and wrap
it up in a pink paper and bury it if you’ll lend me a spade and the
ground isn’t frozen too hard; if not, I’ll burn it.

“I mean to buy that old Bible, too, with all the births and deaths
written in. The porcupine woman said she would buy it if it didn’t bring
over a dollar, because she hadn’t had a chance to ‘leaf it over well’
and there were dates in it she wanted to write out and there might be
letters tucked in somewhere! From what I’ve overheard, Miss Sallie must
have had a lover fifty or sixty years ago, who went away, and as no one
ever knew why, her friends’ children are still curious about the
matter.”

Mr. Hanks’ vigorous pounding on the table in the kitchen, and the
ringing of a bell, gathered about him an audience of nearly one hundred
people, and the selling began, room by room; for, to save confusion, the
large pieces of furniture were sold where they stood.

During the morning the sale dragged, the dealers had everything their
own way, and in spite of Mr. Hanks’ pathetic reminiscences concerning
each article, from an old pew stove to a five-cent factory-made wooden
spoon, the derelicts that did not receive a single bid would have filled
a wagon. The afternoon session began in the best room, wherein was the
four-poster, the cradle, a good mirror, the work-basket and the tall
desk, the fate of which was contained in Miss Sallie’s letter to father.

As we stood in the doorway, a flood of sunlight, coming in through the
small, iridescent window-panes, gilded the dust that lay upon everything
and lent warmth to the quaint buff wall-paper, festooned with loops of
bright flowers and birds of paradise; a brave paper in its day and one
that had faded with dignity.

“I don’t know quite what there is about this room,” whispered Mrs.
Terry, “but bare as it is and cold, it seems familiar and somehow more
homelike to me than any other I have ever seen; I wonder could I have
lived in it in dreams?”

Before I could answer, one of the swift changes passed over her, and
stepping forward, she said in the perfectly clear, unemotional voice of
a business man, “Mr. Hanks, as it is growing late and I must go, would
you object to selling the contents of this room as it stands? Wall-paper
and all, if it is possible to get it off?” I was amazed and a little
worried, for I knew nothing of the length of Mrs. Terry’s purse.

The country folks gasped and whispered among themselves; they did not
wish to be cheated out of a moment’s excitement. The dealers began a
series of mental calculations, but no real objection being made, Mr.
Hanks stroked his chin a moment, muttered something about its being
possible that the wall paper being fastened to the house might be real
estate, and then said, “The bed must be a separate lot, the desk as is
known is not for the sale, but the rest of the fittings I will put up in
bulk ‘as is,’ madam, which is a learned and professional term you must
know for the way they seem to be to the casual eye, not what perhaps the
brush of fancy might paint them.”

The green porcupine lady shut her mouth with the snap of a turtle,
murmuring something about the widow’s mite being disdained, as she saw
that both the Bible, and the basket containing the thimble that was
suspected of being gold, would vanish from her horizon.

Of course I was in no way responsible for Mrs. Terry, yet for one who
confessed to being on the eve of running away, to buy a wagon load of
furniture seemed hardly rational. When, ten minutes later, Mr. Hanks,
after selling the bed and contents of the room for one hundred and fifty
dollars, was fairly beaming at his success, and I realized that the
furniture must be removed within two days, my heart sank.

Not so Mrs. Terry’s; after giving Hanks a very substantial deposit upon
her purchase, she tucked the Bible under one arm, and hugging the basket
to her breast, made ready to go.

That evening, after supper, she spread Bible, basket, and herself upon
the rug before the den fire and began examining the contents of the old
work-basket as a child does a picture puzzle, saying naïvely, “It’s no
harm to look at the things before I bury them,” whereat Evan heaved a
sigh, and I knew that he was mentally weighing the stability of Terry
Donelly’s marriage, though at the same time his eyes twinkled with
amusement.

“See,” she continued, “here’s a finished sock wrapped up in paper with
something peppery, and the other is all done but a bit of the tip of the
toe. I think I’ll finish it if I can get the rust off the needles; yes,
it rubs off and the rug polishes them nicely,—there seems to be enough
yarn on the ball to finish the toe, though it’s rather mothy; it looks
ages old. Can I knit? Oh, yes, I used to knit long stockings for Uncle
Sandy out of heather yarn. I knit a pair of golf stockings for Terry
last fall, but one foot was shorter than the other, and he said it
always drew up his big toe and distracted his attention when he was
‘putting.’”

“That carries me back a long way,” said father, who had come across the
hall, newspaper in hand, for a little visit and to exchange cigars with
Evan, a nightly custom, as he watched Mrs. Terry knitting in the
firelight. “When I was a young fellow, not only the old folks, but all
the country-bred girls learned to knit as soon as their skirts went down
and their hair was put up. Then, when the attentions of one of the young
men who took them to and from meeting and singing-school were recognized
as serious, when he became ‘steady company’ and privileged to sit in the
best room and hold the skein of yarn for her to wind, the girl with many
blushes would ask him to write his name with hers on a bit of paper,
which folded up, made the centre of a ball of yarn from which she
straightway began to knit _Him_ a pair of socks to prove her
housewifery.”

“What a well-packed idea!” cried Mrs. Terry, rising to her knees, “and
perhaps, who knows, the name brought good luck and helped her get both
feet alike!”

“I’m not sure about that,” laughed father, “but I do remember that there
was a lot of curiosity about those papers and sometimes a girl would
steal her rival’s knitting ball to find whose name was inside, and feuds
came of it that were worse than tangled yarn.”

“Do you suppose there could possibly be a paper in this ball?” Mrs.
Terry cried suddenly, as she squeezed it tight; “it isn’t all yarn,
there’s something inside and it isn’t a spool. No, I won’t unwind it,
I’ll knit this last inch out,” and the fingers flew, while it seemed as
though her strange hair stretched out to look, and pulling away from its
pins fairly danced in the firelight.

As the stocking ate up the yarn, I found myself getting nearer to Mrs.
Terry, father drew his chair close, and Evan leaned against the
fireplace.

“Why are we all so breathlessly interested?” I asked, addressing the
ball of yarn as much as anything.

“Because,” answered father, “of the possibility of unearthing romance,
and twist, distort, and disguise it as we will, simple love is the most
interesting thing to every one of us.”

“Last round,” called Evan, who was watching so closely that Mrs. Terry’s
fingers trembled nervously.

The row was finished and bound off, though the rotten yarn had to be
pieced three times in the process; then she began to unwind the wisp
that remained. Yes, there was a piece of paper inside, brittle and
yellow.

Slowly she opened it, for it threatened to tear in shreds, and read in
an awestruck voice, “‘Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all my
days. March the 20th, 1842. Sarah Dearborn and Richard Morland’!”

                 *        *        *        *        *

“Richard Morland was my mother’s father!” she said, scarcely above a
whisper; “how did his name come here, Dr. Russell?”

Father held the paper to the lamp, scarcely less excited than Mrs.
Terry, who stood with clasped hands and a strange, searching expression
in her eyes as they followed him.

“Richard Morland, yes, that is the name,” said father, making sure of
every letter. “He once taught school at the old centre village. It was
before my time, but it is a matter of record, and some of the old people
still speak of him. As I remember the story, the school-teacher always
boarded at the Dearborn farm.”

“Then my grandfather once lived in the house where we were, to-day, and
probably slept in the four-posted bed and saw the parrots perched in the
flowers on the wall the first thing in the morning,” Mrs. Terry said
slowly, turning her back to the room and speaking, as it were, to the
fire.

“It is very strange, because when I went into the room, it did not seem
new to me. I, too, must sleep in the great bed and wake up with the
sunshine on that old, old paper.”

“It is a pity that it couldn’t be taken off the wall so that all the
fittings might be kept together,” I said thoughtlessly. But the young
woman wheeled around swiftly, and putting a hand on either of my
shoulders held me off, at the same time that her expression drew me
close.

“That paper shall never come off,” she said. “If grandpa had married
Miss Sallie, she would have been my grandmother and I should have
belonged in the Dearborn homestead. It’s too late for that now, but I’m
going to buy the place and manage it that way. Don’t you see, Mrs. Evan?
I’ve found my reason, the reason that I wanted to make me stay somewhere
until I had taken root and couldn’t get away. Then perhaps I may find
out something more from the old place to make me hug it tighter. Anyway,
the south pasture is just the place to turn out horses.

“Don’t you think, Dr. Russell, that they might be willing to sell before
next week? Please may I use the telephone? I’ll call up Terry, he will
be so relieved! And then I must get to work and find out why Miss Sallie
wasn’t my grandmother.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

Now the time had come for father to open Miss Sallie’s letter, which
said that—the desk and its contents were to become the property of the
owner of the house!

“The desk and all the wall-papers Miss Sallie chose for the
refurnishings!” cried Mrs. Terry; “it’s actually like having some one to
share the responsibility of it all. Ah, you see, Mrs. Evan, I told you
that dreary old March is my lucky month; another thirty days and it
might have been too late.”

The day that the deed was transferred, father handed Mrs. Terry the key
of the old secretary. Whispering to me, “I don’t want even Terry to come
up yet, only you must be with me when I open it, for you understand,”
she literally pulled me up the narrow stairs.

Dragging up the big arm-chair, she seated herself in it and turned the
key slowly in the creaking lock. As the flap fell back, revealing a row
of pigeon-holes and two shallow drawers, she whispered, “I don’t know
exactly whether I’m opening a treasure chest or a grave!”

After some hesitation, she pulled out a drawer and took from it a bundle
of yellow papers, folded lengthwise and tied with a faded blue ribbon.
“‘Letters from R. M. to S. D., preserved to show my kin how good a man
their foolish aunt lost through thinking that land could weigh in the
balance with love,’” read Mrs. Terry, reddening deeply; “and here is a
picture of grandpa cut from black paper, and a queer curl of hair. Ah,
_now_ I see where my inquisitive hair comes from.

“‘A letter of advice to my kin if they think to marry, and a request.’”
Mrs. Terry read this slowly to herself, saying as she did so, “I hope
she wants something I can do for her.”

There was a long silence, so long that I looked up rather anxiously at
last.

“What is it?” I asked.

“She wants grandpa’s name to be given to the first child that is born in
this house,” said Mrs. Terry, in an awestruck tone, “and that seems to
me like a loaf and fish miracle, for I was _so_ afraid that Terry would
want to call him for his own people, and his father’s name was Patrick
Dennis! Oh, how nice it is to have even a might-have-been grandmother to
shoulder such responsibilities!” And once more she threw herself into my
arms as she had done the afternoon in the attic, peeping over my
shoulder at the hooded mahogany cradle into which the beams of the
victorious snow-quelling March sun were shining.

“Something seems to have turned up, or else we have all gone
snow-blind,” said Evan that night.




                                   IV
                             THE IMMIGRANTS


                         =APRIL=—THE GOOSE MOON

It was early in April, an hour before sunset. The keen wind that blew
down through the valley, sweeping the forge pond into little ripples,
was tinkling with spring sounds,—wayside voices of robin, meadow-lark,
purple finch, and cheery song sparrow; the red-wing’s good-night
blending with the piping of the marsh frogs; music of little brooks
newly born of melted ice and spring rain on the rocky hillsides; here
and there the chime of cow bells worn by Peter Salop’s rambling herd
returning from their first day’s browsing in the brush lots,—all
blended into the steady rhythm of the water as it fell in an unbroken
sheet from the pond’s edge upon the rocks below.

Spring rushed toward the ear that evening more swiftly than to the eye.
There were yellow tassels of fragrant spice-bush in moist warm hollows,
echoing in tint the winter-flowering witch-hazel; wands of glistening
willow outlined the waterways, and the red glow of life lay upon the
swamp maples; but only the eyes of the wise might hope to find the
hiding-places of the white and rathe blue hepaticas, or the nooks deep
in the hemlock woods where the wax-pink arbutus distilled fragrance from
the leaf mould.

As the sun slowly vanished behind the long chain of hills beyond the
Moosatuck, the warmth of the first spring day swiftly followed, and soon
the sky was barred with the dull red-purple and citron that promised
unwelcome frosts.

In all the countryside but two people were to be seen out-of-doors or in
any way seemingly conscious of the evening’s beauty, and these were
alien born; Peter Salop, the owner of the pond, mill, and forge, and
Ivan Gronski, his hired helper. Peter was English born, a portly and
comfortable man of sixty odd, who, having come over in his youth, had
made a little money by city trade. Once upon a time he had gone home
again to pick up the old life for middle-aged rest, but though the land
was there, the people that made the life had vanished. Now coming for
the second time, he had settled in our hill country near his sons, and
because he was born in a mill, a mill he must own, and, because as a boy
he had loved to creep into a neighbour’s forge and watch the molten
metal take shape, a forge he must have, even though its work was no more
ambitious than turning scrap iron into cheap ploughs and third-grade
tools.

Among other traditions that he brought with him and never seemed to have
lost in his forty years of city trading, was a love for the sound of cow
bells, the sight of sheep grazing on the rough hillsides where they were
almost indistinguishable from the rocks, the sight and smell of snowy
“May” or Hawthorn, big bushes of which grew in his house yard, a love of
lying prone on green grass, hands behind head to watch the sky, and an
intense respect for the game laws. It was this latter quality that had
begun an intimacy between Peter and Evan, and together they had formed
an alliance to put down the trapping, ferreting, and snaring among the
hills, about which the country lad, native by a few generations, has no
conscience.

Wild geese had been flying these two weeks, and Peter Salop was minded
that if a flock dropped to rest and feed on his pond, there should be
none lacking in their onward flight. Moreover, with the wild-fowl in
mind, he never cut the heavy-seeded marsh grasses and sedges that grew
in the pond’s backwater, and had scattered wild rice until it had become
naturalized. So now Peter paced up and down the highway that skirted his
property on the west, hands behind back, his eyes first resting upon the
pond that, here and there, glistened silver-like between the meshed
alders that hedged it like coin within a knitted purse, then sweeping
the road up which either the mail man or the home-coming cattle might at
any time be expected.

For the moment, a flock of white geese held the right of way with
half-raised wings and heads erect, forcing their master to one side; for
this was before the day of heartless motor cars, when in rural regions,
at least, the road belonged to the females, who drove buggies with
sundry twitches of the reins as though they were pulling in fish, and to
the ducks, geese, and portly hens escorting young chickens.

The other human figure in the picture was working steadily back of the
cow barns, occasionally looking across the pond toward the sunset, but
without once ceasing his toil of carrying hay from the stack and making
ready for milking. What he thought, if he thought at all, left no trace
upon his flat features, that were tanned and weathered to the deep hue
of sole leather, although his long, light hair, and scant, bristling
mustache, showed that originally he must have been fair of skin; his
short, thick-set, yet lean body, with its long arms, worked like a
machine until one would have supposed that an overseer was standing by
him with a lash.

This unceasing labour was a sort of inborn habit, one of the few
traditions that Ivan Gronski had brought with him. He never stopped to
think why he worked so incessantly. Peter Salop would have told you that
Ivan worked but never thought about his work, and in this way he stood
in his own light, adding, “By ’n by he’ll get to thinkin’, no doubt, and
then he’ll most like not work at all.”

But Peter did not know the reason. Once in the years gone by, Ivan had
stopped when he was working, stopped to listen to what another said,
that ‘if the tax to support the idle was not so heavy upon them all,
there would be more time to raise the head and breathe the air, while if
a time should come when there were no idle to be clad in gold and gems,
they, the people, might even in work hours stand, hands upon hips, and
laugh!’ Then had Ivan not only listened but answered, “God hasten the
day,” crossing himself with one hand, while with the other he pressed
the little icon, worn under his blouse, against his flesh until it left
a mark.

Some one had heard! Swift as the bird flies the words travelled.
Nicholas, the man who had spoken, disappeared from among his fellows who
worked in a nobleman’s field, while the man who had merely answered soon
felt the dreaded spy shadow hovering over him, following him and
blighting the way before.

In Ivan’s hut there were five: Maria the wife, Zetta the eldest girl,
’Tiana (short for Tatiana) who crept about, and Paul the baby, and over
them all the spy shadow hung. Some day, Ivan had hoped they might all go
overseas to America, where it was said that one might not only laugh,
but own land and houses; perhaps this might happen when Paul also could
walk. But all that was before the spy shadow fell. A little money had
been saved and hidden beneath the thatch, but the shadow seemed to shut
a door between Ivan and freedom of motion even. What day it would come
in the door, he could not tell. Some work horses from the estate were to
go for exhibition to a neighbouring fair. When they were ready, polished
and sleek, with bunches of ribbons braided in their manes and tails, the
man in charge of them fell suddenly ill, and not daring to disarrange
his overseer’s plans, he begged Ivan to wear his new boots, blouse, and
cap, and ride the horses to the fair. Maria urged him to go, and
overlooked the new blouse carefully,—a stitch was lacking here and
there, she said,—and had he the eyes for it there was something strange
both in her face and her manner of wishing him good-by.

The first night of the fair, amid some little jollity and confusion, an
overseer in a village near to Ivan’s pressed close to him and whispered
in his ear, “Michael is in Siberia, I, too, am beneath the spy cloud and
therefore I go away to-night; come you with me, else it will be too
late, to-morrow they mean to arrest us both; keep on moving with the
crowd and do not let your face change.”

“How? I cannot, I have no money, and there is Maria and all. You need
not think I will do that.”

“Maria knows and wishes it, then she follows when you have made a place.
She has sewn the money from the thatch into the blouse you wear.”

Involuntarily Ivan pressed his hand to his side where something had been
chafing him, and there he felt the little box that held their treasure.
Without question Maria had placed it there, Maria must know more than
he. So Ivan Gronski turned his back upon Russia, hatred of his country
being all that remained of it in his heart, for what other heritage is
left to an honest Russian Pole!

Three weeks later the two men reached a seaport, after arrest, hunger,
and despair, all three in turn, had threatened them; another three
weeks, and they stood upon American soil. The brother of Ivan’s rescuer,
already well established, met and vouched for both; the friend found
quick haven, but Ivan drifted here and there at first, working in
ditches, on railways, clutching at every penny to save it for the coming
of Maria and the others when he had “made a place,” then losing again
through sickness, hearing seldom from her, and then always through
Michael, the friend with whom he had come.

When working for a junk dealer in Bridgeton, he had been sent one day,
in company with another man, out far across country with a load of scrap
iron, its destination being Peter Salop’s forge. While his companion
bargained about the iron, Ivan had watered the horses and, idle for the
moment, stood looking across the pond to where a field of ripening wheat
waved to and fro against the blue midsummer sky. He had never set his
eyes upon a wheat field since the time when his fellow-worker, in tying
sheaves, had spoken of liberty and he had answered. How long ago was
that, years or only months? He could hardly tell. And what was that
beyond the field edge lying low to the land almost concealed by a tall
poplar—was it a peasant’s hut?

No, merely the low-built house of some early settler, the wide stone
chimney and sloping attic eaves seeming lowered by the intervening hill.
But a throb came into Ivan’s throat and tore it, and suddenly the
oppression of his race that had gripped him even in the New Land like a
paralysis, gave way, and long-drawn sobs swept him until he swayed and
shook like the wheat in the wind.

A heavy but kindly hand was laid on his shoulder. “What’s the matter, my
man?” asked the deep voice of Peter Salop. But before Ivan hid his face
in his arms, Peter saw the tears and a reserve fell upon him.

“The wheat, the hut, Maria, and I make no place for her,” Ivan
explained, piecing out his few words of English with direct gestures.

“Homesick?” shouted Peter; “want to go home?” making the common mistake
of thinking loud tones help to interpret a strange tongue. “What are
you, a Polack or a Slav?”

Ivan understood, and a sadness deeper than tears came to him, almost
giving dignity to his hunched form. “Me? There is no go home for me, I
am a Russe!”

Peter Salop might be called dense upon some occasions, but not now. For
a moment he too was an immigrant, and that other pond and mill, whose
double he had sought in later life in a strange land, were before him.

“I need a farm man, if you’d care to stay about here,” he said
presently; “to begin, twenty a month if I board you, thirty and you find
yourself; more, bimeby if you fit in.”

“Yeas, yeas, oh yeas,” gasped Ivan, clinging only to the first
proposition, which for the moment overshadowed the others.

Ivan stayed; indeed, he seemed rooted to the spot, and this time was now
three years past. In the working hours he only worked, but after, he
schemed and planned in his little room in the horse barn about the place
for Maria, always with the cottage back of the grain field in his mind.
Now the plans had taken solid shape and this spring she would come, for
did not the letter say so, the letter she had written him at
Christmas?—that is, if he had the money ready. This being so, had not
the good friend Michael arranged about the passage, and made all safe?
For it is not wise for a wife to have much money in the house or write
many letters, when the spy shadow has rested on the husband and he has
escaped.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The cows came slowly up the road, nipping a green tuft here and there,
before turning each to her particular stall. The boy who drove them, a
grandson of Peter’s and a namesake as well, gave a whoop of delight as
the last one entered the door, and carefully taking a slender trout pole
from its resting-place on a beam, he unearthed a bait box from beneath
the door stone and sped off through the alders up-stream, to make the
most of the hour of twilight, waving his hand to old Peter as he went.

The milking over, Ivan turned the cows into the yard, carried the pails
up to the milk-room door, where he received his own small can, then
throwing his coat about him as if it were a sleeveless cloak, and
raising his head as though lifting the day’s toil from his shoulders, he
strolled slowly toward the pond. The evening mail was overdue by this
time, and each night he thought might there not be a letter saying when?
For surely it was spring now: April the 15th said the Insurance calendar
on the barn door. But primitive Ivan had a truer almanac in his head,
made up of ice and snow, sun and wind, water, flower colours, and bird
songs, though he could not call them by name; for three years this
calendar had grouped itself about him and spoken to him in clearer tones
than printed figures.

Yes, it was spring in truth and fulness. Twice the marsh frogs had piped
up and been stilled again by ice; that was in March. Now they had
chanted for fourteen uninterrupted evenings; that meant April. Also
yesterday, and the day before that, the straight wild goose arrows had
crossed the sky from south to the north-eastward.

The first time in his boyhood that he had seen birds resembling these,
in that they looked dark against the sky, an old crone had crossed
herself and muttered, “there go the birds of famine.” Here in this land
it was otherwise, these birds were the wise prophets, seeing spring from
afar. Moreover, best of all the signs, in the field above the pond, the
fall wheat had raised its green ribbons far enough to flutter in the
breeze that whispered as it ran, “Summer, harvest, bread!”

The twilight began to deepen, and the purple bars locked the horizon
against the warmer rays. A mist rose from the pond as high as Ivan’s
heart and chilled it. A merry little screech-owl whose quavering call
belied its feelings, flapped over to its nest in an abandoned dove-cote.

Suddenly the frogs began to croak, “If she shouldn’t come, suppose they
do not come!”

“Maybe that they are dead,” throbbed Ivan’s heart, as though responding
in a litany. And why not? The last letter was more than three months
back; life had been hard to Maria, she told of work in many places, and
in Peasant Russia winter is a demon who travels with famine for horses
and wolves for his hunting pack!

There was a harsh bird cry in the distance. Far overhead, a second,
nearer, clear and sonorous, then a dark arrow clove the dusk, fell
swiftly, broke into feathered fragments, as with some little manœuvring
and splashing, the wild-goose flock settled upon the forge pond. Then
the pendulum of hope swung back toward Ivan. At the same time, the
postman’s white-topped wagon with its sliding door stopped at the four
corners. Peter Salop, preparatory to his evening gossip, shuffled his
mail deftly in his big hands as one who had been in the haste of
commercial life, at the same time giving a whistle and then calling,
“Hi, Ivan, are you there? Here’s a letter, a _Roosian_ letter,” he
added, as the man came forward, half eager, half reluctant with dread.
Then as he saw the cramped, thin writing by the light of the carrier’s
lantern, Ivan’s face relaxed. No, Maria was not dead, she could write
her own letters to him,—a proud distinction. Content with this, he put
the letter inside his shirt, gave a silent good-night greeting to his
employer, and balancing his little can of milk carefully, hurried along
the Lonetown cross-road that wound toward the north between forge and
farm.

For half a mile he kept on the road that twisted and circled until he
reached a crudely fashioned gate in the loosely piled stone fence;
opening it, he went up a straight dirt path edged with bits of stone to
the door of a small house, took a key from his pocket, and let himself
in.

Going into the furthest of the three rooms into which the first floor
was divided, he lighted a lamp that stood on the uncovered pine table,
and drawing up a stool, laid the letter before him, scanned it carefully
and then jumped up again. No, he would feed the fowls first, else it
would be too dark, bring in his water, fix fire and teapot, make all
snug,—then for the letter. What was Ivan doing in this little house,
and whose house was it? His own, as well as the five acres of rough land
that lay about it.

Two kinds of people traverse the country nowadays, reviving the dead and
dying farms: the idealists with money (more or less) in pocket, seeking
to find homes on the old lines wherein to spend it; the immigrant
looking for a foothold where he may wrest a living from soil whereon the
native would starve.

The house, with its three rooms and loft above, was the ruin clinging
about its stone chimney that Ivan had spied across the corn field that
summer day three years before, one of a dozen such lonely places that
had fallen to the town for taxes. Year after year no one had come to
pay, and all had fallen away but chimney and stout oak frame.

From the moment Ivan had seen its veiled outlines across the wheat
field, he had desired it. At first he only thought of it, and walked
around it silently on Sunday afternoons. In a few months his tongue
loosened to Peter Salop, “Could the place be bought?” “Yes, surely, for
the price of the rough land.” So before the second summer came he owned
it.

Little by little—in the off season when Salop could spare him—board by
board had he floored it and closed it in. Odd windows picked up
second-hand had followed, a ladder reached the loft chamber; then came
the paint, odd cans bought at an auction, bright blue with red for
window-frames and door. Next he made a sort of corral of birch brush
woven with wild grapevines in one corner where once had been a barn.
This meant a poultry-yard; four posts and some boards thereon back of
the house stood for a wood-shed. The old well was cleaned out and a
swinging bucket geared above it.

By the third fall, the rough land was broken up and one little corner
spaded and made ready for the vegetable garden to come this spring.
Spaded and combed and brushed it was as for a flower-bed, this work
largely done by the women, being half the secret of how the immigrant
can live upon the bit of land the native scorns.

In-doors a few bits of plain furniture, some dishes, pots and pans, and
a stove made home; no, one thing more, a little mongrel cur that a year
before had followed Ivan from the village, entered the house with him,
and on being fed, refused ever after to leave the place, watching all
day for his return, and sleeping either on door or hearth-stone,
according to the season.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The evening work done, the fire lit and tea made, Ivan broke the edge
slowly from the envelope, grasping his icon and muttering a prayer as he
did it. Yes, Maria and all were coming, also his young sister. Coming?
As the date read they were now on the seas and any day might bring them.

For the first time since the parting, Ivan seemed to realize the
meeting, lost his head, and shuffling his feet, danced with joy.
Hitherto he had worked always, worked at first without success; now he
let himself feel as a man, which he never had done since the spy shadow
came between him and the sun. Then he was merely Fear walking; how long
ago was it? He could not seem to reckon, but what mattered it now that
it was over?

Lamp in hand, he strode through the three rooms and noticed for the
first time how many things were lacking, that workmen in the houses on
the upper road possessed. What did that matter? In two days another
month’s pay would be due, and Maria could go some day to Bridgeton and
choose for herself. All that evening he talked to himself and to the cur
by turns, telling him how Maria would tend the garden and Zetta the
poultry, and by and by, when they were old enough, ’Tiana and Paul would
gather both fagots and berries in the big unfenced country by the Ridge.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Next day Ivan was uneasy at his work; a pedler’s wagon passed and he
followed it and bought a doll for ’Tiana and a jingling toy for Paul, to
give them welcome. The evening mail brought him another letter, this
time from the friend Michael in New York. Maria had landed, and, the
legal formalities being over, would go by the noon train to the Glen
station on the morrow!

Life came to Ivan, and vigour; his stooping shoulders straightened,
man’s blood pushed the serf’s blood through his veins. With the letter
extended in his hand, he went to Peter Salop, his master, and telling
its contents, dared to ask a half holiday that he might be at the
station at noon. This was gladly granted, and he strode home on air, the
doll and toy in his pocket and a ham, the gift of Mrs. Salop to help him
make a feast, swinging over his shoulder. He put the doll and toy on
either side of the little mirror on the kitchen shelf, and eating a cold
supper, hurried to sleep.

A long two miles separated the Glen station from the forge; a good half
hour before train time, Ivan reached it, clad in his best, a bit of
myrtle sticking in his buttonhole. As the engine slid up to the narrow
platform, he barely had the courage to raise his eyes. A woman got off,
then another, and two men, but no Maria, and the train went snorting on
its way.

“Another train from New York?” repeated the station master, busy with
his trunks and packages. “Oh, there’s another at four.”

For a moment Ivan hesitated, and then turned back toward the forge,
stripped off his bits of finery, and tried to lose himself in work.
Peter passing by on his way to the village for a wagon that was at the
repair shop, guessed what had happened and wisely said nothing. The
good-hearted never jar a brimming goblet.

He would not go too early, thought Ivan, and so the second time he
reached the station almost as the train pulled in. This time there were
many people, chiefly for the Ridge, and he pushed his way among them
wildly; but when the little crowd parted and vanished, Maria was not
there! “Six-thirty is the last train up to-night, mostly freight, not
often passengers,” chirped the agent.

Ivan slunk off behind the station, head down and the old stoop to his
shoulders. He had eaten no dinner and his head reeled. Stumbling into
the general store close to the station, he bought a hunk of cheese and a
small loaf, and going down the road a short way, he climbed up the
wooded bank and finding some soft moss, threw himself down and whittling
his bread and cheese into mouthfuls, ate from necessity rather than with
relish, for all of a sudden he felt strangely and intensely weary. A
little nap could do no harm, so coat under head, Ivan fell soddenly
asleep, like the wayfarer he had once been.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The six-thirty train came slowly into the Glen station, for it was both
long and heavy with freight cars, a single combination passenger and
baggage car being at the very end. This same halted far below the
station, where the water-tank made a barrier between the railroad ground
and the open fields.

Slowly four clumsy, heavy-laden figures in petticoats crawled down the
high steps, assisting a little boy in curious trousers, while a
good-natured brakeman helped to steady and replace the various bundles
that were fastened to head and shoulders. As they huddled together,
straightening their garments and belongings, the whistle blew three
times shrilly, and the train creaked and moved heavily on.

Is there any stillness more intense than that which closes around the
countryside after the bustle of a train has ceased? The evensong of the
birds and the peeping frogs only serve to deepen silence from the purely
human standpoint.

The heads of the three elder women were covered by kerchiefs, the little
girl was bareheaded, and the boy wore an odd cap, but all alike had an
expression of fatigue and resigned anxiety. The elder woman must have
been pretty once, but her face was lined and thin with toil and poor
feeding, while the other woman, of twenty perhaps, was round-eyed and
plump.

“Where is he, Maria? Where is Ivan my brother? He leaves us here alone
in a strange place at nightfall?” she asked in her foreign tongue. “I
can see no houses, it is like a green desert.”

“Perhaps it is Siberia, then!” said the girl of twelve, with a shiver.

“Hush,” said Maria, “thy father has not forgotten us in all these years,
he will not now,” but nevertheless dread was creeping over her, and she
raised her hands nervously to loose the band that bound the bundle to
her forehead.

“I’m hungry and I want to go to sleep,” piped the little boy, and
crouching toward him on the bare ground his mother strove to comfort
him.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Ivan slept like one dead, until a shrill whistling sound waked him with
a start, and reading the time by the shadows that had not only
lengthened, but were vanishing, he rolled to his feet, and half slid,
half stumbled down to the road, across the head of which the evening
train was moving.

Pulling on his coat, he tried to run, but his feet, numb with inaction,
refused to do more than walk. Would he ever reach the station?

At last he felt the boards under his feet, but the long platform was
empty, and the station master was setting his night light and preparing
to leave. “No, there had been no passengers on the evening train,” he
answered curtly, wondering if this wild-eyed man who had been there
thrice in one day was a bit out of his head.

For the third time Ivan was about to turn away, when something
fluttering far down by the water-tank caught his eye, and as he stared
the forlorn group came into view, walking slowly up the track. Another
moment, suspense was over, and they stood facing one another.

“Maria and all.”

“Ivan.”

Then at last the women began to cry softly, and Ivan with wet cheeks ran
from one to the other, untying the burdens that bound head and throat,
and that never more should choke them.

Halting suddenly, Ivan gasped, “But where is Paul, my baby?”

Then Maria laughed in earnest. “This is Paul, a well-grown boy; he has
not been a baby these seven years. Have you lost count of time, Ivan, my
friend?”

And truly, he had, and flushed when he thought of the little one he had
expected to fondle, and the jingling toy at home, and with the knowledge
came a certain tinge of disappointment.

Then was the procession formed for the homeward march, Ivan heaped high
with the bedding; but they had gone but a few yards when a team,
rumbling up from behind, came to a halt, and a jolly voice called, “Hi,
Ivan, I think your people had better have a ride.”

Turning, he saw Peter Salop, who was driving his ice wagon, newly
painted, with white canopy, red wheels, and blue body, home from the
shop.

“It is the master,” Ivan whispered, and the group stood with bent heads,
hardly daring to look at the magnificence.

Climbing in, the children’s tongues loosened among themselves. “At home,
the master flogs us with a whip, sometimes, if he meets us on the
roads,” murmured ’Tiana, “but here in this new country he takes us to
ride in his beautiful chariot.”

Once at the house, Ivan and Maria wandered through the rooms, hand in
hand, smiling shyly, and then laughing with pleasure. As Maria stopped
before the little mirror to unwrap her head and set the hair-pins, Ivan
snatched up the jingling toy and thrust it in the mantel closet, for
somehow it wounded him to think of his mistake. But Maria cautioned him
not to break it, saying: “It may be useful yet, who knows? Ah, who knows
anything?”

Then leading her about the yard, her eyes rested on the sprouting wheat
field and again tears filled them. “What is it that speaks, Ivan, my
friend?” she asked.

“Something we have left behind and wish to forget,” he answered shortly.

“Yes, but what we are glad to leave, we are more glad to find here
before us,” and she laid her face against his, which was also wet, but
smiling; and high above their heads shot a wild goose arrow.

“What is that?” asked Maria, pointing.

“It is a sign of spring, and a good omen of birds,” Ivan answered.




                                   V
                              TREE OF LIFE


                        =MAY=—THE PLANTING MOON

One day, Evan and I played _make believe_ and went a-Maying. This was
not very long ago, yet in those days, high-road and byways were divided
between horse and man only and therefore were our own, while we jogged
along plucking at the branches and trailers that we passed, letting the
horses browse, reins upon neck without risk of danger.

The _make believe_ was that we were a couple of carefree children
playing at going on a journey to seek the Tree of Life, which, should we
chance to find in blossom and walk in its shadow, would enable us to
live as long as we wished. This had been one of my childhood’s plays, a
hybrid born of Genesis and Pilgrim’s Progress, belonging to days spent
alone in the garden when father had gone a day’s journey to see some
patients over the hills, and Aunt Lot was immersed in preserves and
forgot me. Blissful forgetfulness of children by their elders that is
one of the gates to wonderland!

We took the idea as a motive for _make believe_, and if one plays at
being a child, one must complete the game, turn loose the overworked
horses of every day, Proof and Reason, and harness in their places
Instinct and Belief, steeds who may be trusted to know the straightest
road to happiness. As to the Maying part, that is a play also, and, at
least in the New England country, a game of chance if you do not know
the moves, but an ecstasy if the combinations fall right.

The Red Men waited for the May Moon to wax full and the truce flowers of
the white dogwood to signal frost’s surrender from the wood edges before
they planted their maize. We wait for the first blooming of an apple
tree to tell us that the springtide is at its height. Not one of the
opulent, well-fed orchard trees, having all the advantages of a
protected location, but a wayside, ungrafted scion of the old orchard
standing alone in a field, on the north side of the spruce wind break.
We called this tree “the Messenger.” It is the bearer of inconsequent
fruit akin to the wild, but in May it is garlanded with firm-fleshed,
deep rose-hued blossoms. When this tree opens its buds, we know that its
kindred of the hill country will also be decked, and it is our time to
go forth, for here the Maying is the festival of the Apple Blossoms, and
the blushing snow of it veils the grim gray hills, and brocades the
silken emerald of the grassy lowlands every May as completely as the
gold and purple of golden-rod and aster mantle the land in autumn.

People make journeys to the Orient to see the Festival of Fruit
Blossoms, where many of the trees enclosed in gardens are shown with
suggestion both of art and artifice; all this is deemed wonderful
because it is far away. Distance promises change, and change is
seemingly the key-note of current life. Perpetuity was the ambition of
our forbears, else we should not be here. Yet when the near-by holds a
Festival of Apple Blossoms reaching from our doors to the horizon line
that travels before us, when we try to reach it, do we make a national
event of it? Who goes out? Who sees? The reeds shaking in the wind,
perhaps; the bluebirds that nest in the hollow tree trunks; the flaming
orioles that, grown wanton with spring joy, rifle the honeyed blossoms;
but people, where are they? No parties of school children playing in the
abandoned orchards, no others sauntering along the highways like
ourselves. For the twenty years that we have gone up through the hill
country for this Maying, we have never met any others bent upon the same
errand. So we call this festival our own, and as we stray along, we
conjure up companions from the past to bear us company; the people who
planted the orchards that still remain and blossom through all the
neglect and moss that Time has dropped upon them.

Each year, though we traverse mainly the same roads, by some fashion we
always come upon some place or sign that has before escaped us, though
rarely anything that brings past and present together as happened on the
day that we played _make believe_ and set out to find the Tree of Life.

                 *        *        *        *        *

After we left Oaklands and the Bluffs behind, and dipped into the valley
north of Hemlock hill, we began to look for signs and symptoms; for in
this country, one can never tell what a winter may bring forth, what
tottering chimneys may have collapsed into a stone heap, or piece of
primal woodland disappear into the maw of a travelling saw-mill to
emerge in form of railway ties. Yes, the overshot water-wheel had
disappeared from the Mill in the cedar woods, and the back of the lilac
house on the hilltop overlooking the Moosatuck was broken, though the
giant lilac bushes that hedged it seemed striving to hide its crippled
state.

Here was our first stop. I love to sit on that which was a door-stone;
well-sweep on one side, wood-shed on the other, across the road the
skeleton of the oak-timbered barn where the rays of sunlight and
swallows in intimate kinship, shoot in and out through chinks and
knot-holes. Before me, the old orchard sloping downhill to the
bush-screened Moosatuck, tall flowering ferns, the cinnamon and royal
blending with spreading brakes to hide the tumble-down stone-walls. Then
only to close the eyes and think backward, and the people come; only do
not think too far. I do not care, even in make believe, for the company
of the Indians, the stone heads of whose arrows are scattered through
the valley. They were no kin of mine; they left no trace, neither making
the world happier or more fruitful.

                 *        *        *        *        *

In the apple orchards runs the blood of our race, the blood of the sweat
and toil of our pioneer forefathers; all these old orchards are peopled,
for those who have the eyes to see, and so there is no loneliness for us
in this silent hill country.

The ancients had it that every child was born under the influence of a
particular star; a more spiritual age, that each child has its guardian
angel. I have always believed that my particular guardian is a tree, and
that one an apple, for this was the first tree that I remember lying
under and looking up through the flower-laden branches at the sky, as
mother sat upon the round seat that encircled the big trunk, the great
fragrant Russian violets growing at her feet.

The first two birds I learned to call by name lived in that apple
tree,—a robin who had saddled his untidy nest of mud and straws on a
drooping branch, and a pair of purling bluebirds, who lived in a little
hole where a broken limb had let in the rain and consequently decay
followed,—while my first remembrance of being hurt was when a heavy
Baldwin apple fell from the tip-top of the tree and bumped me on the
forehead. As I grew up and left dolls behind, my kinship with the tree
grew more material,—four apples and a book, to be taken at regular
intervals in the depths of the big leather chair in father’s study,
being my formula for comfort on a rainy Autumn afternoon.

                 *        *        *        *        *

When we had looked and dreamed our fill, we turned into one of the
meandering cross-roads that traverse Lonetown converging toward Pine
Ridge, to crawl slowly upward to our watch-tower. This is the place of
all others in our haunts for looking down upon the country as if
mirrored in a pool or seen as mirage—Tuck Hill in May time, and there
is nothing more to be desired! Evan and I crouched on the summit in the
shelter of an old tree, still brave with blossoms though the trunk had
fallen forward as if on its knees, and gazed our fill.

For days after, I felt the rush of the wind through my hair, for at this
spot the wind of the hills meets the breath of the salt-water. Below,
two rivers, that give the hill its name, shot their silvery arrows
through the overhanging foliage; Tuck being an Indian term for river, as
Moosa_tuck_, Aspe_tuck_.

No Druids crowned with oak leaves, or men of myth and marvel, came to us
there, such as Puck could conjure from his charmed British hill home;
only pictures of the simple settlers who planted their dwellings in the
wilderness near ways that are remote even now from the pulse of things.
These humble settlers dared and suffered and won out in spirit
unconquerable; and though people and homes have vanished without written
history, yet God in Nature has made record of them. Far and near
throughout the land the festival of Apple Blossoms is celebrating them
in the orchards, some still vigorous in age, and others all of gnarled
trees that are leaning slowly earthward, as though making ready to fall
to final sleep. Again others, young limbed and smooth of bark,
unlicensed gypsy scions of the old race, often bitter of fruit, and yet
sometimes chancing to bring forth a blend incomparable. These
striplings, that wandered from the parent close, had ventured in stony
pastures, sought shelter in wood edges, and followed the watercourses,
and one and all seemed to whisper to the winds that bore their vital
pollen, “Yes, they are all gone who planted us, but we try to shift for
ourselves and live forever, for we cannot forget our mother, the Tree
that stood in the midst of the First Garden!”

All these things I said half aloud, ending with the query, “Why has no
one hereabout planted an orchard for thirty years at least?”

“You are forgetting that we are playing make believe,” muttered Evan,
who had been lying so still that I thought he must be trying to ‘hear
the grass grow,’ which is the outdoor man’s cover for sleep.

“If we are children, we mustn’t preach or think about why the orchards
are running out or why no one plants apple trees,” he continued.
“Children never look behind or before, but make a whole lifetime of a
single happy day, and it’s because people nowadays are like restless
children that they do not plant orchards; what do they care for the
future; it seems too long before the fruiting time; they want a quicker
crop.”

“Who is talking a sermon?” I cried. “Come down through that lane where
we tied the horses; it’s full of dogwood and pinxter flowers; we will
fill the chaise and bury ourselves in them; being children, it does not
matter if they fade by noon so that we can gather more,” and then we
wandered down and on, choosing the pleasantest ways, and letting the
horses lead so long as we kept due north, or fancied we did.

                 *        *        *        *        *

“We should cross the Ridge before noon,” said Evan, after we had driven
for many miles without keeping track of time. “I wonder if there is a
short cut: here is a green lane that runs in the right direction, but it
has a gate to it, and may either be a pent road or a private way.”
Strangely enough, the old gray horses turned toward the gate, nosed it,
and whinnied in unison.

“See the wild fruit trees and bushes that hedge it,” I cried; “apples,
cherries, a peach or two, tall blackberries; I wonder if there ever was
a garden in this corner? There are all the signs, the lilac bushes,
stones that might have been a chimney, and there are new horse tracks in
the turf, and colts pasturing yonder in that field. The way is pretty
enough to lead to the land of Forbidden Fruit, and we may find the Tree
of Life we are looking for at the end. Do let us go in; as we are only
children, no one will have the heart to scold us if we should find
ourselves in some one’s yard.” So Evan opened the gate, which was made
of rough-sawn chestnut boards, and followed rather than led the horses
along the way, for the trees closed low above our heads and shut out the
distance.

In a glimpse across the fields we saw the tower and broken outlines of a
little church.

“That’s not Pine Ridge Church!” exclaimed Evan, stopping short. “The
Ridge Church has a pointed steeple, and that is”—“A Christopher Wren
box,” I said, the name by which Evan had once designated that particular
style of architecture with a tower top that looks like a turned-over
table, legs pointing skyward.

“Where are we, Barbara? You were born in this country, not I; this lane
seems to be leading us due west, and I’m getting hungry, a natural
feeling for a child.”

“I do not know,” I confessed; “there is a place back of Banbury
somewhere in this direction called Fool’s Hill because of its
cross-purpose roads, where father once had a patient, but I’ve never
been there. Wherever we are, we can stop for lunch at the first flat
rock that we see.”

Still another sweep of lane and the sound of running water. The horses
pricked up their ears and whinnied again, and their call, evidently of
interrogation, was answered. Suddenly we emerged from the trees into an
open space; a rushing brook crossed the meadow, and was itself crossed
by a railed bridge of logs and wide chestnut planks.

“Why didn’t I think to bring my trout pole,” sighed Evan.

“It’s not at all necessary; I can supply a bent pin, and boys always
have string in their pockets; while you cut a hickory pole, I will dig
for worms with one of these tin spoons; Martha never gives us anything
but tin when we go a-Maying.”

Evan looked about as though inclined to accept my offer, and then he
stood transfixed, pointing toward a tree on the other side of the river
we were preparing to cross; it was a slender white birch that leaned out
over the water as if keeping watch, both up and down stream, while its
pointed, silver-lined leaves trembled and tittered as it swayed. Halfway
up the trunk was a small board that said in unmistakable letters,—“_No
hunting, fishing, or trespassing—by request of Father Adam._”

I pinched myself to see if I were awake, and I believe that Evan did the
same, though he would not acknowledge it. Now, indeed, had _make
believe_ come true. “Why?” I began, but Evan promptly replied, “Why
not?” Hearing a rustling among the bushes, I half expected the bodiless
head of the Cheshire cat to appear, but instead there stood a tall man
with a strong, smooth-shaven, sunburned face capped with curling white
hair, and dark eyes that, though their flash could be seen even across
stream, had a genial sort of twinkle at their corners. Save that he was
coatless, his clothes were neat almost to precision, even to a clean
linen collar turned down over a loose black tie, something unusual in
any part of the hill country.

Then Evan spied the man, who stood gazing at us more in amazement than
anger. “We were looking for something quite different when we saw your
sign,” said Evan, awkwardly, “and now we’ll go away as soon as I can
turn the horses.”

“Are you Father Adam?” I asked.

“That is what people call me,” he answered; “and who are you, and what
are you trying to find?” This time his gaze took a sweep that included
not only ourselves but the horses and the chaise, which we had forgotten
was decked like a bower.

“We? Oh, we are only two children out a-Maying,” I said, the spirit of
make believe taking complete possession, “and we are searching for the
Tree of Life, so that we may pass under its branches and live as long as
we choose. Do you know where we might find it?”

“Yes; it grows up yonder in the midst of my orchard. How did I come by
it? Ah, that is a story that I only tell those who promise to believe
it. Now it is my turn to ask questions,” said Father Adam. “Where did
you get those horses?”

“We borrowed them from father, who is Dr. Russell and lives down at
Oaklands.”

“So then you are _his_ daughter; well, I know that you are telling the
truth, for I sold him those gray colts, as they were then, sixteen years
ago.”

“They whinnied when we turned in the gate, and rather led us on; can
horses remember a place for sixteen years?”

“Yes, and longer if it is the home where they were foaled; but the time
has been broken, for the doctor has chanced in every few years.”

Then I began to wonder about this man’s age, who spoke of a few years as
if they were but days; was he fifty, or seventy, which?

“Come, let us go up into the cleared land, and I will show you the tree
and tell you its story,” said Father Adam, as he took Gray Tom by the
bit to lead him, the horse nosing and nibbling at his hand familiarly.

“Is it far?” asked Evan; “because if it is, I think we’d better eat our
luncheon first; children always listen better when they’re not hungry.”
Something in the tone made Father Adam laugh, and a different expression
took possession of his features, as though at first he had doubts as to
our entire sanity which were now removed.

“It’s only a few hundred yards, and if those who only pass under the
shadow of the tree may have their wish, how much more will happen to
those who eat bread beneath it!”

So we two followed him hand in hand, over the bridge and through another
bit of lane, and then a vision of peace broke upon our sight,—a green
hill sloping upward to a group of elms that shaded a low, rambling
house, on one side of which was a bit of garden gay with tulips,
bleeding hearts, and columbine, flanked by rows of beehives, tilled
fields showing beyond. But it was the right slope that held the eyes;
row upon row the apple trees, in first full maturity, made endless
aisles into green space—aisles so wide that we traversed them side by
side and yet had room to spare.

Then, again, we came upon an open, a square court of grass, and in the
centre an apple tree such as I had never seen before,—tall, with two
main trunks, high-branched, straight and spreading at the top, elm
fashion, half was covered with dazzling white flowers, the other half
with pink, after the pattern of a florist’s formal bouquet.

“Sit ye down there,” said Father Adam, “and hear my story. Will I eat
with ye? Well, I’ll break a bit of bread for company, for I dined at
noon, and it’s now past two.” While he was speaking, the man had slipped
the harness from the horses and left them to graze and roll at will.

“Though this was my forbears’ homestead, I was born out in Ohio on a
little farm in the Muskingan River Valley. Seventy years ago it was hard
living there as far as indoor comforts went, yet all the rich land was
free for the tilling, and the corn and wheat flourished, but the thing I
first remember about spring was the blooming apple trees. Everybody had
them, half a dozen about the dwelling and then an orchard strip, while
in almost every settlement there was a space roughly fenced in where
young seedling trees were cultivated.

“Who made these apple nurseries, where the settler might get the stock
of what was truly the Tree of Life to him, the fruit, food and drink
that moistened his bread instead of tears? Was it the pioneers’ own
providence? Was it the government? No; it was Johnny Appleseed who
planted and cultivated, and the apple trees were his.

“Did you ever hear of the man? Few of your generation have, yet I
remember him as I saw him when I was a lad, sixty years ago, and my
mother, who was Massachusetts born, numbered him among her distant kin.
She said, and she had it from her mother, that he was born in Boston in
the year of Paul Revere’s ride; and that his real name was Chapman (the
same as my mother’s), John Chapman. He was a studious boy, and wished to
be a preacher, having a zealous streak to go overseas and teach the
heathen, but what with the war and troubled times, the way was not made
straight. Yet the times were fair enough for falling in love, and this
he did with one Anice Chase, but while he bestirred himself for the
wherewithal to marry, the white plague laid its hands on her. In those
days, at the first sign, the victim was set apart as doomed, and so it
was with Anice. Only a year from their betrothal, and John journeyed on
foot three days out from Boston town to her father’s farm to bid her
good-by.

“It was a May afternoon, and the lilacs and apples in the yard were all
abloom; Anice on a couch lay under one of those trees, for she would not
rest content indoors; the sight and smell of the flowers were all she
thought or spoke of. Long they talked together, and then she said so
feebly that he could scarcely hear, ‘Go and preach, but not to the
far-off heathen. Stay in your own land, but go westward, preach Christ
and the Garden of Eden, which is Home, and wherever you go plant the
apple, the Tree of Life that stood in the midst of the garden, as its
symbol and mine. For I shall reach the garden first and wait for you
close to the door.’

“That night Anice died. John Chapman soon after fell ill of a fever,
they said from exposure on his homeward journey, and when he recovered,
he had strange fancies, and then totally disappeared.

“Soon after the year eighteen hundred, early in spring, and for nearly
half a century following, a traveller made his way from western
Pennsylvania into Ohio, journeying straight across country to the
Indiana border, whether there were houses in his route or not. He was a
strange-looking figure, tall, gaunt, and clad in curiously assorted
garments, sometimes hatless and barefoot, sometimes wearing mismated
shoes and a peaked cap of his own manufacture. Either on his back, or
else in a small cart that he dragged after him, he carried a bag filled
with apple seeds. Whenever he came to a likely spot, he would loosen the
ground with a rude, strong hoe, plant some seeds, weave saplings into a
strong enclosure to keep the cattle out, and then pass on. Wild beasts
never molested him, the rattlesnakes turned from his path, and the
Indians, brutal as they were at that time in their treatment of the
settlers, not only never harmed him, but treated him with reverence as a
messenger of the Great Spirit.

“Then, when the day was done, he would knock at the door of a cabin, and
after partaking of simple food, for which he would always offer to pay,
either in coin of which he managed to earn enough to supply his few
needs, or else in young apple trees, he would draw close to the lamp or
throw himself on the floor by the fire, and pulling a tattered Bible
from his shirt, open it and proclaim as one reading a letter, ‘Behold I
have planted the Tree of Life at your doors, now hearken to the news
fresh from Heaven.’

“To a few of the women, from time to time, he told detached fragments of
his history, and my mother being one of these, recognized him almost by
intuition as her kinsman John Chapman; and either feeling the distant
tie of blood, or because we children gathered about him and hung on his
words, he came to our cabin more frequently than to others, for next to
his beloved trees, he loved little children and all animals. For women
who tried to better his attire or sympathize with him, he had no eyes.
‘I have a wife waiting for me beside the gates of Paradise,’ he would
say, ‘and what has she to do but busy her fingers in making me wedding
garments, and none but of her making will I wear.’ As to his name,
Johnny Appleseed was the only title he was known by in that country.

“Every spring he returned to Pennsylvania for more seed, for which he
bartered at the cider mills, and wherever he went his path was strewn
with his kind deeds. Did he come across a sick horse left to die by
pioneers, it was housed and fed at his expense. Did he meet a traveller
more ragged than himself, he always found that he had a garment he could
spare, until finally, a feed bag with opening for head and arms was his
most common coat.

“One autumn, being lame, he tarried a long while at our cabin; it was
the year that I was ten, and word came that the Connecticut home in
which my father was born had fallen to him, who, being the youngest, had
been obliged to strike out for himself. At first my mother cried, for
she had learned to love the free life, hard as it was, and she could not
bear the thought of leaving what was now _home_ to her; but in
Connecticut there were better schools, and mother came of gentle stock,
and had planned to make a preacher of me.

“When the day for leaving came, Johnny Appleseed, who had not left the
vicinity of our cabin for weeks, appeared beside my mother in the
kitchen; in one hand he held a straight young apple tree, securely
packed in moss and sacking for the journey, and in the other a leaf from
his Bible, the page of Genesis that tells of the Tree of Life.

“‘Take them with you, Hannah, and you will not be lonely,’ he said;
‘where the Tree of Life is there is home, and I give you fresh news of
it; soon I shall enter forever into the garden where it grows;’ and
before she could answer, he had disappeared among the trees.

“My mother brought the apple tree back with her, set it in the midst of
her garden, and cherished it as she did her own children; the leaf from
Genesis is now in the family Bible, where the record is writ of her own
entry into The Garden. Mother would never let the Tree of Life be
grafted, for grafting was a thing that Johnny Appleseed discountenanced,
and many good varieties came from his seedlings; as it grew, two
branches of equal vigour started half a dozen feet above the ground; yet
when it came to bloom, one main branch bore white flowers, and the other
rose, while the apples of the white flowers were yellow with rosy
cheeks, and the fruit of the pink flowers golden russets.

“‘See, Adam,’ said my mother, the year that the tree blossomed (she had
christened me Adam because I was her first man child), ‘I will call one
branch Anice and the other John. What does it signify? That they are
united in the Tree of Life.’

“Not many years after, we heard that John Appleseed had come to plant at
the house that had once been ours, and after talking cheerfully at
supper, spoke of an unusual light that lingered after sunset, and the
clouds that were like a door opening in the heavens. After his evening
reading, he went to sleep as usual on the floor, leaving the door open,
for the night was mild. In the morning they came upon him, the rising
sunlight shining on his smiling face, for Anice had been allowed to open
the garden door at dawn.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

The bees hummed, and the petals of the apple blossoms fell upon us until
Father Adam broke the spell by saying, “It is turning four, and little
children should not stay out after dark, for the babes in the wood must
have had a cold, damp bed in spite of the robins.”

So we thanked him, wishing to ask many questions that we could not, and
pulling the faded blossoms from the chaise, took the flower branches
from the Tree of Life that he gave us together with a jar of honey, and
turning the way he pointed, up past the house, to the high-road, the
grays, old as they were, trotted gaily home.

Then I told father. “Yes,” he answered, “I know where you have been, to
Adam Kelby’s farm. A Methodist preacher of power, also a farmer and
raiser of fine stock, called Father by the hill people, because that’s
what he is to them one and all, never straying far from home. He was
born out in Ohio, and believes strange things about apple trees, and
holds them sacred, as the Druids did the oaks, some people say. Well, so
do I!” As for Johnny Appleseed, he was an actual being who lived and
toiled much as Adam has said.

                 *        *        *        *        *

We could not stay indoors that night, but sat on the back steps and
supped with the dogs, eating buttered bread in great slabs, with honey
to boot. Feasting slowly and dreamily, as pleases children who have been
out all day, and between whose mouthfuls the Sandman is beckoning.

As I finished my last bit, assisted by Lark, who has a sweet tooth, I
said half to myself, “We’ve certainly been a-Maying, but I wonder did we
play _make believe_, or are we really children who have found the Tree
of Life.” Evan echoed, “I wonder,” and straightway spread more honey on
his bread.




                                   VI
                           WIND IN THE GRASS


                    =JUNE=—THE MOON OF STRAWBERRIES

“The Boy will go back to his mother’s people of course, and then at
last, Ernest, you will be free to carry out our plans,” said Eileen’s
clear voice, in which there was an unconscious note of uncertainty
mingled with expectancy. As she spoke, she gave her slender fishing rod
an unnecessary jerk that meshed line and hook in the tendrils of an
overhanging grape-vine.

Without speaking, her companion secured his own pole in a crotched tree,
and swinging out over the stream that rushed noisily past, quickly
disentangled the line; then, taking the rod from Eileen, he reeled up
the line and cast the fly deftly into the quiet pool below. Twice he
framed his lips to answer her question, but those two innocent words,
_our plans_, seemed to stop his voice; at his third essay, his line
played out swiftly while the reel sang the tune that the fisherman
loves. Then, after a short, exciting bit of play, a splendid brook
trout, more than a pound in weight, lay upon the moss beside Eileen.

“There is a King trout for you,” Ernest said; “could anything more
beautiful come out of the water?” and he made a fresh cast still farther
down the pool.

Eileen’s first glance of admiration changed as she watched the trout
quiver. “Put it back, please,” she cried; “now it’s a fairy thing, and
more beautiful than any jewels I ever saw; but as soon as the water
dries away it will only be a dead fish to be cooked and eaten. I love to
catch fish, it’s so exciting, but not to keep them.”

“Yes; but Eileen, after all, to be eaten, that is what it was made for,”
answered Ernest, in quiet, practical tones, yet smiling indulgently.
“The unkind thing would be to put it back and let it have its fight all
over again when some other fellow played it and it had learned fear.
Besides, have you forgotten that this is the last day of the fishing and
that we came out to get some trout for your father, who is sick and
needs tempting, that being your excuse for my leaving work?”

Then they glanced at one another, laughing; the trout went into the
creel, and the soft wind came down with the stream, laden with fragrance
of grape flowers and the courting ecstasies of birds, then escaped from
the trees, and was spread over the low meadows to the eastward, making
low music in the long grass, fit accompaniment to the bobolinks that
soared from it, singing.

Two more trout were caught in quick succession, then luck and the
morning turning together, the pair came out into the open fields under
the shade of a group of old willows, to free themselves of the weight of
rubber boots, and allow Eileen to rest a few moments after the rough
tramp down stream that had been half climbing and half wading.

May was withdrawing her veil, woven of apple blossoms in a green mist of
unfolding leaves, to reveal June’s young splendour, and for the two
sitting under the willows it was also early June; they were the children
of neighbours, and though their parents were of widely different
fortunes, they had been friends since Eileen had caught her first
sunfish on a pin and string arrangement, rigged by Ernest, and he, for
inattention to his lessons, had been forced to wear her pink shirred
sunbonnet at school.

Her father was a promoter and politician; his, a farmer and wagon-maker,
who, following an oft-repeated story, died just as his son had begun to
work his way through college. How often Eileen and he had planned what
he would do and be when this was accomplished, and she had done once and
for all with the city boarding school to which her mother’s, rather than
her father’s, ambition had consigned her. Now she had accomplished in a
way and returned, but for family reasons Ernest Wray, a born book-lover,
was still plodding in the old paths of his father, the wagon-maker.

“You hear the wind in the grass when you do not hear what I say,” said
Eileen, presently, in a tone half laughing, half pettish, as Ernest,
placing the creel in the water to keep the trout fresh, secured it from
floating away with a stone.

“Come and sit where you must look _at_ me and not beyond or through me,
and answer the question I asked you half an hour ago. When does the Boy
go to his mother’s people, so that you can carry out your plans?”

“Did you ask me that before?” said Ernest.

“Perhaps not in the same words, but the meaning was the same.”

“Then I did not hear you, for I thought you said _our plans_, Eileen.”

To the man, the girl stood for everything that beckoned him into the
future; to the girl, the man at this time was an indispensable comrade
when she was at home, upon whom she was eager to practise certain
school-taught theories. Her influence over him fed a growing vanity,
standing in the place of love, of which, as yet, she had really no
comprehension.

“Put it any way you choose, only tell me when you are going to send the
Boy to his relations,” she said, this time in a voice of assurance. “I
suppose it is too late now to rent the farm and sell the business before
autumn. Of course you are four years too late for college, but you might
still manage the law school. Father thinks that the trolley line through
the upper road into Bridgeton is an assured thing, and that before long
your farm could be turned into money for house lots; that is what we
mean to do with our land.”

“There is one unsurmountable objection to my doing all this, Eileen,”
said Ernest, speaking slowly, that his voice might not tremble; “I am
not going to send the Boy to his mother’s people, and I hope to sell
neither the farm nor the wagon shop for many years to come.”

Eileen stared at him in speechless amazement for a moment, when a new
idea came to her.

“Then your father left more money than was supposed, so that you can
send the Boy to school and keep the place while you study, though I
don’t see why you should bother with either him or it,” she said, half
angrily. “Surely, after being tied, all your life, to this hill country,
where nothing ever happens, you must long to get away as much as I do.”

“And you wish to get away? Of course you will like to travel, but not to
go away for good? Would you like to see your homestead cut up and the
brook turned into a drain for a new village?” he asked, quickly drawing
his eyes from hers to follow the stream.

“Of course it’s a lovely old place, and I’ve had lots of good times
there, but I’ve never expected to live in Oaklands all my life. Yes, I’m
even willing to go for good and all, I think, quite for the sake of
going. You know you were to come, too, and do fine things that should
get in the newspapers. Oh, Ernest, have you forgotten all the plans we
made before they built the sawmill dam, and we used to canoe from the
Ridge falls quite down to Moosatuck?”

The momentary warmth in her voice made him flush, even as he took a new
hold on himself to keep back the words that struggled for speech.

“No, Eileen, there is no more money than people thought, nor even as
much. The farm must be worked, and the wagon shop also, to give us a
living.”

“But why should you support the Boy,” she interrupted, growing
incoherent through her disappointment, “just because your father, when
he was past sixty, chose to marry a young woman from nobody knows where,
and then both died and left the Boy, only seven years old, who has no
claim on you, to drag you down? For father told me last night what I
never knew before, that house, land, and business all came from your
mother’s people.”

The man tingled hotly to know that his neighbour had been discussing the
intricacies of his family affairs with Eileen, but in another light it
gave him comfort. Her hardness toward the Boy was undoubtedly caught
from her father, not born of her own feelings. But she, lashing herself
more and more, persisted in her question: “Why should you support the
Boy? Why do you not send him to his mother’s people, if she had any?”

“Because I love him, Eileen, and he loves me and needs me. Young as he
is, he stifles his loneliness lest it should trouble me, or his mother
‘hear and be too sorry,’ as he puts it.” Ernest spoke quietly, all the
uncertainty that had swayed him ending. “His mother’s people live in a
crowded city. The Boy has an active mind in a frail body; he needs fresh
air and a quiet life if he is to live to manhood, Dr. Russell says;
shall I refuse him the chance?”

“And lose your own?”

“Possibly; if only one of us can have it, why not he as well as I?”

“What do you mean to do if you stay here? How can you keep house?”

“Turn the farm largely to fruit, and with helpers enlarge the wagon
shop; in spite of cheap Western makers, there is a good demand for
hand-made work wagons. As to the house, Aunt Louisa Taylor will care for
it, and between us, God willing, we will make the Boy into a man and let
him go to college for me. Do you know, Eileen, that a good many of the
world’s best soldiers have gone to the fight as substitutes for those
who could not, and the work was better done than it would have been by
those who grieved because they could not go?”

“Have you lost all your ambition, Ernest? Can you be content with such
an empty life? If any tongue but yours had told me of this absurd
sacrifice, I would not have believed it.”

“Not _all_ my ambition; I still have my books, and I can buy others. I
have my rod and my gun, and all outdoors, besides the Boy, and—memories
of what, until to-day, I thought might be. I believed that you cared for
me, Eileen, that you liked our old hills and their life; I thought that
you, too, loved the bird on the wing and the sound of the wind in the
grass. I knew that you would go away to travel for a long while,
perhaps, but I thought you would want to return.”

“I do care, Ernest, that is, in a way; but there must be something else
to do in my life besides merely caring. Father is going to take mother
and me abroad this summer. I was keeping it a secret to tell you to-day,
for I thought that you might join us; I’m so disappointed;” and the
golden head buried itself in the slender arms that were clasped about
the mossy stump of a fast-vanishing willow, and tears washed away the
steely look that sometimes crept into Eileen’s gray eyes.

As she crouched thus, a change seemed to come over the perfect June
morning; ragged clouds edged with rain came out of the west and darkened
the sun; the singing wind turned to a gale that beat a path before it
through the ox-eye daisies, and the ripening wild strawberries looked
like blood drops in the grass.

The change came and passed rapidly, and with it Eileen’s emotion, and in
a moment more they were strolling uphill toward her house as though
nothing had happened. True it was she could not picture Oaklands without
Ernest; that is, Ernest the man in the open, clad in his loose brown
suit, carrying rod and creel, a figure that her imagination turned into
a hero of romance. But the other Ernest, the man of the wagon shop,
sweat drops on his forehead and uprolled sleeves, superintending some
manipulation that he would not leave to the judgment of his workmen,
repelled her forcibly. It was this second man that she wished to conceal
from her friends of school and city. Many other women in country towns
have felt this way at twenty-two. That individual work of the hands has
fallen into disrepute is the fault of a feminine point of view as well
as the encroachment of machinery.

                 *        *        *        *        *

“When are you going away?” Ernest asked, as he paused at the kitchen
door and transferred the trout, wet moss and all, from the creel to the
dish that Eileen brought. It was an old-fashioned blue and white platter
with cut-off corners; in the centre was the picture of a ruined castle,
while the border was wrought in a shell pattern. Ernest had doubtless
seen it many times before, yet in the brief moment while he laid the
trout upon it every unimportant detail was fixed in his memory, together
with the outline of the ten pointed, flexible fingers, tanned with the
morning’s fishing, that held the dish.

“Won’t you come in and see father?” Eileen said, without looking up. “He
frets so at having to keep upstairs; only indigestion and overwork with
his head, the doctor says. This was the beginning of the idea of the
trip abroad, and at first, father wouldn’t go, but when he found that he
could combine business with the journey, he changed his mind.”

“Not to-day, Eileen, it’s nearly noon.” He might have added that the
great work wagon made for Mrs. Jenks-Smith of the Bluffs was to be sent
out that afternoon, and that he must go over every bolt and screw, after
his father’s habit, before it was delivered; but he refrained, as well
as from saying that the Boy would be waiting for him to come home to
dinner.

                 *        *        *        *        *

“Why didn’t Wray come in to dinner, and where is Eileen?” asked her
father of her mother, as an hour later he finished the second of the
delicately broiled trout with a relish that belied the symptoms of
indigestion.

“He was busy and couldn’t, and she’s downstairs writing letters, to see
if she can’t get one of her classmates to join our trip and make a
fourth; she thinks it makes pleasanter travelling.”

“Then she couldn’t coax Wray to go. Well, I’m glad; I thought he’d too
much sense to loaf about all summer, as I must. I hope they haven’t
quarrelled and she’s turned him down.”

“I thought that and put the question to her, but from what she says, I
guess he didn’t give her the chance. I think she’s vexed because he
intends to stick to the farm and wagon shop and keep his stepbrother
here, and I don’t blame her; a girl with her schooling and a father like
you can look higher than a man who works with his hands, even if he has
got a whole room full of books and goes down to read Shakespeare and
nose out county history that had much better be forgotten with Martin
Cortright. Eileen’s handsome, and she’s got a tongue in her head;
there’s no knowing what may happen or who she may meet in travelling, or
visiting some of her friends that are scattered all over the country.”

“Nonsense; I know very well what I _don’t_ wish to have happen. Wray is
worth ten of the pretty boys that lounge about nowadays, and haven’t
enough grip either of body or brain to stick to anything.”

Mrs. March, however, did not argue; she had no capacity for it, having
had pretty much her own way through life by the mere force of inertia.
She had cherished romantic ideals in her youth, but not to the extent of
marrying one of them. In fact, she had named her only daughter for the
heroine of a novel over which she had shed many comfortable tears, and
fortunately, Eileen, of a slimness and fairness hitherto unknown on
either side of the family, had grown into the name. Mrs. March was the
typical American woman of a country town who has means enough to go to
New York at intervals, who after forty regards Europe, indefinite and at
large, as the one aim and end of life and needed rest, but who, owing to
a limited intelligence, returns from _the_ tour sadder, much wearier,
but in no way wiser than when she left, in spite of a miscellaneous
collection of photographs and guide books.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Ernest Wray walked slowly uphill, his house being on the main road above
the Marches’, while the acres belonging to it climbed one above the
other, over the Ridge and down the other side. This road was the highway
between Banbury and Bridgeton, and there was a cheerful amount of
passing on it. As he pushed open the front gate, he looked about the
yard for the Boy, but saw no signs of him. A pair of setter pups came
from the porch to meet him, stumbling over their own great soft paws,
and fastening their sharp first teeth in his trouser hems, pulling him
backward at the same time that their shrill barks welcomed him.

Aunt Louisa Taylor (so called because she had ushered Ernest, as well as
most of the younger portion of the community, into the world) was
setting the dinner table in the little room out of the summer kitchen,
whose windows disclosed a view of both ranges of hills and the valley
between.

No, she had not seen the Boy; he had gone to look for wild strawberries
with Jeptha Lewis’s children a couple of hours before, Jeptha being the
head workman in the wagon shop. As she spoke, Ernest heard footsteps in
the room overhead, which was his own; and so he hastened upstairs,
calling the Boy’s name, which was Asa, after his father, though when
people spoke of him among themselves, they usually said the Boy, because
it seemed to distinguish this child of an old man from all other boys of
the neighbourhood.

No answer came, so going to the Boy’s room, the great south chamber that
had been the child’s mother’s, and finding it empty, Ernest went on to
his own, where in a heap on the floor, his head buried in the
white-knitted quilt, half crouched, half knelt the Boy. At first Ernest
was startled, thinking the child was ill, or had perhaps picked and
eaten something poisonous. But as he turned his face up to his
half-brother, the expression was of misery of mind, not body.

Sitting in the low rush-bottomed rocker, Ernest drew the Boy to him
tenderly, so that the pale, downcast face rested against his shoulder.
Raising it gently in his hands, he said, “What is it, Asa? tell big
brother.”

“I can’t, oh, I can’t say it,” sobbed the child, yet without shedding a
tear. “It’s the Brown boys that told me, and their mother _knows_ it’s
true.”

(As the widow Brown had made desperate but unsuccessful efforts to
become his housekeeper instead of Aunt Louisa, and annex her unruly
brood to his household, Ernest quickly conjectured the report that had
reached the Boy.)

“Very well, then, if little brother cannot say it, big brother must try;
only look up and say Yes and No, so that he may know that he is guessing
right. They said, perhaps, that I am going away and that you are going
to live far off with strangers?”

“Yes.”

“They said that everything here belongs to me and nothing to you?”

“Yes.”

“They told you that one day I would marry some one who was very
beautiful, like a princess in a fairy tale, and that I should not care
for you any more?”

“Yes, oh, yes, that was the worst of all!”

“I have also heard all this, but it is not true.”

“Not even a word, brother?”

“Not even a word.”

“And you want me for always?” said the child, now standing before him
and searching the man’s very soul with his solemn brown eyes.

“Only God and your mother know how much.”

“Can I bring my bed right in here close to yours, and put my story-books
in the little shelves by yours, and just keep that big lonely room to
play in when it’s wet? Yes?”

Then, clasping his arms tight around the man’s neck in an ecstasy of
relief, he whispered, “Can I have one more wish, just one more?”

“What is it, Boy? You must name it first, in fair play, you know.”

“May I call you daddy? Boys can have lots of brothers, but a daddy’s
very special, and there’s never only one of him, just like you.”

Ernest waited a moment before he answered, for something swayed him that
was stronger than his will, impelling him to cry out, “No, not that!”

And then he whispered back, “Yes, Boy, from now on;” and clasping the
child in a way that almost hurt, he kissed him on the forehead.

Thus was the compact sealed.

The tension over, the Boy, who could not realize what the other’s
promise meant, speedily became a child again, and freeing himself,
cried, “Now I shall be here to see the Thrashers hatch out; there’s four
eggs in the nest in last year’s pea brush down by the fence; do let us
go over and see them, Daddy; if we don’t poke them, they won’t mind.”
Then, as they looked across the fields, the Boy laid his cheek against
the man’s, and nestling, murmured in a voice of deep content: “Isn’t it
a lovely, lovely day, and everything is so happy. Listen: now I can hear
the wind talking in the grass, just as you say it talks to you.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

The summer hurried on and slipped away, as it has a way of doing after
the rose and strawberry have held their garden carnival, where each
crowns the other.

In July the Marches went abroad. Ernest had not broken his habit of
dropping in at his neighbour’s house, but he had seen less and less of
Eileen, who, very naturally, was absorbed in her preparations and the
visit of the young woman who was to be her companion. Before leaving,
Eileen had sent Ernest a photograph of herself taken in the filmy summer
gown she had last worn. Why she did it, she herself could not have told;
neither could Ernest have fathomed her motive if he had tried.

He was about to slip the card into a drawer, then hesitated, and taking
from his mantel-shelf in the living-room a picture of Eileen at sixteen,
plump, wide-eyed, and serene, for which, at the time, he had carved a
somewhat clumsy frame of tulip wood, he substituted the new picture of
the lovely, graceful woman with birdlike poise of head and expression,
for the old, placing it on his desk.

The Boy, coming in, spied the photograph, and always alert for new
impressions, climbed on a chair to look at it, crying, “Oh, Daddy, isn’t
this Eileen pretty? She looks up at me just like Pandora peeping up from
the box, or a wood-thrush when it’s going to sing. She’s prettier than
the Sleeping Beauty in my book. I want to take her up to live on our
bureau and be our fairy Princess; may I?”

And the man, wishing to say No, as in many other things the boy asked,
answered, “Yes.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

Autumn came—and winter. The Boy began to thrive so well that even
father marvelled at the change; there was no outdoor sport fit for his
age that Ernest did not enter with him, and the long evenings were
filled with delight drawn from all of childhood’s countries, Fairyland
being not the least. Christmas was the time set for the Marches to
return, but new business at Washington claimed the father, and after a
brief week spent in house closing, mother and daughter joined him there;
and from that time Eileen came to be more and more of an unreality save
to the Boy, who seemed to regard her portrait as a living actuality and
the third person of the household, saying one day to the Man: “I’m going
to marry the Princess when I grow up if she will wait, and not grow old.
Do you think, Daddy, Eileen will ever be old like Aunt Louisa?”

“She will never grow old to me; she has stopped,” the Man answered.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The spring of the following year was cold and very wet, bringing more
illness than usual to the well-drained hill country, especially to the
children. There was scarlet fever at Bridgeton, and some one brought it
to the Ridge School, the Boy being one of its first victims.

“Who is going to nurse the Boy?” asked father. “Aunt Louisa is too old,
and no risk must be taken with him. His bed must be moved into the large
room with the open chimney, and a log fire kept on the hearth. Would you
like me to send over a trained nurse from the Bridgeton Hospital?”

“I will care for him,” said Ernest, setting about the preparation of the
room as quietly as a woman could.

That night began a siege that lasted for weeks that seemed like years:
on one side deafness and blindness in league with death, on the other
side Nature, the doctor, and the Man, while between them lay the Boy.

From the end of the first week the doctor came twice daily, then
followed nights when he never went away. Meanwhile, the Man prayed
wordless prayers, fought on, refusing to be discouraged, seeming to
infuse his own vitality into the Boy’s failing pulse by sheer force of
will. Yet all this time the doctor dared not look him in the eyes, so
fierce their agonized questioning.

Then at last Nature first routed death, and then slowly, one by one, the
others of his train, until one soft, mild day in early April the Man
carried a bundle rolled in blankets and, partly unfolding it, set it in
the big chair in the sunny corner of the south porch, where, from above
the wrappings, two great brown eyes looked out, and the voice of the Boy
said clearly, if faintly, “Why, Daddy, I’m so surprised, it’s spring
again; and the robin’s sitting tight on her nest, so there must be eggs
in it.” Then, lying back, he closed his eyes, with a sigh in which both
weakness and content took part, his fingers, thin as birds’ claws,
seeking the Man’s, and twining themselves with his.

Presently he said, as if he had been thinking, “I’ve had a big long
sleep, I guess, and my throat hurt so, and when I was thirsty, I dreamed
that my mother used to turn over my pillow when it burned, and you
always came and gave me a cool drink. Did you, Daddy? Was it always
you?”

“Yes, always.”

“And did mother turn my pillow? Did you see her?”

“I did not see her, Asa, but then she may have been there; you know the
room was often dark.”

“Everything is normal now,” the doctor said that evening when he came
in; “in another month, with fresh air and careful feeding, the Boy will
be quite himself again.”

Then at last the sluice-gates opened, and the waters of sorrow and joy,
so long pent up, rushed forth, and the Man stood before the doctor, his
arm before his face, sobbing like a woman.

At first, the doctor was minded to steal away, then, realizing the nerve
strain Ernest had undergone, he laid his hand upon the arm to urge him
to go to bed, and repressed a start, for the flesh burned under his
touch. Worn out by his vigil and carelessness of self, the Man had
caught the fever.

“But I cannot go to bed; the Boy is only half out of the woods even
now,” protested Ernest, as father told him of his condition in as few
words as possible.

“Do not worry about him,” said father, cheerily. “I will fumigate his
things to-morrow and take him down to our house and Mrs. Evan’s care if
it is necessary, I promise you.” So the Man yielded to the weariness
that weighed him down, and soon, in his turn, was tossing in delirium,
not knowing that a white-capped nurse was caring for him as he had cared
for the Boy.

The fever itself had taken but a slight hold on Ernest; it was the other
spectres, worse than death, that threatened him, Deafness and Blindness;
his parched throat and tongue refused to form coherent sound, as he lay
there with bandaged eyes and ears, that surgery had rendered wholly deaf
in the one hope that Nature might repair the necessary wounds.

As the fever left, and consciousness returned to stay, loneliness
possessed him, entire and complete; except through the sense of touch,
he was utterly isolated from his kind.

The days went by, until one came, after the pain had left his eyes, when
they removed the bandages cautiously, and he saw the chintz figures of
the wall-paper in the partly darkened room, and heaven itself could not
have seemed a fairer vision.

Presently they let him read, a few words at a time, and the nurse wrote
answers to his various questions on a pad that she kept upon the bed;
but oftentimes, when he thought that he was speaking, he had in reality
made no sound, for he could not hear his own voice.

They brought the Boy, now fast gaining colour and strength, in to
reassure him, and Asa, who smiled and puffed out his cheeks to show how
he was gaining, left in his hand a little bunch of pansies and hardy
English violets. The Man pressed them to his face, but scent was as dead
as sound. Would he never again hear the wind in the grass, or Eileen’s
voice laughing as they went fishing and the fish slipped the hook? Then
it came to him, who for a moment had forgotten more recent events,
remembering only the past, that hearing had nothing to do with this.

May fluttered past the Man as though on the wings of many birds. The
sight of the lilacs under the window, and the apple blossoms scattered
through the valley, were his portion of it, and the blood in his veins
seemed to grow warm again and his heart began to take courage. The
horses were plodding to and fro, ploughing the river meadow, but he did
not ask who was guiding the work, or whether the men at the wagon shop
were idle or busy; his head was still tired, so tired that he had
scarcely the strength to think.

“You must try to rouse him now,” said the specialist, who was watching
the unresponsive ears, to father; “with bodily health the hearing will
return.”

It was June when he first crawled down the narrow stairs and took the
Boy’s seat in the sunny porch, near which his dinner was spread by Aunt
Louisa, who bustled about him affectionately, trying by gesture, as well
as by written words, to raise his curiosity to the point of questioning
how they were managing without him.

Every few days the Boy came with the doctor, now bringing him some
little thing that he had made, or a bunch of wayside flowers. One day he
brought a knot of white musk roses fastened together with grass. The Man
caught at them eagerly, for such grew in the old garden at Eileen’s.
Burying his nose in them, their fragrance penetrated the awakening
sense, the same moment that a high-pitched peal of the Boy’s laughter,
as he made the young dogs do their tricks, reached his ears. Ah! blessed
Mother Nature, who had day and night been knitting, knitting, to rejoin
the severed nerves and tissues that they might carry the messages to the
brain once more!

Strawberries were ripe and passing, and the blush rose on the kitchen
porch was shedding its satin petals when the Man said abruptly to
father, who had this day come without the Boy: “When may Asa come home,
Dr. Russell? It is a shame to trouble your daughter any longer, and
besides, I need his company. I’ve been over the farm to-day, and
to-morrow I shall go outside to the wagon shop; yes, to-morrow I must
take up life again.”

“Trouble my daughter—Mrs. Evan?” stammered the doctor, as though taken
by surprise. “Why—oh, yes, to be sure, I’ll bring him over to-morrow,
and perhaps I can persuade his foster-mother to come, too, and render an
account of him.”

But on the morrow, the Man did not go to the wagon shop as he had said;
the day was sultry, and showers threatened, so he wandered down “cross
lots” until he met the trout stream, and quite unconsciously followed it
until he came upon the group of old willows, under whose shade the old
Eileen had vanished.

It was not until he had almost reached the trees that he noticed there
were people there, picnickers, probably, yet something led him to pause
and look again. Surely, it was the Boy lying upon the grass, with eager
upturned face, listening to some one who was evidently reading aloud;
but though figure and book were in sight, foliage concealed the face.
Another step, and he saw that the reader was Eileen.

The Man must have cried out, for instantly the pair started, and the
light fell full upon Eileen’s hair and face, the same as of old, and yet
not the same, while the boy came bounding toward him, calling, “Oh,
Daddy, so you’ve found out at last where the Princess and I come to read
every day!”

“The Princess! How came she here?” said the Man, sick at heart, for he
thought the strange haunting dreams of his illness were coming back.
“She does not live here now.”

“She didn’t,” cried the boy, babbling on eagerly, as he pulled the Man
under the willows, “but they all came back here after you got sick, and
my Princess took me up there to live with her in their house; the doctor
let her, and we’ve been playing a fairy story all the time, and she’s
been, oh, so very good to me, Daddy. She’s made me custard and cookies,
and sang me to sleep when my legs ached from forgetting how to walk; ’n
besides, her father told Peter how to plant the fields, and he’s set
Jeptha figuring on an awful lot of wagons. But I’ve forgotten, I wasn’t
to tell, I wasn’t to tell, because in fairy stories, if you tell, the
lights go out and everything stops. Oh, Princess and Daddy, play you
didn’t hear. Oh, don’t let it all stop!” and the Boy clasped his hands
tightly, while an agony of fear passed over his sensitive face.

But the Man had ceased to hear him. Taking two steps that brought him
face to face with Eileen, he paused and stood looking down at her, and
his expression checked the Boy’s tongue.

“Is this all true?” he almost whispered, and as he spoke he grew white
to the lips and reeled.

“Sit down upon the bank; you have walked too far and you are faint,” she
said, spreading a shawl that lay beside her on the grass. He dropped to
the seat she offered, but never took his eyes from her own, over which
the lids drooped lower and lower.

“Is it true?” he repeated.

“We came back in April,” she answered softly.

“Why?”

“Because I saw in the home papers that you were ill, and—I wanted to be
near.”

“Why, again?” he questioned, almost cruelly, but now he had reached a
point where he could bear no uncertainty, no mere palliation.

“Because, Ernest, though I know that there are many other things in life
besides caring,—caring is best;” the drooping lids rose slowly, and the
gray eyes looked fully and frankly into his. Then, dropping on her knees
beside him, she cried passionately, as she circled with a gesture all
the beauty round about, “Can you hear, can you see as you used? Ah, I
have been so horribly afraid!”

Clasping his long, thin fingers, that would tremble, about hers, the Man
drew Eileen toward him; “I can hear the wind in the grass, I can see
what lies behind your eyes, Eileen; do I need more?”

                 *        *        *        *        *

“You won’t let the fairy story stop? Please promise you won’t,”
interrupted the Boy, unable to wait longer for his answer.

“Part of it must,” answered Eileen, “because you see, Boy, the Princess
who wished to live in a story-book, has turned out to be merely a
woman—” “For the sake of her lover who was not a prince,” added the
Man.

Then, as the Boy looked at them, the comprehension of it all slowly
beamed from his solemn eyes.

“Then I must choose you a new name,” he said.

“Yes, Boy, surely; what shall it be?”

“I will call you Mother, because I love you,” he said very slowly. “Then
when other children say it, it won’t hurt me so here,” pressing his
hands to his throat; “and my real mother away up there will hear and
know that I’m not lonely any more, and that will make her glad.”

And the wind blew on through the wild grass, where never a scythe came
to end the song!




                                  VII
                            THE SIMPLE LIFE


                          =AN EPISODE OF JULY=

                           THE MIDSUMMER MOON

When Rodney Kent, known as Billy, and Marjory, his wife, instead of
taking a honeymoon abroad, immediately tied themselves down by
purchasing a very modest house on the west slope of the Oakland Bluffs,
their friends held up their hands and rolled their eyes in astonishment.

It is true that the couple themselves had never entertained a thought of
the European trip, but their friends, after seeing the amazing display
of wedding gifts, concluded that an expensive and protracted honeymoon
would be a fitting way to begin the state of life that living up to the
presents indicated. They did not formulate that Marjory was the last of
a large family whose parents had always lived quite up to their income
in rearing and educating their brood, or that Billy, with a host of
friends, naturally hospitable and all doors open to him, was as yet only
a confidential clerk in a law firm in spite of the fact that the
distinguished chief, himself a bachelor until recently, treated Billy
like a younger brother.

The young couple, however, from the beginning had faced facts as they
were, for at their respective ages of twenty-four and thirty, they not
only had a goodish bit of common sense mingled with their affection, but
they had also seen more than one matrimonial shallop, at best equipped
only for still water and overloaded with unsought responsibilities,
founder pitifully in the cross currents of the social sea.

The house had at once absorbed all of Kent’s savings, and was
consequently, unlike a city apartment, an object to be considered
seriously. This was the attitude that his men friends held toward the
venture; neither did it seem strange to any one of the twoscore of
assorted male temperaments that the couple should desire to spend their
first summer entirely away from the paths of conventional social
restraint. All the criticism, of which there was a belated April shower,
mingled with not a few hailstones, came from the bride’s friends, her
own elder sister Agatha taking the lead by saying to a select few who
had dropped in a couple of weeks after the wedding to talk it over and
hear the latest news of the bride, that Marjory seemed determined to
slump, and had no sense whatever of the duties she owed society. While
that any woman with her wedding presents, possessing a grain of pride,
would try to make a front during the first year at least, adding as a
final thrust, “So selfish in Marjory, short-sighted too; she’ll ruin
Billy’s prospects for a place in the firm by keeping him away from all
his friends. If they had only taken a smart little apartment, they would
have been able to give half a dozen select dinners before the season
breaks, and possibly they might have managed to get the Head of the Firm
and his wife to come to one, and see the silver service he sent them, or
at least give them a return invitation, for if Mrs. Coates should take
up Marjory, you know their fortune, social and financial, would be
made.”

“Marjory can entertain in the country quite as well as in town, and it’s
far less stuffy from now on; it’s almost May, you know,” said little
Mary Taylor, called Pussy from her demure and confiding ways, which none
the less covered sharp, if delicately pointed, claws, when their use
became necessary for the defence of her friends; she had been maid of
honour at the wedding, and was a staunch friend of the bride.

“You know English couples often borrow a country house from friends to
settle in for the honeymoon, if they’ve none of their own,” she
continued. “There is nothing lovelier than a newly furnished country
house, all white enamelled furniture, flowered chintz, and muslin
draperies, with the maids in light blue or pink chambray and ruffled bib
aprons; besides, Agatha, you know that to be asked to a week-end party
is more of a compliment than a dinner. I shall make Margie invite me to
the very first of them. Then, of course, she will be sure to go in for a
specialty,—golf, tennis, motoring, or the garden craze; everybody
rushes you out to see the garden now, and tells you how many loads of
earth it took to fill it in, and who the landscape architect was.

“I only hope Margie will have an English garden with wooden benches; the
seats in an Italian garden have no backs, and are _so_ cold if you sit
out in the moonlight, in a thin petticoat; and of course that’s one of
the things that one goes to week-end parties for, the moonlight
spooning, I mean.”

“You may banish all your pictures of that sort of thing,” said Agatha,
speaking in a tone in which mystery and disgust were blended. “There
will be no draperies or garden seats or maids; my sister has but _one_
person to do everything, an old black woman named Juno, who wears a
turban, and who, I believe, was Billy’s nurse. As for the house, it’s in
the middle of a field, with some gloomy woods behind it; there’s hardly
a thing in it but wall-papers, Japanese matting, and flower vases, for
Marjory has absolutely sent all of her magnificent silver and
bric-à-brac to storage at Tiffany’s. For the rest, they’ve a
ginger-coloured pony and an absurd buggy, by way of a trap, and I
shouldn’t be surprised to find that they all, including the pony, take
their meals in the kitchen, and that Billy wears an apron and waits on
Marjory and Juno, for she says they intend to lead the simple life this
summer. Think of it! Deliberately committing social suicide.”

Agatha’s voice had a tragic break in it. Poor Agatha, who had never
committed a social error in her life, and had made the most of
everything almost to the extent of separating a poached egg on toast
garnished with parsley into three separate courses, toast, egg, and
salad! Yet at thirty-eight she had acquired nothing but an equivocal
sense of correctness and a complexion that refused either to stand the
light of day or to receive graciously and absorb the improvers that the
owner lavished upon it.

Before Pussy Taylor or any one else could recover from their
astonishment, the door was flung open, the butler announced in his
formal drawl,—Mrs. Rodney Kent, and Marjory herself came in, stopping
short in the middle of the room with a quizzical expression as she saw
the very conscious faces of her friends.

“My dear,” purred Pussy Taylor, throwing her arms around the bride’s
neck, “you’ve come just in time to defend yourself. Oh, yes, of course
we were talking about you, and now, before you begin about the country,
we must know instantly why you have on your last spring suit, which is
of an entirely different shade of brown from this season’s wear, instead
of your lovely reseda going-away gown; what you are doing in the city at
five o’clock in the afternoon, when you are supposed to be wandering in
green lanes and picking violets hand in hand with Billy, who, every now
and then, kneels to tie your shoes; and lastly, why you are personally
conducting those three queer bundles, and what do they contain? I’m sure
if I had appeared at the front door similarly laden, that last butler of
Agatha’s training would have sent me to the basement.”

Marjory looked about for a safe place of deposit for her bundles, which
she finally confided to a tufted chair; then, throwing off her jacket
and drawing off her gloves very deliberately, she took the proffered
half of the seat that Pussy occupied by the tea-table.

Marjory was not what is commonly called a pretty woman; every feature
was alert and too well adapted for the expression of humour for mere
prettiness. A brunette of good colouring, she possessed that quality of
charm that no one denies, even while they cannot locate its exact
source. Matching her forefingers together, she began to count off the
answers to Pussy’s questions.

“Number one. I wore my old suit because this morning it looked like
rain; no one seems to bother much about rain in the city, but in the two
weeks we’ve been at Oaklands, I’ve learned to tell by the colour of the
morning sky, as we see it between two great trees on the hilltop, what
the weather is likely to be. This morning it said rain, and though it’s
held off all day, it’s beginning now.”

“Mercy me!” exclaimed Pussy, rushing to the window; “and my new lace
coat is shrinkable, and interlined with chiffon, to say nothing of my
maline hat. May I use the ’phone to call a cab, Agatha?”

“Secondly,” continued Marjory, “the Head of the Firm asked Billy, as a
favour, if he would come down to-day,—though he still has two weeks to
his credit,—for things were getting in a snarl. As I didn’t care to
stay alone, and needed some downtown things, I came, too, and where do
you think Billy and I lunched? In the private office of his Majesty, to
be sure.”

“What a common thing for you to do,” interrupted Agatha, “trailing into
the office after Billy and lunching with Mr. Coates before Mrs. Coates
has had a chance to make her wedding call.”

Marjory flushed, but without replying to the criticism, continued, “Then
after luncheon the Head of the Firm kindly offered to pilot me to do my
last errand, which was in a very mussy sort of street that ran west of
City Hall Park, and the result of the shopping is in those three boxes.

“Yes, Pussy, something breakable; I’ll give you three guesses. No? You
give it up? Well, then, the boxes are full of eggs. Plymouth rocks,
white leghorns, and buff cochins, each kind by itself. Not store eggs
for cooking, with some ingredients missing, but hatching eggs that will
turn into chickens; for it seems that they are quite different affairs,
and Mr. Coates explained the whole matter to me so nicely.” (“How
disgusting,” muttered Agatha.) “I find that he was brought up on a stock
farm, and expects to have a model one of his own as soon as he and the
Missus can settle upon a location.”

“Marjory Kent, will you please remember who you are, and refrain from
applying such a vulgar title to Mrs. Erastus Coates, whose mother was
Martin Cortright’s aunt, and her father a Philadelphia Biddle? Suppose
it reached her ears, do you think it would improve your prospects?”

“Me? Oh, that’s not original; I was merely quoting the Head of the Firm,
who called her ‘the Missus.’”

“I thought that no one used hens, and that all you had to do was to buy
a box full of eggs, called an incubator, and the lamp that goes with it
did the rest,” said Pussy, wisely, for she sometimes read the
advertisements in her brother’s sporting paper.

“An incubator,” said Marjory, blind to the looks of boredom on the faces
of her friends, “puts all the responsibility upon us, and unnecessary
responsibility is what we are planning to avoid, for this summer at
least. So as we have three very broad-chested, comfortable hens, who are
simply ‘creaking’ with a desire to set, as Juno the cook puts it, we are
going to supply them with good food and a nest of eggs apiece, and let
them take the responsibility.

“Do we care to raise poultry and things? We don’t know; who was it that
said, ‘We know what we are but not what we may be’?”

“Juliet,” cried Pussy.

“No, Ophelia,” said Agatha; “you might know that in Marjory’s present
state of mind she would only quote a mad woman!”

“Whichever it is, that is our present condition, for we may develop a
liking for anything simple! So we shall try chickens and see, and that’s
another thing that we’re going to do this summer,—try to find out what
we really like to do. Billy says that the best beginning is to do
nothing that we are sure we dislike.”

(“And lose all your friends in the process,” growled Agatha.)

“That sounds comfy, but meanwhile aren’t you going to fix up your house,
and ask us all out there by nicely chosen twos or fours?” pleaded Pussy.
“Surely all this stuff about no maids and the simple life that Agatha
has been telling us isn’t true; you will have tables and chairs and
beds, and not expect us to sleep on the matting, with our heads on
blocks, like the Japs?”

“It won’t be quite as simple as that, though I don’t know exactly what
Agatha has said; merely, as I told you before, we are going to try to
avoid unnecessary responsibility in everything, and keep the time we
gain for ourselves. Possibly, after all, that is what is really meant by
the simple life.

“To have no maids wouldn’t be doing that. Juno is a treasure, and to
have no cook would be putting an awful responsibility upon me; while if
I had to get up and make early breakfast for Billy every morning, it
would be putting upon him the responsibility of tiring me out. We’re not
going to ask a human being to visit us, for then we should be
responsible if they didn’t like our ways, but to any one who takes the
initiative of inviting themselves, we shall be as nice as we know how.
And mind you, Pussy, if guests come in pairs, and choose the full o’ the
moon, we’ve a lovely comfortable bench that we bought of a pedler. It is
set nearly on the edge of the woods, where it’s all ferny and sweet
smelling, and quite out of sight of the house. If our guests, who invite
themselves, choose to go there, of course we shan’t have to be
responsible for what happens! Now I must run up and see mummy, for
Billy’s coming for me in about five minutes, and I’ll give you a chance
to quiz him all you wish.”

“Hopeless,” sighed Agatha, despondently, as the door closed; “but what
can you expect when she was born eccentric?—and Billy always agrees
with her in everything. He even wears a long mustache when all the other
men of his class are smooth-shaven, simply because Marjory said she
could recognize him in the street two blocks sooner than if he were
without. There is one thing certain, _I_ shall not go to Oaklands unless
I have a proper invitation.”

“Perhaps,” Pussy began, and then choked and started again, “perhaps two
of you would like to drive up town with me. I see the cab is here, and
it’s more than a shower.”

No one else was ready to leave, however, and in going out, who should
Pussy bump into but the bridegroom, who was coming up the steps arm in
arm with another man, who at the sight of the now blushing Miss Pussy,
raised his forgotten umbrella, took her to the cab, and then concluded
that it would be only polite to shield her from the rain at the other
end of the route.

                               CHAPTER II

Marjory and Billy Kent were seated at their breakfast table, which,
indeed, was lunch and dinner table also, and was spread on the back
porch. The fact that it was Saturday, and therefore “Massa’s day to
home,” accounted for the way in which the pair were lingering over their
meal, as well as for the chuckling good nature of June, short for Juno,
who paused to gaze affectionately at “the chillun” every time she came
near the little window that connected the kitchen with this outdoor
dining room.

When the meal was once put upon the table, there was no need of further
service, for a revolving stand in the centre of the table brought
everything conveniently to hand. But still that did not prevent old June
from peeping.

As yet the rolling ground that surrounded the house on three sides was
billowy with long grass, and showed little sign of cultivation; on
either side of the steps was a wide bed of heliotrope, and another of
mignonette, and a soldierly line of sweet peas and other garden annuals
broke the stiffness of the path leading to the little barn that housed
horse, cow, buggy, and hay under one roof.

“What are you thinking of, Marjory Daw?” asked Billy, looking up from
his newspaper at the face that was looking contentedly into space. Yes,
Billy Kent read the newspaper at the breakfast table, as he always had
done in his bachelor days. His wife would not dream of taking the
responsibility of upsetting the habit; in fact, she had grown to like
it, especially as he often read bits of interesting news that might
otherwise have escaped her.

“I was thinking of three things together,” answered Marjory, smiling,
“waiting-maids, chickens, and cats.”

“Do you want a waitress?” said Billy, quickly. “I was thinking at this
very moment how jolly it is to be alone with ourselves, and perfect
freedom of speech between us. Somehow the desire for it is always
developed by eating!”

“No, I do not wish one. I was thinking the same thing when you spoke.
What is handing a few dishes through to June compared with having even
one’s unspoken thoughts read through your back, while as for fussing and
dusting up the living-room, I love it, for it gives one a chance to get
acquainted with one’s things, and see if they stand the test of being
either useful or beautiful. We need not use the dining room before
September, and by that time we shall have decided what not to put in
it.”

“But how about the chickens and cats?”

“I’ve made up my mind that I don’t care for them any more than
waitresses. You see, Billy, I’ve decided already that we only want to
grow things that are pleasant when they develop. Morning-glory seeds
grow into those lovely flowers that have transformed the clothes-poles
yonder (yes, they try to reach out and appropriate the clothes-line, but
I give them a warning pinch now and then); and tomato and lettuce seeds
turn into delicious salads; but the adorable fuzzy chicks turn to
broilers that have to have their heads cut off, and a cat turns into so
many kittens that they must be drowned. So we won’t have either of them
after this summer. A cow will stand the test, for she will not only look
well out there in the grass, but milk is such a peaceful, placid thing,
it makes me sleepy even to think of the sizzing it makes in the pail
when Peter milks.

“By the way, I’ve had a letter from Pussy Taylor; she will be in town
the last of the month for a few days between seashore and mountains, and
as she says she wants to come here, I’m dreadfully sure she will.”

“Why the word ‘_dreadfully_’? Isn’t she a very good friend of yours?”

“Yes, Billy; but somehow this summer is so perfect that I’m afraid it
isn’t real, and that somebody will come and wake me up.”

“It’s real enough, sweetheart, and will continue to be if we don’t
expand without knowing it and suddenly wake up and find that we have
dropped the oars and are being towed beyond our depth. Your father had a
talk with me about this country matter last week; he thinks that I am
making a mistake in living out of town, that I ought to be seen at the
clubs and dine people in winter; he is afraid that when in the future it
comes to the matter of a third partner, the Head of the Firm will think
that I spend too much time on the road for a junior, and jump over me
for an outsider; yet I know that I’ve never had so much time for sleep
and law reading these ten years. By the way, have you thought of a name
for the place? I’ll have you some paper stamped.”

“Yes, I’ve a name; it is ‘As _We_ Like It Inn,’ and I want it put on a
little swinging sign to hang by the front gate, and then the people who
come to stay with us will not be misled.”

“Talking of guests, there is one in particular that I want you to invite
in some perfectly informal way, and then make a special point of
treating precisely as if she were one of ourselves,” said Billy, with a
very conscious look, bringing out each word with such undue precision
that his wife stopped arranging the flowers in the bowl before her and
fixed her eyes suspiciously on his face.

“Who is it, Billy? Some one that either I probably never have thought
of, or else object to, or you would never hold on to your words so.”

“It is Mrs. Coates; she has been down to luncheon two or three times
lately, with the Head of the Firm, and she seems really interested in
our affairs and wants to know you; says she had no chance to call in
town, because we came here the very day of the wedding, so you see she
has really followed your rule and has as good as asked to come.”

“Yes, I see,” said Marjory, straightening herself, and all the
comfortable relaxation of mind and body at once leaving her attitude;
“and I suppose she will come here from that palace called a cottage at
Tuxedo, and find the rooms too small to breathe in.”

“If she does, keep her outside,” said cheerful, short-sighted Billy; “of
course you will lunch out here, and then if talk fails, you can take the
pony and drive her down to the Cortrights’ for a call; you know she is
Martin’s cousin. Naturally she won’t stay overnight; she hates, she
says, to sleep in strange places, and of course she couldn’t bring her
maid here and we have none to offer her.”

“Me have Mrs. Coates out here? I wonder what Agatha would say;” and then
Marjory realized that all such wonderments were things of the past, and
hastened to add, “The best way will be for me to write and give Mrs.
Coates the option of any day next week; then if it rains, the choice
will be her own. But Billy, don’t you think I had best open the dining
room? It’s hardly polite to ask her to lunch on this little round white
wood table as we do, with the dogs lying on the steps.”

“Don’t make the mistake of doing anything different, Margie. Can’t you
realize from even the little that you have been about for two years,
that a glimpse of really contented people, living unobtrusive lives, is
the greatest novelty you could offer her?”

                 *        *        *        *        *

In the modern garden of Eden, social judgment is the serpent, and social
ambition the forbidden apple, and at this moment an unexpected whiff of
wind brought the scent of this fruit to Marjory’s keen nostrils. Mrs.
Coates wrote an immediate reply that she would come the following
Friday, while Kent, the matter being settled, did not give it another
thought, except to take it for granted that when the wife of the Head of
the Firm once knew Marjory, she would be her friend for life.

                 *        *        *        *        *

When Billy returned home on Monday, he brought Marjory news that meant
their first separation. The Head of the Firm wished him to go on a three
or four days’ business mission of considerable importance, and Billy did
not attempt to conceal his elation at the fact. Marjory also entered
into the spirit of the occasion, and made no complaint about being left
alone; but when twilight closed in on Tuesday, and there was no one to
meet at the turn of the road, no one opposite at supper, and no glowing
firefly that marked the location of Billy and his cigar among the piazza
vines, it changed the aspect of things. That a first night of separation
is inevitable, does not make it any the less of a shock to the young
wife. Out of the gripping loneliness comes the wonder, “How did I live
before, and what should I do _if_—?” a question which is usually and
naturally drowned in tears.

Before the tears had more than started, however, Marjory jumped up with
a very resolute expression on her face, went into the house, lit the
lamp in the den, and finding her pad and pencil, seated herself in front
of the lamp, elbows on table, and gazed at the paper with the same blank
intensity that Agamemnon Peterkin’s face must have worn when he tried to
write a book to make his family wise, but discovered that he had nothing
to say.

But what Marjory failed to write down, she repeated to herself half
aloud: “It is all very well for Billy to say, ‘Don’t make any difference
for Mrs. Coates; I particularly want her to take us as we are, and I’m
sure she also would prefer it;’ the question is, would she? Luncheon
‘just as we are’ for Friday would be the peas and beans left from
Thursday’s dinner added to lettuce for a salad, bread and butter,
raspberries, and iced tea.

“Mrs. Coates will arrive at ten-thirty, then we will drive around by the
Cortrights’; by one she will be hungry, and I must at least add meat or
chicken to the menu; which shall it be? I think I’ll consult June.”

So saying, Marjory, glad of an excuse to talk to some one, went to the
kitchen porch, where sat that comfortable old aunty, rocking, fanning,
and crooning hymns to herself, and there laid the case before her.

Ah, little imps that sometimes climb up aloft and grin at those who,
mistaking you for cherubs, take your advice, why did it happen that the
master of the house was called away at this particular juncture?

“Missus Coates am sure one ob de quality, honey,” said June, unfolding
and setting in place her silver-bowed spectacles, even though it was
dark, and instantly being seized with a flow of language. “If she’s real
quality, I don’t allow it’s showin’ right ’spect and dignification to
Marsa Rod’s Bosses’s Missus to feed her with cole vittles on the back
stoop like she was hounds, even if you-all do like the airyation and
simplification ob it your two selves.

“Lor’, Miss Margy, do dress out de house a bit, and fetch out dem
weddin’ gifts dat outshun all de glories ob Solomon and was hid away so
quick dat folks hadn’t got through blinkin’ at ’em. Spread Missus Coates
a banquet ter bulge her eyes, and old June’ll do some tall cookin’. Den
sweep down dem stairs to fetch her in with a long-trailed skirt out
behind and a real lace hankerchief stuck in front just soppin’ with
perfummery. I tell you, Miss Margie, when Marsa Rod’s pa and ma down
Baltimore way done entertained the governor and his lady—”

But at this introduction to a recitation of Juno’s that was warranted to
last an hour in its most abridged form, Marjory interrupted her with,
“I’ll think it over and decide to-morrow; at least you shall make your
stuffed peppers and Creole chicken,” and then she fled to her own room
and locked the door.

Sleeping was an empty ceremony that night; instead, Marjory devised
plans for Mrs. Coates’s entertainment. By morning, all the pleasure and
originality of their daily life had apparently vanished, and Marjory had
resolved to leave her own coign of vantage and meet Mrs. Coates more
than halfway.

In the first place, she went to town and secured a trunk full of silver
from the safety vault, and then spent two nights in a fever of anxiety,
because for safe-keeping she had put the trunk under her bed. She
unpacked draperies from the attic chests, crowded all the ornaments into
the three rooms she expected to use, the dining room, living-room, and
den, before it occurred to her that if she was to have a luncheon of
many courses in the dining room she must also have a waitress, or
preferably two, to match the splendid silver service.

Where were waitresses to be found? After spending a hot and weary
morning scouring the neighbourhood, she finally discovered that the
niece of a near-by German truck farmer had “waited,” and the eldest
daughter of the family who worked on the adjoining place would like “to
learn”; so, telling them to come early the next morning to be
instructed, she repaired to Bridgeton for white aprons and caps, as she
found that both girls owned decent black gowns.

It must be confessed that the dining room had a very high-bred and
elegant air when the round table was spread with a lace-edged cloth, its
load of silver, cut glass, and candelabra with delicate green candles to
match the fern decorations. (Then, of course, it was necessary to draw
in the blinds, both to keep out the glare and give the candles a
chance.)

The German girl’s name was Gertie, and her American assistant,
apparently without good and sufficient reason, was called Sapphira. The
latter slipped into her costume with comparative ease, but poor Gertie
was innocent of corsets, and the apron bands and strings vanished
entirely at the waist line, causing the staying of the apron in position
to appear a feat of legerdemain.

This would not do, so Marjory rummaged out a pair of old stays of her
own, into which she coaxed the abundant but soft flesh of Gertie, who
looked on in dumb astonishment, only saying at the end, “Ver ist, where
has gone me?”

“Inside, I suppose,” answered Marjory, laughing; “for I’m sure none of
it has come off.”

On seeing the preparations for artificial light, Sapphira asked
confidingly: “Say, Ma’am, you must freckle awful easy. I wouldn’t have
thought it here indoors, though; Ma does, something awful, so I’ve knit
her wash cotton gloves to wear when she hangs out the clothes.”

When the two girls seemed to understand their duties, Marjory wisely
desisted, and left her instructions to sink in, her parting word being
that neither one was to speak unless she addressed her. Marjory had
thought of borrowing the Lathams’ motor to go to the train; she could
not force herself to that length, however, and compromised by sending
Peter with the buggy instead of going herself, while she put on one of
her trousseau gowns of mull and lace instead of the youthful duck skirt
and linen blouse of every day, which, though it added several inches to
her height, added ten years to her age.

When Mrs. Coates stepped from the buggy and came up the three steps,
Marjory’s feelings were mingled of relief and disappointment, for the
lady wore a plain skirt and coat of tan linen, and a very simple hat of
brown straw; so that the poor little hostess, in her trailing skirts and
high-wired collar, felt overdressed to the verge of rudeness.

The greetings being over, Mrs. Coates pleaded the heat of the cars and
the warning of a headache as an excuse for staying under the shade
rather than driving, and so they went to the side piazza, and began a
conversation that was made up largely of words wherein quantity took the
place of vital interest.

Mrs. Coates’s almost affectionate manner in greeting Marjory was
gradually losing its spontaneity; her husband had said, when she
proposed going to visit the Kents: “I want your judgment, my dear; I’m
thinking of taking Kent into the firm. As a man he’s all right, and he’s
full of praise for his wife and her inexpensive tastes; but I want _you_
to judge his wife before making the partnership proposition, for the
woman is usually the pacemaker of the pair, and if she’s the sort to try
and splutter all over the surface of society with a flash like fat
that’s jumped out of a frying-pan, it will not be good for either Kent
or my business.”

So Mrs. Coates was observing, and she in her turn was beginning to be
disappointed, for nothing could be more unlike her real self than
Marjory was that morning.

“Luncheon is served,” called rather than announced Sapphira, with the
air of a theatrical novice who has heretofore merely brought in a card
on a tray and is given her first lines, which are, “The Prince has
arrived,” and the break gave both women a feeling of relief.

Mrs. Coates turned and looked expectantly about the veranda, for Billy
had dwelt so much about the charm of their meals out-of-doors; but as
Marjory led the way into the shadowy dining room, where the two maids
stood motionless, she blinked once or twice, until she had taken in all
the surroundings, and then seated herself with a feeling somehow of
having been the victim of a hoax.

The table and room were both correct and charming, but so much like the
hundreds of others at which she had sat in houses both public and
private for many years, that she could almost tell with her eyes closed
the rotation of the dishes of the menu, from the little-neck clams to
the green mint frappé. She had dared to think that there was a young
woman who had stepped out of the flock of sheep, not only because they
ran too fast, but because she preferred not to flock. Well, it was
merely another shattered delusion; also knowing the Kents’ income to a
penny, she frowned on _two_ waiting-maids.

The luncheon progressed, likewise Mrs. Coates’s headache; she had long
ago acquired the necessary trick of using her fork so as to appear to
eat; but in reality she only took some salad, and secretly longed for
iced tea in place of the claret, while the conversation fast relapsed
into the discussion of the trivial events of the past winter, largely
composed of the names of people familiar to Mrs. Coates and only
slightly known to Marjory.

As the ice cream was in order, there came a sudden halt, while a noise
blent of choking and pounding came from the pantry. Finally, Sapphira
came in alone, bearing the cream dish upon the tray at a very tipsy
angle.

“Where is Gertie?” Marjory asked imprudently.

Setting the dish before the wrong person instead of passing it,
Sapphira, with arms akimbo, whispered with a hoarse fervour that gave
the words megaphone power:—

“She sampled one of them stuffed peppers on the sly, and near swallowed
it whole, but it wouldn’t go all down, and on account of those corsets
of yours being so tight, she can’t retch it up neither, though I’ve
slapped her back, and June’s going to cut the strings if you don’t mind,
’cause they’re all knotted.”

Horror surged over Marjory, the meanness and responsibility of deceit
almost overwhelming her; she dared not catch Mrs. Coates’s eye, yet a
sudden movement on that lady’s part made her look up, and she saw that
her guest was deadly pale.

“Might we have a little more air?” Mrs. Coates asked quietly.

“Open all the blinds to the east,” said Marjory.

Sapphira did as she was told, but in her turn became transfixed at
something she saw a field-length away. Suddenly she began to clasp her
hands and sway to and fro, crying, “Oh, ma’am! Oh, Mrs. Kent, little
Jimmy’s fell in the rain barrel, and I must go fish him out right off
and spoil your party.”

Then, turning, she whisked off her apron, threw it on a chair, clutched
at her cap, which had five wire hairpins to moor it, and crying, “I’ll
fetch it back when I’ve dried Jimmy and get it free,” she clattered down
the front steps and away.

Some women would have made a remark about the depravity of servants in
general, or said the girl had gone mad; others would have shed tears;
Marjory glanced at Mrs. Coates, and detecting a slight twitch at the
corners of her lips, burst into a peal of laughter, not hysterical
giggling, but genuine, unfeigned merriment, and at the outburst she was
herself once more.

Then in a few words Marjory confessed, ending with, “I’m sure I never
should have done such a thing if Billy had been at home and June had not
accused me of not treating you with dignification; but ah, how disgusted
with me Billy will be.”

“Is it absolutely necessary to tell him?” said the elder woman. “Yes, I
see by your face that for you it is, at least sometime.”

“You are ill; please come up and lie down and let me bring you a cup of
tea,” said Marjory, a few minutes later, as she noticed the shadows
under Mrs. Coates’s eyes, “and I’ll shut up this tell-tale room and put
it in order to-morrow.”

“I’m afraid if I do that I shall miss my train, for if I once give in,
these headaches always last until sunset.”

“Then please miss your train, and stay all night. Please let me
telephone home for you,” said Marjory, with a ring of sincerity in her
voice; “my little spare room isn’t a sham, and I can smooth headachy
foreheads beautifully, mummy used to say. If your head is better at
sunset, you can come to ‘just as we are’ tea on the porch, and Billy
will be home by then.” Then Marjory’s voice dropped to a sort of purr in
unconscious hypnotism. “A cool, thin wrapper—a cup of tea—and cologne
on your head? Yes? You will?”

Soon Mrs. Coates found herself relaxing under Marjory’s soft touch,
being gently undressed, and discomfort vanishing, while cool hands
unloosed her hair that had never been smoothed by a daughter, or touched
by unpaid help since she was a child.

                 *        *        *        *        *

“Oh, Billy, she came, she has a headache, she’s actually asleep up in
the spare room, and she’s going to stay all night; aren’t you pleased?”
was Marjory’s greeting, as she clung to his neck, and swiftly passed her
hands over his face as though she could not trust the evidence of her
eyes alone that he was all there.

“But, Billy, if I ever have quality company again, don’t go away.
It’s—I’m so silly, I mean nervous, you know.” Then she felt a desire
for time; and inwardly prayed that no ill chance should lead him into
that dining room just yet.

“Pleased? I should say I am, but it’s no more than I expected;” and in
this he was perfectly in earnest.

Then Marjory ran off, dragging him after her, for fresh sweet peas and
bluets to decorate the little white wood supper-table on the porch,
where in due time the wife of the Head of the Firm joined them,
refreshed, and her headache gone, while she delighted June by the
justice she did to her iced coffee and fried chicken, “Maryland style,”
as the bills of fare word it.

Marjory chancing to step indoors to light the lamp, Billy drew his chair
confidentially toward the lady of quality, for Billy was one of the rare
men who could always be confidential without giving offence.

“Don’t you see I didn’t exaggerate, Mrs. Coates, when I said that
Marjory and this sort of simple living were made for each other?”

“No, you didn’t exaggerate,” she replied, a little reminiscent smile
fluttering about her mouth. “You really underrated your wife, for you
did not tell me that she has a delicious sense of humour, a very good
quality for the wife of a lawyer who is about to become the junior
member of a prominent firm, and a quality of saving grace to be copied
by the lawyer himself.”

“Mrs. Coates, honestly, do you mean?—oh, there, I’m too cheeky to think
it; come out, Marjory Daw, and listen to this;” and Billy rushed to open
the screen door and fairly pulled his wife back to her chair, upon the
arm of which he perched.

“Would you like I should wash up all that load of dishes, Mis’is Kent? I
thought, as I lit out so sudden, I’d come back and offer,” said a voice
from the darkness, and Sapphira stumbled up the steps.

“All what dishes, and who is this?” asked Billy.

“It’s part of a little joke that I’ve asked your wife to keep quite
between ourselves for the present,” said the wife of the Head of the
Firm, tucking Marjory’s hand into her arm; “and if the Junior Partner is
willing to protect us, I feel quite like walking down to see Cousin
Martin Cortright and Lavinia.”




                                  VIII
                  THE ADOPTION OF ALBERT AND VICTORIA


                         =AUGUST=—THE CORN MOON

It all happened in August, the limp and lazy month of the year abhorred
by Martha Saunders, born Corkle. It surely requires a certain amount of
natural philosophy, adaptability to fruit and salad lunches, and an
aptitude for lounging in shady places and watching the grass grow, or
gazing through the trees skyward from the depth of a hammock, to make
August even a mildly pleasurable month. Night is August’s strong point;
her full moon sheds a placid coppery light, making the glistening green
of the cornfields, heavy in ear, look wet and cool; but in the daytime,
the Harvest Fly proclaims the heat insistently, mould born of heavy dew
invades the pantry, and the milk is curdled by the shock of frequent
thunder.

All the defects of the month sink into her soul, but for none of the
assuasions does English-born Martha care. She would not effect even a
temporary compromise with her sturdy red-meat diet; she considers
lounging of any kind a sin, and the very sight of a hammock calls up
most unpleasant memories.

The year that she married Timothy and left our house for the cottage at
the poultry farm on the hill above, I gave her one of these offending
articles to hang in the shade of some apple trees overlooking the coops,
thinking it would be a point of vantage for her. But no, the thing was
barely put in place and swaying in the breeze, when her substantial form
came from the house and stood before us, arms folded, head erect, but
eyes closed: “Mrs. Evan,” she said, moistening her lips conspicuously,
“I thank you kindly for your wish, but if it please you, Timothy shall
take _it_ down again, for those things are more than I can stand for.
Oh, yes, I’ve tried one, and when I was in it, I was minded of the ship
the morn after the third night out, which being a storm, the ’atches
were down and the smells not working out, took a good clutch on the
stummick, so that a fine cup of tea couldn’t find lodging there, the
ship still heaving short all the time; and no disrespect intended, Mrs.
Evan.”

As Martha came from a county in old England of peculiarly equable
climate, she lacked her usual energy in the New England August, and a
sort of mental prickly heat usually settled upon her, more trying than
the bodily variety. In fact, the most strenuous part of the season’s
labour was over: the early chicks were already broilers; the next group
were firm on their feet, and the late ones not yet to be set; while the
old hens spent all their time kicking up the dust and moulting with a
thoroughness sometimes embarrassing to the beholder.

By this time also the jam and jelly gamut had been run through
strawberries, currants, gooseberries, raspberries, and the rest, leaving
only peaches, the spicy beach plums, and quinces for the future, so that
Martha’s capable hands were fairly empty, save for the bit of housework,
and what was that with a husband as canty and well-drilled as Timothy?
Thus it came about that, into what should have been Martha’s vacation
time, unrest entered, and each year she managed to worry herself and
prod Timothy into the pursuit of some new scheme which, fortunately,
generally came to an end with the first cool day of autumn.

“The woman’s harvest spells” were what Timothy called this mild sort of
summer madness, and in speaking of it to father, he once said: “Of
coorse ye ken, Dochtor, that some weemen are mickle like their own
settin’ hens: when busy season’s over, they’r nae content to scratch
beetles in the bonny fresh grass in the pasture, and moult quiet like,
but they must raise up dust and maak the feathers fly. Hecht! Dochtor,
ye ken, ye ken, and naught said, I see it in yer eye!”

In one of these temporary summer periods, Martha had become a convert to
Christian Science, but backslid before winter, because she continued to
have the nosebleed, for which she had paid no small sum to be cured by
absent treatment, and about the failure of this method she expressed her
mind freely.

“Tush, tush, woman, and dinna fash yoursel,” said Timothy, with
twinkling eyes. “Doubtless they meant ye weel, but their minds was na
pooerful enoo to send the healin’ through sic braw oak trees as we hae
hereaboot! Man has to stick up poles like birds’ twigs to catch this new
no-wire telegraph, so mebbe had we a braw toor on the hoose to draw it
down, yer nose might catch the benefit o’ their far-away healin’!”

Then Martha sniffed and eyed her spouse dubiously, for his Scotch birth
should have made it impossible for him to joke, even though constant
contact with father and Evan had inoculated him with the tendency.

The next August it was the Salvation Army that stirred Martha’s
religious conscience, for she had two of these useful articles,—one
that guided her actions as regards life in general, and another that was
wholly devoted to the interests of her beloved Mr. Evan and his family.

She took this second conversion in a very matter-of-fact way, but
insisted that Timothy should go with her to some round-up meetings over
in Bridgeton. For a few weeks matters went well; Martha sewed violently
all through the sweltering days on shirts for reformed convicts, until
one evening a pretty lassie, young enough twice over to be his daughter,
had innocently asked Timothy to take part in a street service, at the
same time showing him how to pound and twirl a tambourine.

“I’ll not have my man made a monkey of, hussy! He’s as knowin’ as any of
your officers, if his figure is a bit warped,” she proclaimed, and
straightway left for home, declaring, as she crossed the threshold,
“Them as can’t hold to and be content with the Established Church of
England had better do without benefit of Gospel;” and Timothy, Dissenter
as he was, had cautiously responded “Amen!”

But this particular and unforgettable August, a far more serious
distemper had fallen upon Martha Corkle Saunders: the race suicide idea
had not only penetrated her brain, but had therein incubated to such an
extent that not only was Timothy’s peace of mind destroyed, but the
unrest of the situation enveloped us as well.

All normal women are more or less fond of children; and Martha, being no
exception to the rule, had alternately spoiled and ruled my Ian and
Richard until they had escaped from her as full-fledged schoolboys, it
being shortly after this time that the hysterical screed appeared.

Suddenly Martha fell into an attitude of melancholy self-reproach; she
was childless; and so was Timothy, and she immediately saw, as mirrored
in themselves, the extinction of the English race. In vain did I remind
her that as her first husband, “not being durable,” as she expressed it,
had lived but a short time, while she was well faced toward sixty when
she married Timothy, no reproach could be attached either to her
maternal instinct or to her race loyalty. My words fell unheeded. “Our
Queen,”[1] she replied, “had nine all by one marriage; she would expect
something of me,” and straightway fell to crying, a thing that Martha
had never been known to do before under any stress, either of joy or
grief.

“But what can you do?” I gasped; then an idea struck me; “it isn’t
possible that you are thinking of adopting a child at your age?”

“That’s my very mind, Mrs. Evan, that is, leastways, _children_, young
children, two at the very least, following out your own idea that an
only child is quite unfortunate, and no disrespect intended.”

“But do you realize what it means?” I pursued relentlessly; “your whole
life changed, broken rest, no more quiet meals for Timothy, sickness and
teething, amusements to be supplied as well as schooling. When children
are born to us we are always, at least, comparatively young, and
everything seems natural and a matter of course; but you and dear old
rheumatic, set-in-his-ways Tim! I think it would be cruel. The sun must
be affecting your brain.”

“Cruel it may be, Mrs. Evan; duty is cruel, and so is death itself, but
my mind is made up.”

“And, pray, how will adopting some one else’s children prevent race
suicide in your particular case?”

“It won’t be my _family_, to be sure, Mrs. Evan, but they must be
_English_ children, and no other; that is the race part of it. I’ve
spoken to Dr. Russell, Mrs. Evan, to see what he can do about it, mayhap
in Bridgeton or at the hospital.”

“What did Timothy say when you told him?” I ventured weakly, after the
long pause had become awkward, Martha standing, as she was, erect yet
respectful, the drops of sweat upon her forehead, above which the pink
bow of her cap quivered, it seemed, with imparted nervousness.

“Timothy Saunders quoted Scripture, Mrs. Evan, as a right-minded man
should in solemn moments; he says, humble like, ‘The Lord gave and the
Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord!’ I’m not quite
minded what he fits the words to, but the spirit o’ resignment is right
and dutiful.” So saying, Martha dropped a melancholy courtesy and left
me under cover of rescuing a very fat and apoplectic Plymouth Rock hen,
who, having worked her way partly through a hole in the fence, was
trying to back out against the grain of the feathers that securely
anchored her.

“Poor Timothy!” I said to myself; “I wonder what you meant; is it your
comfortable home, won so late in life, that you fear you are in danger
of losing, or were your remarks merely spoken on general principles?”

That night I talked the matter over with father. Yes, Martha had spoken
to him, and all he could do was to postpone the event as long as
possible by failing to find suitable children. He had tried to
compromise the matter by suggesting a pretty little orphan girl of ten,
who came of good American people, but was homeless. No, this would not
do. Two children of English parentage, if English birth was impossible,
not necessarily babies, but young enough to have no recollections—this
was what Martha demanded.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Early one morning, of the second week of August, Effie, Timothy’s niece,
who had been our waitress for some years, came knocking at our bedroom
door long before the usual hour, at the same time saying something that
I did not understand. I answered that I was awake, thinking that she had
merely mistaken the time; but the knocking and talking continued, and I
went to the door with a feeling of apprehension lest father might be
ill, or something have happened to the boys, who were spending a few
days up at the Bradfords’.

There stood the usually reticent Effie, hands clasping and unclasping
nervously with half-suppressed excitement, while her tongue flew so fast
that I had to listen keenly to catch even an idea of her meaning.

“Nobody’s ill, ma’am, only there’s twins left up at Uncle Timothy’s,
fine big ones, a boy and a girl, ma’am.”

“What?” I managed to say, going into the hall and closing the door
behind me.

“It came about this way: Aunt Martha didn’t rest well last night, as I
make out, and she went into the sitting-room and lay on the lounge. Just
as it was coming light, she was minded to get up and turn off some work
before the sun heated her head, as it’s been doing lately, but somehow
she dozed off again. Then wagon wheels going up the Bluffs road stirred
her, and she says to herself, ‘Those lazy Polack milk pedlers above are
late this morning,’ three o’clock being their time of starting for
Bridgeton.

“Howsomever, the next minute she thought she heard a step on the porch,
and then, raising the blind, she saw a man hurry out of the yard.

“Going back to the bedroom to call Uncle Timothy, she heard and saw that
which made her stand still and let out a yell that uncle said nigh
stopped his heart, for on the floor right under the open window was two
babies sprawlin’ about as if just waked, and when they set their eyes on
her, they began to cry both together (which was small wonder, ma’am,
seeing the figger aunty is in her nightcap), until she fell back quite
weak in her chair.

“Uncle Timothy shook on some clothes, and came over for me to stay with
aunty while he hitched up.

“‘Where are you going?’ says I, thinking the doctor had an early call
out.

“‘To take the brats down to the constable on their road to the Orphan
House at Bridgeton,’ he growled, ‘Timothy Saunders’ hoose being no dump
for gypsy strays.’

“But when I gets over to aunty’s, she’d picked herself together, and the
two babies were sitting up among the pillows, crumbing crackers into the
bed, she chirping to ’em, looking at ’em as if she couldn’t unglue her
eyes from theirs.”

“Sitting up! How old are these babies, pray?” I asked.

“Oh, a matter of a year or more, I’m thinking, ma’am, reading by the
teeth and the way they can pull to their feet,” said Effie, catching her
breath in the short interval.

“Then aunty turns to me and fairly wizzles my stummick with her next
words. ‘Look, Effie,’ says she, ‘see the doings of the Lord, a boy and a
girl, and English-born, no doubt, if but from the red of their cheeks
and their noses, shaped strong and high like our blessed Queen’s, and no
disrespect intended.

“‘Come next Sunday, moreover, I’ll have them baptized Albert and
Victoria to give them a fair start, even if their poor dead parents as
is dead and gone did see to it, as most like they did, being English;
twice will only set the colour better.’

“‘Are their parents dead? Did they fetch a note?’ said I.

“‘Are ye a silly,’ snapped aunty; ‘would living parents spill such angel
hinfants into strangers’ windows, think ’ee? Don’t stand there gapin’ at
me, but trot down and ask Mrs. Evan for the kindness of a few of her
lads’ old slips if she’s any laid by, for I mistrust from the smell of
those they’ve on that they’ve been a long journey from soap, and when
I’ve had the bonnies in a tub, I’ll trim them up fresh. Why don’t ye
budge, lass? Are ye rooted?’

“For, ma’am, I couldn’t stir, thinking aunty had gone clean daft, and
while I was sort of getting wind to start, Uncle Timothy came in with a
straw clothes-basket.

“‘Here, woman, put a quilt in this; it will make a good coop for yon
strays,’ he said, reaching over to the peg where hung his top-coat.

“‘They’re well enough where they be until I can get a proper cradle
rigged,’ said aunty, trying to make friendly with them, which they
mistrusted.

“‘Cradle! They’ll need no cradle!’ said uncle. ‘I’m harnessed now to
take them to the Orphan House. Come ye along wi’ me, Effie; they may be
awkward freight; ye’ll be back again before your leddy’s up.’

“‘Orphan House! Bridgeton! and that’s where they’ll _not_ go. Don’t ye
sense, man, that the Lord has sent them to us to teach us our bounden
duty? They’ll be our children by adoption quick as the law allows it,
man. Orphan House, Bridgeton, indeed!’

“I got a swift squint at Uncle Timothy’s face then, ma’am, and I’ve
never seen him look so dour since the day he married and I helped him
into his tight new boots; it was juist awful!

“‘Dinna ye heap disrespect upon the Lord, woman,’ he said at last;
‘’twas not he put them in here; he doesn’t sneak babes in windows of the
aged; his work is seen of men and in the open. Some rogue has put upon
us for a pair of old fules, and I’ll not have it.’

“‘But ye know, Timothy, I’ve spoken lately to the doctor about a pair of
bairns, and ye never gainsaid me,’ said aunty, beginning to cry, and a
bit overcome for the time by his flow o’ words, for uncle never speaks
much.

“‘Taking the known born with our eyes open is one thing, but a grab in
the dark, pushed into the hand by others, is another. Ha’ ye looked in
their bundle?’ said he, rolling over with his foot a paper parcel that
had fallen under a chair. ‘Open it, Effie, lass.’

“My fingers could scarce untie the string for hurry, but all there was
within was a few ragged bits of coarse clothes and some biscuits like
the ones that they were crumbing.

“‘Dry food for bairns,’ said Uncle Timothy, picking up one and twirling
it between his fingers. ‘It’s time for the milking now. I’ll speak to
the dochtor and question around a bit before I take the youngsters over;
that’ll be after deenner, gin I find no trace of those that brought
them. A small, dark man, say you, but you saw naught of his face? It’s
going to be michty hot this forenoon,’ continued uncle, weakening, when
he saw how Aunt Martha was taking on. Then I slipped out and ran down to
tell you, ma’am, and ask for the clothes.”

Promising to hunt up some garments, I returned to Evan, considerably
dazed by Effie’s recital. We had all hoped that Martha’s “Harvest spell”
would vanish before the infants filling her numerous requirements should
appear, but we had foolishly reckoned without considering the
unexpected, which is always quite sure to happen.

“Don’t worry,” said Evan the cheerful; “the town authorities will be
only too glad to be relieved of the charge of the waifs, as a matter of
course, but at least an attempt will be made to find where they came
from; and though there’s nothing to prevent Martha’s having them
christened, the matter of legal adoption will require more time, and
something may turn up. Don’t you realize, Barbara, that it is a most
unusual thing for children a year old or more to be abandoned?
Foundlings are usually a few hours, or at most a few weeks, old. It’s to
the credit of human nature that few of even the lowest people will give
up their cubs when once they’ve learned to know them.”

“Perhaps, however, these are orphans, and it is the people who have them
second-hand that wish to get rid of them,” I said.

“That may be; but there was a certain method in the place chosen for
leaving them that makes me think near-by people, possibly in Bridgeton,
had a hand in it; if so, it will leak out.”

So, angry as I was at Martha’s total lack of common sense, but
remembering all she had been to me and my boys in the past dozen years,
I made up a bundle of such things as the needy hospital had not claimed,
and after breakfast took it up to the chicken farm, where I found that
father had preceded me.

It is useless to tell a woman over thirty that men are lacking in
curiosity! Father asked two questions to my one. However, he pronounced
Albert and Victoria sound of limb and lungs, but seemed to regard the
whole matter as a joke, even going so far as to admire their pronounced
Guelph noses, and was not as judicious as I had expected in the advice
he gave to Martha.

The doings of the next three weeks I will give as recorded in my
Experience Book. It had been a long time since anything had occurred
worthy of record, so I resorted to it to relieve my feelings.

_August 9._ The investigation as to the origin of Albert and Victoria
has proved a complete failure; no one can be found who saw a horse and
wagon driven by a strange, small, dark man on the day of their arrival
or the night before. Already Martha’s neat cottage has suffered a
change, and the sitting-room looked this morning like a ship’s deck
swept by a hurricane; all objects that could be hung up or stowed away
on mantel-shelf or in cupboard had been removed, and the chairs were
huddled together in a corner. The twins move about in a very lively
manner: Victoria, creeping on her hands and right knee, uses her left
leg as an oar; while Albert, not content with this method, pulls himself
slowly upon his feet and totters forward a few steps on a run, only to
topple over, catching at anything within reach.

This morning, according to Effie, he caught at the cloth that covered
the pan of evenly risen bread dough that Martha was about to mould into
loaves, upset it, falling backward into the wreck that made a most
comfortable air-cushion.

Timothy’s bed has been moved upstairs, as the children have never been
“trained rightly to sleep in their beds,” as Martha expresses it, and
the process is painful to a listener, who, as Martha says of Timothy, is
“a bachelor boiled through, and hasn’t maternal instinks!”

_August 12._ The twins babble away at a great rate between themselves,
and Martha, anxious to find meaning in their utterances, called me in to
translate. “It sounds to me like broad Yorkshire they do be trying for,
Mrs. Evan,” she said in perfect earnest; “but then, again, it mought be
Lancaster; that talk is so overlappin’ ’tis hard to reach.”

To my ear, even with the echo of Ian and Richard’s baby talk in it, the
sounds are wholly alien and barbaric, a fit match for the carnal
appetites of the youngsters. All in a minute, when Martha’s back was
turned, Victoria hastily devoured the contents of the dish wherein food
had been put on the stoop for the hounds, while Albert howled and kicked
with symptoms of a fiendish temper because he was not quick enough to
get any of the scraps.

Victoria will be ill to-morrow!

“The ’ounds make too free!” ejaculated Martha, wrathfully (she who had
raised many a fall litter by tiding them over cold days in the corner of
our spotless kitchen). “Timothy must keep them off and fodder them at
the stables and not put temptation in the way of Christian babes!”

By the way, I had almost forgotten to record that the twins were
christened down at the Rectory yesterday afternoon. There was a
difficulty about their second name that threatened to disrupt Martha’s
plans.

Timothy, who has been strangely mild and unassertive of late, crossing
Martha in nothing, refused to lend the honoured name of Saunders to what
he persists in calling “the aliens.” Martha argued, but to no purpose;
his name, he said, was his own; if he had shared it with her, she had no
right to peddle it outside the family.

This, even the Rector was obliged to agree was just. Then an inspiration
seized Martha. If not Saunders, why not Corkle? The late Corkle could
raise no objection, and it would be a sort of belated compliment, and at
the same time a delicate way of keeping his name in the ears of his
successor!

13. Victoria was _not_ ill; Martha is, however, beginning to look
fagged; ten maternal days are leaving marks I do not like to see; the
wholesome rosy cheeks look dark and veiny. Also some of her cast-iron
theories as to the management of infants (which, by the way, she has
never attempted to practise upon mine) are disintegrating like a paper
bag that has fallen into a water barrel, until only a semblance remains.

Martha’s chief local aversion is a Polish family named Potowski who,
unknown to the neighbourhood, unfortunately, leased the land adjoining
us on the north, a couple of years ago. Against these people, sellers of
blue milk, and as she expresses it, “Sabbath-hoed vegetables,” more than
suspected of being Hebrews, she set her face and has full cause, for
scarcely a day passes but one of the ten Potowski children overflow into
our chicken farm and seldom retreat empty-handed, anything being
acceptable at home, from an egg to a fistful of oats or an armful of
hay.

So what was my surprise this afternoon to see Albert and Victoria crawl
unchidden across the grass plot between the rear porch and dividing
fence, and exchange much unintelligible gossip with a group of young
Potowskis on the other side, while the new Martha sat under the bell
pear tree fashioning some small creeping aprons with fingers that
trembled strangely, too worn out either to chide or follow.

The new Martha, in contrast to the old, was rather dishevelled; no
collar and brooch topped her tightly buttoned blue and white calico
bodice; the parting in her brown hair was decidedly on the bias, and not
only did the hair itself lack the usual polish, but suggested that coal
ashes and not brushing had been its portion that day. While the tasty
cap, the crowning glory of the mature British matron, of and below, a
certain class, was altogether lacking.

“Yes, Mrs. Evan,” she said, with a sigh, as she saw me glance at the
twins clinging frantically to the fence through which they were poking
grass and leaves, “the young need young company, and it can do no harm
for them to prattle with the fence between, and though the people yonder
are no better than gypsies, their lingo goes for naught, for Albert and
Victoria can only make out English words.

“Do they understand? Most surely do they, Mrs. Evan; they know their
names, and come crawling up quick when they see me fixing their bread
and milk, bless their hearts!”

Yet I could not be deceived; Martha’s tones were those of duty oft
rehearsed rather than affection. I’ve seen her, days gone by, cuddle and
kiss my babies until the rose in her Sunday cap threatened to drop its
petals with trembling; but if she ever kissed the twins, it must have
been always in private.

Conversation languished these days, and while I was endeavouring to
manufacture some, both twins began to scream, while Albert, letting go
the fence, rolled into the grass, purple in the face and evidently
choking.

Hurrying over, I seized Victoria, while Martha picked up the choking
brother, running her finger inside his mouth to dislodge whatever he had
tried to swallow.

Victoria was clutching part of a Frankfort sausage which she licked
eagerly between her sobs, and, as far as we could learn from the enemy
across the fence, who had contributed the dainty, Albert had snatched a
piece of it, and by sucking, biting, and bolting, made way with it at
the risk of strangling. Surely _he_ would be sick, and I coaxed father
to go up after supper in case he was needed. On his return he reported
that the boy was sleeping normally, curled up _under his bed_, Martha
confessing that it was well-nigh impossible to keep either child _in_ a
bed unless pinned down by blankets, which are rather unseasonable.

It certainly would be interesting from a psychological standpoint to
know the origin of these waifs, and how and where they have slept, that
they should show preferences so decidedly.

_The 22d._ It has been a very uncomfortable week at the chicken farm, I
take it. The heat has been of the quality that makes breathing like
inhaling the steam of a wash-boiler.

The twins are presumably teething, and Timothy, I find, mostly comes to
our house for a quiet supper with niece Effie and our sympathetic cook,
who was overheard condoling with him upon the discomfort the twins and
Martha’s whim had brought upon those who were of the age to be
grandparents, with their family housework, so to speak, done.

_The 24th._ Effie informs me that Aunt Martha has stopped baking bread,
and takes it in from the baker. Timothy, accustomed to whittling wedges
from his wife’s durable cottage loaves, supplementing the same with
either butter or cheese, did not realize the flimsy quality of the
substitute until his knife slipped through the compressible sponge and
yesterday gashed his finger deeply.

_The 26th._ Martha sent down this morning to ask father if there is any
_safe_ kind of soothing syrup that she could give the twins to make them
sleep at night. I went up early in the evening to see if they had fever,
and take father’s answer, which was to the effect that all such drugs
are pernicious, and that all teething children are fretful in the month
of August. They had no fever, but were healthy and normally cross and
uncomfortable. So was Martha.

Finally quiet fell upon the two small beds, and Martha came out upon the
porch and sank heavily into the rocker. The glow of Timothy’s pipe was
missing from the corner where it had blinked and winked in pleasant
weather for so many years. The hounds, having been banished from their
lounging place because they might hurt the twins, foregathered with
Timothy in the open doorway of the carriage house, in plain sight,
through a gap in the trees. Presently Effie joined her uncle, and then
the cook appeared, carrying something in a pitcher, doubtless a
delectable mixture of iced lemonade and ginger-ale. A garden bench was
pressed into service, and soon the cook’s concertina chirped out “Comin’
thro’ the Rye,” and Timothy’s cracked laugh could be heard above it.

Martha sat bolt upright for a moment (it seems to me that it is very
irritating to her that all opposition has ceased concerning her venture,
excitement died away, and that we all treat the matter as nothing
unusual); then she suddenly relaxed, saying irrelevantly, “Bairns were
easier raised when I was a gell, Mrs. Evan, else my sister Bell, the
mother of eleven living and three not complete, wouldn’t be now turning
sixty-three and mistress of the Blue Bell out Cheltenham way.

“Of course, some do give more trouble than others; likewise Timothy’s
niece, Jane Fergus, Effie’s sister, has only six, and yet is always
droopy. Timothy’s wanting to send her money presents constant to help
along, but its naught but bad management, say I. She couldn’t manage
three, so what sense of six?”

“Perhaps she dreads race suicide as you do,” I said, and was sorry the
minute after, poor Martha looked so weary, and the concertina had ceased
to chirp and had swung into “John Anderson,” which either by chance or
diabolic intent on the part of the cook, changed in turn into “Home,
Sweet Home.”

_The 28th._ To-day I invited Martha to take a drive, as she wished to
buy the twins a carriage; at the same time I sent Effie up to tend them.
I don’t know what there is about those children, but strong and healthy
as they are, they do not seem young, but like the changelings in fairy
stories. There is usually something attractive about youngsters, and
I’ve seen even the most adorable little darkies, but to this rule Albert
and Victoria are certainly exceptions.

As we neared Bridgeton I said, for the sake of breaking the silence,
“Will you buy a go-cart or a little coach? The go-cart is cool for this
season, but of course the coach will be more useful this winter.”

“This winter? Some of us may be gone before winter, Mrs. Evan, and no
disrespect intended.”

“Why, Martha, are you feeling ill?” I cried, declining to be included in
the gloomy prediction.

“I’m not to say well, Mrs. Evan.”

“Where is it and what? Rheumatism?”

“Not so friendly as rheumatism, Mrs. Evan; it’s fulness and emptiness in
spots, the one being in the chest and the other of the head. My mother
had it in the other way, the head full, and died of a stroke.”

“If you feel ill, we will leave Bridgeton and shopping alone and go for
a sniff of the sea,” I said, turning shoreward; “the old toy cart of the
boys will serve for the present;” and Martha made no sign of protest.

_August 30._ Yesterday, Martha’s sense of the duties of citizenship had
a chance to exhibit itself and hear all the praise that her heart could
desire. Dressed in her best, and the twins wearing new white dresses and
white hats with a pink and blue bow respectively, she took them to the
Sunday-school picnic given by Effie’s church, over which a minister of
the Severely Protestant type presided. Timothy did _not_ go, be it said!

If Martha had plotted and planned a sensation, her success could not
have been greater, and for a few hours her spirit soared. Albert and
Victoria were handed from one to another, and fortunately did not cry,
but treated the matter as something to which they were quite accustomed.
(Effie told me with horror, that in their rounds they were fed
everything, from candy to lemonade and pickles, and I believe her.)

To cap the climax, the Severely Protestant made a little speech,
praising “our sister Saunders’ sense of duty in the preservation of two
such interesting members of the English-speaking race, so often too
lightly crowded out by foreign hordes; we, who through selfishness
sometimes take the children nature forces upon us unwillingly, should
bow before one who, exempt by age, volunteers in the cause of
patriotism.” Scattering applause!

_August 31._ Again it is the unexpected that happens! This afternoon, as
father and I were chatting in the cool depths of the Garden House
concerning the adoption papers about which the town clerk was to call on
the morrow, noise of a hubbub was borne on the breeze from the vicinity
of the chicken farm.

As we listened, sounds separated themselves, children screaming and the
piercing voice of a woman shouting being the chief.

“Something is the matter at Martha’s,” I cried, running through the side
gate, father quickly following. Forced to go more slowly up the steep
bank, I took in at a glance the group gathered by the porch before I
reached them. A short, thick-set woman with dark hair and a flat face
was screaming and wringing her hands and embracing the twins
alternately. A yellow-haired man with vivid colouring and a pronounced,
drooping beak was gesticulating and waving his hands in the air. Mr.
Potowski from next door was also gesticulating and trying to explain
something to Timothy Saunders, who had him by the collar and was shaking
his fist within a thread of his nose, also beaked and drooping. Mrs.
Potowski was endeavouring to loosen Timothy’s hold, her entire family
jabbering in chorus from the other side of the fence. While on the stoop
itself, apron over her head, shaken both with sobbing and the jerky
motion of the patent rocking-chair, sat Martha.

Father’s face was stern, indeed, when he reached them.

“Stop this noise instantly, every one of you!” he commanded. “I’ll not
have such disgraceful doings on my property.”

The vociferous men and women began to cringe and protest.

“Now, Timothy, tell me what all this means as briefly as you can.”

“Weel, Dochtor, as I make it out, those two came pushin’ in, and claimed
Albert and Victoria for their bairns. They’ve lately come from overseas,
a month since, they claim, and being held sick in the ship’s hospital,
sent on the bairns to his brother, being Potowski there, for safe
keeping, but whoever undertook to find _him_ left them at the wrang
hoose! To-day the man and woman got freedom, and comin’ on and not
findin’ their bairns, took on like crazy ones, till Potowski here pieced
twa and twa together and fetched them o’er here!”

“What does he say?” asked father of me, as Potowski began to bow to the
ground and gabble in broken yet understandable English.

“He says that if the good grandmother there would like to keep the
children, he does not doubt his sister would let her, if she would give
money to bring over two more of the six that remain in Poland!” I
stammered, my breath fairly leaving me as I realized that Albert and
Victoria, with the English complexions and Guelph noses, who were
developing either the speech of York or Lancaster, were in reality
little Polish Jews! doubtless set within the Saunders’ window to save
the Potowskis a month’s care of them.

At the same moment the truth flashed through father’s brain.

“Get out, every one of you, before I get the constable to arrest you for
fraud!” he shouted in tones wholly new to him; recovering himself and
turning on the Potowskis, “I could make you pay this kind woman here for
a month’s board for the youngsters, together with several other things,”
he added threateningly, as they did not seem any too willing to go.

“I’d not like to go that far,” whispered Timothy, pulling at father’s
coat sleeve; “the bairns hae served their uses, and earned their keep,
I’m thinkin’.”

But at threat of the law the women, the most aggressive of the quartet,
seized the children and scuttled out of the yard like so many rabbits,
fearing lest Martha should remove the new frocks they wore, the men
slinking along close to heel.

Then Timothy released a long breath like escaping steam and said that he
must go to the milking, adding, “An’, Dochtor, will you see if you can
do aught for the woman? She’s sadly fashed by all this business.”

As he passed Martha, Timothy tried to pull the apron from her face, but
she held it only the tighter, whispering, “If ever again ye wish to send
a money gift to Jennie Fergus, I’m more than willing, the poor young
woman.”

“Martha,” said father, when everything was still once more, “I wish that
you would go to bed and take a good sleep, and I will send Effie up to
set the house straight.”

“I couldn’t sleep the week gone,” she sobbed, yet trying to control
herself; “my head’s that empty it reels when I lay me down, and now
thinking of the disrespect I’ve put upon our Queen, lays double weight
on my chest, and no disrespect was intended.”

“Never mind; go and lie down and tell Timothy to come to me for some
medicine before he has supper,” said father, the end of his nose
twitching queerly, as it does when he is much amused and doesn’t wish to
show it. Martha obeyed.

“Take everything belonging to those children and stow it in the barn
loft; straighten up the house, make your aunt a good cup of tea, but
don’t talk to her,” he cautioned Effie.

                 *        *        *        *        *

“And what physic is it, Dochtor?” queried cautious Sandy, as father
counted eight small white tablets into one paper, and a tablespoonful of
white crystals into another, writing the directions on each.

“It’s calomel, two grains in quarters, Timothy, and the other is
Rochelle salts; it is a cure for several kinds of distemper, and we
two’ll not forget to give it to Martha every year towards the last part
of July!”

Then a twinkle that had been struggling in the corner of Timothy’s
least-open eye broke loose and turned into an unmistakable wink.

“Timothy,” said father, trying to look stern, “did you suspect the trick
that was being played on Martha?”

“I didna suspicion—I _kenned_; Potowski bought a bag o’ biscuit like
them the bairns had, the night before at the village store! But Dochtor,
_mon_, ye’ll never breathe the thought,” he cried, clutching father’s
hand like a vice in his alarm. “The woman’s too much to me to risk she’d
turn against me, though it’s not best she knows it.”

“Timothy, you sly old sinner,” replied father, closing on the gnarled
hand, “I will consider both these bits of information as professional
secrets!”

The grip was returned, and looking first in father’s face, then towards
his home, where quiet now reigned, and above which hung a slip of a
moon, August’s gift to September, he said solemnly, “Dochtor, if the
gude Lord had na been a mon, what _wad_ hae become o’ the warld!”

-----

[1] Victoria.




                                   IX
                             GROUNDSEL-TREE


                 =SEPTEMBER=—THE MOON OF FALLING LEAVES

The summer that old Madam Hale died had been followed by a swift autumn.
Frost trod so closely upon the heels of the last thunder shower that the
samphire glowed red in the marshes, while there was yet aftermath of
clover in the uplands, and shy groundsel-tree garnished her plain summer
garb with white feathers, before blue gentian had opened her fringed
lids wide enough to show the colour of her eyes.

Unusual as the season was, it received scant attention from people of
Westover Heights, so absorbed were they in the question of “What will
become of John Hale?”

The Hales belonged to one of the old county families, and, in fact, a
decided type, known as the Hale nose, a cross between Roman and
aquiline, might be traced the length and breadth of the state and well
across its western border, while a corresponding mental strength had
marked both the men and women; Judge Hale, Madam Hale’s husband, having
been both a judge and a national legislator. But, like many another
American family, prominent in the last century, the line direct had
dwindled to John Hale, the only living child of the judge, and John, in
his fifty-eighth year, was only now beginning his life as an independent
being.

To any one born and bred outside of a certain circle and unacquainted
with the intricate weave of the social fabric of certain conservative
New England towns, such a condition is inconceivable. No one would have
denied the possibility of such a happening more decidedly than John Hale
himself when he graduated from college with distinct literary honours,
and set out upon a year of travel, before taking a congenial position
offered him by his alma mater.

It was during this year of absolute freedom that John Hale formed the
only decided opinions that he ever seemed destined to be allowed, the
most conclusive of these being that Jane Mostyn was the only woman with
whom he could imagine wishing to spend his life.

Miss Mostyn was likewise making a sort of post-graduate tour, but not
alone, for her father, a fussy, rather than nervous, invalid, was her
companion. His invalidism was of the intermittent type that appeared
when his daughter’s plans in any way crossed his own, but was otherwise
held in abeyance; and most people readily conceded that he was a
charming man, for he could discuss many topics without affectation, and
without posing as a pedant, was extremely well read. His regarding his
daughter as an absolute possession who should exist for his happiness
alone was his chief eccentricity.

One of the strangest things about the acquaintance of the young people
was that it began in Venice, when they had been born and brought up
practically in the same New England township. The reasons that had
militated against their previously having more than a passing glimpse of
one another were the aggressively different political affiliations of
the fathers, while Madam Hale knew that the Judge had been refused in
early life by the girl who afterward became Jane Mostyn’s mother, and so
strange was her form of tribal fealty that she regarded this refusal as
not only a slight to her husband, but as a species of criticism upon her
own choice, though she did not marry the Judge until ten years after.
Mrs. Mostyn had died when Jane was about twenty, and at the time when
John Hale met her, she was in every possible way trying to draw her
father’s mind from his loss.

Usually if Mr. Mostyn stayed indoors, Jane did likewise, but one fateful
morning the sea shimmered too alluringly under their window, and being
attracted by the singing of a gondolier, she determined to brave
conventions and go out, only to find the particular gondola was already
occupied, and by a man. Hesitating, but only for a moment, for Jane
Mostyn seldom hesitated, and usually compassed her ends (not connected
with her father) by cheerfully assuming that there would be no
opposition, she said to the man, who was looking at her with an
expression half reminiscent, half questioning, and taking it for granted
that he was either English or an American: “I do not speak Italian;
would you kindly direct your man to return here to the hotel for me when
you are through with him? I’ve taken a fancy both to his craft and to
his voice;” at the same time writing her name in vigorous characters on
one of the cards of the hotel, she held it towards him. A glance at the
card, and the puzzled expression turned to one of pleased recognition.
John Hale had not spoken to Miss Mostyn more than twice since she tucked
up her hair, lengthened her skirts, and went to boarding-school, yet
suddenly to talk with her at close range, as she stood there with glints
of red setting off her deep blue gown and clear olive skin, seemed the
most desirable occupation in the world. Motioning the man to push close
to the landing, Hale sprang out of the gondola, and hat in one hand, the
other holding the card, he said, “Do you chance to remember Johnny Hale
at whom you used to jeer because his mother would not let him coast down
the hill that crossed the railroad track at Westover Village?”

Miss Mostyn coloured as red as the cap that topped her black hair, and
then extended both hands, the gesture brought about wholly by the
impulse to be at once on friendly terms with a home face in a strange
land, no matter how slight the previous footing.

“Why not come out at once and enjoy the morning freshness? One can never
tell what sort of an afternoon may follow,” Hale said eagerly.

“There is only one obstacle, this country requires a chaperon; where
shall we get her? My father is out of the running to-day. Does your
mother chance to be with you? No? Can you suggest any compatriot who may
be staying at your hotel? We are the only Americans at ours.”

“No,—yes,” corrected Hale, while a mischievous smile flitted over his
usually serious face, “Mrs. Atwood from Westover is here, travelling
with an assorted party. I presume that she knows us both, and the poor
soul is so homesick that she will hail the opportunity as a perfect
godsend.”

“What, the wife of ‘B. Atwood, Leading Grocer, We strive to please and
suit the taste of each customer’? Of course she will do as a chaperon,
but, considered as ballast, I am afraid we shall require an extra
gondolier.”

Hale laughed. “She has fallen away, as she expresses it; the change
having been wrought by rushed travel, indigestion, and several inadvised
cures of mineral waters. Here she comes now in that brown gondola with
blue curtains, and holding on for dear life as if she were with an
overloaded picnic party and some one was rocking the boat.”

Immediately recognizing the young people, Mrs. Atwood landed after
several frantic efforts, during which her Baedecker fell into the water
and floated off, looking like a fishing bobber of eccentric design.

“Let it go, Mr. Hale, let it go,” she panted, as he tried to follow and
rescue the book, “I’ll be a good deal better off without it; I can
remember what the courier tells us, but when I come to pick out the
places and match his stories to them, I get a headache over the nose,
such as I used to have when pa wanted me to go to high school, and I got
as far as algebra, and then balked flat. Go out with you? Certainly, if
you won’t be gone too long. Our party starts on at two; not but what I’d
much rather stay here in peace until they come back. Why don’t I? Why, I
should miss at least a half a dozen baggage labels for my suit case. I’m
collecting them for daughter Ida. We couldn’t both leave Mr. Atwood the
same season, so I’m making the trip, and Ida’s to have the suit case,
and I don’t know but what she’s got the best of the bargain.”

Thus, under cover of harmless prattle that did away with the necessity
of other conversation, they pushed off, and when, presently, in a lull,
the gondolier took up his song again, gesture and sympathetic play of
expression and eyes filled the place of words between Miss Mostyn and
John Hale, so that in a single morning, under the spell of peace and
subtle, mutual appreciation, a friendship began and was cemented more
securely than would have been possible during months of conventional
intercourse.

From thenceforward until the end of the vacation year, while their paths
could not be made to run absolutely parallel, they were at least
continually crossing. Though totally unlike in temperament, each seemed
able to develop the best qualities in the other. Miss Mostyn, quick and
decisive in all things, lacked the very creative mental faculties that
she was able to foster in John Hale, while in his company certain rather
sharp edges in the young woman were smoothed away, and she became all
that was charming and womanly. So vital was her influence that it began
to be reflected almost at once in his work. The random sketches of
travel were dropped for serious work, and before his return he was
spoken of as a new man, who not only had something to say, something
vital to add to the comedy of humanity, but, moreover, did it well.

That the two were virtually engaged was a matter of course, and as there
were no financial reasons to make a delay necessary, Hale urged with
masculine directness, as her father was with her, that they be married
without fuss and feathers prior to their return.

To this Jane Mostyn would not consent, though at first she hesitated.
There were reasons why the home-coming would be trying enough to her
father; she could not leave him until he had at least in a measure
readjusted his life.

Surely, as it proved, there was plenty of time for everything but
marrying, for that magic hour of possibility passed out of the youth of
Jane Mostyn and Hale at almost the moment that they set foot on their
native soil. Before long, reasons for delay began to be entered on
Hale’s side of the ledger, springing from a too narrow idea of filial
devotion. Within a month of his return, just as he had entered upon his
new work, his father died, with only a few hours’ warning.

Judge Hale and his wife had been romantically attached in spite of her
almost masculine force of will and unrelenting purpose that had planned
every detail of his life, which at the same time was veiled to the world
at large by a physical fragility that made her appearance almost
ethereal. Now, as a widow, she was doubly resolute, and even more
fragile to the eye, and she clung to her only son with a tenacity not to
be gainsaid. It was too much to ask of her whose life would doubtless be
short, to make her home with him in the university town where she had no
associations; so he transferred himself to the home at Westover, going
to and fro, and by so doing missing the social side of his association
with the college and much impetus that went with it.

Then the years began to fly by, each one laden with its own excuses.
Madam Hale (she had always been thus called, “Mrs.” by common consent
seeming too lowly a title) loved her son passionately, but she loved him
as he was related to and a part of her own projects, not with the
sacrificial and rare mother love that considers self merely as a means
of increasing the child’s happiness and broadening its scope. Despotism
has many forms, and the visible iron hand is the least to be dreaded. Is
there any form of tyranny so absolute as that of a delicate woman over
the man who loves her, be he husband or son?

Judge Hale, as the final mark of confidence in his wife, had left her in
entire control of his property, including the homestead, probably never
doubting that she would share it at once with John, but wishing the
pleasure of giving to be solely hers. About this she was very
deliberate. What need of haste? Her son shared her home, and his own
income, though but a moderate salary, was sufficient for his outside
needs.

Theoretically, she wished him to marry, and she would have liked a
pretty, subservient daughter-in-law and a group of well-bred and
creditable grandchildren to swell her train; but actually, she resented
the idea of relinquishing an iota of her influence. While as to Jane
Mostyn, they had gauged each other to a nicety, and though on friendly
terms, each resented the other to a finality.

Exactly how the pair reconciled their relations to one another, no one
knew, probably not even themselves. Westover Village had grown tired of
waiting to see what would happen, and cited the case variously as one of
obstinacy, where neither would give in, or else crowning them as filial
martyrs, according to the temperament of the narrator. Neither Jane
Mostyn nor John Hale appeared to mope in the least, but of the two the
woman’s life seemed the best rounded, and she, who in the beginning,
though several years younger, looked older than the man, had now gained
many years of youth.

Five years more passed, and Hale resigned what had then grown to a
professorship, and, stopping his creative work altogether, relapsed to
the mental drudgery of adapting the classics and editing schoolbooks.

So the world wagged on until, during the year that Jane Mostyn was
fifty-five and John two years older, both parents died, Mr. Mostyn in
June and Madam Hale in August. Then, again, the people of Westover were
all alert to know if the old spark of romance would revive, or whether
it was buried in cold ashes.

When the wills of the old people, one nearing and one past eighty, were
probated, to the amazement of every one it was found that in each case
there were restrictions placed upon the properties, so that the full
enjoyment of them depended upon the two heirs not only keeping up the
family homesteads as long as they lived, but in absolutely living
therein, so determined upon dictation were these parents even after
death. The same lawyer, as it had chanced, had drawn up both wills, and
he seemed to regard the whole matter in the light of a huge practical
joke that might easily be set aside, as there were no near kin, either
in the Hale or Mostyn family, and the several institutions that were the
conditional residuaries would, under the circumstances, of course
compromise.

Jane Mostyn felt that she had done her duty, and was now prepared within
proper limits to live to the full what of life was left; but John Hale,
to whom independent action had so long been a stranger, would neither in
spirit nor in letter, it seemed, deviate from his mother’s desires, and
as her tyranny had been absolute, so was the gap it left in his life
great. Thus by the last of September, after Madam died, people were all
agog to know what would become of poor John Hale.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The Hale and Mostyn houses were of the same colonial type, and situated
about half a mile apart, the one on the valley road that ran to
Bridgeton, and the other on a parallel road that lay on the north side
of Sunset Hill. The land holdings of each ran up the hill until merely a
party fence in a wooded plateau at the top separated them. The houses
were pleasantly located, but the view in front of each ran only the
length of the village street, while the steep hill in the back shut off
the east and west horizon respectively.

The morning after the first unexpected frost, John Hale had gone to the
extreme boundary of his land on the hilltop to see to some fencing that
the farmer said must be renewed. As he left the roadside for the rolling
ground, a change came over him; as he began to ascend, his head grew
clearer and his gait more elastic; he threw back his shoulders and a
feeling of exhilaration possessed him such as he had not known for
years.

A very short distance separated the heavy air of the river valley from
the fresh breath of the hills swept by winds from across salt water, and
he began to wonder why any one owning so much land should have literally
turned his back upon the hill country as his grandfather had done. Then
he began to realize that he, also, had his point of view limited by mere
tradition. Coming out from the shelter of low-growing trees, the beauty
of both day and scene burst upon him; he had almost forgotten how
glorious the world is when seen from the hilltop on a ripe September
morning.

He straightway forgot the broken fences, forgot the conditions of his
mother’s will, forgot that he was nearing threescore. He felt himself a
young man again with love walking by his side and ambition before him,
and immediately his steps turned towards a well-hedged lane or pent-road
that began nowhere in particular, crossed the hilltop at an angle and
joined the upper road near his neighbour’s garden, for all at once his
new-born sense of youth and freedom led him as directly towards Jane
Mostyn, as it had that September morning when they had journeyed on the
waterways of Venice. Surely, yes, it was the anniversary of that
meeting, the thirtieth; how could such things be? He would forget the
between time; it would not be difficult; already it seemed like some
dark dream that had suddenly lifted. Would Jane Mostyn feel the same? He
would go and ask her.

A covey of quail rose from the edge of a field of buckwheat and passed
almost above his head with a whistling flight. How long had it been
since he had gone to the woods with dog and gun? Now for the first time
in his life he realized his mother’s affection as a sort of fetter that
had bound his faculties until they had grown numb.

What did it matter now? He was on his way to find Jane. As he went up
the lane he observed many things that he had scarcely noticed since his
boyhood,—the scarlet berries of spice bush, and Jack-in-the-Pulpit, the
frost-bleached fronds of wood and lady ferns, while feathers of white
now wreathed many groups of dull green bushes that earlier in the season
he would have passed unnoticed.

A curve in the lane brought him directly upon a tall figure, which,
basket on arm, was gathering sprays of the plumy white things; it was a
woman dressed in dark blue with red at the belt and throat, above which
showed a wealth of bright, white, wavy hair, the face being in shadow;
who was it? The dress brought some sort of compelling memory to John
Hale, but the hair did not fit it. A branch broke under his foot, and
the figure turned; it was Jane Mostyn, surely, her eyebrows and lashes,
black as of old, a rich colour on cheeks and lips, while the white hair
gave her an almost dramatic beauty. But why was Miss Mostyn in colours,
when for the last three months she had been so heavily draped in black
that her shadow seemed to leave a chill behind?

“I did not know that you ever came to these woods,” she said, glancing
down at her gown, in visible embarrassment.

Suddenly the combination was translated to Hale, memory coupled with
intuition—she wore either the gown in which he had seen her on the
Venice quay that other September day, or else its counterpart. So she
had not forgotten!

“May I walk back with you? I was coming to see you. But then perhaps you
would prefer that Mrs. Atwood should come as chaperon; she drove past
the house an hour ago in a fine red motor-car.”

“He has not forgotten,” said Jane Mostyn’s second self, of whom, lacking
any other, she had made a confidant of late years; what she said,
however, was, “We will not go home; I am tired of shade and the pent
feeling of the lowlands; let us go back up to the hilltop in the open,
where one may see, hear, and breathe broadly, openly. This morning when
I was in the library, I thought I should suffocate if I did not get away
from both the place and myself for a day at least.” Then, looking at
Hale, he thought rather anxiously, she added quickly as if she must say
the words at any cost, “As I could not change my body and travel
backward to youth, I changed my clothes.”

“What is that you are gathering?” Hale asked, transferring the basket to
his arm and touching the feathers lightly; “I’ve never seen it before,
and yet it grows here in profusion.”

“Groundsel-tree,” she answered; “you might pass by week in and out and
never notice it, for its flower has no beauty; for that it must wait
until frost releases its seed wings. I love the dear, shy thing; it has
blown from the lowlands, and it keeps one’s courage up.”

Something made Hale look full at her, and there were tears clinging to
her lashes as if ready to fall and betray her, but at the same moment
they came out upon the hilltop and stood looking at the world together.

“I wonder if _they_ had spent their lives up here instead of living in a
valley of their own shadows, would everything have been different?” said
Jane, yet perfectly unconscious that she had spoken.

John Hale held a branch of the winged seeds in his hand and looked from
it again to her face. “If glory is given to a bush in autumn that is
denied summer beauty, why may it not be so with people as well? Being
under a spell we have spent the best part of the day in the valley, but
now that we have seen the full light of the afternoon sun, we can never
go down again, you and I. Jane, you must marry me now, to-day; not even
the shadow of one more nightfall shall come between, and, moreover, you
shall never go back to the black clothes that speak of the valley.
Neither of us need wear that badge,—it has been discounted by thirty
years’ service.” With a swift, passionate gesture he drew her to him so
close that her breath came forcibly.

Could this be the same man who had first accepted her reasons for delay,
and then intrenched them with others of his own?

As she leaned against him, glad to be powerless, she closed her
eyes,—was she twenty or fifty-four? She could not tell.

“You must go to work; you must write again,” she said when he had
released her, though it was only to hold her at arm’s length, and then
cover her eyes and brow with kisses that made them both tremble,—“a
book full of all we have both thought and put away until now; but before
that we must go on a journey so as to make sure that we may do as we
please.”

“Shall we go to Venice?” asked Hale, touching the red scarf that was
knotted above her throat; “but where is the red cap?”

“No, not so far back or away,” she answered slowly, shaking her head,
“the red cap is too far back, and besides with motor-boats spinning
about it wouldn’t be the same; we should be disappointed, and it’s
foolish to court disappointment. Yet, John, I really think we might go
to Stratford once more in spring, and see if it feels the same as it did
to sit on the lovely damp, green grass and watch the Avon go by.
Possibly we might take cold now,” and then they both laughed as they
walked to and fro, swinging the basket between them as children do May
baskets in springtime.

Presently a floe of ice clouds high in air crossed the sun, and at the
same time something passed over Jane Mostyn’s face. Dropping her hold of
the basket, she fell back a few steps, and giving a little shiver she
could not repress, said: “John, we have forgotten the two houses in the
valley. How can we be free and live on the hilltop? We can do without
the money, but the tradition,—ah, what shall we do?”

“Do? Be married first and think it out afterwards; one more look,
dearest, and then we will go down,” and, neither desiring to argue, they
gazed in silence.

Presently Jane Mostyn gave an exclamation, and a look almost of awe
crossed her face, and then an expression of deep content rested upon it.

“I have it,” she said. “Just then I saw it as plainly as in a mirage;
after we are married, then let us marry our houses, move them to the
hilltop, and join them in one house on the boundary line; thus shall we
keep not only the letter, but the spirit also, by taking _them_ up out
of the valley with us.”

Again he drew her close, but now there were tears in his eyes, also.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Five hours later, Westover Village was electrified by the sight of Jane
Mostyn and John Hale entering the Rectory arm in arm, soon to be
followed by Mrs. Atwood, who, bearing an enormous bunch of bride’s
roses, drew up to the door in her motor-car and alighted with great
ceremony. Shortly after, word came by way of the back door that the
couple were married, Mrs. Atwood being both witness and bridesmaid; but
as they left by a circuitous route in Mrs. Atwood’s car, while that
worthy woman walked home, the next question, To whose house would they
go? remained unanswered until the following week, when it was found that
they had gone to neither, but were stopping at a quiet place ten miles
farther up the Moosatuck.

The next month brought a still greater shock, when a contractor from
Bridgeton with a gang of men began the labour of moving the two houses
up the hill toward a newly dug cellar on the party line, that the
gossips had decided was intended to support a great farm barn.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Another September and the new home had already become old to the two who
were never tired of looking out and up, and with this double marriage
all the old-time mental influence that Jane had held came back. John
Hale was putting the finishing touches to a novel that competent critics
said would more than make its mark, so unusual was it in conception as
well as full of sweet and mellow strength.

The title alone was not decided, and as John one afternoon was striving
for a simple combination of words that should suggest, and yet not
reveal, the motive, Jane came into the room with an armful of late wild
flowers and stood by his table arranging them in a jar that she always
kept filled there. As she stretched out her arm to add some long,
feathery white sprays by way of background, John caught her wrist,
exclaiming, “See, you have also brought me the title; our book shall be
called ‘Groundsel-Tree’!”




                                   X
                            THE OPEN WINDOW


                        =OCTOBER=—THE DEER MOON

When Professor Hewlett resigned from the chair of English Literature and
Letters at B—— College and returned, avowedly, to spend the rest of
his days in the home of his forefathers, all Oakland was very glad, but,
at the same time, not a little puzzled as to the outcome of the change.

There is certainly nothing extraordinary when a man of sixty-five, even
though he is still at his intellectual prime, wishes to free himself
from harness, and, without wholly leaving the road for the pasture,
travel at his own gait; it was the domestic side of the man’s life
toward which interest turned, and this side consisted of the possibility
of adjusting his family and work under the same roof, for even in his
hours of leisure, no one could believe that John Hewlett would let his
mental faculties lie dormant.

To an outsider this adjustment would have seemed the simplest matter
possible, for though the Professor had been twice married, he had
survived both wives, each of whom had left an only daughter; but these
two, who composed his family, were as unlike in temperament as in
personal appearance.

The first Mrs. Hewlett, a very handsome woman, whom the Professor had
married the year after leaving college, was several years his senior.
The Hewletts and Bartons had been people of culture as well as
neighbours, and the marriage was the logical outcome of long friendship,
rather than the focus of spontaneous love. Father, who was the friend of
both, says that at this time John Hewlett was a dreamer, who walked head
and shoulders in the air, never heeded his footing, and knew nothing of
life; while Catharine Barton had made up her mind on practically every
matter of importance, a quality upon which she prided herself being that
if she once made a decision, she never allowed circumstances to change
it. Aggressively devoted to what she considered her husband’s best
interests, had she lived, it is very doubtful if John Hewlett would
either have gained fame as a scholar, or won a host of friends by his
delightful personality. In half a dozen years he found himself alone
with a little daughter Catharine, who was turning four, a beautiful
child, but having the ice of her mother’s blood in her veins, and rigid
even at that tender age, sitting bolt upright in her father’s lap and
checking him with wide-eyed reproof if, in clasping her to him, her gown
or hair was rumpled. Then the Professor gave the child over to his
people to rear, and, turning his face away from women, save in the
polite abstract, devoted himself to work.

The Hewlett homestead—a square, substantial structure of the type that
has four large rooms on a floor with an L, a wide, central hall, and
large fireplaces—fell at this time to the Professor and an older
sister, to whom he confided the little Catharine. Without plan or
premeditation the house naturally divided itself in half, Miss Hewlett
instinctively occupying the northern portion where the strong sunlight
did not persist in penetrating to the fading of the much-treasured
Turkey carpet that was an heirloom, while the southern portion the
Professor filled with his books and such simple fittings as he
needed,—a high chest of drawers, and a bed that had been his mother’s,
with carved spiral posts and head and foot-rail, being his only
ambitious possessions; but in this part of the house the windows were
never closed on the sun, that seemed to come in and transfigure and
vitalize the Professor’s solitude.

As Catharine grew up, she became more and more incomprehensible to her
father, and kept even her very precise, ancestor-worshipping aunt in a
state of constant repression by her ideas of propriety and etiquette. At
twelve, she never committed the indiscretion of biting an apple, but
always pared and cut it with a silver fruit-knife; at eighteen she left
school and convinced her aunt that it was time for her to take charge of
her father’s mending and the dusting of his study, in which she sat for
an hour or so every day that he was at home, this being in the order of
her preconceived ideas of duty and pride in his mental achievements,
rather than from the love that makes ministry of every form a necessity.

Professor Hewlett, yearning for some sign of affection, took heart at
these demonstrations and prepared at once to make Catharine a partner in
his simple pleasures as well as a companion in his work, going so far as
to suggest that together they establish a winter home in the college
town where heretofore he had merely had bachelor accommodations.

To this, Catharine showed quiet, respectful, but determined opposition:
she did not wish to leave her quarters at the homestead where she had
built around herself an imaginary position of importance. It was one
thing to chide her father for always wearing his stockings on the same
feet and so poking through the big toe unnecessarily (as though any one
does such things on purpose or could if he tried); to persist in sorting
his letters and papers, labelling them “answered,” “unanswered,”
“lecture notes,” and “proof sheets,” until he was no longer able to find
anything; or to hold up her forehead for a good-night kiss,—but to
change her plan of living and be submerged by numbers in a larger place
was quite another, and asking too much.

Poor old young Professor! He went back to his work that autumn more
fully convinced than ever that in it lay all that life had to offer him.
Winter had never seemed so long as this, in which his fortieth birthday
was creeping toward him with the spring and May. Some of his associates
planned a little festival to celebrate the birthday, quite among
themselves, arranging that Adela Heyl, a sister of one of the number,
who had a fine voice and was coming to pass the spring in the town,
should sing some of his songs, that she, without knowing more than the
initials of the author, had found sympathetic and had set to music. For
as a reflex to the serious student side of the man, he had both a vein
of romance in him and a love of nature so exquisite and so delicately
keyed that it was in itself an art.

It was a little late when Professor Hewlett entered the Heyls’ cosey,
unpretentious house, and while he was touched by the comradeship that
was the motive of the festival, yet he at once drew within himself and
became diffident at sight of the feminine element that had been
introduced in what he had expected was to be a sort of bachelor
gathering; for, seated at the piano was a young woman clad in white with
a cluster of the white “Poet’s Narcissus” set against her low-coiled
dark hair. Shoulder curve and cheek told of the glory of a perfect
development; the chin was dimple cleft and dark lashes veiled the colour
of the eyes that were fixed on the keys of the instrument, as the
accompaniment trickled through her fingers, and her throat began to
quiver with song like the vibratory prelude of the wood-thrush.

               “In Arden where the twilight lingers,
                Love may dream but never sleeps,”

ran the words.

John Hewlett, who had drawn himself into a niched doorway on seeing the
singer, hearing his own words written long ago and almost forgotten,
half started forward and paused with both hands resting on the end of
the piano, looking across its length at the singer, who at his motion
raised her eyes unconsciously to his. They were a deep violet-blue in
colour, but he did not know this then; what he saw was the woman’s heart
that lay behind, that seemed at once to awaken and spring to meet his
own.

The first song glided into a second, and when, at the end of half an
hour, Adela stopped and let her hands drop to her knees, the pallor of
emotion rather than fatigue replaced her rich colour; and when her
brother presented his friend Hewlett as the writer of the words to which
her music had given new meaning, there was not one among the onlookers
but who realized in some degree what this birthday festival
foreshadowed.

John Hewlett travelled quickly over the fourteen years that separated
him from Adela Heyl, back toward enthusiastic youth. In a month’s time,
when he said that he loved her, there was really no need of words, and
though he never gave the fact utterance, she knew, beyond doubt, that it
was the first and only love of his life, as was his marriage that
followed in October. For no matter whether a man marries once or thrice,
there is but one real marriage, be it the first or the last, and no one
knows this better than himself.

Miss Hewlett and Catharine went up from Oaklands to the wedding—the
sister, in a flutter of mixed feelings in which sorrow at the probable
ceasing to be mistress of the homestead, and delight at having new life
come into the house, were mingled. The daughter went purely from a wish
not to appear to censure her father’s actions in public, and thereby
gained added reputation for being dutiful. In private she expressed her
views in words well chosen for their diamond-edged cutting power. She
did not approve of matrimony on general principles; in her father’s case
she entirely disapproved. Having but a faint memory of her mother, as
that of a vague person who had often said “You must not,” and never “I
love you,” yet she taxed her father with shortness of memory in no
gentle terms, and when he had come down to arrange some household
matters prior to the wedding, he found his first wife’s picture placed
upon his desk together with a prayer-book he had given her, and which
she had carried at their marriage, while at the same time Catharine
asked if he was willing that her mother’s furniture should remain in her
rooms, or if it was to be sold.

Now, however, nothing could cloud his sunshine, and the technical and
loveless remembrances that his daughter cultivated like a crop of birch
rods were wholly devoid of sting. (By the way, the development of memory
is supposed to be one of the best results of education, but father has
often said, out of his experience as a physician who sees behind and
below the scenes, that memory is often a destroyer of tenderness, and he
thinks a capacity for wise forgetting is often a better quality.)

Being themselves happy, Adela and John Hewlett must, perforce, see all
about them happy also, and instead of jostling and overturning the old,
they merely planned to expand upon their own lines. The ample homestead
was divided, and in the half with the primly drawn blinds and dark green
door Miss Hewlett and Catharine reigned, while in the other part with
the white door, where the honeysuckle climbed up to the open windows and
the fearless Phœbes nested atop the never closed blinds, the Professor
lived the indoor part of his new life, the only shadow in it being the
twilight of the forest where love dreamed but never slept.

People who predicted trouble were amazed, for, strange to say,
Catharine, after the first, never measured swords with Adela so few
years her senior; it seemed as though the very intensity of the new
wife’s nature was so incomprehensible to her that she shrank from
stirring its depths.

Three years passed, and John Hewlett’s name was spoken among English
scholars as that of a great power, even though not yet at its height. In
the fourth a deeper note was struck upon his heartstrings, a note above
the joy of which was an instant reverberation of sadness, for the cry of
his new-born child had apprehension for its echo,—a sudden and
unaccountable fragility that had come upon Adela, against which science
and love, though hand in hand, fought in vain.

“Her name is Rosalind,” he had said in the first happy days of reaction
before, for him at least, the apprehension had taken shape, “for she
came to us out of the forest of Arden.” Adela, raising herself by a
great effort, put the child into his arms, and folding her in them
against his breast, whispered, “Rosalind—that is the name I wished, so
that I knew you would say it. Take her, and whatever happens, no matter
what else she must lack, let it not be love.”

Two months later, in October, the fifth year of the marriage, and he sat
alone with the little Rosalind again gathered in his arms, for Adela as
a visible presence had gone.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Catharine, more moved than any one had supposed possible, offered to
care for the baby when it became necessary for her father to return to
college, while Miss Hewlett fairly begged for the child; but to both he
turned a deaf ear. Under no circumstances should the child be separated
from him, so Rosalind and a kindly middle-aged nurse, of father’s
choosing, went back with Professor Hewlett to the university.

During her first five years it seemed that the little girl would be
fairly killed with kindness; report of every tooth was carried from
house to house, as if it had been the news of the endowment of a new
chair. At five, Rosalind had the direct manners of her father enveloped
in a bit of coy, feminine charm quite her own. While she was gracious to
every one, she belonged only to him, who was also the measure by which
she gauged the actions of the outward world. She slept in a crib beside
him, breakfasted with him, dined when he lunched, and had a little table
and chair in the corner of his study.

“It’s all very well for now,” people said, “but wait until she is a few
years older, and she will need younger companionship.”

At ten, Rosalind began to pour her father’s coffee, perched in a
high-backed chair with her toes hardly touching the footstool. She was a
child at heart and full of the whims and tempers of childhood; she both
loved and hated with a will, but as she took all her perplexities to her
father to be sifted, he still managed to shield her from trouble, and in
the next years that followed, the love of books, woods, flowers, and
birds were woven into the fabric that bound the pair together. The
little crib by his bedside had been replaced by a white, draped bed in
the adjoining dressing-room, but she still knelt at his knees to say
“Our Father,” and in her love blended the actual and spiritual father in
her prayers.

“Wait until she is eighteen and the beaux begin to come,” said the
croakers; “her father will then have to give up first place, and may not
be able to shield her from disappointment.”

But at twenty the change had not yet come; all the younger men flocked
to her, but her fraternal comradeship was so decided that one
boundary-line served for all. One, Henry Benton, a man of thirty, a
favourite of her father’s and likely to succeed him also, showed others
what he felt, even though Rosalind did not see it, and one of those who
saw was the Professor, and he stood appalled.

To him Rosalind was still a child to whom his love was sufficient; as a
woman she found him still all in all, but did he wish it to be so now
that he realized? He was nearing sixty-five and soon to retire from the
university, for though his mental vigour was unimpaired, he had
oftentimes an unaccountable fatigue that made father tell him that one
cannot expect the heart at threescore to stand the pressure it did at
two. What would happen after him? It might then be too late. Had he been
selfish all these years, selfish through blind contentment?

Father love is often the most unselfish of all affections and best able
to act free from hope of reward, and less self-centred than the mother
love, even as her body is centred and dependent upon her maternity. Yet
he felt himself at that moment an egotist.

Though it cut the Professor to the quick, he did all that a tactful man
might to throw Benton and Rosalind naturally together, until, though she
showed no tell-tale eagerness or emotion, she looked for his coming as a
matter of course.

At this juncture, the spring of his retiring came, and the Professor and
Rosalind came back to Oaklands, where Catharine, now over forty, was
living alone, Miss Hewlett having decided the fall before upon a year’s
trip abroad; and it was toward the possible spectacle of the daughters
as rivals and the father’s position between the two, that village
attention was turned, for it would be very marked should two separate
households be maintained for only three people.

Rosalind did not seem to care for the title or prerogative of
“housekeeper” so long as she was her father’s companion. Together they
had made a plan for a garden entirely encircling the house, where even
the shady corners should be forced to yield bloom, but this scheme was
laid away until another season, because the Professor seemed to feel an
ever increasing weariness now that the harness had been laid aside and
there was no real necessity for exertion. No, there was one thing
more,—there was still a volume of critical essays, prepared for the
work of the university, to go to press. Rosalind begged her father to
wait for a while and rest, but when he still persevered, she, too, threw
herself into the work, that was completed at midsummer.

Then came a month of golden days, yet through them ran a thrill as of
coming harm that Rosalind felt, but could not formulate; her father
clung to her more closely than ever, but when she glanced up at him,
instead of meeting a quick response as of old, his eyes seemed fixed
upon something in the far-away horizon.

One day when father dropped in for a friendly rather than a professional
call, he found the Professor alone,—in itself quite an unusual
happening,—his face drawn and white with pain, hand pressed to side,
and then together they faced the inevitable as they had done twice
before. It might be months hence or even a year or two, or it might be
any day, such is _angina’s_ subtle cruelty.

“Shall I tell Rosalind?” asked father; “it is best that she should
know.”

“The time has come at last, then, when I can no longer stand between her
and sorrow,” said the Professor, scanning father’s face with a piteous
clinging to hope that was heartbreaking.

“No, John,” replied father, taking the hands that were fast becoming
veined and transparent, between his own; “the time has come when you may
no longer stand between her and either sorrow or love, for one is born
of the other, and it is not in the plan of God or nature that she be
spared; but if in her love for you she has learned to keep the windows
open wide to the sun of things, you will not have failed in your hope.”

“Then all may yet be well with her,” he said slowly, making an evident
effort to steady his voice, while at the same time as he glanced out of
the window near which they sat, his pained expression changed to one of
complete content, and, following his gaze, father looked into the
upturned face of Rosalind, who stood below, her mother’s wonderful
violet eyes flashing greeting between their long lashes, her arms filled
with the crimson, gold, and sapphire glory of late September—boughs of
swamp maple, pepperidge, birch, candelebra of fringed gentian, and smoke
of seeded clematis.

Once in the room and her plunder arranged in some great blue jars,
something either in the air or in an unconscious glance exchanged
between the men made her start and then look from one to the other, and
kneeling by her father’s chair, she took his face between her hands, and
scanning every line said:—

“You are more tired to-day, Daddy, when I thought the bright frosty air
would begin to make you better, or did I stay too long and make you
worry, dearest?” Then springing up lightly, she followed father, who,
without leavetaking, was stealing from the room.

“What is it, Dr. Russell?” she panted, when they had reached the end of
the passage; “has anything happened since I went away? Are there any new
symptoms?”

“Your father and I have been talking of grave things, dear child,” he
answered; “no, there is nothing new,” and afterward he confessed that he
was coward enough almost to run away. Reëntering the room, she again
dropped to her place by her father’s knee; now it was his turn to take
her face between his hands and draw her to him, seeking by unavailing
tenderness to break the force of the blow that must come.

“What is it, father?” asked the lips, but before the words were framed,
her heart knew the truth. Hiding her head against the breast where her
mother had pressed it, more than twenty years before, and forgetting
everything except that she had become a child again in her dread, she
sobbed, “You must not go without me, for I cannot stay behind alone;
wait, oh, father, do wait a little longer.”

“Beloved,—my heart flower,—your mother went alone, and yet I have
stayed until now. Do you know what she said when she knew that she must
first tread the path and she laid you in my arms? ‘Whatever else she
must lack, let it not be love,’ and for this I have lived and hoped.
Some day there will dawn in and for you a love to which mine will become
as the shadow. Keep the soul windows open lest it pass by, even as we
open the house windows to air and sun.”

Then for another whole month the arrow lay hid in the quiver, until
Rosalind sometimes dreamed that it was not there at all. Oftentimes they
would sit all day in the deep bay-window of her father’s chamber with
the October sunshine piercing them and the call notes of the migrant
birds falling from the trees now scant of leaf, until plans had been
made between the two as for the separation of a necessary journey. But
all this time, Catharine held aloof as of old; grieved she was, but with
her sorrow was a formality; by temperament she was one of those
unfortunates who always look backward to the morning that has passed
rather than forward to that which shall be.

Frosts came, and under the leafless trees below the window Rosalind
scattered food for the birds as her father sat by watching her, now he
did not leave his chair. Soon the arrow was poised again in the bow,
and, conscious of its vibration, her father said at the end of a day
when he had kept his bed, after Catharine, coming in, had drawn down the
blinds to shut out the moonlight, lest it trouble him: “Open the
windows, beloved, and when I go away in spirit, yet still lie here, do
not close them, for moon or sun, nor place things near me that cast
black shadows, lest the habit of darkness follow you.”

That night father was sent for, but this time he could not stay the hand
that drew the bow: in the morning, strange people came to the room with
the bay-window about which the honeysuckle still bloomed in spite of
frost. As they went in, Rosalind said, “Leave him on his bed, and do not
close the blinds.”

Catharine’s side of the house was soon in utter darkness, and a dry-eyed
figure clad in black sat in a sepulchral room refusing herself to those
who came to sympathize. As the morning lengthened, she crossed the
hallway and went upstairs, pausing with an exclamation of horror upon
her lips before the open door of the great room. There her father lay
upon his bed, across which the sun streamed, a smile upon his lips as if
in sleep, while upon the counterpane and scattered all about were
flowers. Clad in a soft white gown that had belonged to summer, Rosalind
was garlanding the slender rails at top and foot of bed; yet as
Catharine looked, the words of reproof she meant to say, halted and
remained unuttered, and she crept down the stairs again, realizing for
the first time in her life the loneliness of heart that was hers.

While daylight stayed, Rosalind never faltered, and a sort of exaltation
took the place of tears. “How do you keepers of the faith reconcile the
going of those whose lives are not lived out?” she suddenly asked the
Anglican Catholic priest, who had been the family friend since before
her father’s first marriage, an ecclesiastic of the type more often
found in cathedral than in New England towns, a quiet man and very
human.

“What others think, I do not know,” he replied; “for myself, I believe
that each one of us is taken at the time, best, not for those that he
leaves behind, but for himself, and this has been my experience.”

“But my mother was young and had all life before her,” said Rosalind, in
doubt.

“She had tasted all the bliss of love and loving, and she left it before
one bitter drop had entered the draught.”

“But father was still happy in spite of past sorrow; why was it best for
him?”

“Because he had reached the summit of his life and work; is it a good
thing to find one’s self groping backward?”

“Why do I stay behind then?” she pleaded with outstretched hands.

“Because your work of love begun must find its culmination;” and when he
had gone, Rosalind sat with hands clasped in her lap, lost in wonder.

With night came tears. Ah, for one word, a sign or token; if any one
could send a word back, surely it would be the father to his “heart
child.”

She lighted candles and grouped them on mantel-shelf and stand, but
their light was pale compared to that of the moon. Then she stole away
outside the door for rest that must be had. How long she slept she did
not know, but awakening with beating heart at a dream that was half
reality, she thought she heard a rustling in the great room: opening the
door, she saw a snowbird circling about, gray and white, against the
moonlight, and even as she looked, it lighted on the rail above her
father’s head and settled to sleep, head under wing.

“The open window,” whispered Rosalind, and peace filled her heart.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Among all those who came to sympathize by word or deed in the three days
that followed, one face was missed; Rosalind wondered at it, and then
questioned her own disappointment as the days went by, each tense with
readjustment, not knowing that absent on a journey at first, he had in
tenderness dreaded to push into a house of mourning.

At last one day, a man, whose resolute yet self-restrained face was
unfamiliar in the village, came slowly up the street, pausing afar off
to look at the house that from his point of view only showed closed
shutters. Presently he walked slowly on, and as he passed the gate,
turned quickly as for a last look at a place where he did not dare
intrude.

In the open window of the sunlit half sat Rosalind, dressed in white, a
flower at her throat, an open book before her, while on her sweet human
face rested the reflected light as from another world.

Then the man took courage, and, turning back, he knocked at the white
door.




                                   XI
                            THE RAT-CATCHER


                       =NOVEMBER=—THE MAGIC MOON

When Black Frost comes to the lowlands, he sometimes loiters for many
nights along the river meadows, and sometimes climbs swiftly into the
hill country, Wabeno the Magician always following in his wake cloaked
in the golden haze of dreams called Indian Summer.

Through the long nights the Magic Moon lights the little beasts to their
hunting, but ice fingers lock the shallow pools before day dawn, and, in
spite of alluring sunny noons, both man and beast seek shelter, one by
the fireside, where the singing logs repeat the songs they once learned
from the rain on the leaves in the forest, the other in ground hole,
rock lair, or, if sociably inclined, in house chinks, and crannies. In
this particular November, however, the village of Oaklands was
undergoing a new and strange experience born of the sudden preference of
a nimble, four-footed rodent for houses with warm cellars and
well-stocked larders, over the more remote barns and granaries. In
short, the north end of the village, and some of the outlying houses as
well, were suffering from a raid of rats that would have competed in
numbers with the army lured to cover by the Pied Piper.

All country dwellers expect to house a few of the wood folk in the hard
season, whether they will or no. The bats hang themselves up in the
attic behind the chimney, and the squirrels use a loose shingle as a
storehouse door; the wood rats burrow under the stable floor, and the
pretty, white-footed mouse with pelt and eyes like a deer will often
venture to the hearth corner, and not only remain unharmed, but even
make himself a welcome guest by his strange singing.

Rats, however,—the great relentless rats of city docks and sewers, that
carry both destruction and disease in their march,—are a wholly
different matter.

The plague had its beginning in what was considered a necessary
improvement for the health of the village as well as its morals, the
demolition of an old tavern that for a century had stood at the
crossways opposite the railway station at the side of the road where, a
few hundred rods higher up, was Martin Cortright’s cottage. The tavern,
a relic of stage-coach days, and flanked by great barns and pastures of
many acres that reached uphill quite to the Cortrights’ boundaries, had
gradually fallen, until it became a road-house of the worst type, with
its barns crumbling, filthy with the litter of years, and the land used
for the rooting-ground of a breed of black swill-fed pigs. Its malodour
had so offended the nose of public spirit as embodied in the Anglican
Catholic, the Severely Protestant, Mrs. Jenks-Smith, Martin Cortright,
and father, as health officer, that a public subscription had been
secured, the place bought, the buildings, including the pig-pens, razed,
and the land ploughed up to sweeten, preparatory to turning the plot
into a sort of park to be a playground for the school children. All this
had taken place in the early spring, and by fall every trace and odour
of the nuisance that had existed was gone; but the Committee, when they
had paid off all scores, had not reckoned with the rats that for
generations had been housed upon the premises. During the summer, these
rats evidently turned tramps, and, using the wide-chinked stone fences
for runways, by which they travelled from farm to farm, lived in luxury,
unobserved, though everywhere came complaint of the loss of young
chickens and eggs, this being laid to cats, hawks, and weasels. But no
sooner did Black Frost show himself than the winter homing instinct that
comes upon man, as well as the lesser animals, seized the rats, and from
all sides they began to travel back to their old haunts; these lacking,
they sought the nearest shelter.

The Cortrights were away in early autumn, and late the first night after
their return, Lavinia, candle in hand, going down the front stairs of
her well-ordered and supposedly mouse-proof house, encountered a
gray-whiskered rat coming up with so fixed a purpose, that even her
shrieks and Martin’s coming only drove him to the hall below where,
according to the testimony of Martin and Lavinia, he backed into a
corner and put up a successful fight against Martin, armed with an
umbrella, the wall paper receiving the whole of the damage. The maid,
intrenched in the hall above, whispered a different version of the
encounter, which was that the Master, being short-sighted, and lacking
his glasses, had charged at the corner where the rat was not, much to
the rat’s advantage.

Be this as it may, the postmaster, after having a ham cleaned to the
bone and some valuable mail gnawed, tried traps in vain and resorted to
poison, with the dire result that, in a week, after the stove fires were
started, his family were obliged to go to his wife’s mother’s, while the
movable part of the business took refuge in a corner of the Town House.
Soon the one absorbing topic in Oaklands, that eclipsed even the town
and presidential elections, both of which fell due that November, taking
precedence of the local tax rate, new roads, tariff, tainted money, or
trusts, was—“What shall we do with the rats?”

The Village Pharmacy, as the chief shop of the place is called, has many
attributes of a department store and club-room as well, in the cold
months. Here the men meet, who do not care to stay at home, or go to
read in the library, foregather in the saloon, or play poker by a
lantern in a corner of the windowless blacksmith’s shop. Among these,
the rats came as a new subject, that was welcome, if its cause was not.

Better still, the Pharmacy coterie had a recent recruit and one that
added not a little to the spice of its life, one Tom Scott, who owned a
Queen Anne villa (no, it wasn’t a house or a cottage; if you know the
modern English suburban home of this type, you will understand),
together with all the proper outside ornaments, and ten acres of land
halfway up the east road to the Bluffs. The place was close to what
Evan, in the earlier and snobbish days of the Bluff Colony, used to call
“the dead line,” because in the beginning there had been social war to
the knife between the big landowners who lived above the line, and the
small owners of the commuting tribe who lived below.

Mr. Scott had lived in Oaklands for eight years, during which time his
two golden-haired daughters had turned from apple-cheeked schoolgirls to
young women with the regular profiles and peculiar modulation of voice
that tell of English origin. Their mother had the same features, voice,
and colouring, but slimness had developed into the turtlesque figure of
a staunch type of British matron in her early fifties, who has no
American prototype. Fat women we have galore, but they usually carry
their weight gaily, not ponderously, and seldom outlive their capability
for wearing shirtwaists.

Mr. Scott was unmistakably English, tall, broad-shouldered, rosy,
clean-shaven, and sixty, his closely cut, crisp gray hair showing no
thinness at the crown and his deep-set eyes alert and keen to everything
that went on about him, although he was not a man of many words and
seldom entered into conversation of his own free will. In short, he was
the type of the old country farmer, who, clad in cords and gaiters,
spends half his time riding about his place on a deep-chested hunter,
and is an ardent follower of the hounds when the chase does not
interfere with market day. His speech, though usually correct, broadened
with certain words; his _s_ took the sound of _z_, and sometimes, when
excited, he reversed his vowels.

That he was a man of some means, was evinced by the fact that he owned
his home, paid as he went, contributed freely to local charities, had
three or four good horses, kept and bred dogs, farmed his land for
pleasure rather than profit, and displayed a love of sport by his
interest in the county and local fairs and horse shows. At the same time
he had evidently retired from active business life, as he only went to
the city one day in the week, as any man of leisure might, who, though
loving an out-of-door life, did not wish to cut entirely loose from old
associations.

For the rest, though he was referred to familiarly as Tom Scott by all
the men of his own age, and a good many of the younger ones, and
considered by all a square fellow, not one, if they had been questioned
about the matter, could have told from whence he came, or that his
previous occupation had in any way been mentioned.

When a new family comes to Oaklands, the natives have three tests by
which the strangers are graded and accorded citizenship in one of
several degrees, the first being financial, the second, moral, and the
third, social. Have they paid for their house in full, or is it held on
mortgage? Will they take a church pew, and if so, in which one of the
four churches? Does the man of the family wear a collar, tie, and coat
when at rest in the bosom of his family?—appearing in shirtsleeves upon
the front porch, even of a hot summer evening, no longer being permitted
by the rising generation of daughters trained at the Bridgeton High
School.

The Scotts had passed the tests in a manner satisfactory to all,
immediately taking a pew, neither aggressively toward the front, nor yet
economically in the rear, in our equivalent of the Established Church,
of which, it seemed, they were all members. Thus the only questioning
murmurs that had ever arisen about the head of the family came from a
few discontented people who had considered Tom Scott an inexperienced
city man of money, and therefore had tried, but tried in vain, to sell
him either an unsound horse, badly cured hay, or other farm produce of
poor quality, but at a price above the market rates. To these Scott
quickly showed so much horse lore, and such a shrewd and experienced
side to his character in general, that they voiced the opinion between
themselves that he wasn’t, in their judgment, what he seemed to be, and
that if it were known _how_ and _where_ he made his money—“well,
gambling and horse-racing had made many a fortune, and the ’Piscopals
should go slow before they committed themselves to his iniquities and
asked him to pass the plate.”

Few guests from outside ever went to the Queen Anne villa, and though
Mrs. Scott and her daughters joined in the milder social diversions of
the village, it was suddenly announced, the fall after they graduated
from the high school and something in the nature of a party was expected
of them, that mother and daughters were going to the old country to
spend Christmas, but that Tom Scott himself would stay behind and keep
bachelor’s hall. Then again the murmurers said: “Why doesn’t he go with
them? Has he done anything that prevents his going home?”

It was a little after this time that Scott, an inveterate home lover,
and now lonely and hungering for companionship, appeared at the
Pharmacy, his mantle of reserve replaced by an almost garrulous
familiarity. His first act was to buy a box of really fine cigars, which
he passed about freely among his fellows, only frowning at the one
outsider, a drummer, who, pushing his way into the group, prepared to
take a fistful at once. “Slow, young man, go slow,” Scott said
deliberately, measuring the fellow with a single sweep of the eye; “when
you ask a gentleman to drink, he doesn’t fill five glasses before he
empties the first, does he?”

The drummer slunk back with an exclamation half impertinent, half
apologetic, and at that moment the door was flung open, and Martin
Cortright entered, agitation written on every feature of his usually
calm student face; going directly to the proprietor, who was leaning
over the soda-water counter, he called in a voice very unlike his usual
quiet tones:—

“Give me some rough-on-rats, and any other poison you have; if they die
in the house, and we have to leave, so be it. My patience is exhausted.
To-day, while we were out driving, the rats, or a rat, actually got into
my little book room, though it has a hardwood floor and high wainscot,
and gnawed the corner off the antique leather binding of my ‘Denton’s
History of New York’; if this continues, imagine the condition of my
library!”

“Why don’t you cover all the food in the house and try traps, Mr.
Cortright?” asked Tom Scott, turning abruptly from the group who were
discussing the merits of a litter of bull pups that were asleep in a box
behind the candy counter.

“Traps!” ejaculated Martin. “We have tried five different kinds, and
rats managed to take the bait from four, without snapping the springs,
and the fifth, the wire-cage variety, they must have rolled about the
kitchen like a toy, for we found it in a corner standing on end. My
belief is, Mr. Scott, that intelligence in rats varies, as it does in
human beings, and that these particular specimens are what might be
called intellectual, and are only to be circumvented and trapped, if at
all, by some one who understands their own methods. How do they get into
the house? The foundations are solid, the cellar plastered, and with a
cement floor that shows no holes, and yet in the space of a month there
is hardly a door in the house that does not show the marks of their
teeth.”

“You are perfectly right,” said Scott, with the utmost seriousness,
interest sparkling in his eyes; “they must be understood and met on
their own ground, for they have surely some runway by which they enter
and leave, and no two tribes of rats work in exactly the same way, any
more than any two gangs of housebreakers handle their tools alike.”
Then, as he saw that all eyes were fixed on him inquiringly, he added,
in the most casual way possible, “I’ve always been keen on watching
animals to learn their ways, and as a young chap I had some queer
experiences with rats.”

“Why don’t you take up the reward offered, and clear the town of the
rats?” asked the drummer, sneeringly; “a gent who’s so well acquainted
with their ways ought to find it a cinch.”

The sneer passed unnoticed. “Have the Selectmen offered a reward in the
matter?” Scott asked.

“Yes, posted this afternoon,” said the druggist; “there is one of the
bills on the tree opposite. One hundred dollars’ reward for any one who
will either do the job or suggest a remedy.”

For a full minute Tom Scott stood with his hands in his pockets looking
into the show window and whistling softly to himself as if he were
alone; then squaring about he almost called, so loud was his voice,
“I’ve time on my hands now, and I’m going to take up that challenge,
boys: if I make the rats go in my traps, I’ll give the hundred to the
Bridgeton Hospital; if they don’t, I’ll add a hundred to the sum to make
it bigger bait for a smarter fellow.”

“I wish you could start to-night and begin at my house, but of course
that is asking too much; my wife and the maids are completely upset,”
Martin Cortright said beseechingly, as though Scott were some sort of
priest whose incantations would bring immediate relief to the nerves of
the feminine part of the household, and safety to his own beloved books.

“No, I was going to suggest that myself; I must get the lay of the land
a bit before I can plan my game, and night’s the only time for that. I
must go to my house first for a few things that may come handy. Has any
one a team outside?”

“I have,” said father, who had opened the door as the conversation
began, only entering far enough to hand some prescriptions to the
druggist, with a few words of directions concerning their filling. “I
must wait about for an hour at least, so that I can drive you up and
back again as well as not. What, you are going to try and rid us of this
plague? Surely, then, as health officer, it is my duty to give you a
lift.”

“Thank you, Dr. Russell,” said Scott, still in a sort of dream, as the
two went out together.

“I wonder where Tom Scott got acquainted with rats,” said the first
Selectman, who had all this time been playing chess imperturbably with
the Town Clerk upon the top of a barrel of pop-corn balls.

“In jail, most likely; that’s a thriving place for ’em, and there’s
plenty of time to watch ’em,” sneered the drummer, who had just reached
into the cigar box that Scott had left upon the counter, only to find
that its owner had pocketed the remaining contents.

“You speak as if you’d had personal experience. I see you list rat-traps
in your hardware side line,” said the Town Clerk, tartly. He liked
Scott, and also as a native he resented such remarks from a stranger.

“Mated!” cried the first Selectman, and the coterie began to break up.

Tom Scott and father drove along for a few moments in silence, and then
father asked him some questions about Mrs. Hobbs, the friend of Martha
Saunders, who was Scott’s housekeeper during the absence of his wife.

“She’s a good woman and a fine cook, but, Dr. Russell, she’s too stiff
for comfort; she serves my meals as if I was a gentleman, which I’m not,
and never pretended, and won’t sit down at table with me.”

Father was somewhat surprised at this remark, for he only realized Scott
as intelligent and a straightforward man of his word, and, further than
this, social classification never entered his head.

The house reached, Scott deftly fastened and blanketed the horses,
opened the door with a latch-key, and, leading the way through several
dimly lit rooms, said, “Perhaps you’ll kindly wait in here in my
sitting-room while I hunt about for what I need; there’s always a bit of
fire in here, sir, and it’s less lonely than the empty big rooms.”

As soon as father accustomed himself to the light, he saw he was in what
is commonly known as a den. A low book-case filled one side, above which
hung some good sporting prints in colour, pictures of famous horses, all
winners of the Derby, mingled with a few really fine engravings of
English rural scenes by Birket Foster, and others of his school. In the
bay window was a combination table and writing-desk, upon which papers
were littered, a tray of pipes acting as a paper-weight, while three
framed photographs and a work-basket of ample proportions spoke of the
absent wife and daughters. Comfortable easy-chairs filled the other
window recesses; one showing more signs of wear than the rest was drawn
up before the hearth, within the arms of which dozed a large, but
exceedingly amiable, bulldog, an old friend of father’s, that doubtless
would have wagged a welcome had he the wherewithal; this lacking, he
grinned broadly, and reading in father’s face that he wished to sit in
the chair, rolled sleepily to the rug, where, resting against father’s
knees, he threw back his head, extending his chin and throat to be
scratched.

As the dog finally dropped his head to the rug in absolute content,
father stretched his feet toward the fire, noticing for the first time
that it was not of logs but a glowing mass of Liverpool coal, a rarity
in a New England village. Then, as idleness bred of a capacity for
dwelling upon the details of what surrounds one, seized him, his eyes
travelled upward to the mantel-shelf, which had odd, narrow cupboards on
either side that reached quite to the ceiling; between these, set
panel-wise in a heavy frame of black oak, was an oil painting. This was
of such an unusual quality and subject for the surroundings, that father
first rubbed his eyes and then pushed the chair back to see the better.
The background was painted broadly, or, rather, merely suggested a
dark-walled room with the corner of a table littered with the remains of
a recent feast; upon a crimson leather chair close by the table was
perched a young woman, a-tiptoe, in her stocking feet; her copper-brown
hair and some white, loose-flowing wrap drooped from her shoulders,
while with both hands she held her skirts about her knees and stared in
wide-eyed terror at a couple of rats that scurried across the floor
toward her. The abrupt lighting of the figure came entirely from a
bull’s-eye lantern that was held in front of the man who crouched in the
shadow directly opposite the woman.

So striking and realistic was the canvas that after an examination at
close range, which revealed the name of the painter, an artist of repute
who had made a name some twenty years before for his daring and original
portraits and figure compositions, father placed the easy-chair in the
best possible position, reseated himself, and for the moment forgot his
errand and surroundings in his blended admiration and curiosity
concerning the painting.

                 *        *        *        *        *

“I suppose you are wondering how a five-hundred-guinea picture like that
came here, sir,” said Tom Scott’s voice, so close behind the chair that
father started, only to give a second and more emphatic jump and
ejaculate, “Bless me! for a moment I took you for a burglar,” as the man
came forward and stood leaning against the mantel, upon which he set a
small bull’s-eye lantern. Usually so carefully dressed and precise, even
when working as he often did about his stable and garden, Scott had
undergone a complete transformation. A close-fitting cap pulled down
about his ears touched the collar of a dull gray sweater, below which
were tightly fitting knee breeches, long stockings, and flexible,
heelless shoes; a stout bag that he brought in he dropped on the floor,
and it gave out a clank, suggestive of handcuffs and chains.

For a moment after father spoke, Scott coloured deeply, even allowing
for the firelight, and then he repeated the question concerning the
picture.

“Yes, I must confess that I am curious to know something of the history
of that painting,” replied father, speaking slowly and peering from
half-closed lids, “for though it is evidently what is called a fancy
piece, there is something about it that makes me feel that it was a real
happening and the woman real flesh and blood.”

It was Tom Scott’s turn to start and scan father’s face narrowly.
Whatever he read there evidently satisfied him, for he said quickly, as
if determined to speak before he changed his mind, “She was real flesh
and blood, and she is still, please God. The woman in the picture is my
wife!”

“Your wife? Not the Mrs. Scott that I know and have tended?”

“Yes, there’s never been but one for me. Of course I’ll not say that
she’s as slim and girlish as she was twenty-five years ago, but she’s
just as game and true as she was that night. If you’ll listen, I’ll tell
you the story of it all, and not make it long. Moreover, it will be a
kindness to me. For some time back I’ve felt that I must share those
days with some man that I could trust, and now, to-night, with all this
rat talk, and the missus who knows being gone, I must speak it out to
some one or lose my grip. No, don’t look troubled, sir, it’s no crime,
only something I’ve held back for the good of my girls, as I thought,
and if I do right or wrong, it’s for you to help me judge, Dr. Russell.

“Some people hereabout, as well as in other places, have wondered where
and how I got my start, and if the money I have was rightly come by.
Yes, sir, I see by your face that you’ve heard this, and I’ll not
attempt to deny that, since leaving my trade, I’ve taken enough trouble
to hide it to make people suspect more than there is to tell.”

Opening one of the cupboards with a key fastened to his pocket by a
chain, he took out a small double leather case; one side contained a
photograph of an old lady in a black gown and a white puffed widow’s
cap; from the opposite opening, he drew a thick card, yellow from its
rest in the dark, and handed it to father. Printed on it in heavy
letters were these words: “Successor to the original Harry
Leverings—Rat-catcher. At the old stand—2100 West 42d St.—Contracts
made for clearing hotels and public buildings.—No poisons used, traps
and strictly reliable men only employed.” Across the bottom in
silhouette were a string of steel traps and a bevy of scurrying rats.

Taking the card from father, whose face certainly expressed all the
interest necessary to encourage the narrator, Scott placed it on the
mantel-shelf as a sort of prompter, and straightway plunged into the
story:—

“There were only two boys of us who lived to grow up at home, John and
me. Of course, when my father died, John, being the elder, had the land
holdings, a goodish bit of a farm that had given a fair living when well
managed, while I had very little, but leave to get out. My mother loved
me best, I knew, but John was the heir, and that was the beginning and
the end of it. To keep me by her, she would have been willing to see me
knuckle down to be little more than a field hand to my brother, but I
would not. I had no trade except if knowing a good horse and how to ride
him could be called one, but I could shoot straight, and through
friendship with a game-keeper, I knew the ways of every beastie of the
woods and fallows of a great estate on the edge of which our land lay.
Many a night I’ve lain out in the fern with him, and miles did I tramp
after him when he went about setting and tending his traps for things
that killed the game. Poor McTaggert, I remember him well; he only died
last year.

“What I meant to do more than get away, I never knew when I took my
fortune, less than a hundred pounds, and left for America, for John was
hard and had an underhand way of working between me and my mother that
made every day I stayed a battle. Then, too, he made trouble with my
boyish sweetheart, Annie Fenton, a neighbour’s daughter, that in my eyes
always acted as if she feared and disliked him, yet dared not tell him
so. For a couple of months I drifted about here and there, but never
locating. One night when I had been thinking that my money would likely
run low before I had made my start, I was stopping at a cheap commercial
hotel in New York, when I heard them talking of the rats that overran
the kitchen, and about one Harry Leverings, who, with a gang of men
under him, made a handsome living at rat-catching. This man, moreover,
was coming there that night.

“Then my old days with McTaggert and my work of trap-setting came to me,
and getting leave to go below stairs, I chanced to fall in with
Leverings himself, who proved to be a fellow-countryman. One thing led
to another; I told him of a kind of trap McTaggert made, and sent for
one; soon I was working for him, improved the trap, took out a patent on
it, and five years later, when he was ready to drop out and go home, I
succeeded to his business, as the card says, and sometimes employed
upwards of twenty men who travelled all about the country, though for
some reason I can’t explain, my own name never appeared as head of the
business.

“Meanwhile, things had gone badly at home; soon after I left, Annie
Fenton’s father, thinking a bird in the hand the best bargain, tried to
force her to marry my brother, but she slipped away to an aunt somewhere
in America, leaving no trace of herself.

“John mismanaged the land, and, being caught in sharp practice, fell
into debt, leased out what he could of the place without thought of
mother, and went, some said, to Australia, though others said he had
followed Annie. Next, my mother fell into straits, and as I knew she
couldn’t be happy here, at least until I had a settled home, I sent her
money every month, through old McTaggert, lest it should be caught in
any way to pay my brother’s debts.

“It was close upon Christmas of the sixth year after I left home when I
had about made up my mind to go back for the holidays, that one of my
best customers, the owner of several large buildings for which I cared,
asked me if I would go out to his country house for a week or so and see
if I could do something about the rats, that, since cold weather, had
come into the cellar in a drove and were working up through the house,
destroying the woodwork and furnishings. He was to have house parties
there all through the holidays, and he wished, if possible, to have the
rats kept down, if nothing more, lest they annoy his guests.

“By this time I had given up personal jobs, preferring to look over the
ground and arrange the plans for my men, but Mr. —— rather insisted
that I should go to his place alone, promising to put me up at the
lodge, and so I went. Talk about seeing life, Dr. Russell, no one sees
more of it behind the scenes, as it were, than a rat-catcher. To do his
work properly on a large scale, he must be trusted to go everywhere, at
all hours. Those years had educated me, and at the same time made me old
at thirty. I saw into all their ways, how houses were furnished, the
pictures and books people bought, what food they ate, and what wine they
drank, and—beg pardon, sir, I’m getting off my story.

“This country house had sliding doors, draped by curtains all through,
and I saw at once that it was through these doors the rat runways lay.
Not wishing to make talk of the matter, Mr. —— explained my errand
only to the butler and told him to give me freedom of all below the
bedroom floors at night, so that I could remove both traps and rats, if
any were caught before daylight. The second night of my stay there was a
long dinner that lasted well into the night, with music and a play, for
among the guests that had come were some singers and a famous artist,
who rigged up a stage in the drawing-room and trimmed it up with
draperies and the like.

“I saw a good deal of the doings from behind a curtain where the first
of my trap line was set, and after everybody had gone to bed, and the
extra waiters had left for their quarters outside, I took my dark
lantern that I always kept lighted and went about the dining-room to see
if any fruit or sweets that would distract the rats had been left upon
the sideboard. At that moment I heard a rustling in a cage-trap, a kind
I seldom use, on the opposite side of the room; going to it I found that
three young rats had crowded into it together. Not wishing to go out, I
dropped trap and all into the bag that a rat-catcher always carries.
Then I continued across the room carefully, for the chairs were all in
confusion, the men having been tired and left in a hurry. I was about to
open the slide in the lantern front, when I saw, reflected in one of the
long mirrors, a woman’s figure coming down the stairs, shading the
candle that she carried in one hand.

“The figure came on through the open door straight into the dining room,
where I stood half in the corner with the curtain held before me. The
woman was slender and rather tall; her hair was hanging loosely and
looked black in the dim light. She wore a white wrapper of some sort,
and by the muffled sound of her steps, I knew that she was in stocking
feet.

“What did she want—a glass of water, to meet a sweetheart, or was she
looking for some lost article? For all of these things had I seen
happen. It was the last, for, setting the candle upon the table, she
began to grope underneath it, and, giving a soft exclamation of
pleasure, held to the light a glittering diamond collar with a wide
clasp of coloured gems. But it was not the sight of these that made me
turn so cold that the lantern nearly fell from my stiff fingers; it was
when the light of the candle flashed full on the girl’s face and reddish
hair, and showed me Annie Fenton!

“Before I could pull myself together, I heard steps coming from the
butler’s pantry just behind me, and a man’s figure, with a clean-shaven
face and wearing the dress suit of a waiter, stepped into the light.
Facing Annie, he laid his hand on her shoulder. She started and cringed,
but not a sound left her lips.

“‘Why didn’t you come to meet me as I bade you?’ his voice whispered
harshly. ‘Did you think now that I’ve found you, I would let you slip
through my fingers again?’ Then, as his eyes fell on the collar, he
closed his hand on it, saying, ‘That will be very useful to me just now;
my plans aren’t working well. Forget that you found this, my girl, and
if you are wise, don’t scream.’ Then ten words oozed from Annie’s lips,
‘John Scott, let go! I said I’d never meet you.’

“It was my brother,—at best, a would-be thief,—dogging my sweetheart.
He was bearded when I left home, and so I did not know him. For a second
my right hand was on the pistol that I always carry when at work; then I
suddenly realized what it would mean to the two women I best loved if I
shot my brother. If Annie would only scream, some of the gentlemen who
slept in a chamber beyond the billiard room could hardly be asleep, and
they would come. But how to make her?

“Dr. Russell, there’s something works in us besides ourselves at times.
Yes, I see you know it, too. Scarce knowing what I did, I turned my
bull’s-eye straight and full on Annie; with one hand reaching for the
trap, I shook those fool rats loose, and they, half blinded, ran down
the light streak toward her. Next thing I knew, she was up on a chair,
and shriek upon shriek rang through the house. Before I could scarce
move, the room was full of the gentlemen, Mr. —— and the artist being
in the lead. The man, bewildered by the suddenness of it all, loosed his
hold on the jewels, and vanished through the pantry, as if he dived into
water, but quick as he went, they both knew that I had seen.

“Before either of us could offer a word of explanation, my employer took
in the whole matter at a glance, as he thought, recognized Annie as the
maid of one of his guests, and, laying the uproar only to the rats and
me, laughed at it as a great joke, while the artist fellow, seeing
Annie, who kept on screaming and was too frightened to get down from the
chair, called,—‘By Jove! What a picture! Stay there just for a minute
while I make a memory sketch,’—at least, I think that’s what he called
it.

                 *        *        *        *        *

“Well, sir, we were married New Year’s Eve, and neither of us have since
ever put in _words_ what we saw and heard that night, just before I
loosed the rats.

“A year after, I was overlooking some work in a picture gallery, when I
came face to face with the picture as it’s there now, and I knew I’d
have to buy it first or last, sir, even if it bit a hole in my savings,
for even a rat-catcher, as I was then, if he had a good mother of his
own, doesn’t want his wife, with no shoes and her petticoats up to her
knees, to be seen outside his own home.

“Oh, yes, of course, that was twenty-five years ago. The rat money went
into well-advised real estate; we are settled here, and the missus and
the girls have gone to bring my mother, past seventy, to live with us.
No, I didn’t go; I couldn’t. My brother is back on the place, and
married to a girl with some property. Made money himself in Australia,
they say,—God knows how.

“When you know that the things you remember aren’t there, and other
things _are_, it’s best not to go back. Now, Dr. Russell, tell me,
should I tell my girls, and the men that will want to marry them some
day, the story that I’ve told you? What do you think?”

“I think,” said father, standing up so that they stood face to face,
“that you are a gentleman; that being said is all, and there is my hand
upon it. Nine o’clock already; we must be going.”

Tom Scott picked up his ratting bag that held some of his famous traps,
and, taking the old card from the shelf, was about to throw it into the
fire, then hesitated, and put it back in the case facing his mother’s
picture, saying with a smile, half sad, half humorous, “I’m afraid, sir,
there’s that about the old business that would make me lonely if I
forgot.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

A month later a paragraph appeared in the local papers that read as
follows: “Mr. Thomas Scott of our town has made good his promise of
ending the scourge of rats, and has turned over the sum of two hundred
dollars, he having doubled the amount of the reward offered, to the
Bridgeton Hospital.

“There is a pretty little incident connected with this work. Mr. Scott,
who has made a fortune in real estate, got his first start by inventing
and patenting a particularly clever rat-trap, and it was with some of
these traps, put by and almost forgotten, that he has been of so much
use to his fellow-townsmen, for which they now take this way of
expressing their thanks.”




                                  XII
                               TRANSITION


                    =DECEMBER=—THE MOON OF SNOWSHOES

                                   I

                  “Good King Wenceslas looked out,
                     On the feast of Stephen,
                   When the snow lay round about,
                     Deep and crisp and even!”

sang the violin with pathetic accent, and then stopped abruptly, as the
player dropped the bow and pressed his face against the window. The
stars shone from the cold blue of a cloudless sky; below lay the city
ablaze with light. It was a Danish city, and the player was a Dane, but
when a violin sings, it speaks to each one in his own language. Bells
pealing from a neighbouring church took up the same carol of
Christmastide, and young voices echoed it faintly from within the doors
of many homes.

On that Christmas night, two young women were drilling childish voices
in the singing of the same tune. These women had never met, or either
even dreamed of the other’s existence, yet a current, as actual as the
sound-waves of the music, at that moment began to draw them together,
the player of the violin, Gurth Waldsen, being the unconscious medium.

Waldsen looked from the window at the outlines of the palace across the
water, its ramparts twinkling with lights that looked like reflections
of the brilliant winter stars, but his thoughts did not follow his
sight. In a few days he would be an exile from both home and country,
and though the leaving was wholly voluntary, yet the past and present
struggled together. A visionary in many respects, refusing to understand
social classification as read by his family, he had, in his mother’s
eyes, capped the climax of his folly on his graduation from the
University by refusing a diplomatic career, insisting upon earning his
bread literally by the sweat of his brow, and betrothing himself to a
pretty, modest, blue-eyed girl of a near-by village,—“A girl of the
people,” his mother called her, for though she had been carefully
reared, her father, a poor pastor, had been taken from his peasant
brothers and educated for the ministry because he was both docile and
fragile.

Waldsen’s mother was the controlling power of the family. His father,
long since dead, had been a dreamer, a musician, and something of a
poet, whose wife had married him in a fit of girlish romance, and then
lived to scorn him for his lack of ambition and reproach herself for
marrying beneath her. Her only son should make no such mistake; she
would oversee at least his social education, but she completely
overlooked the matter of heredity.

So little Gurth grew up with only one parent. At ten the boy was tall
and undeveloped, with a shock of strange golden-brown hair that he shook
back as he played the violin, his greatest pleasure; but at twenty-two
he was a slender man with a gold-tipped beard, straight nose, and
blue-gray eyes, that looked at and through what he saw, all his features
being softened by his father’s dreamy temperament.

Mrs. Waldsen, therefore, set her face against the marriage with the
bitterness of her disappointment stung to fury by the memory of her own
past. If she loved her son, it was for her own gratification, not for
his, and now, as her world was beginning to talk of him, his bearing and
gentle accomplishments, should she allow him to be taken from her?

Gurth had waited several months after the first rebuff, hoping that time
would mend matters. Andrea could not marry yet; she was the
foster-mother to four small brothers, and managed the little household
for her overworked and underpaid father, but in another year Theresa,
the younger sister, would be able to take her place. Time, however, did
nothing but rivet Mrs. Waldsen’s decision, and in the interval the
knowledge of her treatment of his father came to Gurth, and he knew then
that argument was hopeless. He had some money of his own, though merely
a trifling legacy from an uncle, and his last interview with his mother
brought to an end all idea of remaining in Denmark. This was what he was
fighting alone in his study that Christmas night, when, turning to his
violin for sympathy, it sang the half-sad carol that Andrea had been
teaching her little brothers the last time that he supped with her.

Gurth now regretted the time that had passed in temporizing, in
drifting. To-night would end it all, and freed, as far as possible for a
man to free himself, he would carry out in detail a plan of life that
had often before vaguely offered him escape—not merely liberty to marry
as he pleased, but also release from the particular social conditions
into which he was born, that had at all times cramped him. He loved
Nature and his fellow-men, in a genuine and wholesome fashion, but with
the institution called Society, as it existed about him, he seemed
pre-natally at war.

Putting aside what he had been, he chose to go as an emigrant, elbow to
elbow with labourers; going to gain a living from the soil by his own
toil, to try if the strength of body in him matched the strength of
intention. He meant to follow an outdoor life, and thus make a home for
Andrea, wearing the path a little before he let her willing feet tread
it with him.

As he looked about his rooms he almost smiled at his few possessions.
Some long shelves of books, a rack of music, a few pelt rugs, a
high-post bed behind an alcove curtain, chairs, a long oak table upon
the end of which stood a great bird-cage, while half a dozen smaller
ones hung by the window. A porcelain stove stood under the mantel-shelf,
and above it was a litter of pipes and broken foils, while on one
corner, in a little place apart, shrine-like and surrounded by growing
ivy, the portrait of a young girl looked at him. It was merely a
photograph taken with the crude art of a provincial town, but the stiff
posing could not mar the charm of the face, and Gurth looked longingly.
Leaving the window he moved slowly toward it until, resting his elbows
on the shelf, he touched her lips with his, and then started at the
unconscious act. To see her once more, to-morrow, Stephen’s Day, and
then go away! His heart and its primitive instinct whispered, “Marry
her—take her with you!” What he considered his reason said,—“Where to?
It is winter; the sea is deep and wide, the journey long. Make the home;
wait for spring!” Ah, this was one of the many matters in which what is
called impulse would have been wiser because the more direct of the two.
It was morning before Gurth had thought the matter to a conclusion, and
the streets had slept and were waking again before he threw himself upon
the bed, still dressed.

He spent the following day in destroying papers and in writing letters
to a friend or two. He had the equivalent of about five thousand
dollars, to begin life with, and he resolved to hoard the money as
carefully as if he were indeed a peasant starting for the New World.
This money represented the land, the home; his own brain and hands must
do the rest. A trunk of books, his violin, some of his plainest clothes,
were all that he would take; a rough coat and a fur cap must be bought
to supplement his wardrobe.

The bullfinch by the window piped gaily, and the chaffinches in the
cages with fantastic dormers chirped in reply, reminding him of their
necessities, and, after feeding them, he unhooked their cages and,
fastening them, covered them and prepared to go out. He had promised
Andrea that he would be with her for supper. It was already five
o’clock, and the Clausens lived far outside the city, an hour’s sharp
driving on the Klampenborg road, and the sleigh that he had ordered was
waiting. Packing the cages under the fur robes, he started the horse at
a brisk pace. It seemed already, so powerful is imagination, as if this
decision had given him a greater sense of liberty.

In a long, low-studded room, whose polished board floor was relieved by
a few squares of bright carpet, two young girls were preparing the
supper table. The youngest was at an age when her closely braided hair
lacked the dignity of being put up, and her skirts were still a few
inches from the ground. She was squarely built, fair-haired, blue-eyed,
and rosy with good nature. She held a large loaf, beautifully light and
baked evenly brown, which she was regarding with great glee. “Lift it,
Andrea!” she cried. “See how light it is, and how sweet it smells! Now
that my baking is as good as yours, you can be married, for you know
that father said a year ago you could not marry until I baked good
bread!” and Theresa laughed teasingly. Andrea, so addressed, looked at
the loaf carefully, then silently kissed the face that was smiling above
it. She was half a head taller than her sister, with an oval face
surrounded by thick, smooth, bright golden hair that was parted and
braided in two wide bands and coiled around her head. Her cheek-bones, a
trifle high for good proportion, were relieved by great, dark-blue eyes,
with jet-black lashes; the chin was firm, the mouth not small but
opening over long white teeth. The indescribable charm of the face came
from the eyes. The kiss was the only answer that she gave her sister,
who rattled on from one theme to another as she brought in the different
dishes, occasionally joining in with the four little boys who were
singing carols in a group around a battered piano at the other end of
the room, mingling their shrill voices with the pastor’s tenor.

                 “Mark my footsteps, good my page,
                    Tread thou in them boldly:
                  Thou shalt find the winter’s rage
                    Freeze thy blood less coldly!”

Gurth paused on the threshold an instant listening to the singing, then
entered without knocking. The little boys rushed to hang about him and
explore his pockets, and the pastor and Theresa welcomed him warmly. It
was Andrea alone who saw a change in his whole demeanour, and wondered
at the bird-cages. The evening meal was soon eaten, and the boys went to
the kitchen with the toys that Gurth had brought them; the pastor,
scenting something, sat erect in his arm-chair, all forgetful of his
pipe and expectant of some news, while Theresa hung over him. Gurth
stood by the stove, nervous and uncertain how to begin.

Andrea went to him, and, putting her hand through his arm, said quietly,
but with an infinite tenderness in her voice, “You are going away,
dearest, and you have brought your birds for me to keep for you.”

It was as if her voice smoothed away his fears and perplexities, so all
four together they discussed the situation without reserve.

Gurth, forgetting his prudent plans, begged the pastor to marry them
then, or at the latest in a few days, when the necessary legalities
could be complied with, so that he might leave Andrea as his wife. Upon
this point the pastor was obdurate. His practical instinct, born partly
of the peasant suspicion of another class, and partly of hard
experience, forbade this. Among his parishioners many a wedding had
taken place on the eve of parting, and the husband had been swallowed up
in that vast new world, while the poor girl at home waited in vain, not
knowing whether she was wife or widow.

He liked Gurth in a way, but he was sadly disappointed in his failure to
reconcile his mother to the marriage, and, while he believed him sincere
at present, he did not know how the separation might affect either of
the young people; so he insisted upon delay. If Gurth had established
himself by the next Christmas, he might return and marry. If not—well,
there were other men who, under the circumstances, would be more
suitable for Andrea, though he did not voice his opinion. In reality he
had no romance in his nature, and he disbelieved in unequal marriages,
especially if money was not coupled with the rank.

If, after a year’s trial, Gurth was in a position to come for
Andrea,—well and good,—but further than that the pastor could be
neither coaxed nor driven.

Moreover, he allowed them little privacy for saying good-by.

“I know how to work, and I like it, but you must learn how,” Andrea
whispered, as she clung to him. “But I will be ready, Gurth, and, more,
if you can’t return, I will go to you!” This understanding was their
farewell.

His mother, when she found that he had gone, laughingly told her friends
that Gurth had a foolish love affair, and, taking her advice, he had
gone away to travel it off.

                                   II

There is nothing that tends so to destroy the conceit of a man little
used to the sea, as an ocean voyage in midwinter, especially if it is
made on board an emigrant ship. On a good liner he may prop up his
flimsy importance in a dozen ways, from feeing stewards to bring him six
meals a day while he lies in his berth, to pulling himself together and
wearing the distinction of being the only cabin passenger at table
during a furious squall. But on an emigrant ship it is impossible to
veil or soften stern reality.

Gurth had chosen this way of travel that he might more quickly realize
his changed circumstances. For two weeks or perhaps three he must live
in this community. Previously he had a theoretical knowledge of the
conditions that surround and make poverty. Now for the first time he saw
the reality. His first thought was of the wonderful patience of these
people; the next conviction was of their unconquered hope.

A dozen perhaps had settled homes in America and had returned to their
native land merely to visit, but the multitude were going, they were not
quite sure where, to earn their bread, they did not know how. Doubts did
not trouble them, their pink pasteboard tickets seemed the pledge of
landing somewhere, and as for the rest, they were used to uncertainty.

The fourth day out, a day when a mild streak and a few hours’ sunshine
brought all the grotesque animated bundles of clothes from their berths,
Gurth took his violin and, without ado, began to play a native ballad,
and then another. Silently the people grouped about him, some stealing
below to coax up a comrade who was ill.

The intensely earnest look on their faces stimulated him, and he played
on and on, grading his music from grave to gay, to suit each in turn,
until at last, feeling his wrist failing, he made the national hymn a
final effort. Scarcely had the tune taken form than a chorus rose, at
first swaying and uncertain, and then gaining power and steadiness,
until the last word was reached. The men rubbed their eyes with the
backs of horny hands, and women hugged him, and before he realized the
situation, one stolid, square-faced man, who had virtually declined to
talk to him the day before, was passing around his peaked fur cap to
receive a ready shower of small coin, which Gurth could not refuse. So
thus he earned his first money. By his violin and its speech, which,
however exquisite, no man feels above him, he was admitted to the
freemasonry of his companions.

A carpenter who had been home to see his old parents asked Gurth where
he was going to settle, and then he realized that he did not know, save
what his port was, and that he did not wish to locate far from the sea,
nor in a sultry climate. The carpenter drew from him such scant outline
of his schemes as he wished to tell—his plan of buying a farm, after he
had learned the country’s ways. This man told him about the village
where he lived, which was near a New England town whose railways offered
a market for small fruits, and he advised Gurth to work for his board
and lodging with one of the numerous fruit-growers until he learned the
craft, saying that as he spoke English well, Waldsen might earn a trifle
above his board, but that a man who had never done hard work was not
worth much.

                                  III

It was a bitterly cold winter; the wind swept fiercely through the cut
between Sunset and Rocky hills, rushing down the main street at Glen
Village, separating the neighbours on either side more effectively than
drifts of snow could have done. However deep, there is something
cheerful and exhilarating about snow. Children think that it is sent for
their special amusement; the shy young man, who drives his sweetheart
over to the “Social” in the next village, needs no excuse for putting
his arm around her, for light sleighs have been known to upset suddenly
without the slightest warning. The old folks are cheerful in their
reminiscences of just such episodes, and compare each storm with some
long-remembered one in the thirties, noting always the frail and
inferior wearing quality of modern snow.

But Wintry Wind is the most exasperating and prying of nature’s
messengers, whose mission is the uncovering of weaknesses in all things
animate and inanimate. It soon discovers if your eyes are sensitive,
your hat a size too small, that you are subject to rheumatism, that your
breath is short when you walk uphill, and that your knees bend as you go
down, and so turns your cloak over your head like an extinguisher. It
knows precisely which shingle lacks a nail, and will lay bare spots
calculated to make obstinate leaks. It also spies out the blind whose
catch is loose, the gate with one hinge, the elm that is split in the
crotch, and the particular chimney flue that leads to the room where
your most important relation (who suffers from bronchitis) is being
entertained at tea, and it gauges accurately which article on the
clothes-line you value the most.

It was this sort of weather, combined with his daughter Margaret’s
delicate health, that made Ezra Tolford, living at the Glen Mill, for
which the village was named, resolve to have a hired man.

Now Ezra Tolford had many titles to local distinction. He was Deacon of
the First Church, and his parents had been zealous before him, his
grandfather having had the hardihood to fly to the woods with the church
plate on the approach of the British in 1779, thereby risking his life
_via_ wild beasts, Hessians, and exposure,—a fact that is brought up in
every local historical discourse to this day. Incidentally it might be
mentioned that the plucky ancestor (owing to fright and darkness) was
never able afterwards to locate the marshy spot where the precious metal
was buried; this fact, however, is usually omitted.

Ezra was also Judge of Probate, thanks to a fragmentary law course taken
in days when a fond mother had pinched and saved that her only boy might
“make his mark.” Thirdly, he was the owner of the best mill on the
Pequotuck. A mill that, in spite of the sale of flour and meal at the
village store, kept its wheel going five days out of seven during nine
months of the year, sawing wood when no one wished flour, and turning
out middlings for the cattle when the stacks grew low. So swift was the
river that ice very seldom silenced the song the old wheel hummed as it
worked.

Lastly, by wise drainage the deacon had turned a dozen acres of
protected meadow-land, heretofore regarded as next to useless, into one
of the thriftiest fruit farms in southern New England.

All these things made Ezra’s daughter Margaret of special importance in
many eyes besides his own, and it was for her sake that he resolved to
have a man to hook up the team for her, when he was busy in the mill or
away in the village, and do a thousand and one little errands that the
sturdier daughters of his neighbours accomplished for themselves.

The Mill House, as it was called, stood on a hill between the Pequotuck
and a little brook that, curving, joined the river below the dam. It was
a placid-looking white house of a style of architecture that might be
called New England Restored. It had been Colonial, but a modern
bay-window, a piazza, and a lean-to in the rear had hybridized it; yet
it still possessed a dignity never seen in the rural interpretations of
the Queen Anne villa.

This particular house had a very attractive outlook. Raised well above
them, it was bounded on the western side by the river and the mill-pond
that always held the sunset reflections until the twilight absorbed
them, while the old red mill with its moss-mottled roof focussed the
view. Toward the north and east the meadows ran slantwise up a hillside,
where, dotted here and there like grazing sheep, you could see the
stones of the burying-ground, where the inhabitants of the glen took
their final rest, as if their friends had left them as near heaven as
possible, and safe from the floods that used once to sweep the valley.
To the south the road ran tolerably straight for three miles down to
Glen Village itself.

The interior of the house differed but slightly from others of its
class, and that difference consisted in the greater genuineness of its
fittings. Evidently the woman who presided over it appreciated relative
values, for the sitting-room had glowing crimson curtains and a fire of
logs in place of the usual “air-tight,” while in one corner, in the
location usually chosen for the inevitable asthmatic parlour organ,
stood an upright piano. On the table was a comfortable litter of books
and papers.

By the window, looking down the road, stood Margaret Tolford. At the
first glance there was nothing striking about her personality. Medium in
height and colouring, her slight frame was wrapped in a soft white shawl
that gave her a fragile air. At a second glance the deep gray eyes, that
looked from under a brow narrowed by a quantity of smooth, coal-black
hair, were magnetic in their intelligent wonder. Her eyes said, “There
is much that I would understand, but I cannot;” whereas a shallower
nature would have thought, “I am misunderstood!”

The wind whistled in the chimney, and the _pud, pud_, of a heavy
flatiron came from the kitchen, with snatches of inharmonious song, as
the thick-lipped Polack who was the “help” pummelled the towels and
folded them at angles that would have distracted a mathematician. In
fact, this very Polack was one of Margaret’s lesser problems, a sort of
necessary evil who, in summer, bareheaded and barefooted, pervaded the
premises, but having with her gay neckerchief a certain sort of
picturesque fitness, which, when brought nearer, booted and confined to
the winter kitchen, became an eyesore. Other farmers’ daughters did the
cooking and the lighter work, and only had a woman to help with the
washing.

Margaret had never done manual labour; her mother, dead now two years,
had stood between this only child and all hardship, and coaxed the
Deacon to send her to a collegiate school when her playdays were over.
In the summer holidays she was petted and caressed and kept from soiling
her hands, and when at eighteen she was coming home for good to mingle
as an equal with her parents and learn her part in life, her mother
died, and her father closed the one tender spot in his stern heart
around his daughter. So she lived shut up within herself, craving a more
intellectual companionship than the neighbourhood furnished, and
starving unconsciously for demonstrative affection.

Tolford was a silent sort of man, who had been so thoroughly understood
by his wife that she seemed to know his unvoiced wishes. Because he
showed so few signs of an affection that would have won a hearty
response from Margaret, he failed to comprehend the difference between a
deeply reserved nature and physical weakness, to which cause he laid her
abstraction. His love for her, therefore, took the schooltime form of
shielding her from work. He liked to hear her play hymns on Sunday
evenings, and was very proud to have her train the children of the
Sunday School in their carols, but it never occurred to him to ask her
advice in any of his plans, or expect aid from her. She stood apart, not
understanding the love her mother had drawn from the stern, lonely man,
and while he excused her reserve, and told the neighbours she was
delicate and peaky, her only ailment lay in lack of motive.

                 *        *        *        *        *

It grew dark, and points of light appeared here and there in the
landscape; an icy slip of a moon pierced the driving clouds. Margaret
drew the curtains and sat down by the fire, its light sending a glow to
her usually colourless face. A brisk, though heavy, footstep came along
the entry from the kitchen, and Ezra Tolford opened the door, and,
stopping a moment to adjust his eyes to the fitful light, went toward
the fire, rubbing his hands. Margaret immediately arose and, pushing a
rocking-chair towards him, prepared to light the lamp.

“Never mind that now, daughter,” he said; “sit down, I want to talk a
bit. You know I said I’d get a hired man to ‘piece out’ with the work?
Well, he’s come!”

The Deacon was, in reality, fairly well educated, but since his wife’s
death (she had kept him to her standard, for she had been a
schoolmistress) his English had relapsed into localisms, and, besides
this, at the present moment he seemed ill at ease. Margaret merely
understood the announcement as a roundabout question as to whether any
accommodations were prepared for the man, and said: “The shed bedroom is
just as Hans Schmidt left it last fall; I suppose a bed could be made up
now, and Zella can clean the room to-morrow, but it will be very cold
unless you give him a stove.”

“Well—er—you see,” said the Deacon, “I don’t suppose that room will
do,—em!—hem! You see in the beginning he is to live with me without
wages, and—” here the Deacon came to an embarrassed standstill, and
Margaret broke in,—“Without wages! If he is as poor as that, he will
scarcely object to the shed room without a fire for the night!” She did
not say this because she was at all mean or hard-hearted, but from her
experience of the servant question, any one who was willing to work for
nothing must either be utterly worthless or bereft of reason.

“Not at all, not at all, daughter! You see, the man is not a common
workman, but may buy the Hill Farm some day as a home for his sister,
and wants me to teach him to grow small fruits, and learn the way of
things here while he gets it to rights. I’ve contracted with him for a
year—” and as Margaret did not reply, he continued, “You know Peter
Svenson, the carpenter, who went home to Denmark last summer to see his
folks? Well, he brought this young man back with him. Peter knows all
about him, and says he is perfectly honest and speaks good English, but
is close-mouthed, and doesn’t like to talk of his affairs, because his
family used to be well fixed, but now they are all dead but one sister.
He has a few thousand dollars and is going to make a home and bring her
over in a year.

“Peter says he can play a fiddle, but isn’t used to hard work, and
advised me not to pay him money, but to offer to show him how I work my
farm and give him his board for his services.” Then the Deacon
continued, giving the account of Gurth that the garrulous carpenter had
pieced together to cover his lack of real knowledge. As Margaret still
said nothing, he added:—

“Now I think the attic east room might be straightened up,—it won’t
take long, and it can be bettered to-morrow.”

Instantly Margaret was divided between extreme wonderment at this
strange arrangement on her father’s part, and fierce resentment at the
intrusion of a stranger in the house,—a man who was and was not a
servant, who must necessarily eat with them, who would not perhaps leave
the room when the meal was finished.

If Margaret had a decided eccentricity, it was her positive resentment
of male society, and she bore the reputation of being proud, because,
when the village swains drove up in their newly washed buggies with bows
of ribbon tied to the whip handles, and with self-satisfied glances
asked her to take a drive, the usual rural compliment, she invariably
declined, and their irate mothers settled that she either must be in a
decline, experiencing religion, or else, woful thought, “engaged to some
fellow Northampton way,” where she had been to school.

The truth was that she had, through a wide range of reading and no
experience, built up a well-nigh impossible ideal, half mediæval
heroism, half modern, intellectual refinement, that was irreconcilable
with the type of men with whom she came in contact.

Margaret was thoroughly accustomed to her father’s silent mood and
considered him by far (as he was) the best-informed man she knew. He was
also fond of reading, not only subscribed to a daily paper, but several
weeklies and magazines, and always allowed her to buy any book she
fancied, so that their winter evenings, when Margaret read aloud, were
comfortably sociable, and sympathetic. It was no wonder, therefore, that
she resented the presence of a stranger, and it was with rather a
lowering brow that she followed her father to the kitchen.

Deacon Tolford went in first, and said abruptly, but in a tone that
Margaret knew was meant to be cordial: “Daughter, this is Gurth Waldsen,
who is going to help me out this year; we want to make him feel so much
at home that he’ll settle in Glen Village. You’d better tell Zella to
hurry supper; I guess we are both of us hungry.”

Margaret added some ordinary words of greeting before she looked at the
figure who rose from the settle back of the stove and bowed, without
offering to shake hands, as a native would have done. Then she raised
her eyes and saw the tall, easy figure with the golden-tipped hair and
beard, his dreamy gray eyes looking at her with a directness that was
not curious, but almost as of pleading for mercy, while the
mouse-coloured corduroy suit that Waldsen wore brought out the clearness
of his skin in a degree that was almost startling.

“I hope that I put you not to great trouble,” he said in his soft
baritone. “If you will tell me where I may place my things, I can
arrange all myself.” The English was musical, and doubly so from the
slight hesitation and accent.

What passed through Margaret’s brain she never clearly realized, but she
heard her voice as from a long distance asking him to follow her
upstairs, and found herself lighting a lamp, and leading the way.

It was strange that she had never noticed before how dreary the attic
was. She merely indicated the room, saying that he might leave his
things there, and to-morrow he could bring up firewood, while to-night
she would give him an extra supply of bedding. As she left, Gurth looked
after her and at the bare room, and shivered, but the room seemed less
cold to him than the woman. There was no reason that he should expect
her to be cordial; doubtless she would have preferred a field hand to
whom she need not speak.

He realized that his very disappointment grew from the lack of proper
comprehension of his present position. “Oh, Andrea! Andrea! for one
sight of her sweet, sympathetic face, one touch only!” A harsh, clanging
bell from below waked him to the fact that if he wanted water to wash
his hands, he must bring it up himself; he looked at them dubiously,
smoothed his hair, flipped off his clothes with his handkerchief, and
went down.

He hoped that he might be allowed to eat his meals in the kitchen; it
would indicate his position more clearly, and he should be less lonely
than with constrained companionship. This was not to be. As he passed
the dining room door, he saw a table laid for three, at which Ezra
Tolford was already sitting, wrapped in a gaily figured dressing-gown,
and collarless, as was his habit when either at ease or at work. He was
reading a paper which was propped against a pitcher, and he barely
raised his eyes as he asked Gurth to be seated.

Margaret came in with a coffee-pot and a plate of biscuits. She had
thrown off her shawl, and her crimson cashmere waist accentuated the
depth of her eyes. Gurth unconsciously arose and drew out her chair,
waited until she was seated, and pushed it in again. It was a very
simple and ordinary act of courtesy, and done as a matter of course
without the slightest manner of conferring a favour. Margaret coloured
at this hitherto unknown civility, but said “Thank you” as if she were
quite accustomed to it, while the Deacon did not notice it at all.

The meal began in silence, but the Deacon finished his paper with the
first cup of coffee, and began to discuss the affairs of the farm in a
businesslike manner. The ice-cutting must begin to-morrow, it was quite
clear, for the last snowstorm had been dry and had drifted away from the
pond.

Had Waldsen ever cut ice? No! Well, he could superintend the weighing of
it, then. Could he milk? No! The hay must be transferred from the left
side of the great barn to the right, as the supports were giving way,
and Peter Svenson, the carpenter, must come and straighten them, as well
as do some tinkering at the mill. Squire Black at the village needed two
tons of hay, so that much could be carted in next morning.

Waldsen fortunately was thoroughly familiar with horses, and was a good
deal of a carpenter, having always had a fancy for such work, and, when
a boy, he had for amusement built an arbour for his mother in the garden
of her country-house. He was able to volunteer to repair the barn and
mill, if the Deacon had the necessary tools. The Deacon was too keen to
show his surprise, but accepted the offer, and said it would come handy
to have some patching up done before it came time to clear the land. He
could manage the cows and the mill, if Gurth took charge of the horses
and the chores.

The Deacon, having finished his meal, shook the crumbs from a fold of
the tablecloth of which he made a sort of apron in his lap, and left the
table. Margaret followed him, and Waldsen, hesitating a moment, went to
the back entry and began to collect his possessions, taking his violin
case and a small box first. When he returned for his trunk, the Deacon
appeared, and, as a matter of course, helped him carry it upstairs. The
trunk was very heavy, being half full of books. Then the two men went
out to feed the horses; the sharp, dry snow blew in like powdered flint
when they opened the door, and made rainbows about the lantern as they
went down the path.

After the table was clear, Margaret took up the paper, read for a few
moments, then dropped it suddenly and went into the kitchen. Zella, who
was knitting a skirt of scarlet yarn, seemed very sulky and angry when
Margaret bade her take some wood to the attic bedroom. “I no carry for
hired man,” was her rejoinder. “You will take the wood up to-night,”
said Margaret, in the quiet, decided tone that was habitual to her;
“to-morrow he will carry it himself.” In a short time a fire was started
in the old, open-fronted wood stove, that sent a welcome glow across the
long, low room with its deeply recessed dormer windows. The furniture
consisted of an old-fashioned four-posted bedstead and some
spindle-backed chairs, discarded long ago from the lower rooms, an old
chest of drawers and a table, while a row of wooden pegs behind the
chimney did duty as a closet.

Going to the adjoining lumber room, Margaret pulled open a long trunk
and took a chintz quilt, some curtains that had originally belonged to
the old bed, and three or four carpet rugs. These she dragged into the
attic, and then brought from a downstairs room a large rocking-chair,
covered with Turkey red, and a blue china bowl and pitcher. The last man
who had slept in the attic had washed at the pump. In a few minutes the
bare room looked quite habitable, and Margaret returned to her
newspaper.

In perhaps half an hour her father returned, and she heard Waldsen’s
steps going up the creaking back stairs.

“Well, daughter, quite a figure of a man, isn’t he? I know you don’t
like to have men folks about, but you see this arrangement will
advantage me greatly. If I can sell him the Hill Farm, it will be so
much clear gain, besides being a bargain for him, for it’s running down
and needs lots of tinkering. And if we get a good neighbour there, it
won’t be so lonesome for you when I go over town. I can arrange with him
for half-time work in the growing season, so he can get his fruit
running. I’ll sell that place for three thousand dollars—and three
thousand dollars in hand,—why, Margaret, you might go to Europe next
summer with Judge Martin’s folks! He told me yesterday they expected to
take a tour, and that if I’d let you go, you’d be good company for
Elizabeth. What do you say to that, daughter?”

Going to him and sitting on the arm of his chair, she hid her face on
his shoulder, a childish habit of hers, and said: “Dear old dad, I
should want you to go with me, and then, besides, it is all so
uncertain. This man may not really want to buy a place, or he may have
no money, or—or, a great many things may not be true!”

“No, no, child! the man is all right, he wants to have a home of his own
by next Christmas. There is some reason why his sister cannot come until
then. I like to keep you with me, but my little girl is too lonely; she
must see more company, and if she’s too wise and too proud for the folks
about home, why, this place isn’t the whole world.”

Meanwhile Waldsen was sitting on his trunk in the attic room in an
attitude of dejection. Then, as the fire flickered, he saw the change
that had been wrought. Not great in fact, but in the womanly touch, and
he was comforted. Taking from his pocket the little case containing
Andrea’s portrait, he placed it on the chest of drawers, and, after
closing the door, took out his violin.

Margaret and her father were playing their nightly game of backgammon
when she started, dropped her checkers with a rattle, and grasped his
arm. The Deacon looked up in surprise, and then, as he heard a far-away
strain of music that seemed to come from the chimney, said, “Don’t be
scared, daughter, it’s only the young man playing his fiddle!” But
somehow neither father nor daughter cared to continue their game, and a
moment later Margaret opened the door of the sitting-room and one at the
foot of the stairs, and stood there listening, in spite of the cold air
that swept down. Accustomed at most to the trick playing of travelling
concert troupes, who visited the next town, this expressive legato music
was a revelation to Margaret, and stirred her silent nature to untested
depths. The first theme was pleading and wholly unknown to her, but
presently the air changed to the song she had taught the children during
the last Christmas season; through it she heard two voices singing,—the
violin and the man.

                “Brightly shone the moon that night
                   Though the frost was cruel
                 When a poor man came in sight
                   Gathering winter fuel.

                “Hither page and stand by me
                   If thou know’st it telling
                 Yonder peasant, who is he
                   Where and what his dwelling?”

“Hymn tunes,” said Deacon Tolford, pursing his mouth in a satisfied way.
“I forgot to ask him if he is a church member. Perhaps he might help out
at the Endeavour Concert next month.” But Margaret, shaking her head
impatiently, stood with her finger on her lips.

The Tolford household was more cheerful after Waldsen’s coming. Not that
he intruded upon the Deacon and his daughter, merely talking a few
minutes after meals, perhaps, and then going to his attic, but little by
little the mutual strangeness wore off. Though Waldsen fulfilled to the
letter the work that he had engaged to do, he found that it was
impossible to keep up the illusion of being a mere labourer, and
reconciled himself from the fact that in other farming families the
steady male “help” stands placed on a different footing with the
household, from the transient field hands who come and go with the crops
and seasons. Farmer Elliott’s “help” was his brother-in-law, and Farmer
Bryce’s, his wife’s cousin.

The Deacon looked at the whole matter from a commercial standpoint. Here
was a likely young man who, though he was unused to many kinds of manual
labour, eked out his lack of knowledge with extreme willingness, and
asked no wages other than instruction. At the same time he was a
prospective purchaser of a house that had been difficult to sell. That
was the beginning and end of the matter. That Waldsen was rarely
intelligent, and added to their home life, was also an advantage, but
secondary.

Every day Gurth held Margaret’s chair, and placed it at the table; there
was no longer any restraint between them. He saw in her a sweet, womanly
nature, whose best part was evidently held in check, owing to the
peculiarities of the community in which she lived, which he could not
fathom in spite of freedom from all prejudice. He admitted the beauty of
purpose with which she clung to her ideals, but could not help
contrasting her reserve with Andrea’s spontaneous cheerfulness, her love
of everything that grew from the ground and every bird that flew, while
Margaret seemed but half conscious of the natural beauties that
surrounded her.

Waldsen was most contented when employed at the mill. Birds that braved
the winter gathered about it for scraps of grain. Nuthatches pried under
the mossy shingles, meadow-larks stalked solemnly in the stubbly grass
for sweepings, and robins fed upon the berries of many bushes that
hedged the pond. Wild geese rested there, and for days at a time flocks
of ducks would pass and pause for shelter, and owls roosted nightly in
the mill loft, making hearty meals of mice. Many a time he saw the quail
coveys far up on the hill running about among the gravestones, and he
put a sheaf of rye there for them, and it waved its shadowy pinions
above the snow, as if saying to the silent community, “I, too, have
slept in the ground; have courage!”

Another sheaf he fastened over the mill door, and, seeing it, the Deacon
lectured him upon the folly of gathering a lot of birds that must be
shot or scared away in berry season, saying, “It’s all very well now,
but if you encourage them, where will the profit be when all the biggest
berries are bird marked?”

Gurth felt like answering, “I will let the birds have them all, so long
as they come to me.” But then, where would be the bread for Andrea? He
felt beauty so keenly that he could not bear to harness Nature and drive
her like a cart-horse for his profit. His needs and his desires were
almost irreconcilable, and the consciousness of it well-nigh appalled
him. He could not change his temperament in the least degree; even his
experiment of passing for a labourer was partly frustrated; he might
possibly have masqueraded as a wandering musician, but he began to feel
his incapacity for material toil.

Margaret all this time lived in a waking dream; unknown to herself, all
the pent-up forces of her affection had crystallized about this
stranger. His natural courtesy seemed to her a gentle personal tribute;
the mystery he allowed to surround him (being wholly unconscious of the
version of his story the carpenter had told), and his poetic
personality, made him seem like some one she had met in an old romance.
Then the music, too, for often now in the evening he brought his violin
and accompanied her when she sang or played, giving her new
understanding, while he corrected the hardness of her method so
tactfully that she did not realize it. Lending her new music,
substituting the “Songs without Words” for the hackneyed “Airs with
Variations,” and teaching her German and Danish ballads, that lent
themselves to her rich contralto voice.

Margaret became a different creature, and rare glints of red touched her
cheeks. The Deacon accounted for this arousing in the pleasure she
anticipated in going abroad if the Hill Farm was sold. He was so
thoroughly convinced of her indifference to men, that he was blind to
the awakening of her heart.

Margaret noticed with pleasure the various details and changes in
Waldsen’s attic, where she went occasionally to dust, and thought that
they betokened contentment. The room was no longer bare, festoons of
ground pine hung from the rafters and canopied the windows, a half-dozen
home-made cages filled the dormer nearest the stove, and sheltered a
collection of wild birds rescued from cold and hunger, which chirped
from them merrily, while a little screech-owl blinked sleepily from a
perch in the corner. Books lay on the table and filled a rough shelf
under the eaves. Writing implements and paper also lay about, and traces
of bold, irregular characters were on the big sheets of blotting-paper.

It was Andrea’s picture, however, that interested Margaret more than
anything. She looked at it day after day, trying to trace a resemblance
to Gurth. One day she kissed the lips, and then, suddenly remembering
that _he_ might also do this, fled precipitately to her room, and,
locking the door, stayed until dark, when she went down to supper with
her face flushed, and a nervous air. So nervous was she that her hand
trembled until she almost dropped the cup that she was passing to her
father. Gurth grasped it, and thus their hands met for the first time.

                                   IV

The last of February a southerly rain inaugurated the spring thaw. Great
cakes of ice came down the river, and barricaded the mill. Then a cold
snap followed, and the trees hung thick with fantastic icicles. In the
morning the Deacon, Gurth, and several neighbours went up the stream to
dislodge, with long poles, cakes of ice that were wedged threateningly
between trees, and after dinner, when the two men had been talking of
the caprices of the storm, the Deacon said: “It’s worth walking up to
the Hill Farm, daughter, to see the ice on those white pines, but you
must mind your footing. Waldsen’s going up there to shovel off the shed
roof, and he’ll be glad to beau you, I know.”

Margaret blushed painfully, but Gurth, totally missing the significance
of the word, said, in his precise language, that he was about to ask
Miss Margaret, but feared she could not walk so far. So Margaret brought
her coat, trimmed with a neck-band and cuffs of fur, and, drawing a dark
red tam-o’-shanter over her black hair, set off with Waldsen.

As the Deacon watched them go down the road, dark and fair, slender and
tall, both talking with animation, he suddenly gave a long whistle, for
an idea, born of the word he had just used, flashed across his
matter-of-fact mind, and he said aloud,—“Well, I never! Well, I never!
She shan’t find her old dad a spoil sport, anyhow! I’ve my doubts if
he’ll ever make out with farming, but I suspect he comes of good folks,
and there’s a good living at the mill, and Margaret’s my only one!” Then
he smiled contentedly to himself. The Deacon had loved his wife with a
sentiment that was regarded as a weakness by his neighbours, and he was
prepared to enjoy the courtship of his only daughter and forward it by
all the innocent local ruses. Yes, he would even make errands to town,
and at the last moment send Waldsen to drive Margaret in his stead.

The couple crossed the bridge and climbed the steep river bank towards
the Hill Farm. Waldsen was in high spirits and hummed and whistled as
they struggled and slipped along, steadying Margaret every few steps.
Happiness and the bracing air had given her a clear colour, and her eyes
were sparkling—she was a different being from the pale, silent girl of
two months ago. The mail-carrier, who met them at the cross-roads and
handed Gurth some letters, thought what a fine couple they made, and
immediately started his opinion as a rumour around the community.

Margaret walked about outside the little brown house, while her
companion freed the roof from its weight of ice. Her own home was in
sight across the river, and at the left was a lovely strip of hill
country that rose and fell until it merged with the horizon. She was so
absorbed in the view that she did not realize when the shovelling was
finished, until Waldsen stood close beside her. “Has your father told
you that I buy this place, and that to-morrow the papers will be signed?
Yes, I have bought it for my home; I shall plant the ground and work it,
as your father says, to win my living. At evening we shall sit here and
look up the river and down to where the sun sets, and then over to your
house, thanking you for your kindness to a lonely stranger.” The “we”
dropped in unawares, but Margaret knew that he meant Andrea, his sister.

“Next Christmas I shall move here, for my best resolves have come on
Christmas Day; meanwhile, there is much to be done, and I shall ask your
woman’s art how best to make my home attractive.” Then they talked of
the garden and of the house, how it would need a summer kitchen, until
he, through the subtilty of woman’s sympathy, thought that he could not
wait all the long months for Andrea’s coming.

That night Waldsen sat a long time pondering over a letter that had that
day come from Andrea. At the first, nothing new suggested itself, except
that she perhaps was lonely, but on a second reading a note of pain was
evident. Carelessly feeling in the pocket of his overcoat before going
to bed, he found that he had received two letters, when he thought he
had but one, and, re-lighting his lamp, he read the second, which was
blotted and tear-stained. It ran thus:—

    “The stamp on the last letter that I wrote you, dear Gurth, is
    hardly dried, yet I must write again and tell you that which for
    the last month I have tried to conceal. Now it is useless. My
    father will bring a new wife to fill my mother’s place in two
    months from now. A hateful woman who has in some strange way
    gained power over and fascinated him, but who does not wish me
    in the house, for my father is urging, nay, almost commanding,
    my betrothal to Hans Kraus, the brewer’s son, whom I have seen
    hardly twice, and whose mother is arranging the matter for him.

    “In vain I protest and remind him of our betrothal. He insists
    that your mother will surely win you back, as she is making
    great efforts to discover where you are. He will not hear of my
    going out to service. I know that you will say, ‘Come to me, and
    we will be married,’ but knowing your plans and your agreement
    with your employer, this I will not do until Christmas comes
    again. One thing is possible, if you will undertake it. You are,
    of course, known in your village as a working-man. There must be
    some one there who wishes a young, strong woman to do housework,
    sewing, anything, in short,—you know my hands are used to work
    of all kinds. Find some lady who will pay my passage money, to
    be taken out in service, and I will come. Thus I, too, shall be
    independent. I can sometimes see you, and when we then marry at
    Christmas, no one will know that we are not as we seem, and we
    shall begin on a sure footing. Do not attempt to stop me,
    dearest. Let me also work.

                                                     “Your ANDREA.”

This letter cut Waldsen to the heart as well as stirred his pride, and
his first impulse was to return at once to Denmark for Andrea. Then he
considered all the threads that must be unravelled, the dispersal of
many plans so nicely made, and he paused, perplexed. Andrea clearly did
not realize that he was not really a servant even in name, and that he
could not allow her to fill a drudge’s place in some farm-house.

Stop! why should he not consult Margaret? She might suggest something,
and, at least, her advice would be in accord with local custom, so that
neither he nor Andrea would be criticised in future by those among whom
they were to live. He wrote a few comforting lines to his betrothed,
which he prepared to post that night that the letter might go by the
next day’s steamer, for he had the habit, that a man bred in a large
city seldom loses, of noting the coming and going of the iron monsters
that bind the continents.

It was after one o’clock when he went downstairs, shoes in hand, and
nearly three when he returned from his six-mile walk, after dropping his
letter through the well-worn slit in the post-office door. The stairs
creaked provokingly as he made his way up. He heard a slight noise and
saw a light under Margaret’s door, which, as he passed by, opened, and
Margaret herself peered out, shading her candle with her hand, and
looking down the hall. She almost screamed when she saw Gurth so near,
and said quickly, with a catch in her breath: “I heard a noise and
thought the stair door had blown open. Are you ill? Can I do anything
for you?” He looked at her a moment as she stood there in her loose wool
wrapper, her hair hanging in long braids, and it seemed like an answer
to his perplexity. His heart whispered, Trust her, consult her, and he
said gravely, “I am not ill, I thank you, and you can do something for
me, but not to-night.”

Then Waldsen slept the sleep of deep fatigue, but Margaret,
misunderstanding wholly and wakeful with happiness, threw herself on her
knees by her bed and, falling asleep, stayed in this position until the
sun cast streaks across the room and scattered the mist that betokened
the final breaking up of winter.

The March days flew by rapidly, and it was almost April. The willows
were showing yellow stems, and the river swirled under them with new
fervour. Hepaticas bloomed in the wood edges, while violets crept along
in the sheltered garden border; bluebirds purled about the mill, while
the kingfishers quarrelled over the pond. At every meal Waldsen brought
the account of some new bird or unknown flower, until the Deacon was
almost vexed, and told him in a sternly parental way that he would never
make his salt, but fill his farm with brakes and briers, growing
strawberries for robins and raspberries for catbirds; but Margaret only
smiled, treasuring every leaf he brought, and spent much time out of
doors watching the messengers of spring that she never before had
noticed, feeling that life was good.

Easter came in middle April, and the little church at Glen Village was
to be decorated with flowers. The day before, Gurth went into town with
a load of feed, stopping on his way at the post-office, and found a
letter from Andrea that made him resolve to act at once.

On his way home he bought two pots of blooming lilies, which he placed
on Margaret’s table in the sitting-room, as an Easter gift to the home.
As she thanked him, bending over the flowers, he said, “Miss Margaret, a
while ago I said that you could do something for me. I have come to ask
it now, but before I speak there is much that I must tell you, so that
you may understand.” Margaret, making a gesture of assent, stood
clinging to the curtain for support, still bending over the lilies.

Gurth began slowly and hesitatingly with his father’s unhappy marriage
and his loveless childhood, speaking deliberately, and choosing his
words like a lawyer presenting his case. A puzzled expression gradually
spread over Margaret’s face, but as he told her of his meeting with
Andrea and his love for her, she gave the curtain so sudden a jerk that
it tore from its fastenings, and fell in a heap upon her. Gurth, merely
thinking that she had stood too long, lifted the curtain, gave her a
chair, and continued his narrative, with unconscious egotism. For more
than an hour he talked; the Deacon peeped in and hastily withdrew,
thinking that the young folks were coming to an understanding.

Margaret did not say a word, but so absorbed was Gurth that he did not
notice it. A terrible struggle was rending her, and she could not trust
herself to speak. Not only had her life hinged itself upon an
impossibility, but the mistake that had made such a thing possible had
come from giving credence to the story of the carpenter.

As every detail of the past three months came before her, she realized
how innocent of any deception Waldsen had been, and the very advice he
was now seeking proved his confidence in her. The secret was her
own,—at least she had that comfort. Then a wave of pain passed over
her, almost stopping her breath and seizing her throat in an iron grasp.
She dimly saw that Gurth was showing her some letters, and gathered
herself together only to receive a fresh blow,—his appeal for Andrea.
For though he did not ask it in so many words, she knew what was in his
mind.

When he had finished and stood expectantly before her, she could no
longer contend with herself, and big tears rolled down her cheeks as she
said, “I must think before I answer you, but I will do all I can.” As
she passed him he saw the tears, and, taking her hand, he stooped and
kissed it reverently, saying, “God bless you for your sympathy.”

The Deacon did not return for tea, having business in town, and Waldsen,
much surprised at Margaret’s absence, ate his meal alone.

Margaret herself sat in her east window looking at the twilight, and,
when it faded, at the stars. The marsh frogs piped monotonously, and the
water rushed over the dam, falling below with a hollow thud. Soon
Waldsen’s violin sounded from his open window,—to-night he played “The
Songs without Words,” one after another, chancing to end with “Lost
Happiness.” As Margaret listened, now that the first shock was over, she
was soothed. At first she did not think it was possible that she could
have Andrea in the house, and then she knew that only by some such
object lesson would she realize that Waldsen could not belong to her.
Andrea should come, and they would work together. Zella was shiftless
and constantly threatening to go. To tell her father and make him
comprehend the change was her next task. Puritan in education and
temperament, no other thought but to bend to the seemingly inevitable
occurred to her.

On Easter Day no one who heard Margaret sing at church knew of her
struggle, and yet her voice moved those plain people as it never had
before, and they spoke of it among themselves in walking home. “The Dane
must have taught her,” they said, “for they do say he can write music.”

When Margaret told the Deacon that portion of Waldsen’s story relating
to Andrea, he did not betray the surprise he felt. He was, however,
completely bewildered by this development, though he had long since
ceased judging his daughter by ordinary standards. He was both
disappointed and glad; he would have raised no objections to Margaret’s
marriage with the young Dane, yet when he knew the exact facts regarding
Gurth and Andrea, he was surprised at the sudden feeling of relief that
came over him, for while he liked Gurth as a companion, he had grave
doubts as to his permanent contentment in the life that he had now
chosen.

But then, if Margaret was not in love with Waldsen, what had caused her
increased interest in life, and drawn her from her usual seclusion? He
had it now! and blamed himself for having been so blind. Of course, it
was the promised trip to Europe that had given her motive, and Waldsen
having travelled, what more likely than that they had often talked of
the matter? Very well, let Andrea come and marry Waldsen. They could
then keep house for him during Margaret’s absence. Nothing would be
simpler.

When the Deacon, after much patient listening, understood the objections
to a marriage before Christmas, he became quite angry. “Such nonsense I
never heard before. So he doesn’t wish to marry the girl until his own
house is ready! and she doesn’t wish to marry him until Christmas
because she once promised her father that she would not, and he has
since practically turned her out of doors! A pretty pair of fools
playing at independence!” But when the Deacon saw that Margaret was
deeply interested and sympathized with the couple, and when she
represented to him how much better it would be to have some one like
Andrea to help her with the housework, rather than a mere clumsy animal
like Zella, who must be constantly watched, he relented after many
grumblings and doubts as to the ability of the two girls to accomplish
the work.

“How will it be when you come to feeding the berry hands? You know
there’s no one to board them at the Hill Farm this season!”

“Mother and cousin Susan were able to do it,” replied Margaret, quietly.
“I am going to take an interest in the place now, father; I have idled
too long.” So Andrea was sent for, Margaret writing the letter in a
kindly tone, but as a mistress engaging a helper, making no mention of
Waldsen except as of a friend who knew that she wished to come to
America. Early in May word came that Andrea’s steamer was due the next
day, and Gurth went up to meet her.

All the day long Margaret was busy making preparations. “Looks to me as
if you expected the Queen, instead of a helper,” joked her father, as he
saw her putting up muslin curtains in the little room next to her own
(Zella had occupied a bit of a place over the wash-house), and then, as
she flushed hotly, he added hastily, “I’m glad you’re going to have a
girl companion, daughter, but don’t work too hard; you’re getting pale
again.”

At two o’clock everything was ready, and the train from Bridgeton was
not due until half-past four. Margaret sat by her window. Everything
outside was spring green; only the mill showed its shingles through the
spotted branches of the plane trees, for they leaf out late. A mist of
greenery veiled the river, but the pond was a glittering mirror. On the
edge of the berry fields the cherry trees were shaking down a rain of
petals, and bluebirds were murmuring about in pairs, while the
song-sparrows kept up their sweet, persistent song from the meadow
bushes.

Margaret tried to fix her thoughts on the scene before her. Would the
orioles come back to the elm that touched the roof? She hoped so, for
Waldsen was so anxious to see them weave their nest. And the fly-catcher
with the leather-coloured back—she wondered if he would again leave
snake-skins hanging from his nest-hole in the old apple tree, as he did
last year. Gurth had never seen such a nest.

She left the window and walked slowly up and down the room, the fact
forcing itself upon her that whatever she did now or had done for the
last three months, was for Waldsen’s sake.

She had stayed at home and sent for Andrea, to give him pleasure as well
as to bring herself to a realization of his betrothal, but she had not
understood until this moment exactly what an ordeal she must go through
on seeing Andrea and Gurth together for the first time. She wished that
she could run away,—that she had gone abroad, anything, anywhere,
rather than see their love-making. It was too late. The love that had
entered her heart unasked could not be driven out by argument. She must
go on living as if nothing had happened; perhaps years hence when the
children at the Hill Farm called her aunty, it might be different, but
not now—not now!

The train was already in sight when Margaret drove up to the little
brown station at Glen Village. She was alone, as at the last moment her
father had been obliged to go to the mill. The horses were restless, and
they furnished Margaret with an excuse for remaining in the wagon where
she could see Andrea from a distance.

The train passed on, a moment of intense silence followed, sparrows
quarrelled under the eaves, and a gentle rain of catkins fell from a
maple; it is strange how at such times of tension minute details hold
the attention.

Another minute,—Gurth came around the corner and down the long plank
walk,—he carried a very small, old-fashioned round-topped trunk on his
shoulder, and following him was a young girl who did not look more than
sixteen or seventeen, dressed in a black jacket, rather short skirt, and
very plain hat that fitted closely over the smooth braids of yellow
hair. As she came nearer, Margaret saw that the short dress was
responsible for the appearance of extreme youth, for her face was pale,
serious, and even careworn, and the big blue eyes were brimming with
tears. The strain and uncertainty of the last few months had told upon
Andrea, and the loneliness of the voyage had almost paralyzed her, but
it was not until she was safely on land and at her journey’s end that
tears came. Margaret longed to take the poor little thing in her arms
and comfort her, for the frightened eyes called upon her strong motherly
instinct; but this would never do, so she merely greeted her pleasantly,
handing the reins to Gurth, saying, “I will sit on the back seat with
Andrea.”

For half a mile or so they drove in silence, Margaret wishing to give
her companion time to recover herself. Then she began an easy
conversation, leading gradually to Andrea herself and her voyage. Andrea
understood English as readily as Gurth, but spoke without his literary
nicety; yet before they arrived at the Mill Farm they were all three
talking easily, though Andrea maintained a sort of diffidence, as if in
the presence of a mistress. Noticing this, Margaret, as soon as they
reached home, signalled Waldsen to go with the horses, and took Andrea
immediately to her room.

Once there, after showing Andrea where to put her very scanty
belongings, Margaret drew her to a seat in the window, and, taking her
hand, very gently said: “I wrote you that I wanted a girl to help me
with my work, and that Gurth Waldsen told me that you wished to come to
America. This was true, but I did not write that I also know the story
of his life and of yours, also. We thought it best for you to come here
first, and, finding yourself among friends, all would seem plain to
you.”

“He—he has told you about his mother—that we are betrothed, and all?”
cried Andrea, her mild eyes blazing, and a crimson spot glowing under
each high cheek-bone. “Told it all to a stranger, and you have asked me
here from charity? Oh, Gurth! how cruel of you, how could you?” sobbed
Andrea, burying her face in her arms.

“I wanted our new life to be real; I thought that we should be working
people and have only what we earned, and that there would be no more
inequality between us or false positions, and now it is all over,—even
our trouble is not our own! It was cowardly in Gurth! cowardly, I say!”

Margaret was at a loss how to reply to this outburst. Andrea’s fatigue
and worry would account for her vehemence, but allowing for this, there
was some truth underlying her complaint, which made it difficult to cope
with. Andrea’s nature was wholly genuine; when she said she wished to
work, she meant it, but with Gurth work was a more abstract idea, a
necessity arising from a desire to marry Andrea.

Margaret sat in silence, until finally, as Andrea’s sobs ceased, she
drew the girl’s head up so she could look at her. “Think a little before
you condemn Waldsen. You are tired and excited, and also unjust to say
that I sent for you out of charity. I needed a helper, and I also wished
a companion. I was sure, from what we have seen of him during these
months, that the woman for whom Gurth Waldsen had left his home and
fortune would easily understand his present position, and the feelings
that prevented him from allowing her to place herself out as a drudge.
The idea of keeping your secret was natural, but impossible; you must
accept things as they now are, and thus begin the reality.

“Come, wipe your eyes, do you want Gurth to see them all red and
swollen? Put some cool water on them,—there, so. Now I will leave you
awhile, but come down in half an hour, for you are to be cook, you
know.” Margaret managed to laugh pleasantly, as she went to find Waldsen
and arrest any tendency to a misunderstanding that might arise.

He was coming from the barnyard with the milkpails, and his almost
boyish look of happiness broke into a smile when he saw Margaret.

“Have you told her? Was she not delighted to know how everything is
arranged? I did not say a word, but left the pleasure for you, dear
friend, you have so deserved it!”

It seemed a pity to undeceive him; it is always a pity to blast a man’s
enthusiasm when he has prepared, what he considers, a pleasant surprise
for the woman he loves. Many a separation has started with such a
repulse from the thin edge of the wedge.

Margaret gave a rapid summary of Andrea’s feeling, softening and
smoothing everything, and adding that the best thing would be to take
her up to the Hill Farm after tea. The sight of her future home would do
more to reassure her, and give her a feeling of confidence, than any
words.

Waldsen had put down his pails and stood looking at Margaret as she
spoke. Her face was turned partly towards him, but she was looking past
over the hills. She wore a plain, soft, gray woollen gown with a dark
red belt and neck-band, and there was a bit of red, her favourite
colour, in her hat, while her cheeks were flushed with the excitement of
the scene she had just undergone. He wondered that he had never noticed
before how fine her face was, how graceful and well poised her carriage,
and he listened to what she said, half bowing as to a superior being.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The first meal passed off happily enough; Andrea, looking very sweet and
shy, had added a light blue neckerchief to her almost nunlike black
gown, her tears having only given a natural colour to her face. Waldsen
beamed upon her in his happiness, occasionally relapsing inadvertently
to Danish as they talked, much to the amusement of the Deacon, who
seemed quite jovial, and indeed it was a pleasure to him to have three
young faces at the table.

After supper Margaret and Andrea washed the dishes and put them away,
Margaret saying casually: “Gurth wants you to take a walk with him; he
has a surprise for you. I will set the bread to-night and close the
house; to-morrow you shall begin and do your half. Go, Andrea; the sun
will be down before you are halfway up the hill.”

“Will you not come also, Miss Margaret?” said Waldsen’s soft voice.

“Not to-night.”

The sun disappeared behind the mill, and a whip-poor-will called
suddenly from a maple near the house. Rob, the collie, gave an uneasy
whine, and coming in, poked his cold nose into Margaret’s hand, as if
impatient at her revery. She patted him, went to the table, lighted the
lamp, and was arranging the backgammon-board just as her father’s step
sounded on the piazza.

“What! all alone, daughter? This seems like old times,” he said, as he
sat down to his game. “So the lovers haven’t come back yet, eh? How we
miss Waldsen!” Looking up, expecting a reply, he saw that Margaret was
apparently absorbed in an intricate move.

                                   V

It was a good season. The days were bright, the nights brought plentiful
showers, everything throve at the fruit farm, and at midsummer Ezra
Tolford found that he had outdone his best expectations.

Other things prospered besides the products of the soil. Andrea was her
plump, rosy self again, radiant with happiness and energy. The life she
led was that for which she was born, the life that countless generations
of her kindred had lived before her. She loved the daily round of
labour, loved to cook, to keep the house neat. She loved the breath of
the rich earth, when the plough rent the furrows. She loved the simple
gossip of the neighbours, who ran in to consult with bated breath the
wearing possibilities of a dress pattern or a new stitch in knitting.
She had no doubts or fears, but was contented.

When she first met Gurth, his world seemed so far from hers, so much
above and apart, that she listened to all he said with silent
acquiescence, yielding always to his judgment, and never presuming to
discuss matters of which she could have no knowledge, all the while
adoring him with the idealizing passion of first love.

Now this was changed; he was no longer a knight from dreamland, but a
fellow-worker, with whom she might discuss plans into which she had a
far more practical insight than he. She loved him as devotedly, but on a
rational plane.

As for Gurth, did he like this reversal? He was often worried by his own
state of mind. Physically he was well, and, though rather thin, his face
wore a healthy sun bronze. All his plans were going forward smoothly,
the Hill Farm was nearly ready for its autumn planting of small fruits,
and there would be money enough left over to bridge the way for the
little household, until the soil yielded its crops,—yet he was not
wholly contented.

Andrea’s complete satisfaction and identification with her work seemed a
reproach to him. Was this vigorous woman the same being as the girl who
a year before stood blushing and silent, or else was moved to tears when
he read aloud or played his violin to her? She seemed no longer to need
protection, but rather to protect him.

His violin, could he have dreamed that he should ever become estranged
from it? As his fingers grew stiff from contact with the soil, they
stumbled over the strings insensibly, and the vibrating instrument
seemed to grow shrill and wail in grief at the rough touch.

Then he would try again and play something more simple with a legato
movement, when, perhaps, Andrea would frankly say, “What ails your
violin, dearest? It seems out of tune, you do not play it as you used.”
Then he would put it by.

As for books, there was no time for them, no time for study and dreams.
During the early spring he had read almost nightly to Margaret, and
often Ezra Tolford joined in the talk that followed. Now Andrea nodded
laughingly if he merely suggested reading, and asked him if he supposed
she could keep awake to hear him, when she must churn to-morrow. As he
rose to go, perhaps, to his attic for a quiet hour, she would twine her
arms around his neck and tell him it was not good to spoil his eyes with
books on summer nights, and so the days went by.

Gradually it seemed to him that Margaret was the one link that held
before him what he used to be. She said but very little to him usually,
but went on with her daily life, keeping herself as ever refined and
self-contained. It was through her only now that Waldsen knew that the
world still rolled on. It was from her conversation that he gained
scraps from books, magazines, and even the daily news, as she talked to
interest Andrea as they worked and chatted together. In music, too, it
was the same. With exquisite tact she would choose some song that Andrea
knew and could sing correctly and ask Gurth to accompany them.

Waldsen went to church with his betrothed every Sunday evening, and all
the neighbours found it most right and proper; but it was not prayer or
sermon or even the companionship of Andrea that held him through the
long session, but Margaret’s voice leading the simple hymns. It seemed
as if, in singing, she was speaking to him alone, and Gurth was both
moved and puzzled by the transformation of her features.

One Sunday she chanced to look in his direction as she was singing and
caught his expression as he gazed at her. Next day she told her father
that she must rest her voice, and asked him to let Andrea supply her
place in the choir for a while. She would like, she said, if possible to
go to Glen Village for a week or so to stay with Mrs. Watson, an old
friend of her mother’s, who was quite ill and needed friendly care. All
this seemed most natural to the Deacon, who was quite satisfied that
Andrea could manage for that length of time.

Margaret imagined that she was doing a wise thing in going away and
leaving the pair wholly to themselves. On the contrary it opened
Waldsen’s eyes to the position in which he stood, which to be perhaps
brutally direct was this—the two women had changed places. He loved
Andrea as a merry companion, but through her new competence and force
she had lost her hold upon his mystic inner nature, that valued the
ideal above the real. The two had not developed in unison and,
practically, she had outstripped him. It was to Margaret that his spirit
clung. Margaret, the woman he thought without emotion, as distant from
him as the evening star, the reticence of whose nature fascinated him.

Waldsen was not morally inconstant. He was paying the penalty of a joint
heritage of romance and hot-headed impulse. The blood of his parents did
not mingle but contended in his veins.

Acadia was fading in a mist; love for love’s sake, the thrill of music
and the ideal in Nature were passing away, yet he never for a moment
entertained the slightest thought of turning backwards. The soil was
there grasping and swallowing; he had pledged his future to wrestling
with it for his bread; if he conquered, it might yield him food, and
finally—peace. Andrea would be happy, and doubtless he should be
content when his neck had become accustomed to the yoke; for, after all,
his student philosophy aided him, and he realized that there is much in
habit.

                 *        *        *        *        *

With the autumn came the furnishing of the house at the Hill Farm, and
it occupied many of the dull days of early November. Andrea was in her
element, and in a state of tranquil elation.

Only four rooms were to be used at first; a sunny kitchen, and
sitting-room, and two bedrooms above. One of these was to have a blue
paper and the other an old-fashioned chintz pattern sprinkled with
bunches of poppies. “The poppies are for your room, Margaret—” said
Andrea, when they were in the shop at Bridgeton choosing the household
goods. “You like red so much, and you will stay with us often, always
when your father goes away, you know.”

Margaret smiled at her ardour, but never was impatient or seemed to tire
of discussing the little details so dear to the prospective young
housekeeper, or of making visits with her to the new home and guiding
her somewhat abrupt taste.

As Andrea worked with a will, her enthusiasm infected Waldsen, and he
believed himself happy again, until he discovered, as he usually did,
that some arrangement which particularly delighted him was a happy
thought of Margaret’s.

At this time Margaret was often away from home. After her visit to Mrs.
Watson, one of her old schoolmates, who had recently married and settled
in Bridgeton, begged her to come there for a visit; and she felt also
that she must have change, so she promised to stay two weeks with her
friend.

“Send for me if you need me for anything, no matter how trifling,” she
said, when she left home.

Margaret had been at Bridgeton about ten days. It was a rainy evening,
and she was sitting by the open fire with her friends, talking about
school-days.

The dog, who had been sleeping on the hearth-rug, started suddenly, and,
after cocking his ears in a listening attitude, rushed to the door,
barking violently. Horses’ hoofs sounded on the road with the peculiar
sucking thud that rain and mud lend; the gate banged to, and hurried
footsteps crossed the piazza. Margaret, without knowing why, went
quickly to the door and opened it before her friends comprehended what
she was doing, or before any one knocked.

On the threshold, lantern in hand, stood Ezra Tolford. Water was
streaming from the limp brim of his felt hat and ran down his rubber
coat in little streams.

“I knew it was some one from home! What is it, father?” Margaret cried.

The Deacon had a white, scared look and moistened his lips with his
tongue twice before he answered—“Waldsen is very sick; the doctor says
it’s pneumonia. A lot of neighbours have come in and upset things under
pretext of helping Andrea. Doctor Russell says we must have a nurse if
he lasts through to-night, and I thought you’d want to know!”

Margaret did not hear the last words; she was already upstairs and back
again, buttoning her thick coat as she came. Her friends protested
against her going out on such a night, her father joining them, but not
insistently. He seemed ill at ease, as if he had some secret on his
mind.

Bidding good-by hastily, in another moment Margaret was in the wagon
tucking the wraps around her and trying to hold her umbrella against the
wind, while the Deacon turned the horses homeward, so content in having
her with him that he forgot to speak. “Tell me all about it, father, and
why you did not send for me sooner,” she said in an unsteady voice.

“Well, daughter, it all happened so quickly that there was no time for
anything. Three days ago Waldsen went into the village with a load of
feed, and it came on to rain heavily. He was all in a sweat handling the
bags and got sopping wet driving back,—a thing that has happened to me
a dozen times.”

“The next day he was about as usual, but spoke of a catching in his
chest. But yesterday he gave up and the doctor came, and he says that
the heart has been overstrained somehow, and he doesn’t expect to bring
him round!”

“And Andrea, how does she bear it?” whispered Margaret, her throat
almost closing when she tried to speak.

“She’s a brave woman. She keeps quite still and heats the poultices and
measures the medicines, like a regular nurse. You see she does not
believe that he will die because he has a good colour, but that’s the
fever. He is delirious and doesn’t know her, and twice he has called for
you!”

“For me! Oh, father, when?”

“Last night, but it is nothing but his raving,—he doesn’t know what he
says; he thought I was his mother!” and the Deacon eyed Margaret
anxiously.

It was eleven o’clock before they reached home, and, leaving her wet
garments in the kitchen, where she found a neighbour who set about
preparing her a cup of tea, Margaret went softly up the stairs.

The fire in the sitting-room had died down and she stirred it up, adding
a fresh log, and resting a moment to collect herself, went to the attic
chamber.

Outside the door of Gurth’s room stood a table with a small oil-stove
upon it and a dish-pan full of flaxseed meal; great squares of cotton
that had made poultices lay about.

Inside the room a bright fire burned, and the screened lamp showed
Andrea sitting on one side of the bed, watching the clock, and father on
the other side, watching the patient, and combining, as often happens in
the calling of the country physician, both doctor and nurse.

Gurth was sleeping, if the uneasy tossing could be called sleep. Father
was trying to keep the poultices in place, and now and then moistened
the dry lips with a bit of ice. On seeing Margaret, Andrea came to the
door, and, without saying a word, put her arms about her and laid her
head on her shoulder, with a gesture of entire confidence that said,
“Now that you have come, all will be right.” Already Margaret seemed the
elder by years.

“Try to persuade her to lie down an hour, Miss Margaret,” said father;
“she has not rested for two days, nor scarcely touched a morsel.” Andrea
yielded, upon the promise that she should be called at the slightest
change.

Margaret took the chair opposite father, rising at intervals to hand him
what he needed. She felt that in being there now she was infringing no
law, social or moral, and that she had a right to the moments that were
so precious to her. It was almost one o’clock; Gurth stirred and
muttered as father gave him some brandy. Suddenly Margaret became
conscious that his eyes were open and fixed upon her with a look that
was unmistakable. As she leaned forward, not trusting her sight, Gurth
suddenly raised himself upon one arm and stretching the other towards
her, grasped her hand, crying “Margaret!” in a joyful voice. The
delirium began again, in which he seemed to be going through the last
interview with his mother. Andrea was called. In vain she begged him to
speak to her, to look at her, but he never again became conscious, and
at five o’clock he died.

It was the day after Thanksgiving when Gurth was laid away in the
hillside burying-ground, where he had so often scattered food for the
hungry birds.

A troop of neighbours followed him there, for he had become a favourite
through his varied tastes; he had meant to settle at the Glen, so he was
one of them, and all the women felt deep pity for Andrea. On the way
back much curiosity was expressed as to what disposition she would make
of the farm, for they all took it for granted that it would be hers.

For a day or two Andrea stayed in her room alone, refusing all offers of
sympathy and barely tasting food. But one morning when Margaret went
down, she found her in the kitchen going about her work the same as
usual. Her face was pale and drawn, but wore a look of quiet resolution
that was unearthly. She did not mention Waldsen, but when the day’s work
was done, went silently to his attic and, after feeding the birds, sat
looking out, where upon the hillside there was a patch of fresh earth.

Margaret, watching the chance, followed her, and seated herself also by
the window. For a moment neither spoke, and then Andrea laid her head in
Margaret’s lap and said, great sobs nearly strangling her,—“Love me!
Margaret, love me! I have tried not to speak of him and to keep the
grief inside, for we have made you so much trouble, but oh, I cannot!”
and the two women, clinging to each other, mingled their tears.

When Andrea grew calmer, Margaret spoke of the future, and how she hoped
that Andrea would always feel that the Mill Farm was her home.

“It’s very good of you, dear Margaret, to want me, and I should like to
stay, but I must finish Gurth’s work and make the fruit farm a
success,—I know that he would wish it.

“These last few days and nights I have thought it out all myself, and I
have decided. There is some money, you know; enough, he often said,
until the fruit yields a return. I shall hire old Mr. and Mrs. Grigs to
live with me, and if, in a year or two, I prosper, I will send for my
little brothers (Ernest is twelve already), and then I shall have help
enough.

“No, do not try to dissuade me, dear Margaret, you do not understand.
When a woman has lost the love that bounded her life, the only thing
between her and despair is a home!”

It fell to Deacon Tolford, in his legal capacity, as probate judge, to
take the steps necessary for the regulation of Waldsen’s affairs. He
told Andrea that, as a matter of form, he must look through Waldsen’s
papers, and she willingly consented, only asking that any letters from
herself be left unread.

The Deacon spent a morning in the attic, then, coming to the
sitting-room where Margaret was sewing, closed the door gently, sat
down, and began drumming on the table with his fingers, his face wearing
a distressed look.

Margaret waited for him to speak, which he soon did, abruptly, as if he
was beginning in the middle of his thoughts.

“Daughter, I want you to ask Andrea to stop with us as long as she
likes. She can’t well go back to Denmark, and I hate to think of her
facing the world so soon after this trouble.”

“I knew you would wish it, father, so I asked her yesterday to live with
us; but she has thought out her future carefully, and I do not see any
reason for opposing her.” Then she gave the details of Andrea’s plan.

The Deacon sat for some minutes, his head sunk between his shoulders,
and then, pulling himself together, said, “I might as well tell you
something first as last, Margaret,—a fact that neither of you women
seems to think possible. Gurth Waldsen left no will or legal papers of
any sort. The farm and money does not belong to Andrea any more than it
does to us! More than this, it is my duty to inform his mother of the
facts, as she is his only heir, and appoint an administrator to take
charge of the estate, pending its settlement!”

Margaret had risen and was standing with dilated eyes and her hands
clasped before her. “Father! father! I never thought of this. Can
nothing be done? Can we not arrange in some way? Oh! who will tell
Andrea?”

“As Waldsen did not have the foresight to protect her, we can do
nothing, daughter. She need not be told for a few weeks, though, until I
receive some order from his mother,—but know it she must. If they had
married last spring, this trouble would have been avoided. Mark my
words, daughter, some niceties of feeling are too good for daily use.
Gurth was a dreamer, and dreams always end like this.”

“Let us wait a few weeks,” interrupted Margaret, hastily. “As you say,
it may seem less brutal than to tell her now, or his mother, who is so
rich, may let Andrea keep the land.”

                                   VI

With December the deep snows came, and there were times when Andrea
could not make her daily pilgrimage to the Hill Farm. She regarded her
plan of life as settled, and was grateful that she met with no
opposition. She had spoken to the Grigses, and was only waiting for
Christmas, her marriage day, to go home! Home! She made the most of the
magic word, not realizing its emptiness.

She was in an overwrought, exalted state. Feeling that Waldsen was very
near, she knew no loneliness. When she was not working, she sat in his
room and looked up the hill. Once or twice she took down his violin, and
drew the bow across its strings, half expecting it would yield its old
music.

To sympathizing neighbours she told her plans freely, and they,
marvelling at her courage, wondered among themselves if her head was
quite right.

The weeks went on, and Margaret dreaded every mail, lest it should bring
the foreign letter. Christmas was drawing near when, on the day before
it, the letter came. It was from Mrs. Waldsen’s lawyer, brief and
couched in technical language, giving directions for the disposal of the
farm and declining peremptorily to make any allowance to “the woman who
had brought about the estrangement between mother and son, and had so
boldly followed the latter to America, though it was evident, as he had
made no provision for her, that he had no intention of marrying her.”

The Deacon handed the paper to Margaret, and then sat looking dumbly at
her. The snow blew against the window in great felty masses; it lay so
deeply over wood and field that no one had been able to gather Christmas
greens; even the laurels on the hillside were weighed down and hidden.
“I cannot tell her,” said Margaret; “wait until after to-morrow; she
will not try to go to the Hill House as she planned, for the road is
drifted over.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

There was to be a Christmas tree down at the church at seven o’clock on
Christmas Eve, and Margaret had promised to lead the carols with the
children, as a matter of course. She looked out at half-past six and
shivered at the storm, but a deacon’s daughter must not quail in the
face of duty,—in a small town she always shares responsibility with the
minister’s wife, and just now the minister’s wife was ill. Soon Andrea
came downstairs dressed in the plain black gown that she had worn when
Margaret first saw her, and said that she also wished to go to church;
and the two women, preceded by the Deacon, and a blinking lantern, felt,
rather than saw, their way out to the sleigh.

Once at the church, Andrea hid herself in the corner of an old-fashioned
high pew, silently looking at the lights and the children’s happy faces.
When the singing began, tears ran down her cheeks, and she made no
effort to restrain them, or even wipe them away.

The Deacon hurried the girls home as soon as possible, after the
exercises were over, for though the storm had ceased, the thermometer
had fallen, and the cold was intense.

Margaret begged Andrea to share her room that night, for the house
seemed inexpressibly dreary, but she refused gently, and, after kissing
Margaret, went up to Waldsen’s attic room. There she moved about awhile,
and finally Margaret heard her go to her own room, and in a few moments
everything was still.

Andrea did not sleep, however, or even undress; the music had excited
her imagination. It was Christmas Eve; how many years ago was the last
Christmas? She had prepared no present for Waldsen, not even a wreath
for his grave. The thought distressed her out of its due proportion.

Then she remembered that, under the eaves in his room, there was a sheaf
of rye that he had saved to be the Christmas sheaf for their new home.
She would take that up to the hill to him, and all the hungry birds
would come there to-morrow for their festival. Presently it seemed to
her as if the night lifted and day was dawning.

Andrea found the sheaf, and, pinning a shawl about her head and
shoulders, crept softly downstairs. The wind blew so that she could
barely close the woodshed door behind her; at her first step she sank
knee-deep in the snow. Then a sort of second sight came to aid her, and
she chose the places bared by the wind in picking out her path.

The moon came out brightly and the shadows bowed and beckoned
encouragement to her as she struggled on. Could she ever climb the hill?
Twice the wind wound her in her shawl and she fell, but, pausing a
moment for breath, regained her footing. The sheaf grew like lead in her
arms, and the wind fought with her for it.

At last she reached the picket fence that encircled the hill of white
stones. The gate held fast until, dropping her burden, she shovelled the
snow away desperately with her hands and released it. Was she growing
dizzy? No, she felt stronger, better. The few clouds vanished, driven by
the moon. A new light shone about the place, and beautiful colours
radiated from the blowing particles of snow. The wind hushed its
shrillness to soft music, the notes of Gurth’s violin. She was in her
old home once more, and the little brothers were singing their carol.

How the wind blew! she must hurry now,—only a few steps more. Again the
music arose; strange! it seemed to be her own voice that sang to the
accompaniment of Gurth’s violin,—

                  “Sire, the night is darker now,
                     And the wind blows stronger;
                   Fails my heart, I know not how,
                     I can go no longer!”

She caught hold of a stone to steady herself and turned toward the
unmarked mound. Her feet almost refused to move, one final effort! It
grew light again! Joy! The sheaf of rye seemed to part and open a way
before her, revealing Waldsen standing on the threshold of the Hill
House—would he close the door without seeing her? Casting herself
forward, she cried, “Wait, beloved, I am coming!” and then all was
warmth and light.

                 *        *        *        *        *

In the morning Margaret did not call Andrea when she first awoke. “Day
will come to her soon enough,” she said. An hour later she went to the
empty room and then, finding the bed untouched, searched the house in
vain. Calling the Deacon, he suggested that Andrea might have gone to
the Hill House, but there were no footsteps in the snow to guide them,
for it had drifted all night.

A party of neighbours quickly formed; the men strode about, probing the
drifts with sticks, while the women looked anxiously from their windows.

Margaret went to the attic room, where she could see the country on all
sides. Something fluttered above the snow between the white stones on
the hill, where the wind had swept bare places. In a moment she had gone
out and called the nearest of the searchers, who chanced to be her
father, and together they climbed the hill.

Pillowed by the rye knelt Andrea, her eyes turned skyward, a smile upon
her parted lips, while above her the meadowlarks flocked and the
buntings murmured as they made their Christmas feast from Gurth’s sheaf.

“We need not tell her now,” was all that Margaret said.

                                 FINIS




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                           TRANSCRIBER NOTES


Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed.

Inconsistency in hyphenation has been retained.