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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17886-h.zip b/17886-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..357b1ff --- /dev/null +++ b/17886-h.zip diff --git a/17886-h/17886-h.htm b/17886-h/17886-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7ef06a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/17886-h/17886-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,16966 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> + <title>Jerome, A Poor Man</title> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jerome, A Poor Man, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Jerome, A Poor Man + A Novel + +Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +Release Date: March 1, 2006 [EBook #17886] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEROME, A POOR MAN *** + + + + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly + + + + + +</pre> + +<h2 align="center">Jerome, A Poor Man<br> +A Novel</h2> +<h3 align="center">By<br> +Mary E. Wilkins</h3> +<p align="center">Author of<br> +“Prembroke” “Jane Field” “Madelon”<br> +“A Humble Romance” etc.</p> +<p align="center">Illustrated<br> +by A. I. Keller</p> +<p align="center">New York and London<br> +Harper & Brothers Publishers<br> +1897</p> + +<p>To My Father</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter I</h4> + +<p>One morning in early May, when the wind was cold and the sun hot, +and Jerome about twelve years old, he was in a favorite lurking-place +of his, which nobody but himself knew.</p> + +<p>Three fields' width to the northward from the Edwardses' house was +a great rock ledge; on the southern side of it was a famous warm +hiding-place for a boy on a windy spring day. There was a hollow in +the rock for a space as tall as Jerome, and the ledge extended itself +beyond it like a sheltering granite wing to the westward.</p> + +<p>The cold northwester blowing from over the lingering Canadian +snow-banks could not touch him, and he had the full benefit of the +sun as it veered imperceptibly south from east. He lay there basking +in it like some little animal which had crawled out from its winter +nest. Before him stretched the fields, all flushed with young green. +On the side of a gentle hill at the left a file of blooming +peach-trees looked as if they were moving down the slope to some +imperious march music of the spring.</p> + +<p>In the distance a man was at work with plough and horse. His +shouts came faintly across, like the ever-present notes of labor in +all the harmonies of life. The only habitation in sight was Squire +Eben Merritt's, and of that only the broad slants of shingled roof +and gray end wall of the barn, with a pink spray of peach-trees +against it.</p> + +<p>Jerome stared out at it all, without a thought concerning it in +his brain. He was actively conscious only of his own existence, which +had just then a wondrously pleasant savor for him. A sweet +exhilarating fire seemed leaping through every vein in his little +body. He was drowsy, and yet more fully awake than he had been all +winter. All his pulses tingled, and his thoughts were overborne by +the ecstasy in them. Jerome had scarcely felt thoroughly warm before, +since last summer. That same little, tight, and threadbare jacket had +been his thickest garment all winter. The wood had been stinted on +the hearth, the coverings on his bed; but now the full privilege of +the spring sun was his, and the blood in this little meagre human +plant, chilled and torpid with the winter's frosts, stirred and +flowed like that in any other. Who could say that the bliss of +renewed vitality which the boy felt, as he rested there in his snug +rock, was not identical with that of the springing grass and the +flowering peach-trees? Who could say that he was more to all intents +and purposes, for that minute, than the rock-honeysuckle opening its +red cups on the ledge over his head? He was conscious of no more +memory or forethought.</p> + +<p>Presently he shut his eyes, and the sunlight came in a soft rosy +glow through his closed lids. Then it was that a little girl came +across the fields, clambering cautiously over the stone walls, lest +she should tear her gown, stepping softly over the green grass in her +little morocco shoes, and finally stood still in front of the boy +sitting with his eyes closed in the hollow of the rock. Twice she +opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again. At last she gained +courage.</p> + +<p>“Be you sick, boy?” she inquired, in a sweet, timid +voice.</p> + +<p>Jerome opened his eyes with a start, and stared at the little +quaint figure standing before him. Lucina wore a short blue woollen +gown; below it her starched white pantalets hung to the tops of her +morocco shoes. She wore also a white tier, and over that a little +coat, and over that a little green cashmere shawl sprinkled with palm +leaves, which her mother had crossed over her bosom and tied at her +back for extra warmth. Lucina's hood was of quilted blue silk, and +her smooth yellow curls flowed from under it quite down to her waist. +Moreover, her mother had carefully arranged four, two on each side, +to escape from the frill of her hood in front and fall softly over +her pink cheeks. Lucina's face was very fair and sweet—the face +of a good and gentle little girl, who always minded her mother and +did her daily tasks.</p> + +<p>Her dark blue eyes, set deeply under seriously frowning childish +brows, surveyed Jerome with innocent wonder; her pretty mouth drooped +anxiously at the corners. Jerome knew her well enough, although he +had never before exchanged a word with her. She was little Lucina +Merritt, whose father had money and bought her everything she wanted, +and whose mother rigged her up like a puppet, as he had heard his +mother say.</p> + +<p>“No, ain't sick,” he said, in a half-intelligible +grunt. A cross little animal poked into wakefulness in the midst of +its nap in the sun might have responded in much the same way. +Gallantry had not yet developed in Jerome. He saw in this pretty +little girl only another child, and, moreover, one finely shod and +clothed, while he went shoeless and threadbare. He looked sulkily at +her blue silk hood, pulled his old cap down with a twitch to his +black brows, and shrugged himself closer to the warm rock.</p> + +<p>The little girl eyed his bare toes. “Be you cold?” she +ventured.</p> + +<p>“No, ain't cold,” grunted Jerome. Then he caught sight +of something in her hand—a great square of sugar-gingerbread, +out of which she had taken only three dainty bites as she came along, +and in spite of himself there was a hungry flash of his black +eyes.</p> + +<p>Lucina held out the gingerbread. “I'd just as lives as not +you had it,” said she, timidly. “It's most all there. +I've just had three teenty bites.”</p> + +<p>Jerome turned on her fiercely. “Don't want your old +gingerbread,” he cried. “Ain't hungry—have all I +want to home.”</p> + +<p>The little Lucina jumped, and her blue eyes filled with tears. She +turned away without a word, and ran falteringly, as if she could not +see for tears, across the field; and there was a white lamb trotting +after her. It had appeared from somewhere in the fields, and Jerome +had not noticed it. He remembered hearing that Lucina Merritt had a +cosset lamb that followed her everywhere. “Has +everything,” he muttered—“lambs an' everything. +Don't want your old gingerbread.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly he sprang up and began feeling in his pocket; then he ran +like a deer after the little girl. She rolled her frightened, tearful +blue eyes over her shoulder at him, and began to run too, and the +cosset lamb cantered faster at her heels; but Jerome soon gained on +them.</p> + +<p>“Stop, can't ye?” he sang out. “Ain't goin' to +hurt ye. What ye 'fraid of?” He laid his hand on her +green-shawled shoulders, and she stood panting, her little face +looking up at him, half reassured, half terrified, from her blue silk +hood-frills and her curls.</p> + +<p>“Like sas'fras?” inquired Jerome, with a lordly air. +An emperor about to bestow a largess upon a slave could have had no +more of the very grandeur of beneficence in his mien.</p> + +<p>Lucina nodded meekly.</p> + +<p>Jerome drew out a great handful of strange articles from his +pocket, and they might, from his manner of handling them, have been +gold pieces and jewels. There were old buttons, a bit of chalk, and a +stub of slate-pencil. There were a horse-chestnut and some grains of +parched sweet-corn and a dried apple-core. There were other things +which age and long bondage in the pocket had brought to such passes +that one could scarcely determine their identities. From all this +Jerome selected one undoubted treasure—a great jagged cut of +sassafras root. It had been nicely scraped, too, and looked white and +clean.</p> + +<p>“Here,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Don't you want it?” asked Lucina, shyly.</p> + +<p>“No—had a great piece twice as big as that yesterday. +Know where there's lots more in the cedar swamp. Here, take +it.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” said Lucina, and took it, and fumbled +nervously after her little pocket.</p> + +<p>“Why don't you eat it?” asked Jerome, and Lucina took +an obedient little nibble.</p> + +<p>“Ain't that good and strong?”</p> + +<p>“It's real good,” replied Lucina, smiling +gratefully.</p> + +<p>“Mebbe I'll dig you some more some time,” said Jerome, +as if the cedar swamp were a treasure-chest.</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” said the little girl. Then she timidly +extended the gingerbread again. “I only took three little +bites, an' it's real nice, honest,” said she, appealingly.</p> + +<p>But she jumped again at the flash in Jerome's black eyes.</p> + +<p>“Don't want your old gingerbread!” he cried. +“Ain't hungry; have more'n I want to eat to home. Guess my +folks have gingerbread. Like to know what you're tryin' to give me +victuals for! Don't want any of your old gingerbread!”</p> + +<p>“It ain't old, honest,” pleaded Lucina, tearfully. +“It ain't old—Hannah, she just baked it this +morning.” But the boy was gone, pelting hard across the field, +and all there was for the little girl to do was to go home, with her +sassafras in her pocket and her gingerbread in her hand, with an +aromatic savor on her tongue and the sting of slighted kindness in +her heart, with her cosset lamb trotting at heel, and tell her +mother.</p> + +<p>Jerome did not return to his nook in the rock. As he neared it he +heard the hollow note of a horn from the northwest.</p> + +<p>“S'pose mother wants me,” he muttered, and went on +past the rock ledge to the west, and climbed the stone wall into the +first of the three fields which separated him from his home. Across +the young springing grass went Jerome—a slender little lad +moving with an awkward rustic lope. It was the gait of the homely +toiling men of the village which his young muscles had caught, as if +they had in themselves powers of observation and assimilation. Jerome +at twelve walked as if he had held plough-shares, bent over potato +hills, and hewn wood in cedar swamps for half a century. Jerome's +feet were bare, and his red rasped ankles showed below his hitching +trousers. His poor winter shoes had quite failed him for many weeks, +his blue stockings had shown at the gaps in their sides which had +torn away from his mother's strong mending. Now the soles had gone, +and his uncle Ozias Lamb, who was a cobbler, could not put in new +ones because there was not strength enough in the uppers to hold +them. “You can't have soles in shoes any more than you can in +folks, without some body,” said Ozias Lamb. It seemed as if +Ozias might have made and presented some new shoes, soles and all, to +his needy nephew, but he was very poor, and not young, and worked +painfully to make every cent count. So Jerome went barefoot after the +soles parted from his shoes; but he did not care, because it was +spring and the snow was gone. Jerome had, moreover, a curious +disregard of physical discomfort for a boy who could take such +delight in sheer existence in a sunny hollow of a rock. He had had +chilblains all winter from the snow-water which had soaked in through +his broken shoes; his heels were still red with them, but not a +whimper had he made. He had treated them doggedly himself with +wood-ashes, after an old country prescription, and said nothing, +except to reply, “Doctorin' chilblains,” when his mother +asked him what he was doing.</p> + +<p>Jerome also often went hungry. He was hungry now as he loped +across the field. A young wolf that had roamed barren snow-fields all +winter might not have felt more eager for a good meal than Jerome, +and he was worse off, because he had no natural prey. But he never +made a complaint.</p> + +<p>Had any one inquired if he were hungry, he would have flown at him +as he had done at little Lucina Merritt when she offered him her +gingerbread. He knew, and all his family knew, that the neighbors +thought they had not enough to eat, and the knowledge so stung their +pride that it made them defy the fact itself. They would not own to +each other that they were hungry; they denied it fiercely to their +own craving stomachs.</p> + +<p>Jerome had had nothing that morning but a scanty spoonful of +corn-meal porridge, but he would have maintained stoutly that he had +eaten a good breakfast. He took another piece of sassafras from his +pocket and chewed it as he went along. After all, now the larder of +Nature was open and the lock of the frost on her cupboards was +broken, a boy would not fare so badly; he could not starve. There was +sassafras root in the swamps—plenty of it for the digging; +there were young winter-green leaves, stinging pleasantly his palate +with green aromatic juice; later there would be raspberries and +blackberries and huckleberries. There were also the mysterious cedar +apples, and the sour-sweet excrescences sometimes found on swamp +bushes. These last were the little rarities of Nature's table which a +boy would come upon by chance when berrying and snatch with delighted +surprise. They appealed to his imagination as well as to his tongue, +since they belonged not to the known fruits in his spelling-book and +dictionary, and possessed a strange sweetness of fancy and mystery +beyond their woodland savor. In a few months, too, the garden would +be grown and there would be corn and beans and potatoes. Then +Jerome's lank outlines would begin to take on curves and the hungry +look would disappear from his face. He was a handsome boy, with a +fearless outlook of black eyes from his lean, delicate face, and a +thick curling crop of fair hair which the sun had bleached like +straw. Always protected from the weather, Jerome's hair would have +been brown; but his hats failed him like his shoes, and often in the +summer season were crownless. However, his mother mended them as long +as she was able. She was a thrifty woman, although she was a +semi-invalid, and sat all day long in a high-backed rocking-chair. +She was not young either; she had been old when she married and her +children were born, but there was a strange element of toughness in +her—a fibre either of body or spirit that kept her in being, +like the fibre of an old tree.</p> + +<p>Before Jerome entered the house his mother's voice saluted him. +“Where have you been, Jerome Edwards?” she demanded. Her +voice was querulous, but strongly shrill. It could penetrate every +wall and door. Ann Edwards, as she sat in her rocking-chair, lifted +up her voice, and it sounded all over her house like a trumpet, and +all her household marched to it.</p> + +<p>“Been over in the pasture,” answered Jerome, with +quick and yet rather defiant obedience, as he opened the door.</p> + +<p>His mother's face, curiously triangular in outline, like a cat's, +with great hollow black eyes between thin parted curtains of black +false hair, confronted him when he entered the room. She always sat +face to the door and window, and not a soul who passed or entered +escaped her for a minute. “What have you been doing in the +pasture?” said she.</p> + +<p>“Sittin'.”</p> + +<p>“Sittin'?”</p> + +<p>“I've been sitting on the warm side of the big rock a little +while,” said Jerome. He looked subdued before his mother's +gaze, and yet not abashed. She always felt sure that there was some +hidden reserve of rebellion in Jerome, coerce him into obedience as +she might. She never really governed him, as she did her daughter +Elmira, who stood washing dishes at the sink. But she loved Jerome +better, although she tried not to, and would not own it to +herself.</p> + +<p>“Do you know what time it is?” said she, severely.</p> + +<p>Jerome glanced at the tall clock in the corner. It was nearly ten. +He glanced and made no reply. He sometimes had a dignified masculine +way, beyond his years, of eschewing all unnecessary words. His mother +saw him look at the time; why should he speak? She did not wait for +him. “'Most ten o'clock,” said she, “and a great +boy twelve years old lazing round on a rock in a pasture when all his +folks are working. Here's your mother, feeble as she is, workin' her +fingers to the bone, while you're doing nothing a whole forenoon. I +should think you'd be ashamed of yourself. Now you take the spade and +go right out and go to work in the garden. It's time them beans are +in, if they're going to be. Your father has had to go down to the +wood-lot and get a load of wood for Doctor Prescott, and here 'tis +May and the garden not planted. Go right along.” All the time +Jerome's mother talked, her little lean strong fingers flew, twirling +bright colored rags in and out. She was braiding a rug for this same +Doctor Prescott's wife. The bright strips spread and twirled over her +like snakes, and the balls wherein the rags were wound rolled about +the floor. Most women kept their rag balls in a basket when they +braided, but Ann Edwards worked always in a sort of untidy fury.</p> + +<p>Jerome went out, little hungry boy with the winter chill again +creeping through his veins, got the spade out of the barn, and set to +work in the garden. The garden lay on the sunny slope of a hill which +rose directly behind the house; when his spade struck a stone Jerome +would send it rolling out of his way to the foot of the hill. He got +considerable amusement from that, and presently the work warmed +him.</p> + +<p>The robins were singing all about. Every now and then one flew out +of the sweet spring distance, lit, and silently erected his red +breast among some plough ridges lower down. It was like a veritable +transition from sound to sight.</p> + +<p>Below where Jerome spaded, and upon the left, stretched long +waving plough ridges where the corn was planted. Jerome's father had +been at work there with the old white horse that was drawing wood for +him to-day. Much of the garden had to be spaded instead of ploughed, +because this same old white horse was needed for other work.</p> + +<p>As Jerome spaded, the smell of the fresh earth came up in his +face. Now and then a gust of cold wind, sweet with unseen blossoms, +smote him powerfully, bending his slender body before it like a +sapling. A bird flashed past him with a blue dazzle of wings, and +Jerome stopped and looked after it. It lit on the fence in front of +the house, and shone there in the sunlight like a blue precious +stone. The boy gazed at it, leaning on his spade. Jerome always +looked hard out of all his little open windows of life, and saw every +precious thing outside his daily grind of hard, toilsome childhood +which came within his sight.</p> + +<p>The bird flew away, and Jerome spaded again. He knew that he must +finish so much before dinner or his mother would scold. He was not +afraid of his mother's sharp tongue, but he avoided provoking it with +a curious politic and tolerant submission which he had learned from +his father. “Mother ain't well, you know, an' she's +high-sperited, and we've got to humor her all we can,” Abel +Edwards had said, confidentially, many a time to his boy, who had +listened sagely and nodded.</p> + +<p>Jerome obeyed his mother with the patient obedience of a superior +who yields because his opponent is weaker than he, and a struggle +beneath his dignity, not because he is actually coerced. Neither he +nor his father ever answered back or contradicted; when her shrill +voice waxed loudest and her vituperation seemed to fairly hiss in +their ears, they sometimes looked at each other and exchanged a +solemn wink of understanding and patience. Neither ever opened mouth +in reply.</p> + +<p>Jerome worked fast in his magnanimous concession to his mother's +will, and had accomplished considerable when his sister opened the +kitchen window, thrust out her dark head, and called in a voice +shrill as her mother's, but as yet wholly sweet, with no harsh notes +in it: “Jerome! Jerome! Dinner is ready.”</p> + +<p>Jerome whooped in reply, dropped his spade, and went leaping down +the hill. When he entered the kitchen his mother was sitting at the +table and Elmira was taking up the dinner. Elmira was a small, pretty +girl, with little, nervous hands and feet, and eager black eyes, like +her mother's. She stretched on tiptoe over the fire, and ladled out a +steaming mixture from the kettle with an arduous swing of her sharp +elbow. Elmira's sleeves were rolled up and her thin, sharply-jointed, +girlish arms showed.</p> + +<p>“Don't you know enough, without being told, to lift that +kettle off the fire for Elmira?” demanded Mrs. Edwards of +Jerome.</p> + +<p>Jerome lifted the kettle off the fire without a word.</p> + +<p>“It seems sometimes as if you might do something without +being told,” said his mother. “You could see, if you had +eyes to your head, that your sister wa'n't strong enough to lift that +kettle off, and was dippin' it up so's to make it lighter, an' the +stew 'most burnin' on.”</p> + +<p>Jerome made no response. He sniffed hungrily at the savory steam +arising from the kettle. “What is it?” he asked his +sister, who stooped over the kettle sitting on the hearth, and +plunged in again the long-handled tin dipper.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Edwards never allowed any one to answer a question when she +could do it herself. “It's a parsnip stew,” said she, +sharply. “Elmira dug some up in the old garden-patch, where we +thought they were dead. I put in a piece of pork, when I'd ought to +have saved it. It's good 'nough for anybody, I don't care who 'tis, +if it's Doctor Prescott, or Squire Merritt, or the minister. You'd +better be thankful for it, both of you.”</p> + +<p>“Where's father?” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“He 'ain't come home yet. I dun'no' where he is. He's been +gone long enough to draw ten cords of wood. I s'pose he's potterin' +round somewheres—stopped to talk to somebody, or something. I +ain't going to wait any longer. He'll have to eat his dinner cold if +he can't get home.”</p> + +<p>Elmira put the dish of stew on the table. Jerome drew his chair +up. Mrs. Edwards grasped the long-handled dipper preparatory to +distributing the savory mess, then suddenly stopped and turned to +Elmira.</p> + +<p>“Elmira,” said she, “you go into the parlor an' +git the china bowl with pink flowers on it, an' then you go to the +chest in the spare bedroom an' get out one of them fine linen +towels.”</p> + +<p>“What for?” said Elmira, wonderingly.</p> + +<p>“No matter what for. You do what I tell you to.”</p> + +<p>Elmira went out, and after a little reappeared with the china bowl +and the linen towel. Jerome sat waiting, with a kind of fierce +resignation. He was almost starved, and the smell of the stew in his +nostrils made him fairly ravenous.</p> + +<p>“Give it here,” said Mrs. Edwards, and Elmira set the +bowl before her mother. It was large, almost large enough for a +punch-bowl, and had probably been used for one. It was a stately old +dish from overseas, a relic from Mrs. Edwards's mother, who had seen +her palmy days before her marriage. Mrs. Edwards had also in her +parlor cupboard a part of a set of blue Indian china which had +belonged to her mother. The children watched while their mother +dipped the parsnip stew into the china bowl. Elmira, while constantly +more amenable to her mother, was at the moment more outspoken against +her.</p> + +<p>“There won't be enough left for us,” she burst forth, +excitedly.</p> + +<p>“I guess you'll get all you need; you needn't +worry.”</p> + +<p>“There won't be enough for father when he comes home, +anyhow.”</p> + +<p>“I ain't a mite worried about your father; I guess he won't +starve.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Edwards went on dipping the stew into the bowl while the +children watched. She filled it nearly two-thirds full, then stopped, +and eyed the girl and boy critically. “I guess you'd better go, +Elmira,” said she. “Jerome can't unless he's all cleaned +up. Get my little red cashmere shawl, and you can wear my green silk +pumpkin hood. Yours don't look nice enough to go there +with.”</p> + +<p>“Can't I eat dinner first, mother?” pleaded Elmira, +pitifully.</p> + +<p>“No, you can't. I guess you won't starve if you wait a +little while. I ain't 'goin' to send stew to folks stone-cold. Hurry +right along and get the shawl and hood. Don't stand there lookin' at +me.”</p> + +<p>Elmira went out forlornly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Edwards began pinning the linen towel carefully over the +bowl.</p> + +<p>“Let Elmira stay an' eat her dinner. I'd just as lives go. +Don't care if I don't ever have anythin' to eat,” spoke up +Jerome.</p> + +<p>His mother flashed her black eyes round at him. “Don't you +be saucy, Jerome Edwards,” said she, “or you'll go back +to your spadin' without a mouthful! I told your sister she was goin', +an' I don't want any words about it from either of you.”</p> + +<p>When Elmira returned with her mother's red cashmere shawl pinned +carefully over her childish shoulders, with her sharply pretty, +hungry-eyed little face peering meekly out of the green gloom of the +great pumpkin hood, Mrs. Edwards gave her orders. +“There,” said she, “you take this bowl, an' you be +real careful and don't let it fall and break it, nor slop the stew +over my best shawl, an' you carry it down the road to Doctor +Prescott's; an' whoever comes to the door, whether it's the hired +girl, or Lawrence, or the hired man, you ask to see Mis' Doctor +Prescott. Don't you give this bowl to none of the others, you mind. +An' when Mis' Doctor Prescott comes, you courtesy an' say, +‘Good-mornin', Mis' Prescott. Mis' Abel Edwards sends you her +compliments, and hopes you're enjoyin' good health, an' begs you'll +accept this bowl of parsnip stew. She thought perhaps you hadn't had +any this season.’”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Edwards repeated the speech in a little, fine, mincing voice, +presumably the one which Elmira was to use. “Can you remember +that?” she asked, sharply, in her natural tone.</p> + +<p>“Yes, ma'am.”</p> + +<p>“Say it over.”</p> + +<p>Poor little Elmira Edwards said it over like a parrot, imitating +her mother's fine, stilted tone perfectly. In truth, it was a formula +of presentation which she had often used.</p> + +<p>“Don't you forget the ‘compliments,’ an' +‘I thought she hadn't had any parsnip stew this +season.’”</p> + +<p>“No, ma'am.”</p> + +<p>“Take the bowl up, real careful, and carry it +stiddy.”</p> + +<p>Elmira threw back the ends of the red cashmere shawl, lifted the +big bowl in her two small hands, and went out carrying it before her. +Jerome opened the door, and shut it after her.</p> + +<p>“Now I guess Mis' Doctor Prescott won't think we're starvin' +to death here, if her husband has got a mortgage on our house,” +said Mrs. Edwards. “I made up my mind that time she sent over +that pitcher of lamb broth that I'd send her somethin' back, if I +lived. I wouldn't have taken it anyhow, if it hadn't been for the +rest of you. I guess I'll let folks know we ain't quite beggars +yet.”</p> + +<p>Jerome nodded. A look of entire sympathy with his mother came into +his face. “Guess so too,” said he.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Edwards threw back her head with stiff pride, as if it bore a +crown. “So far,” said she, “nobody on this earth +has ever give me a thing that I 'ain't been able to pay 'em for in +some way. I guess there's a good many rich folks can't say 's much as +that.”</p> + +<p>“Guess so too,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Pass over your plate; you must be hungry by this +time,” said his mother. She heaped his plate with the stew. +“There,” said she, “don't you wait any longer. I +guess mebbe you'd better set the dish down on the hearth to keep warm +for Elmira and your father first, though.”</p> + +<p>“Ain't you goin' to eat any yourself?” asked +Jerome.</p> + +<p>“I couldn't touch a mite of that stew if you was to pay me +for it. I never set much by parsnip stew myself, anyway.”</p> + +<p>Jerome eyed his mother soberly. “There's enough,” said +he. “I've got all I can eat here.”</p> + +<p>“I tell you I don't want any. Ain't that enough? There's +plenty of stew if I wanted it, but I don't. I never liked it any too +well, an' to-day seems as if it fairly went against my stomach. Set +it down on the hearth the way I told you to, an' eat your dinner +before it gets any colder.”</p> + +<p>Jerome obeyed. He ate his plate of stew; then his mother obliged +him to eat another. When Elmira returned she had her fill, and there +was plenty left for Abel Edwards when he should come home.</p> + +<p>Jerome, well fed, felt like another boy when he returned to his +task in the garden. “Guess I can get this spadin' 'most done +this afternoon,” he said to himself. He made the brown earth +fly around him. He whistled as he worked. As the afternoon wore on he +began to wonder if he could not finish the garden before his father +got home. He was sure he had not come as yet, for he had kept an eye +on the road, and besides he would have heard the heavy rattle of the +wood-wagon. “Father 'll be real tickled when he sees the garden +all done,” said Jerome, and he stopped whistling and bent all +his young spirit and body to his work. He never thought of feeling +anxious about his father.</p> + +<p>At five o'clock the back door of the Edwards house opened. Elmira +came out with a shawl over her head and hurried up the hill. +“Oh, Jerome,” she panted, when she got up to him. +“You must stop working, mother says, and go right straight off +to the ten-acre lot. Father 'ain't come home yet, an' we're dreadful +worried about him. She says she's afraid something has happened to +him.”</p> + +<p>Jerome stuck his spade upright in the ground and stared at her. +“What does she s'pose has happened?” he said, slowly. +Jerome had no imagination for disasters.</p> + +<p>“She thinks maybe he's fell down, or some wood's fell on +him, or Peter's run away.”</p> + +<p>“Peter wouldn't ever run away; it's much as ever he'll walk +lately, an' father don't ever fall down.”</p> + +<p>Elmira fairly danced up and down in the fresh mould. She caught +her brother's arm and twitched it and pushed him fiercely. “Go +along, go along!” she cried. “Go right along, Jerome +Edwards! I tell you something dreadful has happened to father. Mother +says so. Go right along!”</p> + +<p>Jerome pulled himself away from her nervous clutch, and collected +himself for flight. “He was goin' to carry that wood to Doctor +Prescott's,” said he, reflectively. “Ain't any sense +goin' to the ten-acre lot till I see if he's been there.”</p> + +<p>“It's on the way,” cried Elmira, frantically. +“Hurry up! Oh, do hurry up, Jerome! Poor father! Mother says +he's—fell—down—” Elmira crooked her little arm +around her face and broke into a long wail as she started down the hill. +“Poor—father—oh—oh—poor—father!” +floated back like a wake of pitiful sound.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter II</h4> + +<p>Jerome started, and once started he raced. Long-legged, +light-flanked, long-winded, and underfed, he had the adaptability for +speed of a little race-horse. Jerome Edwards was quite a famous boy +in the village for his prowess in running. No other boy could equal +him. Marvellous stories were told about it. “Jerome Edwards, he +can run half a mile in five minutes any day, yes he can, sir,” +the village boys bragged if perchance a cousin from another town came +a-visiting and endeavored to extol himself and his comrades beyond +theirs. In some curious fashion Jerome, after he had out-speeded all +the other boys, furnished them with his own victories for a boast. +They seemed, in exulting over the glory of this boy of their village, +to forget that the glory came only through their defeat. It was +national pride on a very small and childish scale.</p> + +<p>Jerome, swift little runner that he was, ran that day as he had +never run before. The boys whom he met stood aside hastily, gaped +down the road behind him to see another runner laboring far in the +rear, and then, when none appeared, gaped after his flying heels.</p> + +<p>“Wonder what he's a-runnin' that way fur?” said one +boy.</p> + +<p>“Ain't nobody a-tryin' to ketch up with him, fur's I can +see,” said another.</p> + +<p> “Mebbe his mother's took worse, an' he's a-runnin' fur the +doctor,” said a third, who was Henry Judd, a distant cousin of +Jerome's.</p> + +<p>The boys stood staring even when Jerome was quite out of sight. +Jerome had about three-quarters of a mile to run to Doctor Prescott's +house. He was almost there when he caught sight of a team coming. +“There's father, now,” he thought, and stood still, +breathing hard. Although Jerome's scanty food made him a swift +runner, it did not make him a strong one.</p> + +<p>The team came rattling slowly on. The old white horse which drew +it planted his great hoofs lumberingly in the tracks, nodding at +every step.</p> + +<p>As it came nearer, Jerome, watching, gave a quick gasp. The wagon +contained wood nicely packed; the reins were wound carefully around +one of the stakes; and there was no driver. Jerome tried to call out, +tried to run forward, but he could not. He could only stand still, +watching, his boyish face deadly white, his eyes dilating. The old +white horse came on, dragging his load faithfully and steadily +towards his home. He never swerved from his tracks except once, when +he turned out carefully for a bad place in the road, where the ground +seemed to be caving in, which Abel Edwards had always avoided with a +loaded team. There was something awful about this old animal, with +patient and laborious stupidity in every line of his plodding body, +obeying still that higher intelligence which was no longer visible at +his guiding-reins, and perhaps had gone out of sight forever. It had +all the uncanny horror of a headless spectre advancing down the +road.</p> + +<p>Jerome collected himself when the white horse came alongside. +“Whoa! Whoa, Peter!” he gasped out. The horse stopped and +stood still, his great forefeet flung stiffly forward, his head and +ears and neck hanging as inertly as a broken tree-bough with all its +leaves drooping.</p> + +<p>The boy stumbled weakly to the side of the wagon and stretched +himself up on tiptoe. There was nothing there but the wood. He stood +a minute, thinking. Then he began searching for the hitching-rope in +the front of the wagon, but he could not find it. Finally he led the +horse to the side of the road, unwound the reins from the stake, and +fastened him as well as he could to a tree.</p> + +<p>Then he went on down the road. His knees felt weak under him, but +still he kept up a good pace. When he reached the Prescott place he +paused and looked irresolutely a moment through the trees at the +great square mansion-house, with its green, glancing +window-panes.</p> + +<p>Then he ran straight on. The ten-acre wood-lot which belonged to +his father was about a half-mile farther. It was a birch and chestnut +wood, and was full of the green shimmer of new leaves and the silvery +glistening of white boughs as delicate as maidens' arms. There was a +broad cart-path leading through it. Jerome entered this directly when +he reached the wood. Then he began calling. “Father!” he +called. “Father! father!” over and over again, stopping +between to listen. There was no sound in response; there was no sound +in the wood except the soft and elusive rustling of the new foliage, +like the rustling of the silken garments of some one in hiding or +some one passing out of sight. It brought also at this early season a +strange sense of a presence in the wood. Jerome felt it, and called +with greater importunity: “Father! father! father, where be +you? Father!”</p> + +<p>Jerome looked very small among the trees—no more than a +little pale child. His voice rang out shrill and piteous. It seemed +as much a natural sound of the wood as a bird's, and was indeed one +of the primitive notes of nature: the call of that most helpless +human young for its parent and its shield.</p> + +<p>Jerome pushed on, calling, until he came to the open space where +his father had toiled felling trees all winter. Cords of wood were +there, all neatly piled and stacked. The stumps between them were +sending out shoots of tender green. “Father! father!” +Jerome called, but this time more cautiously, hushing his voice a +little. He thought that his father might be lying there among the +stumps, injured in some way. He remembered how a log had once fallen +on Samuel Lapham's leg and broken it when he was out alone in the +woods, and he had lain there a whole day before anybody found him. He +thought something like that might have happened to his father. He +searched everywhere, peering with his sharp young eyes among the +stumps and between the piles of wood. “Mebbe father's fainted +away,” he muttered.</p> + +<p>Finally he became sure that his father was nowhere in the +clearing, and he raised his voice again and shouted, and hallooed, +and listened, and hallooed again, and got no response.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a chill seemed to strike Jerome's heart. He thought of +the pond. Little given as he was to forebodings of evil, when once he +was possessed of one it became a certainty.</p> + +<p>“Father's fell in the pond and got drowned,” he burst +out with a great sob. “What will mother do?”</p> + +<p>The boy went forward, stumbling half blindly over the stumps. Once +he fell, bruising his knee severely, and picked himself up, sobbing +piteously. All the child in Jerome had asserted itself.</p> + +<p>Beyond the clearing was a stone wall that bounded Abel Edwards's +property. Beyond that was a little grove of old thick-topped +pine-trees; beyond that the little woodland pond. It was very shallow +in places, but it never dried up, and was said to have deep holes in +it. The boys told darkly braggart stories about this pond. They had +stood on this rock and that rock with poles of fabulous length; they +had probed the still water of the pond, and “never once hit the +bottom, sir.” They had flung stones with all their might, and, +listening sharply forward like foxes, had not heard them +“strike bottom, sir.”</p> + +<p>One end of this pond, reaching up well among the pine-trees, had +the worst repute, and was called indeed a darkly significant +name—the “Dead Hole.” It was confidently believed +by all the village children to have no bottom at all. There was a +belief current among them that once, before they were born, a man had +been drowned there, and his body never found.</p> + +<p>They would stand on the shore and look with horror, which yet gave +somehow a pleasant titillation to their youthful spirits, at this +water which bore such an evil name. Their elders did not need to +caution them; even the most venturesome had an awe of the Dead Hole, +and would not meddle with it unduly.</p> + +<p>Jerome climbed over the stone wall. The land on the other side +belonged to Doctor Prescott. He went through the grove of pine-trees +and reached the pond—the end called the Dead Hole. He stood +there looking and listening. It was a small sheet of water; the other +shore, swampy and skirted with white-flowering bushes and young +trees, looked very near; a cloying, honey sweetness came across, and +a silvery smoke of mist was beginning to curl up from it. The frogs +were clamorous, and every now and then came the bass boom of a +bull-frog. A red light from the westward sun came through the thin +growth opposite, and lay over the pond and the shore. Little swarms +of gnats danced in it.</p> + +<p>A swarm of the little gauzy things, so slight and ephemeral that +they seemed rather a symbolism of life than life itself, whirled +before the boy's wild, tearful eyes, and he moved aside and looked +down, and then cried out and snatched something from the ground at +his feet. It was the hat Abel Edwards had worn when he left home that +morning. Jerome stood holding his father's hat, gazing at it with a +look in his face like an old man's. Indeed, it may have been that a +sudden old age of the spirit came in that instant over the boy. He +had not before conceived of anything but an accident happening to his +father; now all at once he saw plainly that if his father, Abel +Edwards, had come to his death in the pond it must have been through +his own choice. “He couldn't have fell in,” muttered +Jerome, with stiff lips, looking at the gently curving shore and +looking at the hat.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he straightened himself, and an expression of desperate +resolution came into his face. He set his teeth hard; somehow, +whether through inherited instincts or through impressions he had got +from his mother, he had a firm conviction that suicide was a horrible +disgrace to the dead man himself and to his family.</p> + +<p>“Nobody shall ever know it,” the boy thought. He +nodded fiercely, as if to confirm it, and began picking up stones +from the shore of the pond. He filled the crown of the hat with them, +got a string out of his pocket, tied it firmly around the crown, +making a strong knot; then he swung his arm back at the shoulder, +brought it forward with a wide sweep, and flung the hat past the +middle of the Dead Hole.</p> + +<p>“There,” said Jerome; “guess nobody 'll ever +know now. There ain't no bottom to the Dead Hole.” The boy +hurried out of the woods and down the road again. When he reached the +Prescott house a man was just coming out of the yard, following the +path from the south door. When he came up to Jerome he eyed him +curiously; then he grasped him by the shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Sick?” said he.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“What on airth makes you look so?”</p> + +<p>“Father's lost.”</p> + +<p>“Lost—where's he lost? What d'ye mean?”</p> + +<p>“Went to get a load of wood for Doctor Prescott this +mornin', an' 'ain't got home.”</p> + +<p>“Now, I want to know! Didn't I see his team go up the road a +few minutes ago?”</p> + +<p>Jerome nodded. “Met it, an' he wa'n't on,” said +he.</p> + +<p>“Lord!” cried the man, and stared at him. He was a +middle-aged man, with a small wiry shape and a gait like a boy's. His +name was Jake Noyes, and he was the doctor's hired man. He took care +of his horse, and drove for him, and some said helped him compound +his prescriptions. There was great respect in the village for Jake +Noyes. He had a kind of reflected glory from the doctor, and some of +his own.</p> + +<p>Jerome pulled his shoulder away. “Got to be goin',” +said he.</p> + +<p>“Stop,” said Jake Noyes. “This has got to be +looked into. He must have got hurt. He must be in the woods where he +was workin'.”</p> + +<p>“Ain't. I've been there,” said Jerome, shortly, and +broke away.</p> + +<p>“Where did ye look?”</p> + +<p>“Everywhere,” the boy called back. But Jake followed +him up.</p> + +<p>“Stop a minute,” said he; “I want to know. Did +you go as fur 's the pond?”</p> + +<p>“What should I want to go to the pond for, like to +know?” Jerome looked around at him fiercely.</p> + +<p>“I didn't know but he might have fell in the pond; it's +pretty near.”</p> + +<p>“I'd like to know what you think my father would jump in the +pond for?” Jerome demanded.</p> + +<p>“Lord, I didn't say he jumped in. I said fell in.”</p> + +<p>“You know he couldn't have fell in. You know he would have +had to gone in of his own accord. I'll let you know my father wa'n't +the man to do anything like that, Jake Noyes!” The boy +actually shook his puny fist in the man's face. “Say it again, +if ye dare!” he cried.</p> + +<p>“Lord!” said Jake Noyes, with half-comical +consternation. He screwed up one blue eye after a fashion he +had—people said he had acquired it from dropping drugs for the +doctor—and looked with the other at the boy.</p> + +<p>“Say it again an' I'll kill ye, I will!” cried Jerome, +his voice breaking into a hoarse sob, and was off.</p> + +<p>“Be ye crazy?” Jake Noyes called after him. He stood +staring at him a minute, then went into the house on a run.</p> + +<p>Jerome ran to the place where he had left his father's team, +untied the horse, climbed up on the seat, and drove home. He could +not go fast; the old horse could proceed no faster than a walk with a +load. When he came in sight of home he saw a blue flutter at the +gate. It was Elmira's shawl; she was out there watching. When she saw +the team she came running down the road to meet it. “Where's +father?” she cried out. “Jerome, where's +father?”</p> + +<p>“Dun'no',” said Jerome. He sat high above her, holding +the reins. His pale, set face looked over her head.</p> + +<p>“Jerome—haven't +you—seen—father?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>Elmira burst out with a great wail. “Oh, Jerome, where's +father? Jerome, where is he? Is he killed? Oh, father, +father!”</p> + +<p>“Keep still,” said Jerome. “Mother 'll hear +you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Jerome, where's father?”</p> + +<p>“I tell you, hold your tongue. Do you want to kill mother, +too?”</p> + +<p>Poor little Elmira, running alongside the team, wept convulsively. +“Elmira, I tell you to keep still,” said Jerome, in such +a voice that she immediately choked back her sobs.</p> + +<p>Jerome drew up the wood-team at the gate with a great creak. +“Stand here 'side of the horse a minute,” he said to +Elmira. He swung himself off the load and went up the path to the +house. As he drew near the door he could hear his mother's chair. Ann +Edwards, crippled as she was, managed, through some strange +manipulation of muscles, to move herself in her rocking-chair all +about the house. Now the jerking scrape of the rockers on the +uncarpeted floor sounded loud. When Jerome opened the door he saw his +mother hitching herself rapidly back and forth in a fashion she had +when excited. He had seen her do so before, a few times.</p> + +<p>When she saw Jerome she stopped short and screwed up her face +before him as if to receive a blow. She did not ask a question.</p> + +<p>“I met the team comin' home,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>Still his mother said nothing, but kept that cringing face before +a coming blow.</p> + +<p>“Father wa'n't on it,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>Still his mother waited.</p> + +<p>“I hitched the horse,” said Jerome, “and then I +went up to the ten-acre lot, and I looked everywhere. He ain't +there.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly Ann Edwards seemed to fall back upon herself before his +eyes. Her head sank helplessly; she slipped low in her chair.</p> + +<p>Jerome ran to the water-pail, dipped out some water, and sprinkled +his mother's face. Then he rubbed her little lean hands with his +hard, boyish palm. He had seen his mother faint before. In fact, he +had been all prepared for it now.</p> + +<p>Presently she began to gasp and struggle feebly, and he knew she +was coming to. “Feel better?” he asked, in a loud voice, +as if she were miles away; indeed, he had a feeling that she was. +“Feel better, mother?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Edwards raised herself. “Your—father has fell +down and died,” she said. “There needn't anybody say +anything else. Wipe this water off my face. Get a towel.” +Jerome obeyed.</p> + +<p>“There needn't anybody say anything else,” repeated +his mother.</p> + +<p>“I guess they needn't, either,” assented Jerome, +coming with the towel and wiping her face gently. “I'd like to +hear anybody,” he added, fiercely.</p> + +<p>“He's fell down—and died,” said his mother. She +made sounds like sobs as she spoke, but there were no tears in her +eyes.</p> + +<p>“I s'pose I ought to go an' take the horse out,” said +Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Well.”</p> + +<p>“I'll send Elmira in; she's holdin' him.”</p> + +<p>“Well.”</p> + +<p>Jerome lighted a candle first, for it was growing dark, and went +out. “You go in and stay with mother,” he said to Elmira, +“an' don't you go to cryin' an' makin' her worse—she's +been faintin' away. Any tea in the house?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said the little girl, trying to control her +quivering face.</p> + +<p>“Make her some hot porridge, then—she'd ought to have +something. You can do that, can't you?”</p> + +<p>Elmira nodded; she dared not speak for fear she should cry.</p> + +<p>“Go right in, then,” said Jerome; and she obeyed, +keeping her face turned away. Her childish back looked like an old +woman's as she entered the door.</p> + +<p>Jerome unharnessed the horse, led him into the barn, fed him, and +drew some water for him from the well. When he came out of the barn, +after it was all done, he saw Doctor Prescott's chaise turning into +the yard. The doctor and Jake Noyes were in it. When the chaise +stopped, Jerome went up to it, bobbed his head and scraped his foot. +A handsome, keenly scowling face looked out of the chaise at him. +Doctor Seth Prescott was over fifty, with a smooth-shaven face as +finely cut as a woman's, with bright blue eyes under bushy brows, and +a red scratch-wig. Before years and snows and rough winds had +darkened and seamed his face, he had been a delicately fair man. +“Has he come yet?” he demanded, peremptorily.</p> + +<p>Jerome bobbed and scraped again. “No, sir.”</p> + +<p>“You didn't see a sign of him in the woods?”</p> + +<p>Jerome hesitated visibly.</p> + +<p>The doctor's eyes shone more sharply. “You didn't, +eh?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Does your mother know it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“How is she?”</p> + +<p>“She fainted away, but she's better.”</p> + +<p>The doctor got stiffly out of the chaise, took his medicine-chest, +and went into the house. “Stay here till I come out,” he +ordered Jerome, without looking back.</p> + +<p>“The doctor's goin' to send a posse out lookin' with +lanterns,” Jake Noyes told Jerome.</p> + +<p>Jerome made a grunt, both surly and despairing, in response. He +was leaning against the wheel of the chaise; he felt strangely +weak.</p> + +<p>“Mebbe we'll find him 'live an' well,” said Jake, +consolingly.</p> + +<p>“No, ye won't.”</p> + +<p>“Mebbe 'twon't be nothin' wuss than a broken bone noway, an' +the doctor, he can fix that.”</p> + +<p>Jerome shook his head.</p> + +<p>“The doctor, he's goin' to do everything that can be +done,” said Jake. “He's sent Lawrence over to East +Corners for some ropes an' grapplin'-hooks.”</p> + +<p>Then Jerome roused himself. “What for?” he demanded, +in a furious voice.</p> + +<p>Jake hesitated and colored. “Mebbe I hadn't ought to have +said that,” he stammered. “Course there ain't no need of +havin' 'em. It's just because the doctor wants to do everything he +can.”</p> + +<p>“What for?”</p> + +<p>“Well—you know there's the +pond—an'—”</p> + +<p>“Didn't I tell you my father didn't go near the +pond?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I don't s'pose he did,” said Jake, shrewdly; +“but it won't do no harm to drag it, an' then everybody will +know for sure he didn't.”</p> + +<p>“Can't drag it anyhow,” said Jerome, and there was an +odd accent of triumph in his voice. “The Dead Hole 'ain't got +any bottom.”</p> + +<p>Jake laughed. “That's a darned lie,” said he. “I +helped drag it myself once, forty year ago; a girl by the name of +'Lizy Ann Gooch used to live 'bout a mile below here on the river +road, was missin'. She wa'n't there; found her bones an' her straw +bonnet in the swamp two years afterwards, but, Lord, we dragged the +Dead hole—scraped bottom every time.”</p> + +<p>Jerome stared at him, his chin dropping.</p> + +<p>“Of course it ain't nothin' but a form, an' we sha'n't find +him there any more than we did 'Lizy Ann,” said Jake Noyes, +consolingly.</p> + +<p>Doctor Prescott came out of the house, and as he opened the door a +shrill cry of “There needn't anybody say anything else” +came from within.</p> + +<p>“Now you'd better go in and stay with your mother,” +ordered Doctor Prescott. “I have given her a composing powder. +Keep her as quiet as possible, and don't talk to her about your +father.”</p> + +<p>Doctor Prescott got into his chaise and drove away up the road, +and Jerome went in to his mother. For a while she kept her +rocking-chair in constant motion; she swung back and forth or hitched +fiercely across the floor; she repeated her wild cry that her husband +had fallen down and died, and nobody need say anything different; she +prayed and repeated Scripture texts. Then she succumbed to the +Dover's powder which the doctor had given her, and fell asleep in her +chair.</p> + +<p>Jerome and Elmira dared not awake her that she might go to bed. +They sat, each at a window, staring out into the night, watching for +their father, or some one to come with news that his body was +found—they did not know which. Now and then they heard the +report of a gun, but did not know what it meant. Sometimes Elmira +wept a little, but softly, that she might not waken her mother.</p> + +<p>The moon was full, and it was almost as light as day outside. When +a little after midnight a team came in sight they could tell at once +that it was the doctor's chaise, and Jake Noyes was driving. The boy +and girl left the windows and stole noiselessly out of the house. +Jake drew up at the gate. “You'd better go in an' go to bed, +both on you,” he said. “We'll find him safe an' sound +somewheres to-morrow. There's nigh two hundred men an' boys out with +lanterns an' torches, an' firin' guns for signals. We'll find him +with nothing wuss than a broken bone to-morrow. We've dragged the +whole pond, an' he ain't there, sure.”</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter III</h4> + +<p>The pond undoubtedly partook somewhat of the nature of an Eastern +myth in this little New England village. Although with the +uncompromising practicality of their natures the people had given it +a name so directly significant as to make it lose all poetical +glamour, and render it the very commonplace of ghastliness, it still +appealed to their imaginations.</p> + +<p>The laws of natural fancy obtained here as everywhere else, +although in small and homely measure. The village children found no +nymphs in the trees of their New England woods. If there were fauns +among them, and the children took their pointed ears for leaves as +they lay sleeping in the undergrowth, they never knew it. They had +none of these, but they had their pond, with its unfathomable depth. +They could not give that up for any testimony of people with ropes +and grappling-hooks. Had they not sounded it in vain with +farther-reaching lines?</p> + +<p>Not a boy in the village believed that the bottom of that famous +Dead Hole had once been touched. Jerome Edwards certainly did not. +Then, too, they had not brought his father's hat to light—or, +if they had, had made no account of it.</p> + +<p>Some of the elders, as well as the boys, believed in their hearts +that the pond had not, after all, been satisfactorily examined, and +that Abel Edwards might still lie there. “Ever since I can +remember anything, I've heard that pond in that place 'ain't got any +bottom,” one old man would say, and another add, with +triumphant conclusion, “If he ain't there, where is +he?”</p> + +<p>That indeed was the question. All solutions of mysteries have +their possibilities in the absence of proof. No trace of Abel Edwards +had been found in the woodland where he had been working, and no +trace of him for miles around. The search had been thorough. Other +ponds of less evil repute had also been dragged, and the little river +which ran through the village, and two brooks of considerable +importance in the spring. If Able Edwards had taken his own life, the +conclusion was inevitable that his body must lie in the pond, which +had always been reported unfathomable, and might be, after all.</p> + +<p>“The way I look at it is this,” said Simon Basset one +night in the village store. He raised the index-finger of his right +hand, pointed it at the company, shook it authoritatively as he +spoke, as if to call ocular attention also to his words. “Ef +Abel Edwards did make 'way with himself any other way than by jumping +into the Dead Hole, <em>what</em> did he do with his remains? He +couldn't bury himself nohow.” Simon Basset chuckled dryly and +looked at the others with conclusive triumph. His face was full of +converging lines of nose and chin and brows, which seemed to bring it +to a general point of craft and astuteness. Even his grizzled hair +slanted forward in a stiff cowlick over his forehead, and his face +bristled sharply with his gray beard. Simon Basset was the largest +land-owner in the village, and the dust and loam of his own acres +seemed to have formed a gray grime over all his awkward homespun +garb. Never a woman he met but looked apprehensively at his great, +clomping, mud-clogged boots.</p> + +<p>It was believed by many that Simon Basset never removed a suit of +clothes, after he had once put it on, until it literally dropped from +him in rags. He was also said to have argued, when taken to task for +this most untidy custom, that birds and animals never shifted their +coats until they were worn out, and it behooved men to follow their +innocent and natural habits as closely as possible.</p> + +<p>Simon Basset, sitting in an old leather-cushioned arm-chair in the +midst of the lounging throng, waited for applause after his +conclusive opinion upon Abel Edwards's disappearance; but there were +only affirmative grunts from a few. Many had their own views.</p> + +<p>“I ain't noways clear in my mind that Abel did kill +himself,” said a tall man, with a great length of thin, pale +whiskers falling over his breast. He had a vaguely elongated effect, +like a shadow, and had, moreover, a way of standing behind people +like one. When he spoke everybody started and looked around at +him.</p> + +<p>“I'd like to know what you think did happen to him, Adoniram +Judd,” cried Simon Basset.</p> + +<p>“I don't think Abel Edwards ever killed himself,” +repeated the tall man, solemnly. His words had weight, for he was a +distant relative of the missing man.</p> + +<p>“Do you know of anybody that had anything agin him?” +demanded Simon Basset.</p> + +<p>“No, I dun'no' 's I do,” admitted the tall man.</p> + +<p>“Then what in creation would anybody want to kill him for? +Guess they wouldn't be apt to do it for anything they would get out +of Abel Edwards.” Simon Basset chuckled triumphantly; and in +response there was a loud and exceedingly bitter laugh from a man +sitting on an old stool next to him. Everybody started, for the man +was Ozias Lamb, Abel Edwards's brother-in-law.</p> + +<p>“What ye laughin' at?” inquired Simon Basset, +defiantly; but he edged his chair away a little at the same time. +Ozias Lamb had the reputation of a very high temper.</p> + +<p>“Mebbe,” said Ozias Lamb, “somebody killed poor +Abel for his mortgage. I dun'no' of anything else he had.” +Ozias laughed again. He was a stout, squat man, leaning forward upon +his knees as he sat, with a complete subsidence of all his muscles, +which showed that it was his accustomed attitude. Just in that way +had Ozias Lamb sat and cobbled shoes on his lapboard for nearly forty +years. He was almost resolved into a statue illustrative of his own +toil. He never stood if he could help it; indeed, his knees felt weak +under him if he tried to do so. He sank into the first seat and +settled heavily forward into his one pose of life.</p> + +<p>All the other men looked rather apprehensively at him. His face +was all broadened with sardonic laughter, but his blue eyes were +fierce under his great bushy head of fair hair. “Abel Edwards +has been lugging of that mortgage 'round for the last ten +years,” said he, “an' it's been about all he had to lug. +It's been the meat in his stomach an' the hope in his heart. He +'ain't been a-lookin' forward to eatin', but to payin' up the +interest money when it came due; he 'ain't been a-lookin' forward to +heaven, but to clearin' off the mortgage. It's been all he's had; +it's bore down on his body and his soul, an' it's braced him up to +keep on workin'. He's been a-livin' in this Christian town for ten +years a-carryin' of this fine mortgage right out in plain sight, an' +I shouldn't be a mite surprised if somebody see it an' hankered arter +it. Folks are so darned anxious in this 'ere Christian town to get +holt of each other's burdens!”</p> + +<p>Simon Basset edged his chair away still farther; then he spoke. +“Don't s'pose you expected folks to up an' pay Abel Edwards's +mortgage for him,” he said.</p> + +<p>“No, I didn't,” returned Ozias Lamb, and the sardonic +curves around his mouth deepened.</p> + +<p>“An' I don't s'pose you'd expect Doctor Prescott to make him +a present of it,” said Jake Noyes, suddenly, from the outskirts +of the group. He had come in for the doctor's mail, and was lounging +with one great red-sealed missive and a religious newspaper in his +hand.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Ozias Lamb, “I shouldn't never expect +the doctor to make a present to anybody but himself or the Lord or +the meetin'-house.”</p> + +<p>A general chuckle ran over the group at that. Doctor Prescott was +regarded in the village as rather parsimonious except in those three +directions.</p> + +<p>Jake Noyes colored angrily and stepped forward. “I ain't +goin' to hear no nonsense about Doctor Prescott,” he exclaimed. +“I won't stan' it from none of ye. I give ye fair warnin'. I +don't eat no man's flapjacks an' hear him talked agin within swing of +my fists if I can help it.”</p> + +<p>The storekeeper and postmaster, Cyrus Robinson, had been leaning +over his counter between the scales and a pile of yellow soap bars, +smiling and shrewdly observant. Now he spoke, and the savor of honey +for all was in his words.</p> + +<p>“It's fust-rate of you, Jake, to stand up for the +doctor,” said he. “We all of us feel all wrought up about +poor Abel. I understand the doctor's goin' to be easy with the widder +about the mortgage. I thought likely he would be. Sometimes folks do +considerable more good than they get credit for. I shouldn't be +surprised if Doctor Prescott's left hand an' his neighbors didn't +know all he did.”</p> + +<p>Ozias Lamb turned slowly around and looked at the storekeeper. +“Doctor Prescott's a pretty good customer of yours, ain't +he?” he inquired.</p> + +<p>There was a subdued titter. Cyrus Robinson colored, but kept his +pleasant smile. “Everybody in town is a good customer,” +said he. “I haven't any bad customers.”</p> + +<p>“P'r'aps 'cause you won't trust 'em,” said Ozias Lamb. +This time the titter was audible. Cyrus Robinson's business caution +was well known.</p> + +<p>The storekeeper said no more, turned abruptly, took a key from his +pocket, went to the little post-office in the corner, and locked the +door. Then he began putting up the window-shutters.</p> + +<p>There was a stir among the company, a scraping of chairs and +stools, and a shuffling of heavy feet, and they went lingeringly out +of the store. Cyrus Robinson usually put up his shutters too early +for them. His store was more than a store—it was the nursery of +the town, the place where her little commonweal was evolved and +nurtured, and it was also her judgment-seat. There her simple +citizens formed their simple opinions upon town government and town +officials, upon which they afterwards acted in town meeting. There +they sat in judgment upon all men who were not within reach of their +voices, and upon all crying evils of the times which were too mighty +for them to struggle against. This great country store of Cyrus +Robinson's—with its rank odors of molasses and spices, whale +oil, and West India rum; with its counters, its floor, its very +ceiling heaped and hung with all the paraphernalia of a New England +village; its clothes, its food, and its working-utensils—was +also in a sense the nucleus of this village of Upham Corners. There +was no tavern. Although this was the largest of the little cluster of +Uphams, the tavern was in the West Corners, and the stages met there. +However, all the industries had centred in Upham Corners on account +of its superior water privileges: the grist-mill was there, and the +saw-mill. People from the West and East Corners came to trade at +Robinson's store, which was also a factory in a limited sense. Cyrus +Robinson purchased leather in considerable quantities, and employed +several workmen in a great room above the store to cut out the rude +shoes worn in the country-side. These he let out in lots to the +towns-folk to bind and close and finish, paying them for their work +in store goods, seldom in cash, then selling the shoes himself at a +finely calculated profit.</p> + +<p>Robinson had, moreover, several spare rooms in his house adjoining +the store, and there, if he were so disposed, he could entertain +strangers who wished to remain in Upham overnight, and neither he nor +his wife was averse to increasing their income in that way. Cyrus +Robinson was believed by many to be as rich as Doctor Prescott and +Simon Basset.</p> + +<p>When the men left the store that night, Simon Basset's, Jake +Noyes's, and Adoniram Judd's way lay in the same direction. They +still discussed poor Abel Edwards's disappearance as they went along. +Their voices were rising high, when suddenly Jake Noyes gave Simon +Basset a sharp nudge. “Shut up,” he whispered; “the +Edwards boy's behind us.”</p> + +<p>And indeed, as he spoke, Jerome's little light figure came running +past them. He was evidently anxious to get by without notice, but +Simon Basset grasped his arm and brought him to a standstill.</p> + +<p>“Hullo!” said he. “You're Abel Edwards's boy, +ain't you?”</p> + +<p>“I can't stop,” said Jerome, pulling away. “I've +got to go home. Mother's waiting for me.”</p> + +<p>“I don't s'pose you've heard anything yet from your +father?”</p> + +<p>“No, I 'ain't. I've got to go home.”</p> + +<p>“Where've you been, Jerome?” asked Adoniram Judd.</p> + +<p>“Up to Uncle Ozias's to get Elmira's shoes.” Jerome +had the stout little shoes, one in each hand.</p> + +<p>“I don't s'pose you've formed any idee of what's become of +your father,” said Simon Basset.</p> + +<p>Jerome, who had been pulling away from his hold, suddenly stood +still, and turned a stern little white face upon him.</p> + +<p>“He's dead,” said he.</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course he's dead. That is, we're all afraid he is, +though we all hope for the best; but that ain't the question,” +said Simon Basset. “The question is, how did he die?”</p> + +<p>Jerome looked up in Simon Basset's face. “He died the same +way you will, some time,” said he. And with that Simon Basset +let go his arm suddenly, and he was gone.</p> + +<p>“Lord!” said Jake Noyes, under his breath. Simon +Basset said not another word; his grandfather, his uncle, and a +brother had all taken their own lives, and he knew that the others +were thinking of it. They all wondered if the boy had been +keen-witted enough to give this hard hit at Simon intentionally, but +he had not. Poor little Jerome had never speculated on the laws of +heredity; he had only meant to deny that his father had come to any +more disgraceful end than the common one of all mankind. He did not +dream, as he raced along home with his sister's shoes, of the +different construction which they had put upon his words, but he felt +angry and injured.</p> + +<p>“That Sim' Basset pickin' on me that way,” he thought. +A wild sense of the helplessness of his youth came over him. +“Wish I was a man,” he muttered—“wish I was a +man; I'd show 'em! All them men talkin'—sayin' +anything—'cause I'm a boy.”</p> + +<p>Just before he reached home Jerome met two more men, and he heard +his father's name distinctly. One of them stretched out a detaining +hand as he passed, and called out, “Hullo! you're the Edwards +boy?”</p> + +<p>“Let me go, I tell you,” shouted Jerome, in a fury, +and was past them with a wild flourish of heels, like a rebellious +colt.</p> + +<p>“What in creation ails the boy?” said the man, with a +start aside; and he and the other stood staring after Jerome.</p> + +<p>When Jerome got home and opened the kitchen door he stood still +with surprise. It was almost ten o'clock, and his mother and Elmira +had begun to make pies. His mother had pushed herself up to the table +and was mixing the pastry, while Elmira was beating eggs.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Edwards looked around at Jerome. “What you standin' +there lookin' for?” said she, with her sharp, nervous voice. +“Put them shoes down, an' bring that quart pail of milk out of +the pantry. Be careful you don't spill it.”</p> + +<p>Jerome obeyed. When he set the milk-pail on the table, Elmira gave +him a quick, piteously confidential glance from under her tearful +lids. Elmira, with her blue checked pinafore tied under her chin, sat +in a high wooden chair, with her little bare feet curling over a +round, and beat eggs with a wooden spoon in a great bowl.</p> + +<p>“What you doin'?” asked Jerome.</p> + +<p>Her mother answered for her. “She's mixin' up some custard +for pies,” said she. “I dun'no' as there's any need of +you standin' lookin' as if you never saw any before.”</p> + +<p>“Never saw you makin' custard-pies at ten o'clock at night +before,” returned Jerome, with blunt defiance.</p> + +<p>“Do you s'pose,” said his mother, “that I'm +goin' to let your father go off an' die all alone an' take no notice +of it?”</p> + +<p>“Dun'no' what you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Don't you know it's three days since he went off to get +that wood an' never come back?”</p> + +<p>Jerome nodded.</p> + +<p>“Do you s'pose I'm goin' to let it pass an' die away, an' +folks forget him, an' not have any funeral or anything? I made up my +mind I'd wait until nine o'clock to-night, an' then, if he wa'n't +found, I wouldn't wait any longer. I'd get ready for the funeral. +I've sent over for Paulina Maria and your aunt B'lindy to come in an' +help. Henry come over here to see if I'd heard anything, and I told +him to go right home an' tell his mother to come, an' stop on the way +an' tell Paulina Maria. There's a good deal to do before two o'clock +to-morrow afternoon, an' I can't do much myself; somebody's got to +help. In the mornin' you'll have to take the horse an' go over to the +West Corners, an' tell Amelia an' her mother an' Lyddy Stokes's +folks. There won't be any time to send word to the Greens over in +Westbrook. They're only second-cousins anyway, an' they 'ain't got +any horse, an' I dun'no' as they'd think they could afford to hire +one. Now you take that fork an' go an' lift the cover off that +kettle, an' stick it into the dried apples, an' see if they've begun +to get soft.”</p> + +<p>Ann Edwards's little triangular face had grown plainly thinner and +older in three days, but the fire in her black eyes still sparkled. +Her voice was strained and hoarse on the high notes, from much +lamentation, but she still raised it imperiously. She held the wooden +mixing-bowl in her lap, and stirred with as desperate resolution, +compressing her lips painfully, as if she were stirring the dregs of +her own cup of sorrow.</p> + +<p>Pretty soon there were voices outside and steps on the path. The +door opened, and two women came in. One was Paulina Maria, Adoniram +Judd's wife; the other was Belinda, the wife of Ozias Lamb.</p> + +<p>Belinda Lamb spoke first. She was a middle-aged woman, with a +pretty faded face. She wore her light hair in curls, which fell over +her delicate, thin cheeks, and her blue eyes had no more experience +in them than a child's, although they were reddened now with gentle +tears. She had the look of a young girl who had been out like a +flower in too strong a light, and faded out her pretty tints, but was +a young girl still. Belinda always smiled an innocent girlish simper, +which sometimes so irritated the austere New England village women +that they scowled involuntarily back at her. Paulina Maria Judd and +Ann Edwards both scowled without knowing it now as she spoke, her +words never seeming to disturb that mildly ingratiating upward curve +of her lips.</p> + +<p>“I've come right over,” said she, in a soft voice; +“but it ain't true what Henry said, is it?”</p> + +<p>“What ain't true?” asked Ann, grimly.</p> + +<p>“It ain't true you're goin' to have a funeral?” Tears +welled up afresh in Belinda's blue eyes, and flowed slowly down her +delicate cheeks, but not a muscle of her face changed, and she smiled +still.</p> + +<p>“Why can't I have a funeral?”</p> + +<p>“Why, Ann, how can you have a funeral, when there +ain't—when they 'ain't found him?”</p> + +<p>“I'd like to know why I can't!”</p> + +<p>Belinda's blue, weeping eyes surveyed her with the helpless +bewilderment of a baby. “Why, Ann,” she gasped, +“there won't be any—remains!”</p> + +<p>“What of that? I guess I know it.”</p> + +<p>“There won't be nothin' for anybody to go round an' look at; +there won't be any coffin—Ann, you ain't goin' to have any +coffin when he ain't found, be you?”</p> + +<p>“Be you a fool, Belindy Lamb?” said Ann. A hard sniff +came from Paulina Maria.</p> + +<p>“Well, I didn't s'pose you was,” said Belinda, with +meek abashedness. “Of course I knew you wasn't—I only +asked; but I don't see how you can have a funeral no way, Ann. There +won't be any coffin, nor any hearse, nor any procession, +nor—”</p> + +<p>“There'll be mourners,” broke in Ann.</p> + +<p>“They're what makes a funeral,” said Paulina Maria, +putting on an apron she had brought. “Folks that's had funerals +knows.”</p> + +<p>She cast an austere glance at Belinda Lamb, who colored to the +roots of her fair curls, and was conscious of a guilty lack of +funeral experience, while Paulina Maria had lost seven children, who +all died in infancy. Poor Belinda seemed to see the other woman's +sternly melancholy face in a halo of little coffins and funeral +wreaths.</p> + +<p>“I know you've had a good deal more to contend with than I +have,” she faltered. “I 'ain't never lost anybody till +poor—Abel.” She broke into gentle weeping, but Paulina +Maria thrust a broom relentlessly into her hand.</p> + +<p>“Here,” said she, “take this broom an' sweep, +an' it might as well be done to-night as any time. Of course you +'ain't got your spring cleanin' done, none of it, Ann?”</p> + +<p>“No,” replied Mrs. Edwards; “I was goin' to +begin next week.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Paulina Maria, “if this house has +got to be all cleaned, an' cookin' done, in time for the funeral, +somebody's got to work. I s'pose you expect some out-of-town folks, +Ann?”</p> + +<p>“I dare say some 'll come from the West Corners. I thought I +wouldn't try to get word to Westbrook, it's so far; but mebbe I'd +send to Granby—there's some there that might come.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Paulina Maria, “I shouldn't be +surprised if as many as a dozen came, an' supper 'll have to be got +for 'em. What are you goin' to do about black, Ann?”</p> + +<p>“I thought mebbe I could borrow a black bonnet an' a veil. I +guess my black bombazine dress will do to wear.”</p> + +<p>“Mis' Whitby had a new one when her mother died, an' didn't +use her mother's old one. I don't believe but what you can borrow +that,” said Paulina Maria. She was moving about the kitchen, +doing this and that, waiting for no commands or requests. Jerome and +Elmira kept well back out of her way, although she had not half the +fierce impetus that their mother sometimes had when hitching about in +her chair. Paulina Maria, in her limited field of action, had the +quick and unswerving decision of a general, and people marshalled +themselves at her nod, whether they would or no. She was an example +of the insistence of a type. The prevailing traits of the village +women were all intensified and fairly dominant in her. They kept +their houses clean, but she kept hers like a temple for the footsteps +of divinity. Marvellous tales were told of Paulina Maria's exceeding +neatness. It was known for a fact that the boards of her floors were +so arranged that they could be lifted from their places and cleaned +on their under as well as upper sides. Could Paulina Maria have +cleaned the inner as well as the outer surface of her own skin she +would doubtless have been better satisfied. As it was, the colorless +texture of her thin face and hands, through which the working of her +delicate jaws and muscles could be plainly seen, gave an impression +of extreme purity and cleanliness. “Paulina Maria looks as ef +she'd been put to soak in rain-water overnight,” Simon Basset +said once, after she had gone out of the store. Everybody called her +Paulina Maria—never Mrs. Judd, nor Mrs. Adoniram Judd.</p> + +<p>The village women were, as a rule, full of piety. Paulina Maria +was austere. She had the spirit to have scourged herself had she once +convicted herself of wrong; but that she had never done. The power of +self-blame was not in her. Paulina Maria had never labored under +conviction of sin; she had had no orthodox conversion; but she set +her slim unswerving feet in the paths of righteousness, and walked +there with her head up. In her the uncompromising spirit of +Puritanism was so strong that it defeated its own ends. The other +women were at times inflexible; Paulina Maria was always rigid. The +others could be severe; Paulina Maria might have conducted an +inquisition. She had in her possibilities of almost mechanical +relentlessness which had never been tested in her simple village +life. Paulina Maria never shirked her duty, but it could not be said +that she performed it in any gentle and Christ-like sense. She rather +attacked it and slew it, as if it were a dragon in her path. That +night she was very weary. She had toiled hard all day at her own +vigorous cleaning. Her bones and muscles ached. The spring languor +also was upon her. She was not a strong woman, but she never dreamed +of refusing to go to Ann Edwards's and assist her in her sad +preparations.</p> + +<p>She and Belinda Lamb remained and worked until midnight; then they +went home. Jerome had to escort them through the silent village +street—he had remained up for that purpose. Elmira had been +sent to bed. When the boy came home alone along the familiar road, +between the houses with their windows gleaming with blank darkness in +his eyes, with no sound in his ears save the hoarse bark of a dog +when his footsteps echoed past, a great strangeness of himself in his +own thoughts was upon him.</p> + +<p>He had not the feminine ability to ease descent into the depths of +sorrow by catching at all its minor details on the way. He plunged +straight down; no questions of funeral preparations or mourning +bonnets arrested him for a second. “My father is dead,” +Jerome told himself; “he jumped into the pond and drowned +himself, and here's mother, and Elmira, and the mortgage, and +me.”</p> + +<p>This poor little <em>me</em> of the village boy seemed suddenly to +have grown in stature, to have bent, as it grew, under a grievous +burden, and to have lost all its childish carelessness and childish +ambition. Jerome saw himself in the likeness of his father, bearing +the mortgage upon his shoulders, and his boyish self never came fully +back to him afterwards. The mantle of the departed, that, whether +they will or not, covers those that stand nearest, was over him, and +he had henceforth to walk under it.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter IV</h4> + +<p>The next morning Paulina Maria and Belinda Lamb returned to finish +preparations, and Jerome was sent over to the West Corners to notify +some relatives there of the funeral service. Just as he was starting, +it was decided that he had better ride some six miles farther to +Granby, and see some others who might think they had a claim to an +invitation.</p> + +<p>“Imogen Lawson an' Sarah were always dreadful touchy,” +said Mrs. Edwards. “They'll never get over it if they ain't +asked. I guess you'd better go there, Jerome.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, he had,” said Paulina Maria.</p> + +<p>“It's a real pleasant day, an' I guess they'll enjoy +comin',” said Belinda. Paulina Maria gave her a poke with a +hard elbow, that hurt her soft side, and she looked at her +wonderingly.</p> + +<p>“Enjoy!” repeated Ann Edwards, bitterly.</p> + +<p>“I dun'no' what you mean,” half whimpered Belinda.</p> + +<p>“No, I don't s'pose you do,” returned Ann. +“There's one thing about it—folks can always tell what +<em>you</em> mean. You don't mean nothin', an' never did. You +couldn't be put in a dictionary. Noah Webster couldn't find any +meanin' fer you if he was to set up all night.” A nervous sob +shook Mrs. Edwards's little frame. She was almost hysterical that +morning. Her black eyes were brightly dilated, her mouth tremulous, +and her throat swollen.</p> + +<p>Paulina Maria grasped Belinda by the shoulder. “You'd better +get the broom an' sweep out the wood-shed,” said she, and +Belinda went out with a limp flutter of her cotton skirts and her +curls.</p> + +<p>Jerome rode the old white horse, that could only travel at a heavy +jog, and he did not get home until noon—not much in advance of +the funeral guests he had bidden. They had directly left all else, +got out what mourning-weeds they could muster, and made ready.</p> + +<p>When Jerome reached home, he was immediately seized by Paulina +Maria. “Go right out and wash your face and hands real +clean,” said she, “and then go up-stairs and change your +clothes. I've laid them out on the bed. When you get to the +neckerchief, you come down here, and I'll tie it for you; it's your +father's. You've got to wear somethin' black, to be +decent.”</p> + +<p>Jerome obeyed. All the incipient masculine authority in him was +overwhelmed by this excess of feminine strength. He washed his face +and hands faithfully, and donned his little clean, coarse shirt and +his poor best garments. Then he came down with the black silk +neckerchief, and Paulina Maria tied it around his boyish neck.</p> + +<p>“His father thought so much of that neckerchief,” said +Mrs. Edwards, catching her breath. “It was 'most the only thing +he bought for himself for ten year that he didn't actually +need.”</p> + +<p>“Jerome is the one to have it,” said Paulina Maria, +and she made the black silk knot tight and firm.</p> + +<p>An hour before the time set for the funeral Ann Edwards was all +dressed and ready. They had drawn her chair into the front parlor, +and there she sat in state. She wore the borrowed black bonnet and +veil. The decent black shawl and gown were her own. The doctor's wife +had sent over some black silk gloves, and she wore them. They were +much too large. Ann crossed her tiny hands, wrinkled over with the +black silk, with long, empty black silk fingers dangling in her lap, +over a fine white linen handkerchief. She had laid her gloved hands +over the handkerchief with a gesture full of resolution. “I +sha'n't give way,” she said to Paulina Maria. That meant that, +although she took the handkerchief in obedience to custom, it would +not be used to dry the tears of affliction.</p> + +<p>Ann's face, through the black gloom of her crape veil, revealed +only the hard lines of resolution about her mouth and the red stain +of tears about her eyes. She held now her emotions in check like a +vise.</p> + +<p>Jerome and poor little Elmira, whom Paulina Maria had dressed in a +little black Canton-crape shawl of her own, sat on either side. +Elmira wept now and then, trying to stifle her sobs, but Jerome sat +as immovable as his mother.</p> + +<p>The funeral guests arrived, and seated themselves solemnly in the +rows of chairs which had been borrowed from the neighbors. Adoniram +Judd and Ozias Lamb had carried chairs for a good part of the +forenoon. Nearly all the village people came; the strange +circumstances of this funeral, wherein there was no dead man to carry +solemnly in the midst of a long black procession to his grave, had +attracted many. Then, too, Abel Edwards had been known to them all +since his childhood, and well liked in the main, although the hard +grind of his daily life had of late years isolated him from his old +mates.</p> + +<p>Men sat there with stiff bowed heads, and glances of solemn +furtiveness at new-comers, who had played with Abel in his boyhood, +and to whom those old memories were more real than those of the last +ten years. Abel Edwards, in the absence both of his living soul and +his dead body, was present in the minds of many as a sturdy, +light-hearted boy.</p> + +<p>The people of Upham Corners assembled there together, dressed in +their best, displaying their most staid and decorous demeanor, showed +their fortunes in life plainly enough. Generally speaking, they were +a poor and hard-working folk—poorer and harder working than the +average people in villages. Upham Corners, from its hilly site, +freely intersected with rock ledges, was not well calculated for +profitable farming. The farms therein were mortgaged, and scarcely +fed their tillers. The water privileges were good and mills might +have flourished, but the greater markets were too far away, and few +workmen could be employed.</p> + +<p>Most of the women at poor Abel Edwards's funeral were worn and old +before their prime, their mouths sunken, wearing old women's caps +over their locks at thirty. Their decent best gowns showed that +piteous conservation of poverty more painful almost than squalor.</p> + +<p>The men were bent and gray with the unseen, but no less tangible, +burdens of life. Scarcely one there but bore, as poor Abel Edwards +had borne, a mortgage among them. It was a strange thing that +although all of the customary mournful accessories of a funeral were +wanting, although no black coffin with its silent occupant stood in +their midst, and no hearse waited at the door, yet that mortgage of +Abel Edwards's—that burden, like poor Christian's, although not +of sin, but misfortune, which had doubled him to the +dust—seemed still to be present.</p> + +<p>The people had the thought of it ever in their minds. They looked +at Ann Edwards and her children, and seemed to see in truth the +mortgage bearing down upon them, like a very shadow of death.</p> + +<p>They looked across at Doctor Seth Prescott furtively, as if he +might perchance read their thoughts, and wondered if he would +foreclose.</p> + +<p>Doctor Prescott, in his broadcloth surtout, with his black satin +stock muffling richly his stately neck, sat in the room with the +mourners, directly opposite the Edwards family. His wife was beside +him. She was a handsome woman, taller and larger than her husband, +with a face of gentlest serenity set in shining bands of auburn hair. +Mrs. Doctor Prescott looked like an empress among the other women, +with her purple velvet pelisse sweeping around her in massive folds, +and her purple velvet bonnet with a long ostrich plume curling over +the side—the purple being considered a sort of complimentary +half-mourning. Squire Eben Merritt's wife, Abigail, could not +approach her, although she was finely dressed in black satin, and a +grand cashmere shawl from overseas. Mrs. Eben Merritt was a small and +plain-visaged little woman; people had always wondered why Squire +Eben Merritt had married her. Eben Merritt had not come to the +funeral. It was afterwards reported that he had gone fishing instead, +and people were scandalized, and indignantly triumphant, because it +was what they had expected of him. Little Lucina had come with her +mother, and sat in the high chair where they had placed her, with her +little morocco-shod feet dangling, her little hands crossed in her +lap, and her blue eyes looking out soberly and anxiously from her +best silk hood. Once in a while she glanced timidly at Jerome, and +reflected how he had given her sassafras, and how he hadn't any +father.</p> + +<p>When the singing began, the tears came into her eyes and her lip +quivered; but she tried not to cry, although there were smothered +sobs all around her. There was that about the sweet, melancholy drone +of the funeral hymn which stirred something more than sympathy in the +hearts of the listeners. Imagination of like bereavements for +themselves awoke within them, and they wept for their own sorrows in +advance.</p> + +<p>The minister offered a prayer, in which he made mention of all the +members of poor Abel's family, and even distant relatives. In fact, +Paulina Maria had furnished him with a list, which he had studied +furtively during the singing. “Don't forget any of 'em, or they +won't like it,” she had charged. So the minister, Solomon +Wells, bespoke the comfort and support of the Lord in this affliction +for all the second and third cousins upon his list, who bowed their +heads with a sort of mournful importance as they listened.</p> + +<p>Solomon Wells was an elderly man, tall, and bending limberly under +his age like an old willow, his spare long body in nicely kept +broadcloth sitting and rising with wide flaps of black coat-tails, +his eyes peering forth mildly through spectacles. He was a widower of +long standing. His daughter Eliza, who kept his house, sat beside +him. She resembled her father closely, and herself looked like an old +person anywhere but beside him. There the juvenility of comparison +was hers.</p> + +<p>Solomon Wells, during the singing, before he offered prayer, had +cast sundry perplexed glances at a group of strangers on his right, +and then at his list. He was quite sure that they were not mentioned +thereon. Once he looked perplexedly at Paulina Maria, but she was +singing hard, in a true strong voice, and did not heed him. The +strangers sat behind her. There was a large man, lumbering and +uncomfortable in his best clothes, a small woman, and three little +girls, all dressed in blue delaine gowns and black silk mantillas and +blue bonnets.</p> + +<p>The minister had a strong conviction that these people should be +mentioned in his prayer. He gave his daughter Eliza a little nudge, +and looked inquiringly at them and at her, but she shook her head +slightly—she did not know who they were. Her father had to +content himself with vaguely alluding in his petition to all other +relatives of this afflicted family.</p> + +<p>During the eulogy upon the departed, which followed, he made also +casual mention of the respect in which he was held by strangers as +well as by his own towns-people. The minister gave poor Abel a very +good character. He spoke at length of his honesty, industry, and +sobriety. He touched lightly upon the unusual sadness of the +circumstances of his death. He expressed no doubt; he gave no hints +of any dark tragedy. “Don't speak as if you thought he killed +himself; if you do, it'll make her about crazy,” Paulina Maria +had charged him. Ann, listening jealously to every word, could take +no exception to one. Solomon Wells was very mindful of the feelings +of others. He seemed at times to move with a sidewise motion of his +very spirit to avoid hurting theirs.</p> + +<p>After dwelling upon Abel Edwards's simple virtues, fairly dinning +them like sweet notes into the memories of his neighbors, Solomon +Wells, with a sweep of his black coat-skirts around him, sat down. +Then there was a solemn and somewhat awkward pause. The people looked +at each other; they did not know what to do next. All the customary +routine of a funeral was disturbed. The next step in the regular +order of funeral exercises was to pass decorously around a coffin, +pause a minute, bend over it with a long last look at the white face +therein; the next, to move out of the room and take places in the +funeral procession. Now that was out of the question; they were +puzzled as to further proceedings.</p> + +<p>Doctor Seth Prescott made the first move. He arose, and his wife +after him, with a soft rustle of her silken skirts. They both went up +to Ann Edwards, shook hands, and went out of the room. After them +Mrs. Squire Merritt, with Lucina in hand, did likewise; then +everybody else, except the relatives and the minister and his +daughter.</p> + +<p>After the decorous exit of the others, the relatives sat stiffly +around the room and waited. They knew there was to be a funeral +supper, for the fragrance of sweet cake and tea was strong over all +the house. There had been some little doubt concerning it among the +out-of-town relatives: some had opined that there would be none, on +account of the other irregularities of the exercises; some had opined +that the usual supper would be provided. The latter now sniffed and +nodded triumphantly at the others—particularly Amelia Stokes's +childish old mother. She, half hidden in the frills of a great +mourning-bonnet and the folds of a great black shawl, kept repeating, +in a sharp little gabble, like a child's: “I smell the tea, +'Melia—I do, I smell it. Yes, I do—I told ye so. I tell +ye, I smell the tea.”</p> + +<p>Poor Amelia Stokes, who was a pretty, gentle-faced spinster, could +not hush her mother, whisper as pleadingly as she might into the +sharp old ear in the bonnet-frills. The old woman was full of the +desire for tea, and could scarcely be restrained from following up +its fragrant scent at once.</p> + +<p>The two Lawson sisters sat side by side, their sharp faces under +their black bonnets full of veiled alertness. Nothing escaped them; +they even suspected the truth about Ann's bonnet and gloves. Ann +still sat with her gloved hands crossed in her lap and her black veil +over her strained little face. She did not move a muscle; but in the +midst of all her restrained grief the sight of the large man, the +woman, and the three girls in the blue thibets, the black silk +mantillas, and the blue bonnets filled her with a practical dismay. +They were the relatives from Westbrook, who had not been bidden to +the funeral. They must have gotten word in some irregular manner, and +the woman held her blue-bonneted head with a cant of war, which Ann +knew well of old.</p> + +<p>For a little while there was silence, except for Paulina Maria's +heavy tramp and the soft shuffle of Belinda Lamb's cloth shoes out in +the kitchen. They were hurrying to get the supper in readiness. +Another appetizing odor was now stealing over the house, the odor of +baking cream-of-tartar biscuits.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, with one accord, as if actuated by one mental impulse, +the little woman, the large man, and the three girls arose and +advanced upon Ann Edwards. She grasped the arm of her chair hard, as +if bracing herself to meet a shock.</p> + +<p>The little woman spoke. Her eyes seemed full of black sparks, her +voice shook, red spots flamed out in her cheeks. “We'll bid you +good-bye now, Cousin Ann,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Ain't you going to stay and have some supper?” asked +Ann. Her manner was at once defiant and conciliatory.</p> + +<p>Then the little woman made her speech. All the way from her +distant village, in the rear gloom of the covered wagon, she had been +composing it. She delivered it with an assumption of calm dignity, in +spite of her angry red cheeks and her shaking voice. “Cousin +Ann,” said the little woman, “me and mine go nowhere +where we are not invited. We came to the funeral—though you +didn't see fit to even tell us when it was, and we only heard of it +by accident from the butcher—out of respect to poor Abel. He +was my own second-cousin, and our folks used to visit back and forth +a good deal before he was married. I felt as if I must come to his +funeral, whether I was wanted or not, because I know if he'd been +alive he'd said to come; but staying to supper is another thing. I am +sorry for you, Cousin Ann; we are all sorry for you in your +affliction. We all hope it may be sanctified to you; but I don't +feel, and 'Lisha and the girls don't feel, as if we could stay and +eat victuals in a house where we've been shown very plainly we ain't +wanted.”</p> + +<p>Then Ann spoke, and her voice was unexpectedly loud. “You +haven't any call to think you wasn't all welcome,” said she. +“You live ten miles off, and I hadn't a soul to send but +Jerome, with a horse that can't get out of a walk. I didn't know +myself there'd be a funeral for certain till yesterday. There wasn't +time to send for you. I thought of it, but I knew there wouldn't be +time to get word to you in season for you to start. You might, as +long as you're a professing Christian, Eloise Green, have a little +mercy in a time like this.” Ann's voice quavered a little, but +she set her mouth harder.</p> + +<p>The large man nudged his wife and whispered something. He drew the +back of his rough hand across his eyes. The three little blue-clad +girls stood toeing in, dangling their cotton-gloved hands.</p> + +<p>“I thought you might have sent word by the butcher,” +said the little woman. Her manner was softer, but she wanted to cover +her defeat well.</p> + +<p>“I couldn't think of butchers and all the +wherewithals,” said Ann, with stern dignity. “I didn't +think Abel's relations would lay it up against me if I +didn't.”</p> + +<p>The large man's face worked; tears rolled down his great cheeks. +He pulled out a red handkerchief and wiped his eyes.</p> + +<p>“You'd ought to had a white handkerchief, father,” +whispered the little woman; then she turned to Ann. “I'm sure I +don't want to lay up anything,” said she.</p> + +<p>“I don't think you have any call to,” responded Ann. +“I haven't anything more to say. If you feel like staying to +supper I shall be glad to have you, but I don't feel as if I had +strength to urge anybody.”</p> + +<p>The large man sobbed audibly in his red handkerchief. His wife +cast an impatient glance at him. “Well, if that is the way it +was, of course we shall all be happy to stay and have a cup of +tea,” said she. “We've got a long ride before us, and I +don't feel quite as well as common this spring. Of course I didn't +understand how it happened, and I felt kind of hurt; it was only +natural. I see how it was, now. 'Lisha, hadn't you better slip out +and see how the horse is standing?” The little woman thrust +her own white handkerchief into her husband's hand as he started. +“You put that red one under the wagon seat,” she +whispered loud in his ear. Then she and the little girls in blue +returned to their chairs. The rest of the company had been listening +with furtive attention. Jerome had been trembling with indignation at +his mother's side. He looked at the large man, and wondered +impatiently why he did not shake that small woman, since he was able. +There was as yet no leniency on the score of sex in the boy. He would +have well liked to fly at that little wrathful body who was attacking +his mother, and also blaming him for not riding those ten miles to +notify her of the funeral. He scowled hard at her and the three +little girls after they had returned to their seats. One of the +girls, a pretty child with red curls, caught his frown, and stared at +him with scared but fascinated blue eyes.</p> + +<p>Supper was announced shortly. Belinda Lamb, instigated by Paulina +Maria, stood in the door and said, with melancholy formality, +“Will you come out now and have a little refreshment before you +go home?”</p> + +<p>Ann did not stir. The others went out lingeringly, holding back +for politeness' sake; she sat still with her black veil over her face +and her black gloved hands crossed in her lap. Paulina Maria came to +her and tried to induce her to remove her bonnet and have some tea +with the rest, but she shook her head. “I want to just sit here +and keep still till they're gone,” said she.</p> + +<p>She sat there. Some of the others came and added their persuasions +to Paulina Maria's, but she was firm. Jerome remained beside his +mother; Elmira had been bidden to go into the other room and help +wait upon the company.</p> + +<p>“There's room for Jerome at the table, if you ain't +coming,” said Paulina Maria to Ann; but Jerome answered for +himself.</p> + +<p>“I'll wait till that crowd are gone,” said he, with a +fierce gesture.</p> + +<p>“You wouldn't speak that way if you were my boy,” said +Paulina Maria.</p> + +<p>Jerome muttered under his breath that he wasn't her boy. Paulina +Maria cast a stern glance at him as she went out.</p> + +<p>“Don't you be saucy, Jerome Edwards,” Ann said, in a +sharp whisper through her black veil. “She's done a good deal +for us.”</p> + +<p>“I'd like to kill the whole lot!” said the boy, +clinching his little fist.</p> + +<p>“Hold your tongue! You're a wicked, ungrateful boy!” +said his mother; but all the time she had a curious sympathy with +him. Poor Ann was seized with a strange unreasoning rancor against +all that decorously feeding company in the other room. There are +despairing moments, when the happy seem natural enemies of the +miserable, and Ann was passing through them. As she sat there in her +gloomy isolation of widowhood, her black veil and her dark thoughts +coloring her whole outlook on life, she felt a sudden fury of +blindness against all who could see. Had she been younger, she would +have given vent to her emotion like Jerome. Her son seemed the very +expression of her own soul, although she rebuked him.</p> + +<p>The people were a long time at supper. The funeral cake was sweet +to their tongues, and the tea mildly exhilarating. When they came at +last to bid farewell to Ann there was in their faces a pleasant +unctuousness which they could not wholly veil with sympathetic +sorrow. The childish old lady was openly hilarious. “That was +the best cup o' tea I ever drinked,” she whispered loud in +Ann's ear. Jerome gave a scowl of utter contempt at her. When they +were all gone, and the last covered wagon had rolled out of the yard, +Ann allowed Paulina Maria to divest her of her bonnet and gloves and +bring her a cup of tea. Jerome and Elmira ate their supper at one end +of the disordered table; then they both worked hard, under the orders +of Paulina Maria, to set the house in order. It was quite late that +night before Jerome was at liberty to creep off to his own bed up in +the slanting back chamber. Paulina Maria and Belinda Lamb had gone +home, and the bereaved family were all alone in the house. Jerome's +boyish heart ached hard, but he was worn out physically, and he soon +fell asleep.</p> + +<p>About midnight he awoke with a startling sound in his ears. He sat +up in bed and listened, straining ears and eyes in the darkness. Out +of the night gloom and stillness below came his mother's voice, +raised loud and hoarse in half-accusatory prayer, not caring who +heard, save the Lord.</p> + +<p>“What hast thou done, O Lord?” demanded this daring +and pitiful voice. “Why hast thou taken away from me the +husband of my youth? What have I done to deserve it? Haven't I borne +patiently the yoke Thou laidst upon me before? Why didst Thou try so +hard one already broken on the wheel of Thy wrath? Why didst Thou +drive a good man to destruction? O Lord, give me back my husband, if +Thou art the Lord! If Thou art indeed the Almighty, prove it unto me +by working this miracle which I ask of Thee! Give me back Abel! give +him back!”</p> + +<p>Ann's voice arose with a shriek; then there was silence for a +little space. Presently she spoke again, but no longer in +prayer—only in bitter, helpless lament. She used no longer the +formal style of address to a Divine Sovereign; she dropped into her +own common vernacular of pain.</p> + +<p>“It ain't any use! it ain't any use!” she wailed out. +“If there is a God He won't hear me, He won't help me, He won't +bring him back. He only does His own will forever. Oh, Abel, Abel, +Abel! Oh, my husband! Where are you? where are you? Where is the head +that I've held on my breast? Where are the lips I have kissed? I +couldn't even see him laid safe in his grave—not even that +comfort! Oh, Abel, Abel, my husband, my husband! my own flesh and my +own soul, torn away from me, and I left to draw the breath of life! +Abel, Abel, come back, come back, come back!”</p> + +<p>Ann Edwards's voice broke into inarticulate sobs and moans; then +she did not speak audibly again. Jerome lay back in his bed, cold and +trembling. Elmira, in the next chamber, was sound asleep, but he +slept no more that night. A revelation of the love and sorrow of this +world had come to him through his mother's voice. He was shamed and +awed and overwhelmed by this glimpse of the nakedness of nature and +that mighty current which swept him on with all mankind. The taste of +knowledge was all at once upon the boy's soul.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter V</h4> + +<p>The next morning Jerome arose at dawn, and crept down-stairs +noiselessly on his bare feet, that he might not awake his mother. +However, still as he was, he had hardly crossed the threshold of the +kitchen before his mother called to him from her bedroom, the door of +which stood open.</p> + +<p>“Who's that?” called Ann Edwards, in a strained voice; +and Jerome knew that she had a wild hope that it was his father's +step she heard instead of his. The boy caught his breath, hesitating +a second, and his mother called again: “Who's that? Who's that +out in the kitchen?”</p> + +<p>“It's only me,” answered Jerome, with that most +pitiful of apologies in his tone—the apology for presence and +very existence in the stead of one more beloved.</p> + +<p>His mother drew a great shuddering sigh. “Come in +here,” she called out, harshly, and Jerome went into the +bedroom and stood beside her bed. The curtain was not drawn over the +one window, and the little homely interior was full of the pale dusk +of dawn. This had been Ann Edwards's bridal chamber, and her children +had been born there. The face of that little poor room was as +familiar to Jerome as the face of his mother. From his earliest +memory the high bureau had stood against the west wall, near the +window, and a little round table, with a white towel and a rosewood +box on it, in the corner at the head of the great high-posted +bedstead, which filled the rest of the room, with scant passageway at +the foot and one side. Ann's little body scarcely raised the +patchwork quilt on the bed; her face, sunken in the feather pillows, +looked small and weazened as a sick child's in the dim light. She +reached out one little bony hand, clutched Jerome's poor jacket, and +pulled him close. “What's goin' to be done?” she +demanded, querulously. “What's goin' to be done? Do you know +what's goin' to be done, Jerome Edwards?”</p> + +<p>The boy stared at her, and her sharply questioning eyes struck him +dumb.</p> + +<p>Ann Edwards had always been the dominant spirit in her own +household. The fact that she was so, largely on masculine sufferance, +had never been fully recognized by herself or others. Now, for the +first time, the stratum of feminine dependence and helplessness, +which had underlain all her energetic assertion, was made manifest, +and poor little Jerome was spurred out of his boyhood into manhood to +meet this new demand.</p> + +<p>“What's goin' to be done?” his mother cried again. +“Why don't you speak, Jerome Edwards?”</p> + +<p>Then Jerome drew himself up, and a new look came into his face. +“I've been thinkin' of it over,” he said, soberly, +“an'—I've got a plan.”</p> + +<p>“What's goin' to be done?” Ann raised herself in bed +by her clutch at her son's arm. Then she let go, and rocked herself +to and fro, hugging herself with her little lean arms, and wailing +weakly. “What's goin' to be done? Oh, oh! what's goin' to be +done? Abel's dead, he's dead, and Doctor Prescott, he holds the +mortgage. We 'ain't got any money, or any home. What's goin' to be +done? What's goin' to be done? Oh, oh, oh, oh!”</p> + +<p>Jerome grasped his mother by the shoulder and tried to force her +back upon her pillows. “Come, mother, lay down,” said +he.</p> + +<p>“I won't! I won't! I never will. What's goin' to be done? +What's goin' to be done?”</p> + +<p>“Mother, you lay right down and stop your cryin',” +said Jerome; and his mother started, and hushed, and stared at him, +for his voice sounded like his father's. The boy's wiry little hands +upon her shoulders, and his voice like his father's, constrained her +strongly, and she sank back; and her face appeared again, like a thin +wedge of piteous intelligence, in the great feather pillow.</p> + +<p>“Now you lay still, mother,” said Jerome, and to his +mother's excited eyes he looked taller and taller, as if in very +truth this sudden leap of his boyish spirit into the stature of a man +had forced his body with it. He straightened the quilt over his +mother's meagre shoulders. “I'm goin' to start the fire,” +said he, “and put on the hasty-pudding, and when it's all ready +I'll call Elmira, and we'll help you up.”</p> + +<p>“What's goin' to be done?” his mother quavered again; +but this time feebly, as if her fierce struggles were almost hushed +by contact with authority.</p> + +<p>“I've got a plan,” said Jerome. “You just lay +still, mother, and I'll see what's best.”</p> + +<p>Ann Edwards's eyes rolled after the boy as he went out of the +room, but she lay still, obediently, and said not another word. An +unreasoning confidence in this child seized upon her. She leaned +strongly upon what, until now, she had held the veriest reed—to +her own stupefaction and with doubtful content, but no resistance. +Jerome seemed suddenly no longer her son; the memory of the time when +she had cradled and swaddled him failed her. The spirit of his father +awakened in him filled her at once with strangeness and awed +recognition.</p> + +<p>She heard the boy pattering about in the kitchen, and, in spite of +herself, the conviction that his father was out there, doing the +morning task which had been his for so many years, was strong upon +her.</p> + +<p>When at length Jerome and Elmira came and told her breakfast was +ready, and assisted her to rise and dress, she was as unquestioningly +docile as if the relationship between them were reversed. When she +was seated in her chair she even forbore, as was her wont, to start +immediately with sharp sidewise jerks of her rocker, but waited until +her children pushed and drew her out into the next room, up to the +breakfast-table. There were, moreover, no sharp commands and chidings +as to the household tasks that morning. Jerome and Elmira did as they +would, and their mother sat quietly and ate her breakfast.</p> + +<p>Elmira kept staring at her mother, and then glancing uneasily at +Jerome. Her pretty face was quite pale that morning, and her eyes +looked big. She moved hesitatingly, or with sharp little runs of +decision. She went often to the window and stared down the +road—still looking for her father; for hope dies hard in youth, +and she had words of triumph at the sight of him all ready upon her +tongue. Her mother's strange demeanor frightened her, and made her +almost angry. She was too young to grasp any but the more familiar +phases of grief, and revelations of character were to her +revolutions.</p> + +<p>She beckoned her brother out of the room the first chance she got, +and questioned him.</p> + +<p>“What ails mother?” she whispered, out in the +woodshed, holding to the edge of his jacket and looking at him with +piteous, scared eyes.</p> + +<p>Jerome stood with his shoulders back, and seemed to look down at +her from his superior height of courageous spirit, though she was as +tall as he.</p> + +<p>“She's come to herself,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“She wasn't ever like this before.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, she was—inside. She ain't anything but a woman. +She's come to herself.”</p> + +<p>Elmira began to sob nervously, still holding to her brother's +jacket, not trying to hide her convulsed little face. “I don't +care, she scares me,” she gasped, under her breath, lest her +mother hear. “She ain't any way I've ever seen her. I'm 'fraid +she's goin' to be crazy. I'm dreadful 'fraid mother's goin' to be +crazy, Jerome.”</p> + +<p>“No, she ain't,” said Jerome. “She's just come +to herself, I tell you.”</p> + +<p>“Father's dead and mother's crazy, and Doctor Prescott has +got the mortgage,” wailed Elmira, in an utter rebellion of +grief.</p> + +<p>Jerome caught her by the arm and pulled her after him at a run, +out of the shed, into the cool spring morning air. So early in the +day, with no stir of life except the birds in sight or sound, the new +grass and flowering branches and blooming distances seemed like the +unreal heaven of a dream; and, indeed, nothing save their own dire +strait of life was wholly tangible and met them but with shocks of +unfamiliar things.</p> + +<p>Jerome, out in the yard, took his sister by both arms, piteously +slender and cold through their thin gingham sleeves, and shook her +hard, and shook her again.</p> + +<p>“Jerome Edwards, what—you +doin'—so—for?” she gasped.</p> + +<p>“'Ain't you got anything to you? 'Ain't you got anything to +you at all?” said Jerome, fiercely.</p> + +<p>“I—don't know what you mean! Don't, +Jerome—don't! Oh, Jerome, I'm 'fraid you're crazy, like +mother?”</p> + +<p>“'Ain't you got enough to you,” said Jerome, still +shaking her as if she had not spoken, “to control your feelin's +and do up the housework nice, and not kill mother?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I will—I'll be just as good as I can. You know I +will. Don't, Jerome! I 'ain't cried before mother this mornin'. You +know I 'ain't.”</p> + +<p>“You cried loud enough, just now in the shed, so she could +hear you.”</p> + +<p>“I won't again. Don't, Jerome!”</p> + +<p>“You're 'most a grown-up woman,” said Jerome, ceasing +to shake his sister, but holding her firm, and looking at her with +sternly admonishing eyes. “You're 'most as old as I be, and +I've got to take care of you all. It's time you showed it if there's +anything to you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Jerome, you look just like father,” whispered +Elmira, suddenly, with awed, fascinated eyes on his face.</p> + +<p>“Now you go in and wash up the dishes, and sweep the +kitchen, and make up the beds, and don't you cry before mother or say +anything to pester her,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“What you goin' to do, Jerome?” Elmira asked, +timidly.</p> + +<p>“I'm goin' to take care of the horse and finish plantin' +them beans first.”</p> + +<p>“What you goin' to do then?”</p> + +<p>“Somethin'—you wait and see.” Jerome spoke with +his first betrayal of boyish weakness, for a certain importance crept +into his tone.</p> + +<p>Elmira instinctively recognized it, and took advantage of it. +“Ain't you goin' to ask mother, Jerome Edwards?” she +said.</p> + +<p>“I'm goin' to do what's best,” answered Jerome; and +again that uncanny gravity of authority which so awed her was in his +face.</p> + +<p>When he again bade her go into the house and do as he said, she +obeyed with a longing, incredulous look at him.</p> + +<p>Jerome had not eaten much breakfast; indeed, he had not finished +when Elmira had beckoned him out. But he said to himself that he did +not want any more—he would go straight about his tasks.</p> + +<p>Jerome, striking out through the dewy wind of foot-path towards +the old barn, heard suddenly a voice calling him by name. It was a +voice as low and heavy as a man's, but had a nervous feminine impulse +in it. “Jerome!” it called. “Jerome +Edwards!”</p> + +<p>Jerome turned, and saw Paulina Maria coming up the road, walking +with a firm, swaying motion of her whole body from her feet, her +cotton draperies blowing around her like sheathing-leaves.</p> + +<p>Jerome stood still a minute, watching her; then he went back to +the house, to the door, and stationed himself before it. He stood +there like a sentinel when Paulina Maria drew near. The meaning of +war was in his shoulder, his expanded boyish chest, his knitted +brows, set chin and mouth, and unflinching eyes; he needed only a +sword or gun to complete the picture.</p> + +<p>Paulina Maria stopped, and looked at him with haughty wonder. She +was not yet intimidated, but she was surprised, and stirred with +rising indignation.</p> + +<p>“How's your mother this morning, Jerome?” said +she.</p> + +<p>“Well 's she can be,” replied Jerome, gruffly, with a +wary eye upon her skirts when they swung out over her advancing knee; +for Paulina Maria was minded to enter the house with no further words +of parley. He gathered himself up, in all his new armor of courage +and defiance, and stood firm in her path.</p> + +<p>“I'm going in to see your mother,” said Paulina Maria, +looking at him as if she suspected she did not understand aright.</p> + +<p>“No, you ain't,” returned Jerome.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“You ain't goin' in to see my mother this +mornin'.”</p> + +<p>“Why not, I'd like to know?”</p> + +<p>“She's got to be kept still and not see anybody but us, or +she'll be sick.”</p> + +<p>“I guess it won't hurt her any to see me.” Paulina +Maria turned herself sidewise, thrust out a sharp elbow, and prepared +to force herself betwixt Jerome and the door-post like a wedge.</p> + +<p>“You stand back!” said Jerome, and fixed his eyes upon +her face.</p> + +<p>Paulina Maria turned pale. “What do you mean, actin' +so?” she said, again. “Did your mother tell you not to +let me in?”</p> + +<p>“Mother's got to be kept still and not see anybody but us, +or she'll be sick. I ain't goin' to have anybody come talkin' to her +to-day,” said Jerome, with his eyes still fixed upon Paulina +Maria's face.</p> + +<p>Paulina Maria was like a soldier whose courage is invincible in +all tried directions. Up to all the familiar and registered batteries +of life she could walk without flinching, and yield to none; but here +was something new, which savored perchance of the uncanny, and a +power not of the legitimate order of things. There was something +frightful and abnormal to her in Jerome's pale face, which did not +seem his own, his young eyes full of authority of age, and the +intimation of repelling force in his slight, childish form.</p> + +<p>Paulina Maria might have driven a fierce watch-dog from her path +with her intrepid will; she might have pushed aside a stouter arm in +her way; but this defence, whose persistence in the face of apparent +feebleness seemed to indicate some supernatural power, made her +quail. From her spare diet and hard labor, from her cleanliness and +rigid holding to one line of thought and life, the veil of flesh and +grown thin and transparent, like any ascetic's of old, and she was +liable to a ready conception of the abnormal and supernatural.</p> + +<p>With one half-stern, half-fearful glance at the forbidding child +in her path, she turned about and went away, pausing, however, in the +vantage-point of the road and calling back in an indignant voice, +which trembled slightly, “You needn't think you're goin' to +send folks home this way many times, Jerome Edwards!” Then, +with one last baffled glance at the pale, strange little figure in +the Edwards door, she went home, debating grimly with herself over +her weakness and her groundless fear.</p> + +<p>Jerome waited until she was out of sight, gave one last look down +the road to be sure no other invaders were approaching his fortress, +and then went on to the barn. When he rolled back the door and +entered, the old white horse stirred in his stall and turned to look +at him. There was something in the glance over the shoulder of that +long white face which caused the heart of the boy to melt within him. +He pressed into the stall, flung up his little arms around the great +neck, and sobbed and sobbed, his face hid against the heaving +side.</p> + +<p>The old horse had looked about, expecting to see Jerome's father +coming to feed and harness him into the wood-wagon, and Jerome knew +it, and there was something about the consciousness of loss and +sorrow of this faithful dumb thing which smote him in a weaker place +than all human intelligence of it.</p> + +<p>Abel Edwards had loved this poor animal well, and had set great +store by his faithful service; and the horse had loved him, after the +dumb fashion of his kind, and, indeed, not sensing that he was dead, +loved him still, with a love as for the living, which no human being +could compass. Jerome, clinging to this dumb beast, to which alone +the love of his father had not commenced, by those cruel and +insensible gradations, to become the memory which is the fate, as +inevitable as death itself, of all love when life is past, felt for +the minute all his new strength desert him, and relapsed into +childhood and clinging grief. “You loved him, didn't +you?” he whispered between his sobs. “You loved poor +father, didn't you, Peter?” And when the horse turned his +white face and looked at him, with that grave contemplation seemingly +indicative of a higher rather than a lower intelligence, with which +an animal will often watch human emotion, he sobbed and sobbed again, +and felt his heart fail him at the realization of his father's death, +and of himself, a poor child, with the burden of a man upon his +shoulders. But it was only for a few minutes that he yielded thus, +for the stature of the mind of the boy had in reality advanced, and +soon he drew himself up to it, stopped weeping, led the horse out to +the well, drew bucket after bucket of water, and held them patiently +to his plashing lips. Then a neighbor in the next house, a half-acre +away, looking across the field, called her mother to see how much +Jerome Edwards looked like his father. “It gave me quite a turn +when I see him come out, he looked so much like his father, for all +he's so small,” said she. “He walked out just like him; I +declare, I didn't know but he'd come back.”</p> + +<p>Jerome, leading the horse, walked back to the barn in his father's +old tracks, with his father's old gait, reproducing the dead with the +unconscious mimicry of the living, while the two women across the +field watched him from their window. “It ain't a good +sign—he's got a hard life before him,” said the older of +the two, who had wild blue eyes under a tousle of gray hair, and was +held in somewhat dubious repute because of spiritualistic +tendencies.</p> + +<p>“Guess he'll have a hard life enough, without any +signs—most of us do. He won't have to make shirts, +anyhow,” rejoined her daughter, who had worn out her youth with +fine stitching of linen shirts for a Jew peddler. Then she settled +back over her needle-work with a heavy sigh, indicative of a return +from the troubles of others to her own.</p> + +<p>Jerome fed the old horse, and rubbed him down carefully. +“Sha'n't be sold whilst I'm alive,” he assured him, with +a stern nod, as he combed out his forelock, and the animal looked at +him again, with that strange attention which is so much like the +attention of understanding.</p> + +<p>After his tasks in the barn were done Jerome went out to the +sloping garden and finished planting the beans. He could see Elmira's +smooth dark head passing to and fro before the house windows, and +knew that she was fulfilling his instructions.</p> + +<p>He kept a sharp watch upon the road for other female friends of +his mother's, who, he was resolved, should not enter.</p> + +<p>“Them women will only get her all stirred up again. She's +got to get used to it, and they'll just hinder her,” he said, +quite aloud to himself, having in some strange fashion discovered the +truth that the human mind must adjust itself to its true balance +after the upheaval of sorrow.</p> + +<p>After the beans were planted it was only nine o'clock. Jerome went +soberly down the garden-slope, stepping carefully between the planted +ridges, then into the house, with a noiseless lift of the latch and +glide over the threshold; for Elmira signalled him from the window to +be still.</p> + +<p>His mother sat in her high-backed rocker, fast asleep, her sharp +eyes closed, her thin mouth gaping, an expression of vacuous peace +over her whole face, and all her wiry little body relaxed. Jerome +motioned to Elmira, and the two tiptoed out across the little front +entry to the parlor.</p> + +<p>“How long has she been asleep?” whispered Jerome.</p> + +<p>“'Most an hour. You don't s'pose mother's goin' to die too, +do you, Jerome?”</p> + +<p>“Course she ain't.”</p> + +<p>“I never saw her go to sleep in the daytime before. Mother +don't act a mite like herself. She 'ain't spoke out to me once this +mornin',” poor little Elmira whimpered; but her brother hushed +her, angrily.</p> + +<p>“Don't you know enough to keep still—a great big girl +like you?” he said.</p> + +<p>“Jerome, I have. I 'ain't cried a mite before her, and she +couldn't hear that,” whispered Elmira, chokingly.</p> + +<p>“Mother's got awful sharp ears, you know she has,” +insisted Jerome. “Now I'm goin' away, and don't you let anybody +come in here while I'm gone and bother mother.”</p> + +<p>“I'll have to let Cousin Paulina Maria and Aunt Belinda in, +if they come,” said Elmira, staring at him wonderingly. Neither +she nor her mother knew that Paulina Maria had already been there and +been turned away.</p> + +<p>“You just lock the house up, and not go to the door,” +said Jerome, decisively.</p> + +<p>Elmira kept staring at him, as if she doubted her eyes and ears. +She felt a certain awe of her brother. “Where you goin'?” +she inquired, half timidly.</p> + +<p>“I'll tell you when I get back,” replied Jerome. He +went out with dignity, and Elmira heard him on the stairs. +“He's goin' to dress up,” she thought.</p> + +<p>She sat down by the window, well behind the curtain, that any one +approaching might not see her, and waited. She had wakened that +morning as into a new birth of sense, and greeted the world with +helpless childish weeping, but now she was beginning to settle +comfortably into this strange order of things. Her face, as she sat +thus, wore the ready curves of smiles instead of tears. Elmira was +one whose strength would always be in dependence. Now her young +brother showed himself, as if by a miracle, a leader and a strong +prop, and she could assume again her natural attitude of life and +growth. She was no longer strange to herself in these strange ways, +and that was wherein all the bitterness of strangeness lay.</p> + +<p>When Jerome came down-stairs, in his little poor best jacket and +trousers and his clean Sunday shirt, she stood in the door and looked +at him curiously, but with a perfect rest of confidence.</p> + +<p>Jerome looked at her with dignity, and yet with a certain childish +importance, without which he would have ceased to be himself at all. +“Look out for mother,” he whispered, admonishingly, and +went out, holding his head up and his shoulders back, and feeling his +sister's wondering and admiring eyes upon him, with a weakness of +pride, and yet with no abatement of his strength of purpose, which +was great enough to withstand self-recognition.</p> + +<p>The boy that morning had a new gait when he had once started down +the road. The habit of his whole life—and, more than that, an +inherited habit—ceased to influence him. This new exaltation of +spirit controlled even bones and muscles.</p> + +<p>Jerome, now he had fairly struck out in life with a purpose of his +own, walked no longer like his poor father, with that bent shuffling +lope of worn-out middle age. His soul informed his whole body, and +raised it above that of any simple animal that seeks a journey's end. +His head was up and steady, as if he bore a treasure-jar on it, his +back flat as a soldier's; he swung his little arms at his sides and +advanced with proud and even pace.</p> + +<p>Jerome's old gaping shoes were nicely greased, and he himself had +made a last endeavor to close the worst apertures with a bit of +shoemaker's thread. He had had quite a struggle with himself, before +starting, regarding these forlorn old shoes and another pair, spick +and span and black, and heavily clamping with thick new soles, which +Uncle Ozias Lamb had sent over for him to wear to the funeral.</p> + +<p>“He sent 'em over, an' says you may wear 'em to the funeral, +if you're real careful,” his aunt Belinda had said, and then +added, with her gentle sniff of deprecation and apology: “He +says you'll have to give 'em back again—they ain't to keep. He +says he's got so behindhand lately he 'ain't got any tithes to give +to the Lord. He says he 'ain't got nothing that will divide up into +ten parts, 'cause he 'ain't got more'n half one whole part +himself.” Belinda Lamb repeated her husband's bitter saying +out of his heart of poverty with a scared look, and yet with a +certain relish and soft aping of his defiant manner.</p> + +<p>“I don't want anybody to give when I can't give back +again,” Ann had returned. “Ozias has always done full as +much for us as we've done for him.” Then she had charged +Jerome to be careful of the shoes, and not stub the toes, so his +uncle would have difficulty in selling them.</p> + +<p>“I'll wear my old shoes,” Jerome had replied, +sullenly, but then had been borne down by the chorus of feminine +rebuke and misunderstanding of his position. They thought, one and +all, that he was wroth because the shoes were not given to him, and +the very pride which forbade him to wear them constrained him to do +so.</p> + +<p>However, this morning he had looked at them long, lifted them and +weighed them, turning them this way and that, put them on his feet +and stood contemplating them. He was ashamed to wear his old broken +shoes to call on grand folks, but he was too proud and too honest, +after all, to wear these borrowed ones.</p> + +<p>So he stepped along now with an occasional uneasy glance at his +feet, but with independence in his heart. Jerome walked straight down +the road to Squire Eben Merritt's. The cut across the fields would +have been much shorter, for the road made a great curve for nearly +half a mile, but the boy felt that the dignified highway was the only +route for him, bent on such errands, in his best clothes.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter VI</h4> + +<p>Squire Eben Merritt's house stood behind a file of dark pointed +evergreen trees, which had grown and thickened until the sunlight +never reached the house-front, which showed, in consequence, green +patches of moss and mildew. One entering had, moreover, to turn out, +as it were, for the trees, and take a circuitous route around them to +the right to the front-door path, which was quite slippery with a +film of green moss.</p> + +<p>There had been, years ago, a gap betwixt the trees—a gate's +width—but now none could enter unless the branches were lopped, +and Eben Merritt would not allow that. His respect for that silent +file of sylvan giants, keeping guard before his house against winds +and rains and fierce snows, was greater than his hospitality and +concern for the ease of guests. “Let 'em go round—it +won't hurt 'em,” he would say, with his great merry laugh, when +his wife sometimes suggested that the old gateway should be repaired. +However, it was only a few times during the year that the matter +disturbed her, for she was not one to falter long at the small +stumbling-blocks of life; a cheerful skip had she over them, or a +placid glide aside. When she had the minister's daughter and other +notable ladies to tea, who held it due to themselves to enter the +front door, she was somewhat uneasy lest they draggle their fine +petticoats skirting the trees, especially if the grass was dewy or +there was snow; otherwise, she cared not. The Squire's friends, who +often came in muddy boots, preferred the east-side door, which was in +reality good enough for all but ladies coming to tea, having three +stone steps, a goodly protecting hood painted green, with sides of +lattice-work, and opening into a fine square hall, with +landscape-paper on the walls, whence led the sitting-room and the +great middle room, where the meals were served.</p> + +<p>Jerome went straight round to this side door and raised the +knocker. He had to wait a little while before any one came, and +looked about him. He had been in Squire Eben Merritt's east yard +before, but now he had a sense of invasion which gave it new meanings +for him. A great straggling rose-vine grew over the hood of the door, +and its young leaves were pricking through the lattice-work; it was +old and needed trimming; there were many long barren shoots of last +year. However, Squire Merritt guarded jealously the freedom of the +rose, and would not have it meddled with, arguing that it had thriven +thus since the time of his grandfather, who had planted it; that this +was its natural condition of growth, and it would die if pruned.</p> + +<p>Jerome looked out of this door-arbor, garlanded with the old +rose-vine, into a great yard, skirted beyond the driveway with four +great flowering cherry-trees, so old that many of the boughs would +never bud again, and thrust themselves like skeleton arms of death +through the soft masses of bloom out into the blue. One tree there +was which had scarcely any boughs left, for the winds had taken them, +and was the very torso of a tree; but Squire Eben Merritt would not +have even that cut, for he loved a tree past its usefulness as +faithfully as he loved an animal. “Well do I remember the +cherries I used to eat off that tree, when I was so high,” Eben +Merritt would say. “Many a man has done less to earn a good +turn from me than this old tree, which has fed me with its best +fruit. Do you think I'll turn and kill it now?”</p> + +<p>He had the roots of the old trees carefully dug about and tended, +though not a dead limb lopped. Nurture, and not surgery, was the +doctrine of Squire Merritt. “Let the earth take what it +gave,” he said; “I'll not interfere.”</p> + +<p>Jerome had heard these sayings of Squire Merritt's about the +trees. They had been repeated, because people thought such ideas +queer and showing lack of common-sense. He had heard them +unthinkingly, but now, standing on Squire Merritt's door-step, +looking at his old tree pensioners, whom he would not desert in their +infirmity, he remembered, and the great man's love for his trees gave +him reason, with a sudden leap of faith, to believe in his kindness +towards him. “I'm better than an old tree,” reasoned +Jerome, and raised the knocker again boldly and let it fall with a +great brazen clang. Then he jumped and almost fell backward when the +door was flung open suddenly, and there stood Squire Merritt +himself.</p> + +<p>“What the devil—” began Squire Merritt; then he +stopped and chuckled behind his great beard when he saw Jerome's +alarmed eyes. “Hullo,” said he, “who have we got +here?” Eben Merritt had a soft place in his heart for all +small young creatures of his kind, and always returned their timid +obeisances, when he met them, with a friendly smile twinkling like +light through his bushy beard. Still, like many a man of such general +kindly bearings, he could not easily compass details, and oftener +than not could not have told which child he greeted.</p> + +<p>Eben Merritt, outside his own family, was utterly impartial in +magnanimity, and dealt with broad principles rather than individuals. +Now he looked hard at Jerome, and could not for the life of him tell +what particular boy he was, yet recognized him fully in the broader +sense of young helplessness and timid need. “Speak up,” +said he; “don't be scared. I know all the children, and I don't +know one of 'em. Speak up like a man.”</p> + +<p>Then Jerome, stung to the resolution to show this great Squire, +Eben Merritt, that he was not to be classed among the children, but +was a man indeed, and equivalent to those duties of one which had +suddenly been thrust upon him, looked his questioner boldly in the +face and answered. “I'm Jerome Edwards,” said he; +“and Abel Edwards was my father.”</p> + +<p>Eben Merritt's face changed in a minute. He looked gravely at the +boy, and nodded with understanding. “Yes, I know now,” +said he; “I remember. You look like your father.” Then +he added, kindly, but with a scowl of perplexity as to what the boy +was standing there for, and what he wanted: “Well, my boy, what +is it? Did your mother send you on some errand to Mrs. +Merritt?”</p> + +<p>Jerome scraped his foot, his manners at his command by this time, +and his old hat was in his hand. “No, sir,” said he; +“I came to see you, sir, if you please, sir, and mother didn't +send me. I came myself.”</p> + +<p>“You came to see me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” Jerome scraped again, but his black eyes +on the Squire's face were quite fearless and steady.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben Merritt stared at him wonderingly; then he cast an +uneasy glance at his fishing-pole, for he had come to the door with +his tackle in his hands, and he gave a wistful thought to the brooks +running through the young shadows of the spring woods, and the +greening fields, and the still trout-pools he had meant to invade +with no delay, and from which this childish visitor, bound probably +upon some foolish errand, would keep him. Then he found his own +manners, which were those of his good old family, courteous alike to +young and old, and rich and poor.</p> + +<p>“Well, if you've come to see me, walk in, sir,” cried +Squire Merritt, with a great access of heartiness, and he laid his +fishing-tackle carefully on the long mahogany table in the entry, and +motioned Jerome to follow him into the room on the left.</p> + +<p>Jerome had never been inside the house before, but this room had a +strangeness of its own which made him feel, when he entered, as if he +had crossed the border of a foreign land. It was typically unlike any +other room in the village. Jerome, whose tastes were as yet only +imitative and departed not from the lines to which they had been born +and trained, surveyed it with astonishment and some contempt. +“No carpet,” he thought, “and no haircloth sofa, +and no rocking-chair!”</p> + +<p>He stared at the skins of bear and deer which covered the floor, +at the black settle with a high carven back, at a carved chest of +black oak, at the smaller pelts of wolf and fox which decorated walls +and chairs, at a great pair of antlers, and even a noble eagle +sitting in state upon the top of a secretary. Squire Merritt had +filled this room and others with his trophies of the chase, for he +had been a mighty hunter from his youth.</p> + +<p>“Sit down, sir,” he told Jerome, a little impatiently, +for he longed to be away for his fishing, and the stupid abstraction +from purpose which unwonted spectacles always cause in childhood are +perplexing and annoying to their elders, who cannot leave their +concentration for any sight of the eyes, if they wish.</p> + +<p>He indicated a chair, at which Jerome, suddenly brought to +himself, looked dubiously, for it had a fine fox-skin over the back, +and he wondered if he might sit on it or should remove it.</p> + +<p>The Squire laughed. “Sit down,” he ordered; “you +won't hurt the pelt.” And then he asked, to put him at his +ease, “Did you ever shoot a fox, sir?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Ever fire a gun?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Want to?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>Jerome did not respond with the ready eagerness which the Squire +had expected. He had suddenly resolved, in his kindness and pity +towards his fatherless state, knowing well the longings of a boy, to +take him out in the field and let him fire his gun, and change, if he +could, that sad old look he wore, even if he fished none that day; +but Jerome disappointed him in his purpose. “He hasn't much +spirit,” he thought, and stood upon the hearth, before the open +fireplace, and said no more, but waited to hear what Jerome had come +for.</p> + +<p>The Squire was far from an old man, though he seemed so to the +boy. He was scarcely middle-aged, and indeed many still called him +the “young Squire,” as they had done when his father +died, some fifteen years before. He was a massively built man, +standing a good six feet tall in his boots; and in his boots, +thick-soled, and rusty with old mud splashes, reaching high above his +knees over his buckskin breeches, Squire Eben Merritt almost always +stood. He was scarcely ever seen without them, except in the +meeting-house on a Sunday—when he went, which was not often. +There was a tradition that he in his boots, just home from a quail +sortie in the swamp, had once invaded the best parlor, where his wife +had her lady friends to tea, and which boasted a real Turkey +carpet—the only one in town.</p> + +<p>Eben Merritt in these great hunting-boots, clad as to the rest of +him in stout old buckskin and rough coat and leather waistcoat, with +his fair and ruddy face well covered by his golden furze of beard, +which hung over his breast, lounged heavily on the hearth, and waited +with a noble patience, eschewing all desire of fishing, until this +pale, grave little lad should declare his errand.</p> + +<p>But Jerome, with the great Squire standing waiting before him, +felt suddenly tongue-tied. He was not scared, though his heart beat +fast; it was only that the words would not come.</p> + +<p>The Squire watched him kindly with his bright, twinkling blue eyes +under his brush of yellow hair. “Take your time,” said +he, and threw one arm up over the mantel-shelf, and stood as if it +were easier for him than to sit, and indeed it might have been so, +for from his stalking of woods and long motionless watches at the +lair of game, he had had good opportunities to accustom himself to +rest at ease upon his feet.</p> + +<p>Jerome might have spoken sooner had the Squire moved away from +before him and taken his eyes from his face, for sometimes too ardent +attention becomes a citadel for storming to a young and modest soul. +However, at last he turned his own head aside, and his black eyes +from the Squire's keen blue eyes, and would then have spoken had not +the door opened suddenly and little Lucina come in on a run and +stopped short a minute with timid finger to her mouth, and eyes as +innocently surprised as a little rabbit's.</p> + +<p>Lucina, being unhooded to-day, showed all her shower of shining +yellow curls, which covered her little shoulders and fell to her +childish waist. Her fat white neck and dimpled arms were bare and +gleaming through the curls, and she wore a lace-trimmed pinafore, and +a frock of soft blue wool scalloped with silk around the hem, +revealing below the finest starched pantalets, and little morocco +shoes.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben laughed fondly, to see her start and hesitate, as a +man will laugh at the pretty tricks of one he loves. “Come +here, Pretty,” he cried. “There's nothing for you to be +afraid of. This is only poor little Jerome Edwards. Come and shake +hands with him,” and bade her thus, thinking another child +might encourage the boy.</p> + +<p>With that Lucina hesitated no longer, but advanced, smiling +softly, with the little lady-ways her mother had taught her, and held +out her white morsel of a hand to the boy. “How do you +do?” she said, prettily, though still a little shyly, for she +was mindful how her gingerbread had been refused, and might not this +strange poor boy also thrust the hand away with scorn? She said that, +and looking down, lest that black angry flash of his eyes startle her +again, she saw his poor broken shoes, and gave a soft little cry, +then made a pitiful lip, and stared hard at them with wide eyes full +of astonished compassion, for the shoes seemed to her much more +forlorn than bare feet.</p> + +<p>Jerome's eyes followed hers, and he sprang up suddenly, his face +blazing, and made out that he did not see the proffered little hand. +“Pretty well,” he returned, gruffly. Then he said to the +Squire, with no lack of daring now, “Can I see you alone, +sir?”</p> + +<p>The Squire stared at him a second, then his great chest heaved +with silent laughter and his yellow beard stirred as with a breeze of +mirth.</p> + +<p>“You don't object to my daughter's presence?” he +queried, his eyes twinkling still, but with the formality with which +he might have addressed the minister.</p> + +<p>Jerome scowled with important indignation. Nothing escaped him; he +saw that Squire Merritt was laughing at him. Again the pitiful +rebellion at his state of boyhood seized him. He would have torn out +of the room had it not been for his dire need. He looked straight at +the Squire, and nodded stubbornly.</p> + +<p>Squire Merritt turned to his little daughter and laid a tenderly +heavy hand on her smooth curled head. “You'd better run away +now and see mother, Pretty,” he said. “Father has some +business to talk over with this gentleman.”</p> + +<p>Little Lucina gave a bewildered look up in her father's face, then +another at Jerome, as if she fancied she had not heard aright, then +she went out obediently, like the good and gentle little girl that +she was.</p> + +<p>When the door closed behind her, Jerome began at once. Somehow, +that other child's compassion in the midst of her comfort and +security had brought his courage up to the point of attack on +fate.</p> + +<p>“I want to ask you about the mortgage,” said +Jerome.</p> + +<p>The Squire looked at him with quick interest. “The mortgage +on your father's place?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Doctor Prescott holds it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“How much is it?”</p> + +<p>“A thousand dollars.” Jerome said that with a gasp of +horror and admiration at the vastness of it. Sometimes to him that +thousand dollars almost represented infinity, and seemed more than +the stars of heaven. His childish brain, which had scarcely +contemplated in verity more than a shilling at a time of the coin of +the realm, reeled at a thousand dollars.</p> + +<p>“Well?” observed Squire Merritt, kindly but +perplexedly. He wondered vaguely if the boy had come to ask him to +pay the mortgage, and reflected how little ready money he had in +pocket, for Eben Merritt was not thrifty with his income, which was +indeed none too large, and was always in debt himself, though always +sure to pay in time. Chances were, if Squire Merritt had had the +thousand dollars to hand that morning, he might have thrust it upon +the boy, with no further parley, taken his rod and line, and gone +forth to his fishing. As it was, he waited for Jerome to proceed, +merely adding that he was sorry that his mother did not own the place +clear.</p> + +<p>The plan that the boy unfolded, clumsily but sturdily to the end, +he had thought out for himself in the darkness of the night before. +The Squire listened. “Who planned this out?” he asked, +when Jerome had finished.</p> + +<p>“I did.”</p> + +<p>“Who helped you?”</p> + +<p>“Nobody did.”</p> + +<p>“Nobody?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly Squire Eben Merritt seated himself in the chair which +Jerome had vacated, seized the boy, and set him upon his knee. Jerome +struggled half in wrath, half in fear, but he could not free himself +from that strong grasp. “Sit still,” ordered Squire Eben. +“How old are you, my boy?”</p> + +<p>“Goin' on twelve, sir,” gasped Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Only four years older than Lucina. Good Lord!”</p> + +<p>The Squire's grasp tightened tenderly. The boy did not struggle +longer, but looked up with a wonder of comprehensiveness in the +bearded face bent kindly over his. “He looks at me the way +father use to,” thought Jerome.</p> + +<p>“What made you come to me, my boy?” asked the Squire, +presently. “Did you think I could pay the mortgage for +you?”</p> + +<p>Then Jerome colored furiously and threw up his head. “No, +<em>sir</em>,” said he, proudly.</p> + +<p>“Why, then?”</p> + +<p>“I came because you are a justice of the peace, and know +what law is, and—”</p> + +<p>“And what?”</p> + +<p>“I've always heard you were pleasanter-spoken than he +was.”</p> + +<p>The Squire laughed. “Pleasant words are cheap coin,” +said he. “I wish I had something better for your sake, child. +Now let me see what it is you propose. That wood-lot of your +father's, you say, Doctor Prescott has offered three hundred dollars +for.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>The Squire whistled. “Didn't your father think it was worth +more than that?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir, but he didn't think he could get any more. He +said—”</p> + +<p>“What did he say?”</p> + +<p>“He said that a poor seller was the slave of a rich buyer; +but I think—” Jerome hesitated. He was not used yet to +expressing his independent thought.</p> + +<p>“Go on,” said the Squire.</p> + +<p>“I think it works both ways, and the poor man is the slave +either way, whether he buys or sells,” said the boy, half +defiantly, half timidly.</p> + +<p>“I guess you're about right,” said the Squire, looking +at him curiously. “Ever hear your uncle Ozias Lamb say anything +like that?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Thought it yourself, eh?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Well, let's get to business now,” said the Squire. +“What you want is this, if I understand it. You want Doctor +Prescott to buy that wood-lot of your father's for three hundred +dollars, or whatever over that sum he will agree to, and you don't +want him to pay you money down, but give you his note for it, with +interest at six per cent., for as long a term as he will. You did not +say give you a note, because you did not know about it, but that is +what you want.”</p> + +<p>Jerome nodded soberly. “I know father paid interest at six +per cent., and it was sixty dollars a year, and I know it would be +eighteen dollars if it was three hundred dollars instead of a +thousand. I figured it out on my slate,” he said.</p> + +<p>“You are right,” said the Squire, gravely. “Now +you think that will bring your interest down to forty-two dollars a +year, and maybe you can manage that; and if you cannot, you think +that Doctor Prescott will pay you cash down for the +wood-lot?”</p> + +<p>The boy seemed to be engaged in an arithmetical calculation. He +bent his brows, and his lips moved. “That would be over seven +years' interest money, at forty-two dollars a year, anyway,” he +said at length, looking at the Squire with shrewdly innocent +eyes.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Eben Merritt burst into a great roar of laughter, and +struck the boy a kindly slap upon his small back.</p> + +<p>“By the Lord Harry!” cried he, “you've struck a +scheme worthy of the Jews. But you need good Christians to deal +with!”</p> + +<p>Jerome started and stared at him, half anxiously, half +resentfully. “Ain't it right, sir?” he stammered.</p> + +<p>“Oh, your scheme is right enough; no trouble about that. The +question is whether Doctor Prescott is right.”</p> + +<p>Eben Merritt burst into another roar of laughter as he arose and +set the boy on his feet. “I am not laughing at you, my +boy,” he said, though Jerome's wondering, indignant eyes upon +his face were, to his thinking, past humorous.</p> + +<p>Then he laid a hand upon each of the boy's little homespun +shoulders. “Go and see Doctor Prescott, and tell him your plan, +and—if he does not approve of it, come here and let me +know,” he said, and seriously enough to suit even Jerome's +jealous self-respect.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“And,” added the Squire, “you had better go a +little after noon—you will be more likely to find him at +home.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Are you afraid to go out alone after dark?” asked the +Squire.</p> + +<p>“No, sir,” replied Jerome, proudly.</p> + +<p>“Well, then,” said the Squire, “come and see me +this evening, and tell me what Doctor Prescott says.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” replied Jerome, and bobbed his head, and +turned to go. The Squire moved before him with his lounging gait, and +opened the door for him with ceremony, as for an honored guest.</p> + +<p>Out in the south entry, with her back against the opposite wall, +well removed from the south-room door, that she might not hear one +word not intended for her ears, stood Lucina waiting, with one little +white hand clinched tight, as over a treasure. When her father came +out, following Jerome, she ran forward to him, pulled his head down +by a gentle tug at his long beard, and whispered. Squire Eben laughed +and smoothed her hair, but looked at her doubtfully. “I don't +know about it, Pretty,” he whispered back.</p> + +<p>“Please, father,” she whispered again, and rubbed her +soft cheek against his great arm, and he laughed again, and looked at +her as a man looks at the apple of his eye.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said he, “do as you like, Pretty.” + With that the little Lucina sprang eagerly forward before Jerome, +who, hardly certain whether he were dismissed or not, yet eager to be +gone, was edging towards the outer door, and held out to him her +little hand curved into a sweet hollow like a cup of pearl, all full +of silver coins.</p> + +<p>Jerome looked at her, gave a quick, shamed glance at the little +outstretched hand, colored red, and began backing away.</p> + +<p>But Lucina pressed forward, thrusting in his very face her little +precious cup of treasure. “Please take this, boy,” said +she, and her voice rang soft and sweet as a silver flute. “It +is money I've been saving up to buy a parrot. But a parrot is a noisy +bird, mother says, and maybe I could not love it as well as I love my +lamb, and so its feelings would be hurt. I don't want a parrot, after +all, and I want you to take this and buy some shoes.” So said +little Lucina Merritt, making her sweet assumption of selfishness to +cover her unselfishness, for the noisy parrot was the desire of her +heart, and to her father's eyes she bore the aspect of an angel, and +he swallowed a great sob of mingled admiration and awe and intensest +love. And indeed the child's face as she stood there had about it +something celestial, for every line and every curve therein were as +the written words of purest compassion; and in her innocent blue eyes +stood self-forgetful tears.</p> + +<p>Even the boy Jerome, with the pride of poverty to which he had +been born and bred, like a bitter savor in his heart, stared at her a +moment, his eyes dilated, his mouth quivering, and half advanced his +hand to take the gift so sweetly offered. Then all at once the full +tide of self rushed over him with all its hard memories and +resolutions. His eyes gave out that black flash of wrath, which the +poor little Lucina had feared, yet braved and forgot through her fond +pity, he dashed out the back of his hand so roughly against that +small tender one that all the silver pieces were jostled out to the +floor, and rushed out of the door.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben Merritt made an indignant exclamation and one +threatening stride after him, then stopped, and caught up the weeping +little Lucina, and sought to soothe her as best he might.</p> + +<p>“Never mind, Pretty; never mind, Pretty,” he said, +rubbing his rough face against her soft one, in a way which was used +to make her laugh. “Father 'll buy you a parrot that will talk +the roof off.”</p> + +<p>“I don't—want a parrot, father,” sobbed the +little girl. “I want the boy to have shoes.”</p> + +<p>“Summer is coming, Pretty,” said Squire Eben, +laughingly and caressingly, “and a boy is better off without +shoes than with them.”</p> + +<p>“He won't—have any—for next winter.”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes, he shall. I'll fix it so he shall earn some for +himself before then—that's the way, Pretty. Father was to +blame. He ought to have known better than to let you offer money to +him. He's a proud child.” The Squire laughed. “Now, +don't cry any more, Pretty. Run away and play. Father's going +fishing, and he'll bring you home some pretty pink fishes for your +supper. Don't cry any more, because poor father can't go while you +cry, and he has been delayed a long time, and the fishes will have +eaten their dinner and won't bite if he doesn't hurry.”</p> + +<p>Lucina, who was docile even in grief, tried to laugh, and when her +father set her down with a great kiss, which seemed to include her +whole rosy face pressed betwixt his two hands, picked up her rejected +silver from the floor, put it away in the little box in which she +kept it, and sat down in a window of the south room to nurse her +doll. She nodded and laughed dutifully when her father, going forth +at last to the still pools and the brook courses, with his tackle in +hand, looked back and nodded whimsically at her.</p> + +<p>However, her childish heart was sore beyond immediate healing, for +the wounds received from kindness spurned and turned back as a weapon +against one's self are deep.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter VII</h4> + +<p>In every household which includes a beloved child there is apt to +be one above another, who acts as an intercessor towards furthering +its little plans and ends. Little Lucina's was her father. Her mother +was no less indulgent in effect, but she was anxiously solicitous +lest too much concession spoil the child, and had often to reconcile +a permission to her own conscience before giving it, even in trivial +matters.</p> + +<p>Therefore little Lucina, having in mind some walk abroad or +childish treasure, would often seek her father, and, lifting up her +face like a flower against his rough-coated breast, beg him, in that +small, wheedling voice which he so loved, to ask her mother that she +might go or have; for well she knew, being astute, though so small +and innocent and gentle, that such a measure was calculated to serve +her ends, and allay her mother's scruples through a shift of +responsibility.</p> + +<p>However, to-day, since her father was away fishing, Lucina was +driven to seek other aid in the carrying out of a small plan which +she had formed for her delectation.</p> + +<p>Right anxiously the child watched for her father to come home to +the noonday dinner; but he did not come, and she and her mother ate +alone. Then she stole away up-stairs to her little dimity-hung +chamber, opening out of her parents' and facing towards the sun, and +all twinkling and swaying with little white tassels on curtains and +covers and counterpane, in the draught, as she opened the door. Then +she went down on her knees beside her bed and prayed, in the +simplicity of her heart, which would seek a Heavenly Father in lieu +of an earthly one, for all her small desires, and think no +irreverence: “Our Father, who art in heaven, please make mother +let me go to Aunt Camilla's this afternoon. Amen.”</p> + +<p>Then she rose, with no delay for lack of faith, and went straight +down to her mother, and proffered her request timidly, and yet with a +confidence as of one who has a larger voice of authority at her +back.</p> + +<p>“Please, mother, may I go over to Aunt Camilla's this +afternoon?” asked little Lucina.</p> + +<p>And her mother, not knowing what principle of childish faith was +involved, hesitated, knitting her small, dark face, which had no look +like Lucina's, perplexedly.</p> + +<p>“I don't know, child,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Please, mother!”</p> + +<p>“I am afraid you'll trouble your aunt, Lucina.”</p> + +<p>“No, I won't, mother! I'll take my doll, and I'll play with +her real quiet.”</p> + +<p>“I am afraid your aunt Camilla will have something else to +do.”</p> + +<p>“She can do it, mother. I won't trouble her—I won't +speak to her—honest! Please, mother.”</p> + +<p>“You ought to sit down at home this afternoon and do some +work, Lucina.”</p> + +<p>“I'll take over my garter-knitting, mother, and I'll knit +ten times across.”</p> + +<p>It happened at length, whether through effectual prayer, or such +skilful fencing against weak maternal odds, that the little Lucina, +all fresh frilled and curled, with her silk knitting-bag dangling at +her side, and her doll nestled to her small mother-shoulder, stepping +with dainty primness in her jostling starched pantalets, lifting each +foot carefully lest she hit her nice morocco toes against the stones, +went up the road to her aunt Camilla's.</p> + +<p>Miss Camilla Merritt lived in the house which had belonged to her +grandfather, called the “old Merritt house” to +distinguish it from the one which her father had built, in which her +brother Eben lived. Both, indeed, were old, but hers was venerable, +and claimed that respect which extreme age, even in inanimate things, +deserves. And in a way, indeed, this old house might have been +considered raised above the mere properties of wood and brick and +plaster by such an accumulation of old memories and associations, +which were inseparable from its walls, to something nearly sentient +and human, and to have established in itself a link 'twixt matter and +mind.</p> + +<p>Never had any paint touched its outer walls, overlapped with +silver-gray shingles like scales of a fossil fish. The door and the +great pillared portico over it were painted white, as they had been +from the first, and that was all. A brick walk, sunken in mossy +hollows, led up to the front door, which was only a few feet from the +road, the front yard being merely a narrow strip with great poplars +set therein. Lucina had always had a suspicion, which she confided to +no one, being sensitive as to ridicule for her childish theories, +that these poplars were not real trees. Even the changing of the +leaves did not disarm her suspicion. Sometimes she dug +surreptitiously around the roots with a pointed stick to see what she +could discover for or against it, and always with a fearful +excitement of daring, lest she topple the tree over, perchance, and +destroy herself and Aunt Camilla and the house.</p> + +<p>To-day Lucina went up the walk between the poplars, recognizing +them as one recognizes friends oftentimes, not as their true selves, +but as our conception of them, and knocked one little ladylike knock +with the brass knocker. She never entered her aunt Camilla's house +without due ceremony.</p> + +<p>Aunt Camilla's old woman, who lived with her, and performed her +household work as well as any young one, answered the knock and bade +her enter. Lucina followed this portly old-woman figure, moving with +a stiff wabble of black bombazined hips, like some old domestic fowl, +into the east room, which was the sitting-room.</p> + +<p>The old woman's name was lost to memory, inasmuch as she had been +known simply as 'Liza ever since her early childhood, and had then +hailed from the town farm, with her parentage a doubtful matter.</p> + +<p>There was about this woman, who had no kith nor kin, nor equal +friends, nor money, nor treasures, nor name, and scarce her own +individuality in the minds of others, a strange atmosphere of +silence, broken seldom by uncouth, stammering speech, which always +intimidated the little Lucina. She had, however, a way of expanding, +after long stares at her, into sudden broad smiles which relieved the +little girl's apprehension; and, too, her rusty black bombazine +smelled always of rich cake—a reassuring perfume to one who +knew the taste of it.</p> + +<p>Lucina's aunt Camilla was a nervous soul, and liked not the rattle +of starched cotton about the house. Her old serving-woman must go +always clad in woollen, which held the odors of cooking long.</p> + +<p>Lucina sat down in a little rocking-chair, hollowed out like a +nest in back and seat, which was her especial resting-place, and +'Liza went out, leaving the rich, fruity odor of cake behind her, +saying no word, but evidently to tell her mistress of her guest. +There were no blinds on this ancient house, but there were inside +shutters in fine panel-work at all the windows. These were all closed +except at the east windows. There between the upper panels were left +small square apertures which framed little pictures of the blue +spring sky, slanted across with blooming peach boughs; for there was +a large peach orchard on the east side of the house. Lucina watched +these little pictures, athwart which occasionally a bird flew and +raised them to life. She held her doll primly, and her little +work-bag still dangled from her arm. She would not begin her task of +knitting until her aunt appeared and her visit was fairly in +progress.</p> + +<p>Over against the south wall stood a clock as tall as a giant man, +and giving in the half-light a strong impression of the presence of +one, to an eye which did not front it. Lucina often turned her head +with a start and looked, to be sure it was only the clock which sent +that long, dark streak athwart her vision. The clock ticked with slow +and solemn majesty. She was sure that sixty of those ticks would make +a minute, and sixty times the sixty an hour, if she could count up to +that and not get lost in such a sea of numbers; but she could not +tell the time of day by the clock hands.</p> + +<p>Lucina was a quick-witted child, but seemed in some particulars to +have a strange lack of curiosity, or else an instinct to preserve for +herself an imagination instead of acquiring knowledge. She was either +obstinately or involuntarily ignorant as yet of the method of telling +time, and the hands of the clock were held before its face of mystery +for concealment rather than revelation to her. But she loved to sit +and watch the clock, and she never told her mother what she thought +about it. Directly in front of Lucina, as she sat waiting, hanging +over the mantel-shelf between the east windows, was a great steel +engraving of the Declaration of Independence. Lucina looked at the +cluster of grave men, and was innocently proud and sure that her +father was much finer-looking than any one of them, and, moreover, +doubted irreverently if any one of them could shoot rabbits or catch +fish, or do anything but sign his name with that stiff pen. Lucina +was capable of an agony of faithfulness to her own, but of loyalty in +a broad sense she knew nothing, and never would, having in that +respect the typical capacity only of women.</p> + +<p>The east-room door had been left ajar. Presently a soft whisper of +silk could be heard afar off; but before that even a delicate breath +of lavender came floating into the room. Many sweet and subtly +individual odors seemed to dwell in this old house, preceding the +mortal inhabitants through the doors, and lingering behind them in +rooms where they had stayed.</p> + +<p>Lucina started when the lavender breath entered the room, and +looked up as if at a ghostly herald. She toed out her two small +morocco-shod feet more particularly upon the floor, she smoothed down +her own and her doll's little petticoats, and she also made herself +all ready to rise and courtesy.</p> + +<p>After the lavender sweetness came the whisper of silk flounces, +growing louder and louder; but there was no sound of footsteps, for +Aunt Camilla moved only with the odor and rustle of a flower. No one +had ever heard her little slippered feet; even her high heels never +tapped the thresholds. She had a way of advancing her toes first and +making the next step with a tilt, so soft that it was scarcely a +break from a glide, and yet clearing the floor as to her slipper +heels.</p> + +<p>Lucina knew her aunt Camilla was coming down the stairs by the +rustling of her silk flounces along the rails of the banisters, like +harp-strings; then there was a cumulative whisper and an +entrance.</p> + +<p>Lucina rose, holding her doll like a dignified little mother, and +dropped a courtesy.</p> + +<p>“Good-afternoon,” said Aunt Camilla.</p> + +<p>“Good-afternoon,” returned Lucina.</p> + +<p>“How do you do?” asked Aunt Camilla.</p> + +<p>“Pretty well, I thank you,” replied Lucina.</p> + +<p>“How is your mother?”</p> + +<p>“Pretty well, I thank you.”</p> + +<p>“Is your father well?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, ma'am; I thank you.”</p> + +<p>During this dialogue Aunt Camilla was moving gently forward upon +her niece. When she reached her she stooped, or rather +drooped—for stooping implies a bend of bone and muscle, and her +graceful body seemed to be held together by integuments like long +willow leaves—and kissed her with a light touch of cool, +delicate lips. Aunt Camilla's slender arms in their pointed lilac +sleeves and lace undersleeves waved forward as with a vague caressing +intent. Soft locks of hair and frilling laces in her cap and bosom +hung forward like leaves on a swaying bough, and tickled Lucina's +face, half smothered in the old lavender fragrance.</p> + +<p>Lucina colored innocently and sweetly when her aunt kissed her, +and afterwards looked up at her with sincerest love and admiration +and delight.</p> + +<p>Camilla Merritt was far from young, being much older than her +brother, Lucina's father; but she was old as a poem or an angel might +be, with the lovely meaning of her still uppermost and most evident. +Camilla in her youth had been of a rare and delicate beauty, which +had given her fame throughout the country-side, and she held the best +of it still, as one holds jewels in a worn casket, and as a poem +written in obsolete language contains still its first grace of +thought. Camilla's soft and slender body had none of those stiff, +distorted lines which come from resistance to the forced attitudes of +life. Her body and her soul had been amenable to all discipline. She +had leaned sweetly against her crosses, instead of straining away +from them with fierce cramps and agonies of resistance. In every +motion she had the freedom of utter yielding, which surpasses the +freedom of action. Camilla's graduated flounces of lilac silk, +slightly faded, having over it a little spraying mist of gray, +trimmed her full skirt to her slender waist, girdled with a narrow +ribbon fastened with a little clasp set with amethysts. A great +amethyst brooch pinned the lace at her throat. She wore a lace cap, +and over that, flung loosely, draping her shoulders and shading her +face with its soft mesh, a great shawl or veil of fine white lace +wrought with sprigs. Camilla's delicately spare cheeks were softly +pink, with that elderly bloom which lacks the warm dazzle of youth, +yet has its own late beauty. Her eyes were blue and clear as a +child's, and as full of innocent dreams—only of the past +instead of the future. Her blond hair, which in turning gray had got +a creamy instead of a silvery lustre, like her old lace, was looped +softly and disposed in half-curls over her ears. When she smiled it +was with the grace and fine dignity of ineffable ladyhood, and yet +with the soft ignorance, though none of the abandon, of childhood. +Camilla was like a child whose formal code and manners of life had +been fully prescribed and learned, but whose vital copy had not been +quite set.</p> + +<p>Lucina loved her aunt Camilla with a strange sense of comradeship, +and yet with awe. “If you can ever be as much of a lady as your +aunt Camilla, I shall be glad,” her mother often told her. +Camilla was to Lucina the personification of the gentle and the +genteel. She was her ideal, the model upon which she was to form +herself.</p> + +<p>Camilla was so unceasingly punctilious in all the finer details of +living that all who infringed upon them felt her mere presence a +reproach. Children were never rough or loud-voiced or naughty when +Miss Camilla was near, though she never admonished otherwise than by +example. As for little Lucina, she would have felt shamed for life +had her aunt Camilla caught her toeing in, or stooping, or leaving +the “ma'am” off from her yes and no.</p> + +<p>Camilla, this afternoon, did what Lucina had fondly hoped she +might do—proposed that they should sit out in the arbor in the +garden. “I think it is warm enough,” she said; and Lucina +assented with tempered delight.</p> + +<p>It was a very warm afternoon. Spring had taken, as she will +sometimes do in May, being apparently weary of slow advances, a +sudden flight into summer, with a wild bursting of buds and a great +clamor of wings and songs.</p> + +<p>Miss Camilla got a yellow Canton crêpe shawl, that was +redolent of sandalwood, out of a closet, but she did not put it over +her shoulders, the outdoor air was so soft. She needed nothing but +her lace mantle over her head, which made her look like a bride of +some old spring. Lucina followed her through the hall, out of the +back door, which had a trellis and a grape-vine over it, into the +garden. The garden was large, and laid out primly in box-bordered +beds. There were even trees of box on certain corners, and it looked +as if the box would in time quite choke out the flowers. Lucina, who +was given to sweet and secret fancies, would often sit with wide blue +eyes of contemplation upon the garden, and discover in the box a +sprawling, many-armed green monster, bent upon strangling out the +lives of the flowers in their beds.</p> + +<p>“Why don't you have the box trimmed, Aunt Camilla?” +she would venture to inquire at such times; and her aunt Camilla, +looking gently askance at the flush of excitement, which she did not +understand, upon her niece's cheek, would reply:</p> + +<p>“The box has always been there, my dear.”</p> + +<p>Long existence proved always the sacredness of a law to Miss +Camilla. She was a conservative to the bone.</p> + +<p>The arbor where the two sat that afternoon was of the kind one +sees in old prints where lovers sit in chaste embrace under a green +arch of eglantine. However, in Miss Camilla's arbor were no lovers, +and instead of eglantine were a honeysuckle and a climbing rose. The +rose was not yet in bloom, and the honeysuckle's red trumpets were +not blown—their parts in the symphony of the spring were +farther on; over the arbor there was only a delicate prickling of new +leaves, which cast a lace-like shadow underneath. A bench ran around +the three closed sides of the arbor, and upon the bench sat Lucina +and her aunt Camilla, in her spread of lilac flounces. Camilla held +in her lap a little portfolio of papier-mâché, and wrote +with a little gold pencil on sheets of gilt-edged paper. Camilla +always wrote when she sat in the arbor, but nobody ever knew what. +She always carried the finely written sheets into the house, and +nobody knew where she put them afterwards. Camilla's long, thin +fingers, smooth and white as ivory, sparkled dully with old rings. +Some large amethysts in fine gold settings she wore, one great yellow +pearl, a mourning-ring of hair in a circlet of pearls for tears, and +some diamond bands in silver, which gave out cold white lights only +as her hands moved across the gilt-edged paper.</p> + +<p>As for Lucina, she had set up her doll primly in a corner of the +arbor, and was knitting her stent. It might have seemed difficult to +understand what the child found to enjoy in this quiet entertainment, +but in childhood all situations which appeal to the imagination give +enjoyment, and most situations which break the routine of daily life +do so appeal. Then, too, Camilla's quiet persistence in her own +employment gave a delightful sense of equality and dignity to the +child. She would not have liked it half as well had her aunt stooped +to entertain her and brought out toys and games for her amusement. +However, there was entertainment to come, to which she looked forward +with gratification, as that placed her firmly on the footing of an +honored guest. The minister's daughter or the doctor's wife could not +be treated better or with more courtesy.</p> + +<p>Aunt Camilla wrote with pensive pauses of reflection, and Lucina +knitted until her stent was finished. Then she folded up the garter +neatly, quilted in the needles as she had been taught, and placed it +in her little bag. Then she took up her doll protectingly and +soothingly, and held her in her lap, with the great china head +against her small bosom. Lucina's doll was very large, and finely +attired in stiff book-muslin and pink ribbons. She wore also pink +morocco shoes on her feet, which stood out strangely at sharp right +angles. Lucina sometimes eyed her doll-baby's feet uncomfortably. +“I guess she will outgrow it,” she told herself, with +innocent maternal hypocrisy early developed.</p> + +<p>When Lucina laid aside her work and began nursing her doll her +aunt looked up from her writing. “Are you enjoying yourself, +dear?” she inquired.</p> + +<p>“Yes, ma'am.”</p> + +<p>“Would you like to run about the garden?”</p> + +<p>“No, thank you, ma'am; I will sit here and hold my doll. It +is time for her nap. I will hold her till she goes to +sleep.”</p> + +<p>“Then you can run about a little,” suggested Miss +Camilla, gravely, without a smile. She respected Lucina's doll, as +she might have her baby, and the child's heart leaped up with +gratitude. An older soul which needs not to make believe to re-enter +childhood is a true comrade for a child.</p> + +<p>“Yes, ma'am,” replied Lucina. “I will lay her +down on the bench here when she falls asleep.”</p> + +<p>“You can cover her up with my shawl,” said Miss +Camilla, gravely still, and naturally. Indeed, to her a child with a +doll was as much a part and parcel of the natural order of things as +a mother with an infant. Outside all of it herself, she comprehended +and admitted it with the impartiality of an observer. “Then you +can run in the garden,” she added, “and pick a bouquet if +you wish. There is not much in bloom now but the heart's-ease and the +flowering almond and the daffodils, but you can make a bouquet of +them to take home to your mother.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, ma'am,” said Lucina.</p> + +<p>However, she was in no hurry to take advantage of her aunt's +permission. She sat quietly in the warm and pleasant arbor, holding +her doll-baby, with the afternoon sun sifting through the young +leaves, and making over them a shifting dapple like golden water, and +felt no inclination to stir. The spring languor was over even her +young limbs; the sweet twitter of birds, the gathering bird-like +flutter of leaves before a soft swell of air, the rustle of her +aunt's gilt-edged paper, an occasional hiss of her silken flounces, +grew dim and confused. Lucina, as well as her doll, fell asleep, +leaning her pretty head against the arbor trellis-work. Camilla did +not disturb her; she had never in her life disturbed the peace or the +slumber of any soul. She only gazed at her now and then, with gentle, +half-abstracted affection, then wrote again.</p> + +<p>Presently, stepping with that subtlest silence of motion through +the quiet garden, came a great yellow cat. She rubbed against Miss +Camilla's knees with that luxurious purr of love and comfort which is +itself a completest slumber song, then made a noiseless leap to a +sunny corner of the bench, and settled herself there in a yellow coil +of sleep. Presently there came another, and another, and another +still—all great cats, and all yellow, marked in splendid tiger +stripes, with eyes like topaz—until there were four of them, +all asleep on the sunny side of the arbor. Miss Camilla's yellow cats +were of a famous breed, well represented in the village; but she had +these four, which were marvels of beauty.</p> + +<p>Another hour wore on. Miss Camilla still wrote, and Lucina and the +yellow cats slept. Then it was four o'clock, and time for the +entertainment to which Lucina had looked forward.</p> + +<p>There was a heavy footstep on the garden walk and a rustling among +the box borders. Then old 'Liza loomed up in the arbor door, +darkening out the light. Little Lucina stirred and woke, yet did not +know she woke, not knowing she had slept. To her thinking she had sat +all this time with her eyes wide open, and the sight of her aunt +Camilla writing and the leaf shadows on the arbor floor had never +left them. She saw the yellow cats with some surprise, but cats can +steal in quietly when one's eyes are turned. Had Lucina dreamed she +had fallen asleep when an honored guest of her lady aunt, she would +have been ready to sink with shame. Blindness to one's innocent +shortcomings seems sometimes a special mercy of Providence.</p> + +<p>Lucina straightened herself with a flushed smile, gave just one +glance at the great tray which old 'Liza bore before her; then looked +away again, being fully alive to the sense that it is not polite nor +ladylike to act as if you thought much of your eating and +drinking.</p> + +<p>Old 'Liza set the tray on a little table in the midst of the +arbor, and immediately odors, at once dainty and delicate, spicy, +fruity, and aromatically soothing, diffused themselves about. The +four yellow cats stirred; they yawned, and stretched luxuriously; +then, suddenly fully awake to the meaning of those savory scents +which had disturbed their slumbers, sat upright with eager jewel eyes +upon the tray.</p> + +<p>“Take the cats away, 'Liza,” said Miss Camilla.</p> + +<p>Old 'Liza advanced grinning upon the cats, gathered them up, two +under each arm, and bore them away, moving out of sight between the +box borders like some queer monster, with her wide humping flanks of +black bombazine enhanced by four angrily waving yellow cat tails, +which gave an effect of grotesque wrath to the retreat.</p> + +<p>Lucina looked, in spite of her manners, at the tray when it was on +the table before her very face and eyes. It was covered with a napkin +of finest damask, whose flower pattern glistened like frostwork, and +upon it were ranged little cups and saucers of pink china as thin and +transparent as shells, a pink sugar-bowl to match, a small silver +teapot under a satin cozy, a silver cream-jug, a plate of delicate +bread-and-butter, and one of fruit-cake.</p> + +<p>“You will have a cup of tea, will you not, dear?” said +Aunt Camilla.</p> + +<p>“If you please; thank you, ma'am,” replied Lucina, +striving to look decorously pleased and not too delighted at the +prospect of the fruit-cake. Tea and bread-and-butter presented small +attractions to her, but she did love old 'Liza's fruit-cake, made +after a famous receipt which had been in the Merritt family for +generations.</p> + +<p>Miss Camilla removed the cozy and began pouring the tea. Lucina +took a napkin, being so bidden, spread it daintily over her lap, and +tucked a corner in her neck. The feast was about to commence, when a +loud, jovial voice was heard in the direction of the house:</p> + +<p>“Camilla! Camilla! Lucina, where are you all?”</p> + +<p>“That's father!” cried Lucina, brightening, and +immediately Squire Eben Merritt came striding down between the +box-ridges, and Jerome Edwards was at his heels.</p> + +<p>“Well, how are you, sister?” Squire Eben cried, +merrily; and in the same breath, “I have brought another guest +to your tea-drinking, sister.”</p> + +<p>Jerome bobbed his head, half with defiant dignity, half in utter +shyness and confusion at the sight of this fine, genteel lady and her +wonderful tea equipage. But Miss Camilla, having welcomed her brother +with gentle warmth, greeted this little poor Jerome with as sweet a +courtesy as if he had been the Governor, and bade Lucina run to the +house and ask 'Liza to fetch two more cups and saucers and two +plates, and motioned both her guests to be seated on the arbor +bench.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben laughed, and glanced at his great mud-splashed boots, +his buckskin, his fishing-tackle, and a fine string of spotted trout +which he bore. “A pretty knight for a lady's bower I am!” +said he.</p> + +<p>“A lady never judges a knight by his outward guise,” +returned Camilla, with soft pleasantry. She adored her brother.</p> + +<p>Eben laughed, deposited his fish and tackle on the bench near the +door, and flung himself down opposite them, at a respectful distance +from his sister's silken flounces, with a sigh of comfort. “I +have had a hard tramp, and would like a cup of your tea,” he +admitted. “I've been lucky, though. 'Twas a fine day for trout, +though I would not have thought it. I will leave you some for your +breakfast, sister; have 'Liza fry them brown in Indian +meal.”</p> + +<p>Then, following Miss Camilla's remonstrating glance, he saw little +Jerome Edwards standing in the arbor door, through which his entrance +was blocked by the Squire's great legs and his fishing-tackle, with +the air of an insulted ambassador who is half minded to return to his +own country.</p> + +<p>The Squire made room for him to pass with a hearty laugh. +“Bless you, my boy!” said he, “I'm barring out the +guest I invited myself, am I? Walk in—walk in and sit +down.”</p> + +<p>Jerome, half melted by the Squire's genial humor, half disposed +still to be stiffly resentful, hesitated a second; but Miss Camilla +also, for the second time, invited him to enter, with her gentle +ceremony, which was the subtlest flattery he had ever known, inasmuch +as it seemed to set him firmly in his own esteem above his poor +estate of boyhood; and he entered, and seated himself in the place +indicated, at his hostess's right hand, near the little +tea-table.</p> + +<p>Jerome, hungry boy as he was, having the spicy richness of that +wonderful fruit-cake in his nostrils, noted even before that the +lavender scent of Miss Camilla's garments, which seemed, like a +subtle fragrance of individuality and life itself, to enter his +thoughts rather than his senses. The boy, drawn within this +atmosphere of virgin superiority and gentleness, felt all his +defiance and antagonism towards his newly discovered pride of life +shame him.</p> + +<p>The great and just bitterness of wrath against all selfish holders +of riches that was beginning to tincture his whole soul was sweetened +for the time by the proximity of this sweet woman in her silks and +laces and jewels. Not reasoning it out in the least, nor recognizing +his own mental attitude, it was to him as if this graceful creature +had been so endowed by God with her rich apparel and fair +surroundings that she was as much beyond question and envy as a lily +of the field. He did not even raise his eyes to her face, but sat at +her side, at once elevated and subdued by her gentle politeness and +condescension. When Lucina returned, and 'Liza followed with the +extra cups and plates, and the tea began, he accepted what was +proffered him, and ate and drank with manners as mild and grateful as +Lucina's. She could scarcely taste the full savor of her fruit-cake, +after all, so occupied she was in furtively watching this strange +boy. Her blue eyes were big with surprise. Why should he take Aunt +Camilla's cake, and even her bread-and-butter, when he would not +touch the gingerbread she had offered him, nor the money to buy +shoes? This young Lucina had yet to learn that the proud soul accepts +from courtesy what it will not take from love or pity.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter VIII</h4> + +<p>That day had been one of those surprises of life which ever dwell +with one. Jerome in it had discovered not only a new self, but new +ways. He had struck paths at right angles to all he had followed +before. They might finally verge into the old again, but for that day +he saw strange prospects. Not the least strange of them was this +tea-drinking with the Squire and the Squire's sister and the Squire's +daughter in the arbor. He found it harder to reconcile that with his +past and himself than anything else. So bewildered was he, drinking +tea and eating cake, with the spread of Miss Camilla's lilac flounces +brushing his knee, and her soft voice now and then in his ear, that +he strove to remember how he happened to be there at all, and that +shock of strangeness which obliterates the past wellnigh paralyzed +his memory.</p> + +<p>Yet it had been simple enough, as paths to strange conclusions +always are. He had returned home from Squire Eben's that morning, +changed his clothes, and resumed his work in the garden.</p> + +<p>Elmira had questioned him, but he gave her no information. He had +an instinct, which had been born in him, of secrecy towards +womankind. Nobody had ever told him that women were not trustworthy +with respect to confidences; he had never found it so from +observation; he simply agreed within himself that he had better not +confide any but fully matured plans, and no plans which should be +kept secret, to a woman. He had, however, besides this caution, a +generous resolution not to worry Elmira or his mother about it until +he knew. “Wait till I find out; I don't know myself,” he +told Elmira.</p> + +<p>“Don't you know where you've been? You can tell us +that,” she persisted, in her sweet, querulous treble. She +pulled at his jacket sleeve with her little thin, coaxing hand, but +Jerome was obdurate. He twitched his jacket sleeve away.</p> + +<p>“I sha'n't tell you one thing, and there is no use in your +teasin',” he said, peremptorily, and she yielded.</p> + +<p>Elmira reported that their mother was sitting still in her +rocking-chair, with her head leaning back and her eyes shut. +“She seems all beat out,” she said, pitifully; “she +don't tell me to do a thing.”</p> + +<p>The two tiptoed across the entry and stood in the kitchen door, +looking at poor Ann. She sat quite still, as Elmira had said, her +head tipped back, her eyes closed, and her mouth slightly parted. Her +little bony hands lay in her lap, with the fingers limp in utter +nerveless relaxation, but she was not asleep. She opened her eyes +when her children came to the door, but she did not speak nor turn +her head. Presently her eyes closed again.</p> + +<p>Jerome pulled Elmira back into the parlor. “You must go +ahead and get the dinner, and make her some gruel, and not ask her a +question, and not bother her about anything,” he whispered, +sternly. “She's resting; she'll die if she don't. It's awful +for her. It's bad 'nough for us, but we don't know what 'tis for +her.”</p> + +<p>Elmira assented, with wide, scared, piteous eyes on her +brother.</p> + +<p>“Go now and get the dinner,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“There's lots left over from yesterday,” said Elmira, +forlornly. “Shall we have anything after that's +gone?”</p> + +<p>“Have enough while I've got two hands,” returned +Jerome, gruffly. “Get some potatoes and boil 'em, and have some +of that cold meat, and make mother the gruel.”</p> + +<p>Elmira obeyed, finding a certain comfort in that. Indeed, she +belonged assuredly to that purely feminine order of things which +gains perhaps its best strength through obedience. Give Elmira a +power over her, and she would never quite fall.</p> + +<p>Elmira went about getting dinner, tiptoeing around her mother, who +still sat sunken in her strange apathy of melancholy or exhaustion, +it was difficult to tell which, while Jerome spaded and dug in the +garden, in the fury of zeal which he had inherited from her.</p> + +<p>Elmira had dinner ready early, and called Jerome. When he went in +he found her trying to induce her mother to swallow a bowl of gruel. +“Won't you take it, mother?” she was pleading, with tears +in her eyes; but her mother only lifted one hand feebly and motioned +it away; she would not raise her head or open her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Give me that bowl,” said Jerome. He held it before +his mother, and slipped one hand behind her neck, constraining her +gently to raise her head. “Here, mother,” said he, +“here's your gruel.”</p> + +<p>She resisted faintly, and shook her weak, repelling hand again. +“Sit up, mother, and drink your gruel,” said Jerome, and +his mother's eyes flew wide open at that, and stared up in his face +with eager inquiry; for again she had that wild surmise that her lost +husband spoke to her.</p> + +<p>“Drink it, mother,” said Jerome, again meeting her +half-delirious gaze fully; and Ann seemed to see his father looking +at her from his son's eyes, through his immortality after the flesh. +She raised herself at once, held out her trembling hands for the +bowl, and drank the gruel to the last drop. Then she gave the empty +bowl to Jerome, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes again.</p> + +<p>After dinner Jerome changed his clothes for his poor best for the +second time, and set forth to Doctor Prescott's. Elmira's wistful +eyes followed him as he went out, but he said not a word. He threw +back his shoulders and stepped out with as much boldness of carriage +as ever.</p> + +<p>“How smart he is!” Elmira thought, watching him from +the window.</p> + +<p>However, it was true that his heart quaked within him, supported +as he was by the advice and encouragement of Squire Merritt. Doctor +Prescott had been the awe and the terror of all his childhood. Nobody +knew how in his childish illnesses—luckily not many—he +had dreaded and resented the advent of this great man, who +represented to him absolute monarchy, if not despotism. He never +demurred at his noxious doses, but swallowed them at a gulp, with no +sweet after-morsel as an inducement, yet, strangely enough, never +from actual submissiveness, but rather from that fierce scorn and +pride of utter helplessness which can maintain a certain defiance to +authority by depriving it of that victory which comes only from +opposition.</p> + +<p>Jerome swallowed castor-oil, rhubarb, and the rest with a glare of +fierce eyes over spoon and a triumphant understanding with himself +that he took it because he chose, and not because the doctor made +him. It was odd, but Doctor Prescott seemed to have some intuition of +the boy's mental attitude, for, in spite of his ready obedience, he +had always a singular aversion to him. He was much more amenable to +pretty little Elmira, who cried pitifully whenever he entered the +house, and had always to be coaxed and threatened to make her take +medicine at all. No one would have said, and Doctor Prescott himself +would not have believed, that he, in his superior estate of age and +life, would have stooped to dislike a child like that, thus putting +him upon a certain equality of antagonism; but in truth he did. +Doctor Prescott scarcely ever knew one boy from another when he met +him upon the street, but Jerome Edwards he never mistook, though he +never stirred his stately head in response to the boy's humble bob of +courtesy. Once, after so meeting and passing the boy, he heard an +audacious note of defiance at his back, with a preliminary sniff of +scorn: “Hm! wonder if he thinks he was born grown up, with +money in his pockets; wonder if he thinks he owns this whole +town?” The doctor never turned to resent this sarcastic +soliloquy whereby the boy's suppressed democracy asserted itself, but +the next time he saw Jerome's father he told him he had better look +to his son's manners, and Jerome had been called to account.</p> + +<p>However, when he had repeated his speech which had given offence, +he had only been charged to keep his thoughts to himself in future. +“I'll think 'em, anyhow,” said Jerome, with unabated +defiance.</p> + +<p>“You'll pay proper respect to your elders,” said his +father.</p> + +<p>“You'll think what we tell you to,” said his mother, +but the eyes of the two met. Doctor Prescott might hold the mortgage +and exact his pound of flesh, these poor backs might bend to the +yoke, but there was no cringing in the hearts of Abel Edwards and his +wife. It was easy to see where Jerome got his spirit.</p> + +<p>However, spirit needs long experience and great strength to assert +itself fully at all times before long-recognized power. Jerome, going +up the road to Doctor Prescott's, felt rather a fierce submission and +obligatory humility than defiance. He felt as if this great man held +not only himself, but his mother and sister, their lives and +fortunes, at his disposal. Awe of the reigning sovereign was upon +him, but it was the surly awe of the peasant whose mouth is stopped +by force from questions.</p> + +<p>It was not long before Jerome, going along the country road, came +to the beginning of Doctor Prescott's estate. He owned long stretches +of fields along the main street of the village, comprising many fine +house-lots, which, however, people were too poor to buy. Doctor +Prescott fixed such high prices to his house-lots that no one could +pay them. However, people thought he did not care to sell. He liked +being a large land-owner, like an English lord, and feeling that he +owned half the village, they said.</p> + +<p>Moreover, his acres brought him a fair income. They were sowed to +clover and timothy, and barley and corn, and gave such hay and such +crops as no others in town.</p> + +<p>As Jerome passed these fair fields, either golden-green with the +young grass, or ploughed in even ridges for the new seeds, set with +dandelions like stars, or pierced as to the brown mould with emerald +spears of grain, he scowled at them, and his mouth puckered grimly +and piteously. He thought of all this land which Doctor Prescott +owned; he thought of the one poor little bit of soil which he was +going to offer him, to keep a roof over his head. Why should this man +have all this, and he and his so little? Was it because he was +better? Jerome shook his head vehemently. Was it because the Lord +loved him better? Jerome looked up in the blue spring sky. The +problem of the rights of the soil of the old earth was upon the boy, +but he could not solve it—only scowl and grieve over it.</p> + +<p>Past the length of the shining fields, well back from the road, +with a fine curve of avenue between lofty pine-trees leading up to +it, stood Doctor Prescott's house. It was much the finest one in the +village, massively built of gray stone in large irregular blocks, +veined at the junctions with white stucco; a great white pillared +piazza stretched across the front, and three flights of stone steps +led over smooth terraces to it; for it was raised on an artificial +elevation above the road-level. Jerome, having passed the last field, +reached the avenue leading to the doctor's house, and stopped a +moment. His hands and feet were cold; there was a nervous trembling +all over his little body. He remembered how once, when he was much +younger, his mother had sent him to the doctor's to have a tooth +pulled, how he stood there trembling and hesitating as now, and how +he finally took matters into his own hands. A thrill of triumph shot +over him even then, as he recalled that mad race of his away up the +road, on and on until he came to the woods, and the tying of the +offending tooth to an oak-tree by a stout cord, and the agonized but +undaunted pulling thereat until his object was gained.</p> + +<p>“I'd 'nough sight rather go to an oak-tree to have my tooth +out than to Doctor Prescott,” he had said, stoutly, being +questioned on his return; and his father and mother, being rather +taken at a loss by such defiance and disobedience, scarcely knew +whether to praise or blame.</p> + +<p>But there was no oak-tree for this strait. Jerome, after a minute +of that blind groping and feeling, as of the whole body and soul, +with which one strives to find some other way to an end than a hard +and repugnant one, gave it up. He went up the avenue, holding his +head up, digging his toes into the pine-needles, with an air of +stubborn boyish bravado, yet all the time the nervous trembling never +ceased. However, half-way up the avenue he came into one of those +warmer currents which sometimes linger so mysteriously among trees, +seeming like a pool of air submerging one as visibly as water. This +warm-air bath was, moreover, sweetened with the utmost breath of the +pine woods. Jerome, plunging into it, felt all at once a certain +sense of courage and relief, as if he had a bidding and a welcome +from old friends.</p> + +<p>There are times when a quick conviction, from something like a +special favor or caress of the great motherhood of nature, which +makes us all as child to child, comes over one. “His pine-trees +ain't any different from other folks' pine-trees,” flashed +through Jerome's mind.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter IX</h4> + +<p>He went on straight round the house to the south-side door, +whither everybody went to consult the doctor. He knocked, and in a +moment the door opened, and a young girl with weak blue eyes, with a +helpless droop of the chin, and mouth half opened in a silly smile, +looked out at him. She was a girl whom Doctor Prescott had taken from +the almshouse to assist in the lighter household duties. She was +considered rather weak in her intellect, though she did her work well +enough when she had once learned how.</p> + +<p>Jerome bent his head with a sudden stiff duck to this girl. +“Is Doctor Prescott at home?” he inquired.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” replied the girl, with the same respectful +courtesy and ceremony with which she might have greeted the Squire or +any town magnate, instead of this poor little boy. Her mind was +utterly incapable of the faculties of selection and discrimination. +She applied one formula, unmodified, to all mankind.</p> + +<p>“Can I see him a minute?” asked Jerome, gruffly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir. Will you walk in?”</p> + +<p>The girl, moving with a weak, shuffling toddle, like a child, led +Jerome through the length of the entry to a great room on the north +side of the house, which was the doctor's study and office. Two large +cupboards, whose doors were set with glass in diamond panes in the +upper panels, held his drugs and nostrums. Books, mostly ponderous +volumes in rusty leather, lined the rest of the wall space. When +Jerome entered the room the combined odor of those leather-bound +folios and the doctor's drugs smote his nostrils, as from a curious +brewing of theoretical and applied wisdom in one pot.</p> + +<p>“Take a seat,” said the girl, “and I will speak +to the doctor.” Then she went out, with the vain, pleased +simper of a child who has said her lesson well.</p> + +<p>Jerome sat down and looked about him. He had been in the room +several times before, but his awe of it preserved its first +strangeness for him. He eyed the books on the walls, then the great +bottles visible through the glass doors on the cupboard shelves. +Those bottles were mostly of a cloudy green or brown, but one among +them caught the light and shone as if filled with liquid rubies. That +was valerian, but Jerome did not know it; he only thought it must be +a very strong medicine to have such a bright color. He also thought +that the doctor must have mixed all those medicines from rules in +those great books, and a sudden feverish desire to look into them +seized him. However, neither his pride nor his timidity would have +allowed him to touch one of those books, even if he had not expected +the doctor to enter every moment.</p> + +<p>He waited quite a little time, however. He could hear the far-off +tinkle of silver and clink of china, and knew the family were at +dinner. “Won't leave his dinner for me,” thought Jerome, +with an unrighteous bitterness of humility, recognizing the fact that +he could not expect him to. “Might have planted an hour +longer.”</p> + +<p>Then came a clang of the knocker, and this time the girl ushered +into the study a clamping, red-faced man in a shabby coat. Jerome +recognized him as a young farmer who lived three miles or so out of +the village. He blushed and stumbled, with a kind of grim +awkwardness, even before the simple girl delivering herself of her +formula of welcome. He would not sit down; he stood by the corner of +a medicine-cupboard, settling heavily into his boots, waiting.</p> + +<p>When the girl had gone he looked at Jerome, and gave a vague and +furtive “Hullo!” in simple recognition of his presence, +as it were. He did not know who the boy was, never being easily +certain as to identities of any but old acquaintances—not from +high indifference and dislike, like the doctor, but from dulness of +observation.</p> + +<p>Jerome nodded in response to the man's salutation. “I can't +ask the doctor before him,” he thought, anxiously.</p> + +<p>The man rested heavily, first on one leg, then on the other. +“Been waitin' long?” he grunted, finally.</p> + +<p>“Quite a while.”</p> + +<p>“Hope my horse 'll stan',” said the man; “headed +towards home, an' load off.”</p> + +<p>“The doctor can tend to you first,” Jerome said, +eagerly.</p> + +<p>The man gave a nod of assent. Thanks, as elegancies of social +intercourse, were alarming, and savored of affectation, to him. He +had thanked the Lord, from his heart, for all his known and unknown +gifts, but his gratitude towards his fellow-men had never overcome +his bashful self-consciousness and found voice.</p> + +<p>Often in prayer-meeting Jerome had heard this man's fervent +outpouring of the religious faith which seemed the only intelligence +of his soul, and, like all single and concentrated powers, had a +certain force of persuasion. Jerome eyed him now with a kind of pious +admiration and respect, and yet with recollections.</p> + +<p>“If I were a man, I'd stop colorin' up and actin' +scared,” thought the boy; and then they both heard a door open +and shut, and knew the doctor was coming.</p> + +<p>Jerome's heart beat hard, yet he looked quite boldly at the door. +Somehow the young farmer's clumsy embarrassment had roused his own +pride and courage. When the doctor entered, he stood up with alacrity +and made his manners, and the young farmer settled to another foot, +with a hoarse note of greeting.</p> + +<p>The doctor said good-day, with formal courtesy, with his fine, +keen face turned seemingly upon both of them impartially; then he +addressed the young man.</p> + +<p>“How is your wife to-day?” he inquired.</p> + +<p>The young man turned purple, where he had been red, at this direct +address. “She's pretty—comfortable,” he +stammered.</p> + +<p>“Is she out of medicine?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir. That's what I come for.” With that the +young man pulled, with distressed fumblings and jerks, a bottle from +his pocket, which he handed to the doctor, who had in the meantime +opened the door of one of the cupboards.</p> + +<p>The doctor took a large bottle from the cupboard, and filled from +that the one which the young man had brought. Jerome stood trembling, +watching the careful gurgling of a speckled green liquid from one +bottle to another. A strange new odor filled the room, overpowering +all the others.</p> + +<p>When the doctor gave the bottle to the young man, he shoved it +carefully away in his pocket again, and then stood coloring more +deeply and hesitating.</p> + +<p>“Can ye take your pay in wood for this and the last two +lots?” he murmured at length, so low that Jerome scarcely heard +him.</p> + +<p>But the doctor never lowered nor raised his incisive, high-bred +voice for any man. His reply left no doubt of the question. +“No, Mr. Upham,” said Doctor Prescott. “You must +pay me in money for medicine. I have enough wood of my +own.”</p> + +<p>“I know ye have—consider'ble,” responded the +young man, in an agony, “but—”</p> + +<p>“I would like the money as soon as convenient,” said +the doctor.</p> + +<p>“I'm—havin'—dreadful—hard work to +get—any money myself—lately,” persisted the young +man. “Folks—they promise, but—they don't pay, +an'—”</p> + +<p>“Never give or take promises long enough to calculate +interest,” interposed Doctor Prescott, with stern pleasantry; +“that's my rule, young man, and it's the one I expect others to +follow in their business dealings with me. Don't give and don't take; +then you'll make your way in life.”</p> + +<p>Ozias Lamb had said once, in Jerome's hearing, that all the +medicine that Doctor Prescott ever gave to folks for nothing was good +advice, and he didn't know but then he sent the bill in to the +Almighty. Jerome, who had taken this in, with a sharp wink of +appreciation, in spite of his mother's promptly sending him out of +the room, thinking that such talk savored of irreverence, and was not +fit for youthful ears, remembered it now, as he heard Doctor Prescott +admonishing poor John Upham.</p> + +<p>“Know ye've got consider'ble,” mumbled John Upham, who +had rough lands enough for a village, but scarce two shillings in +pocket, and a delicate young wife and three babies; +“but—thought ye hadn't—no old apple-tree +wood—old apple-tree wood—well seasoned—jest the +thing for the parlor hearth—didn't know but—”</p> + +<p>“I should like the money next week,” said the doctor, +as if he had not heard a word of poor John's entreaty.</p> + +<p>The young man shook his head miserably. “Dun'no' as I +can—nohow.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said the doctor, looking at him calmly, +“I'm willing to take a little land for the medicine and that +last winter's bill, when Johnny had the measles.”</p> + +<p>Then this poor John Upham, uncouth, and scarcely quicker-witted +than one of his own oxen, but as faithful, and living up wholly to +his humble lights, turned pale through his blushes, and stared at the +doctor as if he could not have heard aright. “Take—my +land?” he faltered.</p> + +<p>Doctor Prescott never smiled with his eyes, but only with a +symmetrical curving and lengthening of his finely cut, thin lips. He +smiled so then. “Yes, I am willing to take some land for the +debt, since you have not the money,” said he.</p> + +<p>“But—that was—father's land.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and your father was a good, thrifty man. He did not +waste his substance.”</p> + +<p>“It was grandfather's, too.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it was, I believe.”</p> + +<p>“It has always been in our—family. It's the +Upham—land. I can't part with it nohow.”</p> + +<p>“I will take the money, then,” said Doctor +Prescott.</p> + +<p>“I'll raise it just as soon as I can, doctor,” cried +John Upham, eagerly. “I've got a man's note for twenty dollars +comin' due in three months; he's sure to pay. An'—there's some +cedar ordered, an'—”</p> + +<p>“I must have it next week,” said the doctor, +“or—” He paused. “I shall dislike to proceed +to extreme measures,” he added.</p> + +<p>Then John Upham, aroused to boldness by desperation, as the very +oxen will sometimes run in madness if the goad be sharp enough, told +Doctor Prescott to his face, with scarce a stumble in his speech, +that he owned half the town now; that his land was much more valuable +than his, which was mostly swampy woodland and pasture-lands, +bringing in scarcely enough income to feed and clothe his family.</p> + +<p>“Sha'n't have 'nough to live on if I let any on't go,” +said John Upham, “an' you've got more land as 'tis than any +other man in town.”</p> + +<p>Doctor Prescott did not raise or quicken his clear voice; his eyes +did not flash, but they gave out a hard light. John Upham was like a +giant before this little, neat, wiry figure, which had such a majesty +of port that it seemed to throw its own shadow over him.</p> + +<p>“We are not discussing the extent of my possessions,” +said Doctor Prescott, “but the extent of your debts.” He +moved aside, as if to clear the passage to the door, turning slightly +at the same time towards his other caller, who was cold with +indignation upon John Upham's account and terror upon his own.</p> + +<p>Half minded he was, when John Upham went out, with his clamping, +clumsy tread, with his honest head cast down, and no more words in +his mouth for the doctor's last smoothly scathing remark, to follow +him at a bound and ask nothing for himself; but he stood still and +watched him go.</p> + +<p>When John Upham had opened the door and was passing through, the +doctor pursued him with yet one more bit of late advice. “It is +poor judgment,” said Doctor Prescott, “for a young man to +marry and bring children into the world until he has property enough +to support them without running into debt. You would have done better +had you waited, Mr. Upham. It is what I always tell young +men.”</p> + +<p>Then John Upham turned with the last turn of the trodden worm. +“My wife and my children are my own!” he cried out, with +a great roar. “It's between me and my Maker, my having 'em, and +I'll answer to no man for it!” With that he was gone, and the +door shut hard after him.</p> + +<p>Then Doctor Prescott, no whit disturbed, turned to Jerome and +looked at him. Jerome made his manners again. “You are the +Edwards boy, aren't you?” said the doctor.</p> + +<p>Jerome humbly acknowledged his identity.</p> + +<p>“What do you want? Has your mother sent you on an +errand?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Well, what is it, then?”</p> + +<p>“Please, sir, may I speak to you a minute?”</p> + +<p>“Speak to me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>Doctor Prescott wore a massive gold watch-chain festooned across +his fine black satin vest. He pulled out before the boy's wondering +and perplexed eyes the great gold timepiece attached to it and looked +at it. “You must be quick,” said he. “I have to go +in five minutes. I will give you five minutes by my watch. +Begin.”</p> + +<p>But poor little Jerome, thus driven with such a hard check-rein of +time, paled and reddened and trembled, and could find no words.</p> + +<p>“One minute is gone,” said the doctor, looking over +the open face of his watch at Jerome. Something in his glance spurred +on the frightened boy by arousing a flash of resentment.</p> + +<p>Jerome, standing straight before the doctor, with a little +twitching hand hanging at each side, with his color coming and going, +and pulses which could be seen beating hard in his temples and +throat, spoke and delivered himself of that innocently overreaching +scheme which he had propounded to Squire Eben Merritt.</p> + +<p>It seems probable that mental states have their own reflective +powers, which sometimes enable one to suddenly see himself in the +conception of another, to the complete modification of all his own +ideas and opinions. So little Jerome Edwards, even while speaking, +began to see his plan as it looked to Doctor Prescott, and not as it +had hitherto looked to himself. He began to understand and to realize +the flaws in it—that he had asked more of Doctor Prescott than +he would grant. Still, he went on, and the doctor heard him through +without a word.</p> + +<p>“Who put you up to this?” the doctor asked, when he +had finished.</p> + +<p>“Nobody, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Your mother?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Did you ever hear your father propose anything like +this?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Who did? Speak the truth.”</p> + +<p>“I did.”</p> + +<p>“You thought out this plan yourself?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Look at me.”</p> + +<p>Jerome, flushing with angry shame at his own simplicity as +revealed to him by this other, older, superior intellect, yet defiant +still at this attack upon his truth, looked the doctor straight in +his keen eyes.</p> + +<p>“Are you speaking the truth?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>Still the doctor looked at him, and Jerome would not cast his eyes +down, nor, indeed, could. He felt as if his very soul were being +stretched up on tiptoe to the doctor's inspection.</p> + +<p>“Children had better follow the wisdom of their +elders,” said the doctor. He would not even deign to explain to +this boy the absurdity of his scheme.</p> + +<p>He replaced the great gold watch in his pocket. “I will be +in soon, and talk over matters with your mother,” he said, +turning away.</p> + +<p>Jerome gave a gasp. He stumbled forward, as if to fall on his +knees at the doctor's feet.</p> + +<p>“Oh, sir, don't, don't!” he cried out.</p> + +<p>“Don't what?”</p> + +<p>“Don't foreclose the mortgage. It will kill +mother.”</p> + +<p>“You don't know what you are talking about,” said the +doctor, calmly. “Children should not meddle in matters beyond +them. I will settle it with your mother.”</p> + +<p>“Mother's sick!” gasped Jerome. The doctor was moving +with his stately strut to the door. Suddenly the boy, in a great +outburst of boldness, flung himself before this great man of his +childhood and arrested his progress. “Oh, sir, tell me,” +he begged—“tell me what you're going to do!”</p> + +<p>The doctor never knew why he stopped to explain and parley. He was +conscious of no softening towards this boy, who had so repelled him +with his covert rebellion, and had now been guilty of a much greater +offence. An appeal to a goodness which is not in him is to a +sensitive and vain soul a stinging insult. Doctor Prescott could have +administered corporal punishment to this boy, who seemed to him to be +actually poking fun at his dignity, and yet he stopped and +answered:</p> + +<p>“I am going to take your house into my hands,” said +Doctor Prescott, “and your mother can live in it and pay me +rent.”</p> + +<p>“We can't pay rent any better than interest +money.”</p> + +<p>“If you can't pay the rent, I shall be willing to take that +wood-lot of your father's,” said Doctor Prescott. “I will +talk that over with your mother.”</p> + +<p>Jerome looked at him. There was a dreadful expression on his +little boyish face. His very lips were white. “You are goin' to +take our woodland for rents?”</p> + +<p>“If you can't pay them, of course. Your mother ought to be +glad she has it to pay with.”</p> + +<p>“Then we sha'n't have anything.”</p> + +<p>Doctor Prescott endeavored to move on, but Jerome fairly crowded +himself between him and the door, and stood there, his pale face +almost touching his breast, and his black eyes glaring up at him with +a startling nearness as of fire.</p> + +<p>“You are a wicked man,” said the boy, “and some +day God will punish you for it.”</p> + +<p>Then there came a grasp of nervous hands upon his shoulders, like +the clamp of steel, the door was opened before him, and he was pushed +out, and along the entry at arm's-length, and finally made to descend +the south door-steps at a dizzy run. “Go home to your +mother,” ordered Doctor Prescott. Still, he did not raise his +voice, his color had not changed, and he breathed no quicker. Births +and deaths, all natural stresses of life, its occasional tragedies, +and even his own bitter wrath could this small, equally poised man +meet with calm superiority over them and command over himself. Doctor +Seth Prescott never lost his personal dignity—he could not, +since it was so inseparable from his personality. If he chastised his +son, it was with the judicial majesty of a king, and never with a +self-demeaning show of anger. He ate and drank in his own house like +a guest of state at a feast; he drove his fine sorrel in his sulky +like a war-horse in a chariot. Once, when walking to meeting on an +icy day, his feet went from under him, and he sat down suddenly; but +even his fall seemed to have something majestic and solemn and +Scriptural about it. Nobody laughed.</p> + +<p>Doctor Prescott expelling this little boy from his south door had +the impressiveness of a priest of Bible times expelling an interloper +from the door of the Temple. Jerome almost fell when he reached the +ground, but collected himself after a staggering step or two as the +door shut behind him.</p> + +<p>The doctor's sulky was drawn up before the door, and Jake Noyes +stood by the horse's head. The horse sprang aside—he was a +nervous sorrel—when Jerome flew down the steps, and Jake Noyes +reined him up quickly with a sharp “Whoa!”</p> + +<p>As soon as he recovered his firm footing, Jerome started to run +out of the yard; but Jake, holding the sorrel's bridle with one hand, +reached out the other to his collar and brought him to a stand.</p> + +<p>“Hullo!” said he, hushing his voice somewhat and +glancing at the door. “What's to pay?”</p> + +<p>“I told him he was a wicked man, and he didn't like it +because it's true,” replied Jerome, in a loud voice, trying to +pull away.</p> + +<p>“Hush up,” whispered Jake, with a half-whimsical, +half-uneasy nod of his head towards the door; “look out how you +talk. He'll be out and crammin' blue-pills and assafœtidy into +your mouth first thing you know. Don't you go to sassin' of your +betters.”</p> + +<p>“He is a wicked man! I don't care, he is a wicked +man!” cried Jerome, loudly. He glanced defiantly at the house, +then into Jake's face, with a white flash of fury.</p> + +<p>“Hush up, I tell ye,” said Jake. “He'll be +a-pourin' of castor-ile down your throat out of a quart measure, +arter the blue-pills and the assafœtidy.”</p> + +<p>“I'd like to see him! He is a wicked man. Let me +go!”</p> + +<p>“Don't you go to callin' names that nobody but the Almighty +has any right to fasten on to folks.”</p> + +<p>“Let me go!” Jerome wriggled under the man's +detaining grasp, as wirily instinct with nerves as a cat; he kicked +out viciously at his shins.</p> + +<p>“Lord! I'd as lief try to hold a catamount,” cried +Jake Noyes, laughing, and released him, and Jerome raced out of the +yard.</p> + +<p>It was then about two o'clock. He should have gone home to his +planting, but his childish patience was all gone. Poor little Jack +had been worsted by the giant, and his bean-garden might as well be +neglected. Human strength may endure heavy disappointments and +calamities with heroism, but it requires superhuman power to hold +one's hand to the grindstone of petty duties and details of life in +the midst of them. Jerome had faced his rebuff without a whimper, and +with a great stand of spirit, but now he could not go home and work +in the garden, and tie his fiery revolt to the earth with spade and +hoe. He ran on up the road, until he passed the village and came to +his woodland. He followed the cart path through it, until he was near +the boundary wall; then he threw himself down in the midst of some +young brakes and little wild green things, and presently fell to +weeping, with loud sobs, like a baby.</p> + +<p>All day he had been strained up to an artificial height of +manhood; now he had come down again to his helpless estate of +boyhood. In the solitude of the woods there is no mocking, and no +despite for helplessness and grief. The trees raising their heads in +a great host athwart the sky, the tender plants beneath gathering +into their old places with tumultuous silence, put to shame no outcry +of any suffering heart of bird or beast or man. To these unpruned and +mother-fastnesses of the earth belonged at first the wailing infancy +of all life, and even now a vague memory of it is left, like the +organ of a lost sense, in the heart oppressed by the grief of the +grown world.</p> + +<p>The boy unknowingly had fled to his first mother, who had soothed +his old sorrow in his heart before he had come into the consciousness +of it. Had Doctor Prescott at any minute surprised him, he would have +faced him again, with no sign of weakening; but he lay there, curled +up among the brakes as in a green nest, with his face against the +earth, and her breath of aromatic moisture in his nostrils, and +sobbed and wept until he fell asleep.</p> + +<p>He had slept an hour and a half, when he wakened suddenly, with a +clear “Hello!” in his ears. He opened his eyes and looked +up, dazed, into Squire Eben Merritt's great blond face.</p> + +<p>“Hullo!” said Squire Eben again. “I thought it +was a woodchuck, and instead of that it's a boy. What are you doing +here, sir?”</p> + +<p>Jerome raised himself falteringly. He felt weak, and the confused +misery of readjusting the load of grief under which one has fallen +asleep was upon him. “Guess I fell asleep,” he +stammered.</p> + +<p>“Guess you'd better not fall asleep in such a damp hole as +this,” said the Squire, “or the rheumatism will catch +your young bones. Why aren't you home planting, sir? I thought you +were a smart boy.”</p> + +<p>“He'll get it all; there ain't any use!” said Jerome, +with pitiful doggedness, standing ankle-deep in brakes before the +Squire. He rubbed his eyes, heavy with sleep and tears, and raised +them, dull still, into the Squire's face.</p> + +<p>“Who do you mean by he? Dr. Prescott?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Then he didn't approve of your plan?”</p> + +<p>“He's going to take our house, and let us live in it and pay +rent, and if we can't pay he's going to take our wood-lot +here—” Suddenly Jerome gave a great sob; he flung +himself down wildly. “He sha'n't have it; he sha'n't—he +never shall!” he sobbed, and clutched at the brakes and held +them to his bosom, as if he were indeed holding some dear thing +against an enemy who would wrest it from him.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben Merritt, towering over him, with a long string of +trout at his side, looked at him with a puzzled frown; then he +reached down and pulled him to his feet with a mighty and gentle +jerk. “How old are you, sir?” he demanded. “Thought +you were a man; thought you were going to learn to fire my gun. Guess +you haven't been out of petticoats long enough, after all!”</p> + +<p>Jerome drew his sleeve fiercely across his eyes, and then looked +up at the Squire proudly. “Didn't cry before him,” said +he.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben laughed, and gave his back a hard pat. “I guess +you'll do, after all,” said he. “So you didn't have much +luck with the doctor?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Well, don't you fret. I'll see what can be done. I'll see +him to-night myself.”</p> + +<p>Jerome looked up in his face, like one who scarcely dares to +believe in offered comfort.</p> + +<p>The Squire nodded kindly at him. “You leave it all to +me,” said he; “don't you worry.”</p> + +<p>Jerome belonged to a family in which there had been little +demonstration of devotion and affection. His parents never caressed +their children; he and his sister had scarcely kissed each other +since their infancy. No matter how fervid their hearts might be, they +had also a rigidity, as of paralyzed muscles, which forbade much +expression as a shame and an affectation. Jerome had this tendency of +the New England character from inheritance and training; but now, in +spite of it, he fell down before Squire Eben Merritt, embraced his +knees, and kissed his very feet in their great boots, and then his +hand.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben laughed, pulled the boy to his feet again, and bade +him again to cheer up and not to fret. The same impulse of kindly +protection which led him to spare the lives and limbs of old trees +was over him now towards this weak human plant.</p> + +<p>“Come along with me,” said Squire Eben, and forthwith +Jerome had followed him out of the woods into the road, and down it +until they reached his sister's, Miss Camilla Merritt's, house, not +far from Doctor Prescott's. There Squire Eben was about to part with +Jerome, with more words of reassurance, when suddenly he remembered +that his sister needed such a boy to weed her flower-beds, and had +spoken to him about procuring one for her. So he had bidden Jerome +follow him; and the boy, who would at that moment have gone over a +precipice after him, went to Miss Camilla's tea-drinking in her +arbor.</p> + +<p>When he went home, in an hour's time, he was engaged to weed Miss +Camilla's flower-garden all summer, at two shillings per week, and it +was understood that his sister could weed as well as he when his +home-work prevented his coming.</p> + +<p>In early youth exaltation of spirit requires but slight causes; +only a soft puff of a favoring wind will send up one like a kite into +the ether. Jerome, with the prospect of two shillings per week, and +that great, kindly strength of the Squire's underlying his weakness, +went home as if he had wings on his feet.</p> + +<p>“See that boy of poor Abel Edwards's dancin' along, when his +father ain't been dead a week!” one woman at her window said to +another.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter X</h4> + +<p>Squire Eben Merritt had three boon companions—the village +lawyer, Eliphalet Means; a certain John Jennings, the last of one of +the village old families, a bachelor of some fifty odd, who had +wasted his health and patrimony in riotous living, and had now +settled down to prudence and moderation, if not repentance, in the +home of his ancestors; and one Colonel Jack Lamson, also considered +somewhat of a rake, who had possibly tendered his resignation rather +than his reformation, and that perforce. Colonel Lamson also hailed +originally from a good old stock of this village and county. He had +gone to the wars for his country, and retired at fifty-eight with a +limp in his right leg and a cane. Colonel Lamson, being a +much-removed cousin of the lawyer's, kept bachelors' hall with him in +a comfortable and untidy old mansion at the other end of the town, +across the brook.</p> + +<p>Many nights of a week these four met for an evening of whist or +bezique, to the scandal of the steady-going folk of the town, who +approved not of cards, and opined that the Squire's poor wife must +feel bad enough to have such carousings at her house. But the +Squire's wife, who had in herself a rare understanding among women of +masculine good-fellowship, had sometimes, if the truth had been told, +taken an ailing member's hand at cards when their orgies convened at +the Squire's. John Jennings, being somewhat afflicted with rheumatic +gout, was occasionally missing. Then did Abigail Merritt take his +place, and play with the sober concentration of a man and the quick +wit of a woman. Colonel Jack Lamson, whose partner she was, privately +preferred her to John Jennings, whose overtaxed mental powers +sometimes failed him in the memory of the cards; but being as +intensely loyal to his friends as to his country, he never spoke to +that effect. He only, when the little, trim, black-haired woman made +a brilliant stroke of <i>finesse</i>, with a quick flash of her +bright eyes and wise compression of lips, smiled privately, as if to +himself, with face bent upon his hand.</p> + +<p>Whether Abigail Merritt played cards or not, she always brewed a +great bowl of punch, as no one but she knew how to do, and set it out +for the delectation of her husband and his friends. The receipt for +this punch—one which had been long stored in the culinary +archives of the Merritt family, with the poundcake and other rich and +toothsome compounds—had often, upon entreaty, been confided to +other ambitious matrons, but to no purpose. Let them spice and flavor +and add measures of fine strong liquors as they would, their punch +had not that perfect harmony of results, which effaces detail, of +Abigail Merritt's.</p> + +<p>“By George!” Colonel Jack Lamson was wont to say, when +his first jorum had trickled down his experienced +throat—“By George! I thought I had drunk punch. There was +a time when I thought I could mix a bowl of punch myself, but this is +<em>punch</em>.”</p> + +<p>Then John Jennings, holding his empty glass, would speak: +“All we could taste in that last punch that Belinda Armstrong +made at my house was lemon; and the time before that, allspice; and +the time before that, raw rum.” John Jennings's voice, +somewhat hoarse, was yet full of sweet melancholy cadences; there was +sentiment and pathos in his “lemon” and +“allspice,” which waxed almost tearful in his “raw +rum.” His worn, high-bred face was as instinct with gentle +melancholy as his voice, yet his sunken black eyes sparkled with the +light of youth as the fine aromatic fire of the punch penetrated his +veins.</p> + +<p>As for the lawyer, who was the eldest of the four, long, brown, +toughly and dryly pliant as an old blade of marsh-grass, he showed in +speech, look, nor manner no sign of enthusiasm, but he drank the +punch.</p> + +<p>That evening, after Jerome Edwards had run home with his prospects +of two shillings a week and Squire Eben Merritt's assistance, the +friends met at the Squire's house. At eight o'clock they came +marching down the road, the three of them—John Jennings in fine +old broadcloth and a silk hat, with a weak stoop in his shoulders, +and a languid shakiness in his long limbs; the lawyer striding nimbly +as a grasshopper, with the utter unconsciousness of one who pursues +only the ultimate ends of life; and the colonel, halting on his right +knee, and recovering himself stiffly with his cane, holding his +shoulders back, breathing a little heavily, his neck puffing over his +high stock, his face a purplish-red about his white mustache and +close-cropped beard.</p> + +<p>The Squire's wife had the punch-bowl all ready in the south room, +where the parties were held. Some pipes were laid out there too, and +a great jar of fine tobacco, and the cards were on the mahogany +card-table—four packs for bezique. Abigail herself opened the +door, admitted the guests, and ushered them into the south room. +Colonel Lamson said something about the aroma of the punch; and John +Jennings, in his sweet, melancholy voice, something gallant about the +fair hands that mixed it; but Eliphalet Means moved unobtrusively +across the room and dipped out for himself a glass of the beverage, +and wasted not his approval in empty words.</p> + +<p>The Squire came in shortly and greeted his guests, but he had his +hat in his hand.</p> + +<p>“I have to go out on business,” he announced. “I +shall not be long. Mrs. Merritt will have to take my +place.”</p> + +<p>Abigail looked at him in surprise. But she was a most discreet +wife. She never asked a question, though she wondered why her husband +had not spoken of this before. The truth was he had forgotten his +card-party when he had made his promise to Jerome, and then he had +forgotten his promise to Jerome in thinking of his card-party, and +little Lucina on her way to bed had just brought it to mind by asking +when he was going. She had heard the promise, and had not +forgotten.</p> + +<p>“By the Lord Harry!” said the Squire, for he heard his +friends down-stairs. Then, when Lucina looked at him with innocent +wonder, he said, hurriedly, “Now, Pretty—I am going +now,” and went down to excuse himself to his guests.</p> + +<p>Eliphalet Means, whose partner Abigail had become by this +deflection, nodded, and seated himself at once in his place at table, +the pleasant titillation of the punch in his veins and approval in +his heart. He considered Abigail a better player than her husband, +and began to meditate proposing a small stake that evening.</p> + +<p>The Squire, setting forth on his errand to Doctor Prescott, +striding heavily through the sweet dampness of the spring night, +experienced a curious combination of amusement, satisfaction, and +indignation with himself. “I'm a fool!” he declared, with +more vehemence than he would have declared four aces in bezique; and +then he cursed his folly, and told himself that if he kept on he +would leave Abigail and the child without a penny. But then, after +all, he realized that singularly warm glow of self-approval for a +good deed which at once comforts and irradiates the heart in spite of +all worldly prudence and wisdom.</p> + +<p>That night the air was very heavy with moisture, which seemed to +hold all the spring odors of newly turned earth, young grass, and +blossoms in solution. Squire Eben moved through it as through a +scented flood in which respiration was possible. Over all the fields +was a pale mist, waving and eddying in such impalpable air currents +that it seemed to have a sentient life of its own. These soft rises +and lapses of the mist on the fields might seemingly have been due to +the efforts of prostrate shadows to gather themselves into form. +Beyond the fields, against the hills and woods and clear horizon, +pale fogs arose with motions as of arms and garments and streaming +locks. The blossoming trees stood out suddenly beside one with a +white surprise rather felt than seen. The young moon and the stars +shone dimly with scattering rays, and the lights in the house windows +were veiled. The earth and sky and all the familiar features of the +village had that effect of mystery and unreality which some +conditions of the atmosphere bring to pass.</p> + +<p>A strangely keen sense of the unstability of all earthly things, +of the shadows of the tomb, of the dreamy half-light of the world, +came over Eben Merritt, and his generous impulse seemed suddenly the +only lantern to light his wavering feet. “I'll do what I can +for the poor little chap, come what will,” he muttered, and +strode on to Doctor Prescott's house.</p> + +<p>Just before he reached it a horse and sulky turned into the yard, +driven rapidly from the other direction. Squire Eben hastened his +steps, and reached the south house door before the doctor entered. He +was just ascending the steps, his medicine-case in hand, when he +heard his name called, and turned around.</p> + +<p>“I want a word with you before you go in, doctor,” +called the Squire, as he came up.</p> + +<p>“Good-evening, Squire Merritt,” returned the doctor, +bowing formally on his vantage-ground of steps, but his voice bespoke +a spiritual as well as material elevation.</p> + +<p>“I would like a word with you,” the Squire said +again.</p> + +<p>“Walk into the house.”</p> + +<p>“No, I won't come in, as long as I've met you. I have +company at home. I haven't much to say—” The Squire +stopped. Jake Noyes was coming from the barn, swinging a lantern; he +waited until he had led the horse away, then continued. “It is +just as well to have no witnesses,” he said, laughing. +“It is about that affair of the Edwards mortgage.”</p> + +<p>“Ah!” said the doctor, with a fencing wariness of +intonation.</p> + +<p>“I would like to inquire what you're going to do about it, +if you have no objection. I have reasons.”</p> + +<p>The doctor gave a keen look at him. His face, as he stood on the +steps, was on a level with the Squire's. “I am going to take +the house, of course,” he said, calmly.</p> + +<p>“It will be a blow to Mrs. Edwards and the boy.”</p> + +<p>“It will be the best thing that could happen to him,” +said the doctor, with the same clear evenness. “That sick woman +and boy are not fit to have the care of a place. I shall own it, and +rent it to them.”</p> + +<p>Heat in controversy is sometimes needful to convince one's self as +well as one's adversary. Doctor Prescott needed no increase of warmth +to further his own arguments, so conclusive they were to his own +mind.</p> + +<p>“For how much, if I may ask? I am interested for certain +reasons.”</p> + +<p>“Seventy dollars. That will amount to the interest money +they pay now and ten dollars over. The extra ten will be much less +than repairs and taxes. They will be gainers.”</p> + +<p>“What will you take for that mortgage?”</p> + +<p>“Take for the mortgage?”</p> + +<p>The Squire nodded.</p> + +<p>The doctor gave another of his keen glances at him. “I don't +know that I want to take anything for it,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Suppose it were made worth your while?”</p> + +<p>“Nobody would be willing to make it enough worth my while to +influence me,” said the doctor. “My price for the +transfer of a good investment is what it is worth to me.”</p> + +<p>“Well, doctor, what is it worth to you?” Squire Eben +said, smiling.</p> + +<p>“Fifteen hundred dollars,” said the doctor.</p> + +<p>The Squire whistled.</p> + +<p>“I am quite aware that the mortgage is for a thousand +only,” the doctor said, and yet without the slightest meaning +of apology, “but I consider when it comes to relinquishing it +that it is worth the additional five hundred. I must be just to +myself. Then, too, Mr. Edwards owed me a half-year's interest. The +fifteen hundred would cover that, of course.”</p> + +<p>“You won't take any less?”</p> + +<p>“Not a dollar.”</p> + +<p>Squire Eben hesitated a second. “You know, I own that strip +of land on the Dale road, on the other side of the brook,” he +said.</p> + +<p>The doctor nodded, still with his eyes keenly intent.</p> + +<p>“There are three good house-lots; that house of the +Edwardses is old and out of repair. You'll have to spend considerable +on it to rent it. My three lots are equal to that one house, and +suppose we exchange. You take that land, and I take the mortgage on +the Edwards place.”</p> + +<p>“Do you know what you are talking about?” Doctor +Prescott said, sharply; for this plain proposition that he overreach +the other aroused him to a show of fairness.</p> + +<p>Squire Merritt laughed. “Oh, I know you'll get the best of +the bargain,” he returned.</p> + +<p>Then the doctor waxed suspicious. This readiness to take the worst +of a bargain while perfectly cognizant of it puzzled him. He wondered +if perchance this easy-going, card-playing, fishing Squire had, after +all, some axe of policy to grind. “What do you expect to make +out of it?” he asked, bluntly.</p> + +<p>“Nothing. I am not even sure that I have any active hope of +a higher rate of interest in the other world for it. I am not as +sound in the doctrines as you, doctor.” Squire Eben laughed, +but the other turned on him sternly.</p> + +<p>“If you are doing this for the sake of Abel Edwards's widow +and her children, you are acting from a mistaken sense of charity, +and showing poor judgment,” said he.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben laughed again. “You made no reply to my +proposition, doctor,” he said.</p> + +<p>“You are in earnest?”</p> + +<p>“I am.”</p> + +<p>“You understand what you are doing?”</p> + +<p>“I certainly do. I am giving you between fifteen and sixteen +hundred dollars' worth of land for a thousand.”</p> + +<p>“There is no merit nor charity in such foolish measures as +this,” said the doctor, half suspicious that there was more +behind this, and not put to shame but aroused to a sense of +superiority by such drivelling idiocy of benevolence.</p> + +<p>“Dare say you're right, doctor,” returned Squire Eben. +“I won't even cheat you out of the approval of Heaven. Will you +meet me at Means's office to-morrow, with the necessary documents for +the transfer? We had better go around to Mrs. Edwards's afterwards +and inform her, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>“I will meet you at Means's office at ten o'clock to-morrow +morning,” said the doctor, shortly. “Good-evening,” +and with that turned on his heel. However, when he had opened the +door he turned again and called curtly and magisterially after Squire +Eben: “I advise you to cultivate a little more business +foresight for the sake of your wife and child,” and Squire Eben +answered back:</p> + +<p>“Thank you—thank you, doctor; guess you're +right,” and then began to whistle like a boy as he went down +the avenue of pines.</p> + +<p>Through lack of remunerative industry, and easy-going habits, his +share of the old Merritt property had dwindled considerably; he had +none too much money to spend at the best, and now he had bartered +away a goodly slice of his paternal acres for no adequate worldly +return. He knew it all, he felt a half-whimsical dismay as he went +home, and yet the meaning which underlies the letter of a good action +was keeping his heart warm.</p> + +<p>When he reached home his wife, who had just finished her game, +slid out gently, and the usual festivities began. Colonel Lamson, +warmed with punch and good-fellowship and tobacco, grew brilliant at +cards, and humorously reminiscent of old jokes between the games; +John Jennings lagged at cards, but flashed out now and then with fine +wit, while his fervently working brain lit up his worn face with the +light of youth. The lawyer, who drank more than the rest, played +better and better, and waxed caustic in speech if crossed. As for the +Squire, his frankness increased even to the risk of self-praise. +Before the evening was over he had told the whole story of little +Jerome, of Doctor Prescott and himself and the Edwards mortgage. The +three friends stared at him with unsorted cards in their hands.</p> + +<p>“You are a damned fool!” cried Eliphalet Means, taking +his pipe from his mouth.</p> + +<p>“No,” cried Jennings, “not a damned fool, but a +rare fool,” and his great black eyes, in their mournful +hollows, flashed affectionately at Squire Eben.</p> + +<p>“And I say he's a damned fool. Men live in this +world,” maintained the lawyer, fiercely.</p> + +<p>“Men's hearts ought to be out of the world if their heads +are in it,” affirmed John Jennings, with a beautiful smile. +“I say he's a rare fool, and I would that all the wise men +could go to school to such a fool and learn wisdom of his +folly.”</p> + +<p>Colonel Jack Lamson, who sat at the Squire's left, removed his +pipe, cleared his throat, and strove to speak in vain. Now he began +with a queer stiffness of his lips, while his purplish-red flush +spread to the roots of his thin bristle of gray hair.</p> + +<p>“It reminds me of a story I heard. No, that is another. It +reminds me—” And then the colonel broke down with a +great sob, and a dash of his sleeve across his eyes, and recovered +himself, and cried out, chokingly, “No, I'll be damned if it +reminds me of anything I've ever seen or heard of, for I've never +seen a man like you, Eben!”</p> + +<p>And with that he slapped his cards to the table, and shook the +Squire's hand, with such a fury of affectionate enthusiasm that some +of his cards fluttered about him to the floor, like a shower of +leaves.</p> + +<p>As for Eliphalet Means, he declared again, with vicious emphasis, +“He's a damned fool!” then rose up, laid his cards on top +of the colonel's scattered hand, went to the punch-bowl and helped +himself to another glass; then, pipe in mouth, went up to Squire +Merritt and gave him a great slap on his back. “You are a +damned fool, my boy!” he cried out, holding his pipe from his +lips and breathing out a great cloud of smoke with the words; +“but the wife and the young one and you shall never want a bite +or a sup, nor a bed nor a board, on account of it, while old 'Liph +Means has a penny in pocket.”</p> + +<p>And with that Eliphalet Means, who was old enough to be the +Squire's father, and loved him as he would have loved a son, went +back to his seat and dealt the cards over.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XI</h4> + +<p>Innocence and ignorance can be as easily hood-winked by kindness +as by contumely.</p> + +<p>This little Jerome, who had leaped, under the spur of necessity, +to an independence of understanding beyond his years, allowed himself +to be quite misled by the Squire as to his attitude in the matter of +the mortgage. In spite of the momentary light reflected from the +doctor's shrewder intelligence which had flashed upon his scheme, the +Squire was able to delude him with a renewed belief in it, after he +had informed him of the transfer of the mortgage-deed, which took +place the next morning.</p> + +<p>“I decided to buy that wood-lot of your father's, as your +mother was willing,” said the Squire; “and as I had not +the money in hand to pay down, I gave my note to your mother for it, +as you proposed the doctor should do, and allowed six per cent. +interest.”</p> + +<p>Jerome looked at him in a bewildered way.</p> + +<p>“Well, what is the matter? Aren't you as willing to take my +note as the doctor's?” asked the Squire.</p> + +<p>“Is it fair?” asked Jerome, hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>“Fair to you?”</p> + +<p>“No; to you.”</p> + +<p>“Of course it is fair enough to me. Why not?”</p> + +<p>“The doctor didn't think it was,” said the boy, +getting more and more bewildered.</p> + +<p>“Why didn't he?”</p> + +<p>“I don't—know—” faltered Jerome; and he +did not, for the glimmer of light which he had got from the doctor's +worldly wisdom had quite failed him. He had seen quite clearly that +it was not fair, but now he could not.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, I dare say it is fairer for me than for +him,” said the Squire, easily. “Probably he had the ready +money; I haven't the ready money; that makes all the difference. +Don't you see it does?”</p> + +<p>“Yes—sir,” replied Jerome, hesitatingly, and +tried to think he saw; but he did not. A mind so young and immature +as his is not unlike the gaseous age of planets, overlaid with great +shifting masses of vapor, which part to disclose dazzling +flame-points and incomparable gleams, then close again. Only time can +accomplish a nearer balance of light in minds and planets.</p> + +<p>Then, too, as the first strain of unwonted demands relaxed a +little through use, Jerome's mental speed, which seemed to have taken +him into manhood at a bound, slackened, and he even fell back +somewhat in his tracks. He was still beyond what he had ever been +before, for one cannot return from growth. He would never be as much +of a child again, but he was more of a child than he had been +yesterday.</p> + +<p>His mother also had been instrumental towards replacing him in his +old ways. Ann, after her day of crushed apathy, aroused herself +somewhat. When the Squire, the lawyer, and Doctor Prescott came the +next morning, she kept them waiting outside while she put on her best +cap. She had a view of the road from her rocking-chair, and when she +saw the three gentlemen advancing with a slow curve of progress +towards her gate, which betokened an entrance, she called sharply to +Elmira, who was washing dishes, “Go into the bedroom and get my +best cap, quick,” at the same time twitching off the one upon +her head.</p> + +<p>When poor little Elmira turned and stared, her pretty face quite +pale, thinking her mother beside herself, she made a fierce, menacing +gesture with her nervous elbow, and spoke again, in a whisper, lest +the approaching guests hear: “Why don't you start? Take this +old cap and get my best one, quick!” And the little girl +scuttled into the bedroom just as the first knock came on the door. +Ann kept the three dignitaries waiting until she adjusted her cap to +her liking, and the knocks had been several times repeated before she +sent the trembling Elmira to admit them and usher them into the best +parlor, whither she followed, hitching herself through the entry in +her chair, and disdainfully refusing all offers of assistance. She +even thrust out an elbow repellingly at the Squire, who had sprung +forward to her aid.</p> + +<p>“No, thank you, sir,” said she; “I don't need +any help; I always go around the house so. I ain't +helpless.”</p> + +<p>Ann, when she had brought her chair to a stand, sat facing the +three callers, each of whose salutations she returned with a curtly +polite bow. She had a desperate sense of being at bay, and that the +hands of all these great men, whose supremacy she acknowledged with +the futile uprearing of any angry woman, were against her. She eyed +the lawyer, Eliphalet Means, with particular distrust. She had always +held all legal proceedings as a species of quagmire to entrap the +innocent and unwary. She watched while the lawyer took some documents +from his bag and laid them on the table. “I won't sign a thing, +nohow,” she avowed to herself, and shut her mouth tight.</p> + +<p>Squire Merritt discovered that besides dealing with his own +scruples he had to overcome his beneficiary's.</p> + +<p>It took a long time to convince Ann that she was not being +overreached and cheated. She seemed absolutely incapable of +understanding the transfer of the mortgage note from Doctor Prescott +to Squire Merritt.</p> + +<p>“I've signed one mortgage,” said she, firmly; “I +put my name under my husband's. I ain't goin' to sign +another.”</p> + +<p>“But nobody wants you to sign anything, Mrs. Edwards. The +mortgage note is simply transferred to Squire Merritt here. We only +want you to understand it,” said Lawyer Means. He had a +curiously impersonal manner of dealing with women, being wont to say +that only a man who expected good sense in womenkind was surprised +when he did not find it.</p> + +<p>“I ain't goin' to put two mortgages on this place,” +said Ann, fronting him with the utter stupidity of obstinacy.</p> + +<p>“Let me explain it to you, Mrs. Edwards,” said +Eliphalet Means, with no impatience. He regarded a woman as so +incontrovertibly a patience-tryer, from the laws of creation, that he +would as soon have waxed impatient with the structural order of +things. He endeavored to explain matters with imperturbable +persistency, but Ann was still unconvinced.</p> + +<p>“I ain't goin' to sign my name to any other mortgage,” +said she.</p> + +<p>Jerome, who had stood listening in the door, slid up to his mother +and touched her arm. “Oh, mother,” he whispered, “I +know all about it—it's all right!”</p> + +<p>Ann gave him a thrust with a little sharp elbow. “What do +you know about it?” she cried. “I'm here to look out for +you and your sister, and take care of what little we've got, an' I'm +goin' to. Go out an' tend to your work.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, mother, do let me stay!”</p> + +<p>“Go right along, I tell you.” And Jerome, who was the +originator of all this, went out helplessly, slighted and indignant. +He did think the Squire might have interceded for him to stay, +knowing what he knew. Even youth has its disadvantages.</p> + +<p>But Squire Eben stood somewhat aloof, looking at the small, frail, +pugnacious woman in the rocking-chair with perplexity and growing +impatience. He wanted to go fishing that morning, and the vision of +the darting trout in their still, clear pool was before him, like a +vision of his own earthly paradise. He gave a despairing glance at +Doctor Prescott, who had hitherto said little. “Can't you +convince her it is all right? She knows you better than the rest of +us,” he whispered.</p> + +<p>Doctor Prescott nodded, arose—he had been sitting +apart—went to Mrs. Edwards, and touched her shoulder. +“Mrs. Edwards,” said he—Ann gave a terrified yet +wholly unyielding flash of her black eyes at him—“Mrs. +Edwards, will you please attend to what we have come to tell you. I +have transferred the mortgage note given me by your late husband to +Squire Eben Merritt; there is nothing for you to sign. You will +simply pay the interest money to him, instead of to me.”</p> + +<p>“You can tear me to pieces, if you want to,” said Ann, +“but I won't sign away what little my poor husband left to me +and my children, for you or any other man.”</p> + +<p>“Look at me,” said the doctor.</p> + +<p>Ann never stirred her head.</p> + +<p>“Look at me.”</p> + +<p>Ann looked.</p> + +<p>“Now,” said the doctor, “you listen and you +understand. I can't waste any more time here. Squire Merritt has +bought that mortgage which your husband gave me, and paid me for it +in land. You have simply nothing to do with it, except to understand. +Nobody wants you to sign anything.”</p> + +<p>Ann looked at him with some faint light of comprehension through +her wild impetus of resistance. “I'd ruther it would stay the +way it was before,” said she. “My husband gave you the +mortgage. He thought you were trustworthy. I'd jest as soon pay you +interest money as Squire Merritt.”</p> + +<p>Then Eliphalet Means spoke dryly, still with that utter patience +of preparation and expectation: “If Doctor Prescott retains +this mortgage he intends to foreclose.”</p> + +<p>Ann looked at him, and then at Doctor Prescott. She gasped, +“Foreclose!”</p> + +<p>Doctor Prescott nodded.</p> + +<p>“You mean to foreclose? You mean to take this place away +from us?” Ann cried, shrilly. “You with all you've got, +and we a widow and orphans! And you callin' yourself a good man an' a +pillar of the sanctuary!”</p> + +<p>Doctor Prescott's face hardened. “Your husband owed me for a +half-year's interest,” he began, calmly.</p> + +<p>“My husband didn't owe you any interest money. He paid you +in work and wood.”</p> + +<p>“That was for medical attendance,” proceeded the +doctor, imperturbably. “He owed me half a year's interest. I +considered it best for your interests, as well as mine, to foreclose, +and should have done so had not Squire Merritt taken the matter out +of my hands. I should advise him to a like measure, but he is his own +best judge.”</p> + +<p>“Squire Merritt will not foreclose,” said Eliphalet +Means; “and he will be easy about the payments.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Ann, with a strange, stony look, “I +guess I understand. I'm satisfied.”</p> + +<p>Doctor Prescott gathered up his medicine-chest, bade the others a +gruff, ceremonious good-morning, and went out. His sulky had been +drawn up before the gate for some time, and Jake Noyes had been +lounging about the yard.</p> + +<p>The lawyer and the Squire lingered, as they had yet the business +regarding the sale of the woodland to arrange.</p> + +<p>Curiously enough, Ann was docile as one could wish about that. +Whether her previous struggle had exhausted her or whether she began +to feel some confidence in her advisers, they could not tell. She +made no difficulty, but after all was adjusted she looked at the +lawyer with a shrewd, sharp gleam in her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Doctor Prescott can't get his claws on it now, +anyhow,” she said; “and he always wanted it, 'cause it +joined his.”</p> + +<p>The Squire and the lawyer looked at each other. The Squire with +humorous amazement, the lawyer with a wink and glance of wise +reminder, as much as to say: “You know what I have always said +about women. Here is a woman.”</p> + +<p>Jerome was digging out in his garden-patch, and Elmira, in her +blue sunbonnet, was standing, full of scared questioning, before him, +when the Squire came lounging up the slope and reported as before +said, to the convincing of the boy in innocent credulity.</p> + +<p>When he had finished, he laid hold on Elmira's little cotton +sleeve and pulled her up to her brother, and stood before them with a +kindly hand on a shoulder of each, smiling down at them with infinite +good-humor and protection.</p> + +<p>“Don't you worry now, children,” he said. “Be +good and mind your mother, and you'll get along all right. We'll +manage about the interest money, and there'll be meal in the barrel +and a roof over your heads as long as you want it, according to the +Scriptures, I'll guarantee.”</p> + +<p>With that Squire Eben gave each a shake, to conceal, maybe, the +tenderness of pity in him, which he might, in his hearty and merry +manhood, have accounted somewhat of a shame to reveal, as well as +tears in his blue eyes, and was gone down the hill with a great +laugh.</p> + +<p>Elmira looked after him. “Ain't he good?” she +whispered. But as for Jerome, he stood trembling and quivering and +looking down at a print the Squire's great boot had made in the soft +mould. When Elmira had gone, he went down on his knees and kissed it +passionately.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XII</h4> + +<p>Now the warfare of life had fairly begun for little Jerome +Edwards. Up to this time, although in sorry plight enough as far as +material needs went—scantily clad, scantily fed, and worked +hard—he had as yet only followed at an easy pace, or skirted +with merry play the march of the toilers of the world. Now he was in +the rank and file, enlisted thereto by a stern Providence, and must +lose his life for the sake of living, like the rest. No more idle +hours in the snug hollow of the rock, where he seemed to pause like a +bee on the sweets of existence itself that he might taste them fully, +were there for Jerome. Very few chances he had for outspeeding his +comrades in any but the stern and sober race of life, for this little +Mercury had to shear the wings from his heels of youthful sport and +take to the gait of labor. Very seldom he could have one of his old +treasure hunts in swamps and woods, unless, indeed, he could +perchance make a labor and a gain of it. Jerome found that sassafras, +and snakeroot, and various other aromatic roots and herbs of the +wilds about his house had their money value. There was an apothecary +in the neighboring village of Dale who would purchase them of him; at +the cheapest of rates, it is true—a penny or so for a whole +peck measure, or a sheaf, of the largess of summer—but every +penny counted. Poor Jerome did not care so much about his woodland +sorties after they were made a matter of pence and shillings, sorely +as he needed, and much as he wished for, the pence and shillings. The +sense was upon him, a shamed and helpless one, of selling his +birthright. Jerome had in the natural beauty of the earth a budding +delight, which was a mystery and a holiness in itself. It was the +first love of his boyish heart; he had taken the green woods and +fields for his sweetheart, and must now put her to only sordid uses, +to her degradation and his.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, in a curious rebellion against what he scarcely knew, +he would return home without a salable thing in hand, nothing but a +pretty and useless collection of wild flowers and sedges, little +swamp-apples, and perhaps a cast bird-feather or two, and meet his +mother's stern reproof with righteously undaunted front.</p> + +<p>“I don't care,” he said once, looking at her with a +meaning she could not grasp; nor, indeed, could he fathom it himself. +“I ain't goin' to sell everything; if I do I'll have to sell +myself.”</p> + +<p>“I'd like to know what you mean,” said his mother, +sharply.</p> + +<p>“I mean I'm goin' to keep some things myself,” said +Jerome, and pattered up to his chamber to stow away his treasures, +with his mother's shrill tirade about useless truck following him. +Ann was a good taskmistress; there were, indeed, great powers of +administration in the keen, alert mind in that little frail body. +Given a poor house encumbered by a mortgage, a few acres of stony +land, and two children, the elder only fourteen, she worked miracles +almost. Jerome had shown uncommon, almost improbable, ability in his +difficulties when Abel had disappeared and her strength had failed +her, but afterwards her little nervous feminine clutch on the petty +details went far towards saving the ship.</p> + +<p>Had it not been for his mother, Jerome could not have carried out +his own plans. Work as manfully as he might, he could not have paid +Squire Merritt his first instalment of interest money, which was +promptly done.</p> + +<p>It was due the 1st of November, and, a day or two before, Squire +Merritt, tramping across lots, over the fields, through the old +plough ridges and corn stubble, with some plump partridges in his bag +and his gun over shoulder, made it in his way to stop at the Edwards +house and tell Ann that she must not concern herself if the interest +money were not ready at the minute it was due.</p> + +<p>But Ann laid down her work—she was binding +shoes—straightened herself as if her rocking-chair were a +throne and she an empress, and looked at him with an inscrutable look +of pride and suspicion. The truth was that she immediately conceived +the idea that this great fair-haired Squire, with his loud, sweet +voice, and his loud, frank laugh and pleasant blue eyes, concealed +beneath a smooth exterior depths of guile. She exchanged, as it were, +nods of bitter confidence with herself to the effect that Squire +Merritt was trying to make her put off paying the interest money, and +pretending to be very kind and obliging, in order that he might the +sooner get his clutches on the whole property.</p> + +<p>All the horizon of this poor little feminine Ishmael seemed to her +bitter fancy to be darkened with hands against her, and she sat on a +constant watch-tower of suspicion.</p> + +<p>“Elmira,” said she, “bring me that +stockin'.”</p> + +<p>Elmira, who also was binding shoes, sitting on a stool before the +scanty fire, rose quickly at her mother's command, went into the +bedroom, and emerged with an old white yarn stocking hanging heavily +from her hand.</p> + +<p>“Empty it on the table and show Squire Merritt,” +ordered her mother, in a tone as if she commanded the resources of +the royal treasury to be displayed.</p> + +<p>Elmira obeyed. She inverted the stocking, and from it jingled a +shower of coin into a pitiful little heap on the table.</p> + +<p>“There!” said Ann, pointing at it with a little bony +finger. The smallest coins of the realm went to make up the little +pile, and the Lord only knew how she and her children had grubbed +them together. Every penny there represented more than the sweat of +the brow: the sweat of the heart.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben Merritt, with some dim perception of the true +magnitude and meaning of that little hoard, gained partly through +Ann's manner, partly through his own quickness of sympathy, fairly +started as he looked at it and her.</p> + +<p>“There's twenty-one dollars, all but two shillin's, +there,” said Ann, with hard triumph. “The two shillin's +Jerome is goin' to have to-night. He's been splittin' of +kindlin'-wood, after school, for your sister, this week, and she's +goin' to pay him the same as she did for weedin'. You can take this +now, if you want to, or wait and have it all together.”</p> + +<p>“I'll wait, thank you,” replied Eben Merritt. For the +moment he felt actually dismayed and ashamed at the sight of his +ready interest money. It was almost like having a good deed thrust +back in his face and made of no account. He had scarcely expected any +payment, certainly none so full and prompt as this.</p> + +<p>“I thought I'd let you see you hadn't any cause to feel +afraid you wouldn't get it,” said Ann, with dignity. +“Elmira, you can put the money back in the stockin' now, and +put the stockin' back under the feather-bed.”</p> + +<p>Squire Merritt felt like a great school-boy before this small, +majestic woman. “I did not feel afraid, Mrs. Edwards,” he +said, awkwardly.</p> + +<p>“I didn't know but you might,” said she, scornfully; +“people didn't seem to think we could do anything.”</p> + +<p>“All I wonder at is,” said the Squire, rallying a +little, “how you managed to get so much money +together.”</p> + +<p>“Do you want to know? Well, I'll tell you. We've bound +shoes, Elmira an' me, for one thing. We've took all they would give +us. That wa'n't many, for the regular customers had to come first, +and I didn't do any in Abel's lifetime—that is, not after I was +sick. I used to a while before that. Abel wouldn't let me when we +were first married, but he had to come to it. Men can't do all +they're willin' to. I shouldn't have done anything but dress in silk, +set an' rock, an' work scallops an' eyelets in cambric +pocket-handkerchiefs, if Abel had had his say. After I was sick I +quit workin' on boots, because the doctor he said it might hurt the +muscles of my back to pull the needle through the leather; but +there's somethin' besides muscles in backs to be thought of when it +comes to keepin' body an' soul together. Two days after the funeral I +sent Jerome up to Cyrus Robinson, and told him to ask him if he'd got +some extra shoes to bind and close, and he come home with some. +Elmira and me bound, and Jerome closed, and we took our pay in +groceries. The shoes have fed us, with what we got out of the garden. +Then Elmira and me have braided mats and pieced quilts and sewed +three rag carpets, and Elmira picked huckleberries and blackberries +in season, and sold them to your wife and Miss Camilla and the +doctor's wife; and Lawyer Means bought lots of her, and the woman +that keeps house for John Jennings bought a lot. Elmira picked +bayberries, too, and sold 'em to the shoemaker for tallow; she sold a +lot in Dale. Elmira did a good deal of the weeding in your sister's +garden, so's to leave Jerome's time clear. Then once when the +doctor's wife had company she went over to help wash dishes, and she +give her three an' sixpence for that. Elmira said she give it +dreadful kind of private, and looked round to be sure the doctor +wa'n't within gunshot. She give her a red merino dress of hers, too, +but she kept her till after nightfall, and smuggled her out of the +back door, with it all done up under her arm, lest the doctor should +see. They say she's got dresses she won't never put on her back +again—silks an' satins an' woollens—because she's +outgrown 'em, an' they're all hangin' up in closets gettin' mothy, +an' the doctor won't let her give 'em away. But this dress she give +Elmira wa'n't give away, for I sent her back next day to do some +extra work to pay for it. I ain't beholden to nobody. Elmira swept +and dusted the settin'-room and the spare chamber, and washed the +breakfast an' dinner dishes, and I guess she paid for that old dress +ample. It had been laid up with camphor in a cedar chest, but it had +some moth holes in it. It wa'n't worth such a great sight, after +all.</p> + +<p>“Jerome he's worked smart, if I have had to drive him to it +sometimes. He's wed and dug potatoes everywhere he could git a +chance; he's helped 'bout hayin', an' he's split wood. He's sold some +herbs and roots, too, over to Dale. Jake Noyes he put him up to that. +He come in here one night an' talked to him real sensible. +‘There's money 'nough layin' round loose right under your face +an' eyes,’ says he; ‘all the trouble is you're apt to +walk right past, with your nose up in the air. The scent for work an' +wages ain't up in the air,’ says he; ‘it's on the +ground.’ Jerome he listened real sharp, an' the next day he +went off an' got a good passel of boneset an' thoroughwort an' +hardback, an' carried it over to Dale, an' sold it for a +shilling.</p> + +<p>“Elmira has done some spinnin', too; I can't spin much, but +she's done well enough. Your wife wants some linen pillow-shifts. +Elmira can do the weavin', I guess, an' we can make 'em up together. +I've got a job to make some fine shirts for you, too. Your wife come +over to see about it this week. I dun'no' but she was gettin' kind of +afraid you wouldn't git your interest money no other way; but she +needn't have been exercised about it, if she was. We got this +interest together without your shirts, an' I guess we can the next. +It's been harder work than many folks in this town know anything +about, but we've done it.” Ann tossed her head with +indescribable pride and bitterness. There was scorn of fate itself in +the toss of that little head, with its black lace cap and false +front, and her speech also was an harangue, reproachful and defiant, +against fate, not against her earthly creditor; that she would have +disdained.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben, however, fully appreciating that, and taking the +pictures of pitiful feminine and childish toil which she brought +before his fancy as a shame to his great stalwart manhood, spending +its strength in hunting and fishing and card-playing, looked at the +woman binding shoes with painful jerks of little knotted +hands—for she ceased not her work one minute for her +words—and took the bitter reproach and triumphant scorn in her +tone and gesture for himself alone.</p> + +<p>He felt ashamed of himself, in his great hunting-boots splashed +with swamp mud, his buckskins marred with woodland thorn and thicket, +but not a mark of honest toil about him. Had he been in fine +broadcloth he would not have felt so humiliated; for the useless +labor of play cuts a sorrier figure in the face of genuine work for +the great ends of life than idleness itself. He would not have been +half so disgraced by nothing at all in hand as by that bag of game; +and as for the money in that old stocking under the feather-bed, it +seemed to him like the fruits of his own dishonesty.</p> + +<p>The impulse was strong upon him, then and there, to declare that +he would take none of that hoard.</p> + +<p>“Now look here, Mrs. Edwards,” said he, fairly +coloring like a girl as he spoke, and smiling uneasily, “I +don't want that money.”</p> + +<p>Ann looked at him with the look of one who is stung, and yet +incredulous. Elmira gave a little gasp of delight. “Oh, +mother!” she cried.</p> + +<p>“Keep still!” ordered her mother. “I dun'no' +what you mean,” she said to Squire Merritt.</p> + +<p>The Squire's smile deepened, but he looked frightened; his eyes +fell before hers. “Why, what I say—I don't want this +money, this time. I have all I need. Keep it over till the next +half.”</p> + +<p>Squire Eben Merritt had a feeling as if something actually +tangible, winged and clawed and beaked, and flaming with eyes, +pounced upon him. He fairly shrank back, so fierce was Ann's burst of +indignation; it produced a sense of actual contact.</p> + +<p>“Keep it till next half?” repeated Ann. “Keep it +till next half? What should we keep it till next half for, I'd like +to know? It's your money, ain't it? We don't want it; we ain't +beggars; we don't need it. I see through you, Squire Eben Merritt; +you think I don't, but I do.”</p> + +<p>“I fear I don't know what you mean,” the Squire said, +helplessly.</p> + +<p>“I see through you,” repeated Ann. She had reverted to +her first suspicion that his design was to gain possession of the +whole property by letting the unpaid interest accumulate, but that +poor Squire Eben did not know. He gave up all attempts to understand +this woman's mysterious innuendoes, and took the true masculine +method of departure from an uncomfortable subject at right angles, +with no further ado.</p> + +<p>He opened his game-bag and held up a brace of fat partridges. +“Well,” he said, laughing, “I want you to see what +luck I've had shooting, Mrs. Edwards. I've bagged eight of these +fellows to-day.”</p> + +<p>But Ann could not make a mental revolution so easily. She gave a +half-indifferent, half-scornful squint at the partridges. “I +dun'no' much about shootin',” said she, shortly. Ann had always +been, in her own family, a passionate woman, but among outsiders she +had borne herself with dignified politeness and formal gentility, +clothing, as it were, her intensity of spirit with a company garb. +Now, since her terrible trouble had come upon her, this garb had +often slipped aside, and revealed, with the indecency of affliction, +the struggling naked spirit of the woman to those from whom she had +so carefully hidden it.</p> + +<p>Once Ann would not have believed that she would have so borne +herself towards Squire Merritt. The Squire laid the partridges on the +table. “I am going to leave these for your supper, Mrs. +Edwards,” he said, easily; but he quaked a little, for this +woman seemed to repel gifts like blows.</p> + +<p>“Thank ye,” said Ann, dryly, “but I guess you'd +better take 'em home to your wife. I've got a good deal cooked +up.”</p> + +<p>Elmira made a little expressive sound; she could not help it. She +gave one horrified, wondering look at her mother. Not a morsel of +cooked food was there on the bare pantry shelves. By-and-by a little +Indian meal and water would be boiled for supper. There were some +vegetables in the cellar, otherwise no food in the house. Ann +lied.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben Merritt then displayed what would have been tact in a +keenly calculating and analytic nature. “Oh, throw them out for +the dogs, if you don't want them, Mrs. Edwards,” he returned, +gayly. “I've got more than my wife can use here. We are getting +rather tired of partridges, we have had so many. I stopped at Lawyer +Means's on my way here and left a pair for him.”</p> + +<p>A sudden change came over Ann's face. She beamed with a return of +her fine company manners. She even smiled. “Thank ye,” +said she; “then I will take them, if you are sure you ain't +robbing yourself.”</p> + +<p>“Not at all,” said the Squire—“not at all, +Mrs. Edwards. You'd better baste them well when you cook them.” + Then he took his leave, with many exchanges of courtesies, and went +his way, wondering what had worked this change; for a simple, +benevolent soul can seldom gauge its own wisdom of diplomacy.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben did not dream that his gift to one who was not needy +had enabled him to give to one who was, by establishing a sort of +equality among the recipients, which had overcome her proud scruples. +On the way home he met Jerome, scudding along in the early dusk, +having finished his task early. “Hurry home, boy,” he +called out, in that great kind voice which Jerome so +loved—“hurry home; you've got something good for +supper!” and he gave the boy, ducking low before him with the +love and gratitude which had overcome largely the fierce and callous +pride in his young heart, a hearty slap on the shoulder as he went +past.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XIII</h4> + +<p>There was a good district school in the village, and Jerome, +before his father's disappearance, had attended it all the year +round; now he went only in winter. Jerome rose at four o'clock in the +dark winter mornings, and went to bed at ten, getting six hours' +sleep. It was fortunate that he was a hardy boy, with a wirily pliant +frame, adapting itself, with no lesions, to extremes of temperature +and toil, even to extremes of mental states. In spite of all his +hardships, in spite of scanty food, Jerome thrived; he grew; he began +to fill out better his father's clothes, to which he had succeeded. +The first time Jerome wore his poor father's best coat to +school—Ann had set in the buttons so it folded about him in +ludicrous fashion, bringing the sleeves forward and his arms +apparently into the middle of his chest—one of the big boys and +two big girls at his side laughed at him, the boy with open jeers, +the girls with covert giggles behind their hands. They were standing +in front of the school-house at the top of the long hill when Jerome +was ascending it with Elmira. It was late and cold, and only these +three scholars were outside. The girls, who were pretty and +coquettish, had detained this great boy, who was a man grown.</p> + +<p>Jerome went up the long hill under this fire of covert ridicule. +Elmira, behind him, began to cry, holding up one little shawled arm +like a wing before her face. Jerome never lowered his proud head; his +unwinking black eyes stared straight ahead at the three; his face was +deadly white; his hands twitched at his sides.</p> + +<p>The great boy was 'Lisha Robinson; the girls were the pretty twin +daughters of a farmer living three miles away, who had just brought +them to school on his ox-sled. Their two sweet, rosy faces, full of +pitiless childish merriment for him, and half-unconscious maiden +wiles towards the young man at their side, towards whom they leaned +involuntarily as they tittered, aroused Jerome to a worse frenzy than +'Lisha's face with its coarse leer.</p> + +<p>All three started back a little as he drew near; there was +something in his unwinking eyes which was intimidating. However, +'Lisha had his courage to manifest before these girls. “Say, +Jerome,” he shouted—“say, Jerome, got any room to +spare in that coat? 'cause Abigail Mack is freezin'.”</p> + +<p>“Go 'long, 'Lisha,” cried Abigail, sputtering with +giggles, and giving the young man a caressing push with her +elbow.</p> + +<p>'Lisha, thus encouraged, essayed further wit. “Say, Jerome, +s'pose you can fill out that coat of yours any quicker if I give ye +half my dinner? Here's a half a pie I can spare. Reckon you don't +have much to eat down to your house, 'cept chicken-fodder, and that +ain't very fat'nin'.”</p> + +<p>Jerome came up. All at once through the glow of his black eyes +flashed that spiritual lightning, evident when purpose is changed to +action. The girls screamed and fled. 'Lisha swung about in a panic, +but Jerome launched himself upon his averted shoulder. The girls, +glancing back with terrified eyes from the school-house door, seemed +to see the boy lift the grown man from the ground, and the two whirl +a second in the air before they crashed down, and so declared +afterwards. Jerome clung to his opponent like a wild-cat, a small but +terrific body all made up of nerves and muscles and electric fire. He +wound his arms with a violent jerk as of steel around 'Lisha's neck; +he bunted him with a head like a cannon-ball; he twisted little wiry +legs under the hollows of 'Lisha's knees. The two came down together +with a great thud. The teacher and the scholars came rushing to the +door. Elmira wailed and sobbed in the background. The slight boy was +holding great 'Lisha on the ground with a strength that seemed +uncanny.</p> + +<p>'Lisha's nose was bleeding; he breathed hard; his eyes, upturned +to Jerome, had a ghastly roll. “Let me—up, will +ye?” he choked, faintly.</p> + +<p>“Will you ever say anything like that again?”</p> + +<p>“Let me up, will ye?” 'Lisha gave a convulsive gasp +that was almost a sob.</p> + +<p>“Jerome!” called the teacher. She was a young woman +from another village, mildly and assentingly good, virtue having, +like the moon, only its simply illuminated side turned towards her +vision. Weakly blue-eyed and spectacled, hooked up primly in chaste +drab woollen and capped with white muslin, though scarcely thirty, +she stood among her flock and eyed the fierce combatants with an +utter lack of command of the situation. She was a country minister's +daughter, and had never taught until her father's death. This was her +first school, and to its turbulent elements she brought only the +precisely limited lore of a young woman's seminary of that day, and +the experiences of early piety.</p> + +<p>Looking at the struggling boys, she thought vaguely of that hymn +of Isaac Watts's which treats of barking and biting dogs and the +desirability of amity and concord between children, as if it could in +some way be applied to heal the breach. She called again fruitlessly +in her thin treble, which had been raised in public only in +neighborhood prayer-meetings: “Jerome! Jerome +Edwards!”</p> + +<p>“Will you say it again?” demanded Jerome of his +prostrate adversary, with a sharp prod of a knee.</p> + +<p>After a moment of astonished staring there was a burst of mirth +among the pupils, especially the older boys. 'Lisha was not a special +favorite among them—he was too good-looking, had too much money +to spend, and was too much favored by the girls. In spite of the +teacher's half-pleading commands, they made a rush and formed a ring +around the fighters.</p> + +<p>“Go it, J'rome!” they shouted. “Give it to him! +You're a fighter, you be. Look at J'rome Edwards lickin' a feller +twice his size. Hi! Go it, J'rome!”</p> + +<p>“Boys!” called the teacher. “Boys!”</p> + +<p>Some of the smaller girls began to cry and clung to her skirts; +the elder girls watched with dilated eyes, or laughed with rustic +hardihood for such sights. Elmira still waited on the outskirts. +Jerome paid no attention to the teacher or the shouting boys. +“Will you say it again?” he kept demanding of 'Lisha, +until finally he got a sulky response.</p> + +<p>“No, I won't. Now lemme up, will ye?”</p> + +<p>“Say you're sorry.”</p> + +<p>“I'm sorry. Lemme up!”</p> + +<p>Jerome, without appearing to move, collected himself for a spring. +Suddenly he was off 'Lisha and far to one side, with one complete +bound of his whole body, like a cat.</p> + +<p>'Lisha got up stiffly, muttering under his breath, and went round +to the well to wash off the blood. He did not attempt to renew the +combat, as the other boys had hoped he might. He preferred to undergo +the ignominy of being worsted in fight by a little boy rather than +take the risk of being pounced upon again with such preternatural +fury. When he entered school, having washed his face, he was quite +pale, and walked with shaking knees. Rather physical than moral +courage had 'Lisha Robinson, and it was his moral courage, after all, +which had been tested, as it is in all such unequal combats.</p> + +<p>As for Jerome, he had to stand in the middle of the floor, a +spectacle unto the school, folded in his father's coat, which had, +alas! two buttons torn off, and a three-cornered rag hanging from one +tail, which fluttered comically in the draught from the door; but +nobody dared laugh. There was infinite respect, if not approbation, +for Jerome in the school that day. Some of the big boys scowled, and +one girl said out loud, “It's a shame!” when the teacher +ordered him to stand in the floor. Had he rebelled, the teacher would +have had no support, but Jerome took his place in the spot indicated, +with a grave and scornful patience. The greatness of his triumph made +him magnanimous. It was clearly evident to his mind that 'Lisha +Robinson and not he should stand in the floor, and that he gained a +glory of martyrdom in addition to the other.</p> + +<p>Jerome had never felt so proud in his life as when he stood there, +in his father's old coat, having established his right to wear it +without remark by beating the biggest boy in school. He stood erect, +equally poised on his two feet, looking straight ahead with a grave, +unsmiling air. He looked especially at no one, except once at his +sister Elmira. She had just raised her head from the curve of her +arm, in which she had been weeping, and her tear-stained eyes met her +brother's. He looked steadily at her, frowning significantly. Elmira +knew what it meant. She began to study her geography, and did not cry +again.</p> + +<p>At recess the teacher went up to Jerome, and spoke to him almost +timidly. “I am very sorry about this, Jerome,” she said. +“I am sorry you fought, and sorry I had to punish you in this +way.”</p> + +<p>Jerome looked at her. “She's a good deal like mother,” +he thought. “You had to punish somebody,” said he, +“an'—<em>I'd</em> licked <em>him</em>.”</p> + +<p>The teacher started; this reasoning confused her a little, the +more so that she had an uneasy conviction that she had punished the +lesser offender. She looked at the proud little figure in the torn +coat, and her mild heart went out to him. She glanced round; there +were not many scholars in the room. Elmira sat in her place, busy +with her slate; a few of the older ones were in a knot near the +window at the back of the room. The teacher slipped her hand into her +pocket and drew out a lemon-drop, which she thrust softly into +Jerome's hand. “Here,” said she.</p> + +<p>Jerome, who treated usually a giver like a thief, took the +lemon-drop, thanked her, and stood sucking it the rest of the recess. +It was his first gallantry towards womankind.</p> + +<p>This teacher remained in the school only a half-term. Some said +that she left because she was not strong enough to teach such a large +school. Some said because she had not enough government. This had +always been considered a man's school during the winter months, but a +departure had been made in this case because the female teacher was +needy and a minister's daughter.</p> + +<p>The place was filled by a man who never tempered injustice with +lemon-drops, and ruled generally with fair and equal measure. He was +better for the school, and Jerome liked him; but he felt sad, though +he kept it to himself, when the woman teacher went away. She gave him +for a parting gift a little volume, a treasure of her own childhood, +purporting to be the true tale of an ungodly youth who robbed an +orchard on the Sabbath day, thereby combining two deadly sins, and +was drowned in crossing a brook on his way home. The weight of his +bag of stolen fruit prevented him from rising, but he would not let +go, and thereby added to his other crimes that of greediness. There +was a frontispiece representing this froward hero, in a tall hat and +little frilled trousers, with a bag the size of a slack balloon +dragging on the ground behind him, proceeding towards the neighbor's +apple-tree, which bore fruit as large as the thief's head upon its +unbending boughs.</p> + +<p>“There's a pretty picture in it,” the teacher said, +when she presented the book; she had kept Jerome after school for +that purpose. “I used to like to look at it when I was a little +girl.” Then she added that she had crossed out the +inscription, “Martha Maria Whittaker, from her father, Rev. +Enos Whittaker,” on the fly-leaf, and written underneath, +“Jerome Edwards, from his teacher, Martha Maria +Whittaker,” and displayed her little delicate scratch.</p> + +<p>Then the teacher had hesitated a little, and colored faintly, and +looked at the boy. He seemed to this woman—meekly resigned to +old-age and maidenhood at thirty—a mere child, and like the son +which another woman might have had, but the missing of whom was a +shame to her to contemplate. Then she had said good-bye to him, and +bade him be always a good boy, and had leaned over and kissed him. It +was the kiss of a mother spiritualized by the innocent mystery and +imagination of virginity.</p> + +<p>Jerome kept the little book always, and he never forgot the kiss +nor the teacher, who returned to her native village and taught the +school there during the summer months, and starved on the proceeds +during the winter, until she died, some ten years later, being of a +delicate habit, and finding no place of comfort in the world.</p> + +<p>Jerome walked ten miles and back to her funeral one freezing +day.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XIV</h4> + +<p>Jerome's mother never knew about the rent in his father's best +coat, nor the fight. To do the boy justice, he kept it from her, +neither because of cowardice nor deceit, but because of magnanimity. +“It will just work her all up if she knew 'Lisha Robinson made +fun of father's best coat, and it's tore,” Jerome told Elmira, +who nodded in entire assent.</p> + +<p>Elmira sat up in her cold chamber until long after midnight, and +darned the rent painfully by the light of a tallow candle. Then it +was a comparatively simple matter, when one had to deal with a woman +confined to a rocking-chair, to never give her a full view of the +mended coat-tail. Jerome cultivated a habit of backing out of the +room, as from an audience with a queen. The sting from his wounded +pride having been salved with victory, he was unduly important in his +own estimation, until an unforeseen result came from the affair.</p> + +<p>There are many surprising complications from war, even war between +two school-boys. One night, after school, Jerome went to Cyrus +Robinson's for a lot of shoes which had been promised him two days +before, and was told there were none to spare. Cyrus Robinson leaned +over the counter and glanced around cautiously. It was not a busy +time of day. Two old farmers were standing by the stove, talking to +each other in a drone of extreme dialect, almost as unintelligible, +except to one who understood its subject-matter, as the notes of +their own cattle. The clerk, Samson Loud, was at the other end of the +store, cleaning a molasses-barrel from its accumulated sugar. +“Look-a-here,” said Cyrus Robinson, beckoning Jerome with +a hard crook of a seamed forefinger. The boy stood close to the +counter, and uplifted to him his small, undaunted, yet piteously +wistful face.</p> + +<p>“Look-a-here,” said Cyrus Robinson, in a whisper of +furtive malice, leaning nearer, the point of his shelving beard +almost touching Jerome's forehead; “I've got something to say +to you. I 'ain't got any shoes to spare to-night; an', what's more, I +ain't going to have any to spare in future. Boys that fight 'ain't +got time enough to close shoes.”</p> + +<p>Jerome looked at him a moment, as if scarcely comprehending; then +a sudden quiver as of light came over him, and Cyrus Robinson shrank +back before his eyes as if his counter were a bulwark.</p> + +<p>“I s'pose if your big boy had licked me 'cause he made fun +of my father's coat, instead of me lickin' him, you'd have given me +some more shoes!” cried the boy, with the dauntlessness of +utter scorn, and turned and walked out of the store.</p> + +<p>“You'd better take care, young man!” called Cyrus +Robinson, in open rage, for the boy's clear note of wrath had been +heard over the whole store. The two old farmers looked up in dull +astonishment as the door slammed after Jerome, stared questioningly +at the storekeeper and each other, then the thick stream of their +ideas returned to its course of their own affairs, and their husky +gabble recommenced.</p> + +<p>Samson Laud raised his head, covered with close curls of light red +hair, and his rasped red face out of the molasses-barrel, gave one +quick glance full of acutest sarcasm of humor at Cyrus Robinson, then +disappeared again into sugary depths, and resumed his scraping.</p> + +<p>Jerome, on his homeward road, did not feel his spirit of defiance +abate. “Wonder how we're going to pay that interest money now? +Wonder how mother 'll take it?” he said; yet he would have +fought 'Lisha Robinson over again, knowing the same result. He had +not yet grown servile to his daily needs.</p> + +<p>However, speeding along through the clear night, treading the snow +flashing back the full moonlight in his eyes like a silver mirror, he +dreaded more and more the meeting his mother and telling her the +news. He slackened his pace. Now and then he stood still and looked +up at the sky, where the great white moon rode through the hosts of +the stars. Without analyzing his thoughts, the boy felt the utter +irresponsiveness of all glory and all heights. Mocking shafts of +moonlight and starlight and frostlight seemed glancing off this one +little soul in the freezing solitude of creation, wherein each is +largely to himself alone. What was it to the moon and all those +shining swarms of stars, and that far star-dust in the Milky Way, +whether he, Jerome Edwards, had shoes to close or not? Whether he and +his mother starved or not, they would shine just the same. The +triviality—even ludicrousness—of the sorrow of man, as +compared with eternal things, was over the boy. He was maddened at +the sting and despite of his own littleness in the face of that +greatness. Suddenly a wild impulse of rebellion that was almost +blasphemy seized him. He clinched a puny fist at a great star. +“Wish I could make you stop shinin',” he cried out, in a +loud, fierce voice; “wish I could do somethin'!”</p> + +<p>Suddenly Jerome was hemmed in by a cloud of witnesses. Eliphalet +Means, John Jennings, and Colonel Lamson had overtaken him as he +stood star-gazing. They were on their way to punch and cards at +Squire Merritt's. Jerome felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up +into John Jennings's long, melancholy countenance, instead of the +shining face of the star. He saw the eyes of the others surveying +him, half in astonishment, half in amusement, over the folds of their +camlet cloaks.</p> + +<p>“Want to make the star stop shining?” queried John +Jennings, in his sweet drawl.</p> + +<p>Jerome made no reply. His shoulder twitched under Mr. Jennings's +hand. He meditated pushing between these interlopers and running for +home. The New England constraint, to which he had been born, was to +him as a shell of defence and decency, and these men had had a +glimpse of him outside it. He was horribly ashamed. “S'pose +they think I'm crazy,” he reflected.</p> + +<p>“Want to stop the star shining?” repeated John +Jennings. “Well, you can.”</p> + +<p>Jerome, in astonishment, forgot his shame, and looked up into the +man's beautiful, cavernous eyes.</p> + +<p>“I'll tell you how. Don't look at it. I've stopped nearly +all the stars I've ever seen that way.” John Jennings's voice +seemed to melt into infinite sadness and sweetness, like a song. The +other men chuckled but feebly, as if scarcely knowing whether it were +a jest or not. John Jennings took his hand from Jerome's shoulder, +tossed the wing of his cloak higher over his face, and went on with +his friends. However, when fairly on his way, he turned and called +back, with a soft laugh, “I would let the star shine, though, +if I were you, boy.”</p> + +<p>“Who was the boy?” Colonel Lamson asked the lawyer, as +the three men proceeded.</p> + +<p>“The Edwards boy.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said John Jennings, “'tis an unlucky +devil he is, call him what you will, for he's born to feel the hammer +of Thor on his soul as well as his flesh, and it is double pain for +all such.”</p> + +<p>Jerome stood staring after John Jennings and his friends a moment; +he had not the least conception what it all meant; then he proceeded +at a good pace, arguing that the sooner he got home and told his +mother and had it over, the better.</p> + +<p>But he had not gone far before he saw some one else coming, a +strange, nondescript figure, with outlines paled and blurred in the +moonlight, looking as if it bore its own gigantic and heavy head +before it in outstretched arms. Soon he saw it was his uncle Ozias +Lamb, laden with bundles of shoes about his shoulders, bending +forward under their weight.</p> + +<p>Ozias halted when he reached Jerome. “Hullo!” said he; +“that you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” Jerome replied, deferentially. He had +respect for his uncle Ozias.</p> + +<p>“Where you goin'?”</p> + +<p>“Home.”</p> + +<p>“'Ain't you been to Robinson's for shoes?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Where be they, then?”</p> + +<p>Jerome told him.</p> + +<p>“I ain't surprised. I knew what 'twould be when I heard +you'd fit 'Lisha,” said Ozias. “You hit my calf, you hit +me. It's natur'.” Ozias gave a cynical chuckle; he shifted his +load of shoes to ease his right shoulder. “'Lisha's big as two +of you,” he said. “How'd ye work it to fling him? Twist +your leg under his, eh?”</p> + +<p>Jerome nodded.</p> + +<p>“That's a good trick. I larnt that when I was a boy. Well, I +ain't surprised Robinson has shet down on the shoes. What ye goin' to +do?”</p> + +<p>“Dun'no',” replied Jerome; then he gave a weak, +childish gesture, and caught his breath in a sob. He was scarcely +more than a child, after all, and his uncle Ozias was the only +remaining natural tower to his helplessness.</p> + +<p>“O Lord, don't ye go to whimperin', big man like you!” +responded Ozias Lamb, quickly. “Look at here—” +Ozias paused a moment, pondering. Jerome waited, trying to keep the +sobs back.</p> + +<p>“Tell you what 'tis,” said Ozias. “It's one of +the cases where the sarpents and the doves come in. We've got to do a +little manœuvrin'. Don't you fret, J'rome, an' don't you go to +frettin' of your mother. I'll take an extra lot of shoes from Cy +Robinson; he can think Belinda's goin' to bind—she never +has—or he can think what he wants to; I ain't goin' to regulate +his thinkin'; an' you come to me for shoes in future. Only you keep +dark about it. Don't you let on to nobody, except your mother, an' +she needn't know the whys an' wherefores. I've let out shoes before +now. I'll pay a leetle more than Robinson. Tell her your uncle Ozias +has taken all the shoes Robinson has got, and you're to come to him +for 'em, an' to keep dark about it, an' let her think what she's a +mind to. Women folks can't know everything.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“You can come fer the shoes and bring 'em home after dark, +so's nobody will see you,” said Ozias Lamb, further.</p> + +<p>So it befell that Jerome went for the work that brought him daily +bread, like a thief, by night, oftentimes slipping his package of +shoes under the wayside bushes at the sound of approaching footsteps. +He was deceitfully reticent also with his mother, whom he let follow +her own conclusion, that Cyrus Robinson had been dissatisfied with +their work. “Guess he won't see as much difference with this +work as he think he does,” she would often say, with a bitter +laugh. Jerome was silent, but the inborn straightforwardness of the +boy made him secretly rebellious at such a course.</p> + +<p>“It's lyin', anyhow,” he said, sulkily, once, when he +loaded the shoes on his shoulder, like a mason's hod, and was +starting forth from his uncle's shop.</p> + +<p>Ozias Lamb laughed the laugh of one who perverts humor, and makes +a jest of the bitter instead of the merry things of life.</p> + +<p>“It's got so that lies are the only salvation of the +righteous,” said Ozias Lamb, with that hard laugh of his. Then, +with the pitilessness of any dissenting spirit of reform, who will +pour out truths, whether of good or evil, to the benefit or injury of +mankind, who will force strong meat as well as milk on babies and +sucklings, he kept on, while the boy stood staring, shrinking a +little, yet with young eyes kindling, from the bitter frenzy of the +other.</p> + +<p>“It's so,” said Ozias Lamb. “You'll find it out +for yourself, in the hard run you've got to hoe, without any help, +but it's just as well for you to know it beforehand. You won't get +bit so hard—forewarned's forearmed. Snakes have their +poison-bags, an' bees have their stings; there ain't an animal that +don't have horns or claws or teeth to use if they get in a hard +place. Them that don't have weapons have wings, like birds. If they +can't fight, they can fly away from the battle. But human beings that +are good, and meek, and poor, and hard pushed, they hain't got any +claws or any wings; though if they had 'twouldn't be right to use 'em +to fight or get away, so the parsons say. They 'ain't got any natural +weapons. Providence 'ain't looked out for them. All they can do, as +far as I can see, is to steal some of the devil's own weapons to +fight him with.”</p> + +<p>It was well that Jerome could not understand the half of his +uncle's harangue, and got, indeed, only a general impression of the +unjust helplessness of a meek and righteous man in the hands of +adverse fate, compared with horned and clawed animals, and Ozias's +system of defence did not commend itself to his understanding. He did +not for a moment imagine that his uncle advised him to lie and steal +to better his fortunes, and, indeed, nothing was further from the +case. Ozias Lamb's own precepts never went into practice. He was +scrupulously honest, and his word was as good as a bond. However, +although Ozias had never told a lie in his life, he had perpetrated +many subtleties of the truth. He was wily and secretive. “A man +ain't a liar because he don't tell all he knows,” he said.</p> + +<p>When asking for more shoes from Cyrus Robinson, he had said +nothing about his wife's working upon them, but he knew that was the +inference, and he did not contradict it. He forbade Belinda to +mention the matter in one way or another. “The sarpent has got +to feed the widows an' the orphans,” he said, “an' that's +a good reason for bein' a sarpent.”</p> + +<p>As Ann and Elmira did most of their work on the shoes during the +day, Jerome fell into the habit of doing his part, the closing, in +his uncle's shop at night. Every evening he would load himself with +the sheaf of bound shoes and hasten down the road. He liked to work +in company with a man, rather than with his mother and Elmira; it +gave him a sense of independence and maturity. He did not mind so +much delving away on those hard leather seams while his mates were +out coasting and skating, for he had the sensation of +responsibility—of being the head of a family. Here he felt like +a man supporting his mother and sister; at home he was only a boy, +held to his task under the thumb of a woman.</p> + +<p>Then, too, his uncle Ozias's conversation was a kind of pungent +stimulant—not pleasant to the taste, not even recognizable in +all its savors, yet with a growing power of fascination.</p> + +<p>Ozias Lamb's shoemaker's shop was simply a little one-room +building in the centre of the field south of his cottage house. He +had in it a tiny box-stove, red-hot from fall to spring. When Jerome, +coming on a cold night, opened the door, a hot breath scented with +dried leather rushed in his face. Within sat his uncle on his +shoemaker's bench, short and squat like an Eastern idol on his +throne. His body was settled into itself with long habit of labor, +his mind with contemplation. His high, bald forehead overshadowed his +lower face like a promontory of thought; his eyes, even when he was +alone, were full of a wise, condemning observation; his mouth was +inclined always in a set smile at the bitter humor of things. The +face of this elderly New England shoemaker looked not unlike some +Asiatic conception of a deity.</p> + +<p>Jerome always closed the door immediately when he entered, for +Ozias dreaded a draught, having an inclination to rheumatism, and +being also chilly, like most who sit at their labor. Then he would +seat himself on a stool, and close shoes, and listen when his uncle +talked, as he did constantly when once warmed to it. The little room +was lighted by a whale-oil lamp on the wall. On some nights the full +moonlight streamed in the three windows athwart the lamp-light. The +room got hotter and closer. Ozias now and then, as he talked, +motioned Jerome, who put another stick of wood in the stove. The +whole atmosphere, spiritual and physical, seemed to grow combustible, +and as if at any moment a word or a thought might cause a leap into +flame. A spirit of anarchy and revolution was caged in that little +close room, bound to a shoemaker's bench by the chain of labor for +bread. The spirit was harmless enough, for its cage and its chain +were not to be escaped or forced, strengthened as they were by the +usage of a whole life. Ozias Lamb would deliver himself of riotous +sentiments, but on that bench he would sit and peg shoes till his +dying day. He would have pegged there through a revolution.</p> + +<p>Jerome's eyes would gleam with responsive fire when his uncle, his +splendid forehead flushing and swelling with turbid veins, said, in +that dry voice of his, which seemed to gain in force without being +raised into clamor: “What right has one man with the whole +purse, while another has not a penny in his pocket? What right has +one with the whole loaf, while another has a crumb? What right has +one man with half the land in the village, while another can hardly +make shift to earn his grave?”</p> + +<p>Ozias would pause a second, then launch out with new ardor, as if +Jerome had advanced an opposite argument. “Born with property, +are they—inherited property? One man comes into the world with +the gold all earned, or stolen—don't matter which—waiting +for him. Shoes all made for him, no peggin' for other folks; carpets +to walk on, sofas to lay on, china dishes to eat off of. Everything +is all complete; don't make no odds if he's a fool, don't make no +odds if he 'ain't no more sense of duty to his fellow-beings than a +pig, it's all just as it should be. Everybody is cringin' an' bowin' +an' offerin' a little more to the one that's got more than anybody +else. It's ‘Take a seat here, sir—do; this is more +comfortable,’ when he's set on feather cushions all day. +There'll be a poor man standin' alongside that 'ain't had a chance to +set down since he got out of bed before daylight, every bone in him +achin'—stiff. There ain't no extra comfortable chairs pointed +out to him. Lord, no! If there happens to be the soft side of a rock +or a plank handy, he's welcome to take it; if there ain't, why let +him keep his standin'; he's used to it. I tell ye, it's them that +need to whom it should be given, and not them that's got it already. +I tell ye, the need should always regulate the supply.</p> + +<p>“I tell ye, J'rome, balance-wheels an' seesaws an' pendulums +wa'n't give us for nothin' besides runnin' machinery and clocks. +Everything on this earth means somethin' more'n itself, if we could +only see it. They're symbols, that's what they be, an' we've got to +work up from a symbol that we see to the higher thing that we don't +see. Most folks think it's the other way, but it ain't.</p> + +<p>“Now, J'rome, you look at that old clock there; it was one +that b'longed to old Peter Thomas. I bought it when he broke up an' +went to the poorhouse. Doctor Prescott he foreclosed on him 'bout ten +years ago—you don't remember. He had his old house torn down, +an' sowed the land down to grass. I s'pose I paid more'n the clock +was worth, but I guess it kept the old man in snuff an' terbaccer a +while. Now you look at that clock; watch that pendulum swingin'. Now +s'pose we say the left is poverty—the left is the place for the +goats an' the poor folks that poverty has made goats; an' the right +is riches. See it swing, do ye? It don't no more'n touch poverty +before it's rich; it don't get time to starve an' suffer. It don't no +more'n touch riches before it's poor; it don't have time to forget, +an' git proud an' hard. I tell ye, J'rome, it ain't even division +we're aimin' at; we can't keep that if we get it till we're dead; +it's—balance. We want to keep the time of eternity, jest the +way that clock keeps the time of day.”</p> + +<p>Jerome looked at the clock and the pendulum swinging dimly behind +a painted landscape on the glass door, and never after saw one +without his uncle's imagery recurring to his mind. Always for him the +pendulum swung into the midst of a cowering throng of beggars on the +left, and into a band of purple-clad revellers on the right. Somehow, +too, Doctor Seth Prescott's face always stood out for him plainly +among them in purple.</p> + +<p>Always, sooner or later, Ozias Lamb would seize Doctor Prescott +and Simon Basset as living illustrations and pointed examples of the +social wrongs. “Look at them two men,” he would say, +“to come down to this town; look at them. You've heard about +cuttle-fishes, J'rome, 'ain't ye?”</p> + +<p>Jerome shook his head, as he drew his waxed thread through.</p> + +<p>“Well, I'll tell ye what they be. They're an awful kind of +fish. I never see one, but Belinda's brother that was a sailor, I've +heard him tell enough to make your blood run cold. They're all head +an' eyes an' arms. Their eyes are big as saucers, an' they're made +just to see things the cuttle-fishes want to kill; an' they've got a +hundred arms, with suckin' claws on the ends, an' they jest search +an' seek, search an' seek, with them dreadful eyes that ain't got no +life but hate an' appetite, an' they stretch out an' feel, stretch +out an' feel, with them hundred arms, till they git what they want, +an' then they lay hold with all the suckers on them hundred arms, an' +clutch an' wind, an' twist an' overlay, till, whether it's a drownin' +sailor or a ship, you can't see nothin' but cuttle-fish, +an'—”</p> + +<p>Jerome stopped working, staring at him. He was quite pale. His +imagination leaped to a glimpse of that frightful fish. +“An'—what comes—then?” he gasped.</p> + +<p>“The cuttle-fish—has got a beak,” said Ozias. +“By-an'-by there ain't nothin' but cuttle-fish.”</p> + +<p>Jerome saw quite plainly the monster writhing and coiling over a +waste of water, and nothing else.</p> + +<p>“Look at this town, an' look at Doctor Prescott, an' look at +Simon Basset,” Ozias went on, coming abruptly from illustration +to object, with a vigor of personal spite. “Look at 'em. You +can't see much of anything here but them two men. Much as ever you +can see the meetin'-house steeple. There are a few left, so you can +see who they be, like Squire Merritt an' Lawyer Means; but, Lord, +they'd better not get too careless huntin' and fishin' and +card-playin', or they'll git hauled in, partridges, cards, an' all. +But I'll tell you what 'tis—about all that anybody can see in +this town is the eyes an' the arms of them two men, a-suckin' and +graspin'.</p> + +<p>“Doctor Prescott, he's a church member, too, an' he gives +tithes of his widders an' orphans to the Lord. That meetin'-house +couldn't be run nohow without him. If they didn't have him to speak +in the prayer-meetin's, an' give the Lord some information about the +spiritooal state of this town on foreign missions, an' encourage Him +by admittin' He'd done pretty well, as far as He's gone, why, we +couldn't have no prayer-meetin's at all.”</p> + +<p>Most of us have our personal grievances, as a vantage-point for +eloquence in behalf of the mass. Simon Basset had deprived Ozias +Lamb, by shrewd management, of the old Lamb homestead; Doctor +Prescott had been instrumental in hushing his voice in prayer and +exhortation in prayer-meeting.</p> + +<p>The village people were not slow to recognize a certain natural +eloquence in Ozias Lamb's remarks; oftentimes they appealed to their +own secret convictions; yet they always trembled when he arose and +looked about with that strange smile of his. Ozias said once they +were half scared on account of the Lord, and half on account of +Doctor Prescott. Ozias was often clearly unorthodox in his +premises—no one could conscientiously demur when Doctor +Prescott, a church meeting having been called, presented for +approval, the minister being acquiescent, a resolution that Brother +Lamb be requested to remain quiet in the sanctuary, and not lift up +his voice unto the Lord in public unless he could do so in accordance +with the tenets of the faith, and to the spiritual edification of his +fellow-Christians. The resolution was passed, and Ozias Lamb never +entered the door of the meeting-house again, though his name was not +withdrawn from the church books.</p> + +<p>Therefore the cuttle-fish was a sort of Circean revenge upon +Doctor Prescott and Simon Basset for his own private wrongs. It takes +a god to champion wrongs which have not touched him in his farthest +imaginings.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XV</h4> + +<p>Jerome Edwards, young as he was, had within him the noblest +instinct of a reformer—that of deducting from all evils a first +lesson for himself. He said to himself: “It is true, what Uncle +Ozias says. It is wrong, the way things are. The rich have +everything—all the land, all the good food, all the money; the +poor have nothing. It is wrong.” Then he said, “If ever +I am rich I will give to the poor.” This pride of good +intentions, in comparison with others' deeds, gave the boy a certain +sense of superiority. Sometimes he felt as if he could see the top of +Doctor Prescott's head when he met him on the street.</p> + +<p>Poor Jerome had few of the natural joys and amusements of boyhood; +he was obliged to resort to his fertile and ardent imagination, or +the fibre of his spirit would have been relaxed with the melancholy +of age. While the other boys played in the present, whooping and +frisking, as free of thought as young animals, Jerome worked and +played in the future. Some air-castles he built so often that he +seemed to fairly dwell in them; some dreams he dreamed so often that +he went about always with them in his eyes. One fancy which specially +commended itself to him was the one that he was rich, that he owned +half the town, that in some manner Doctor Prescott's and Simon +Basset's acres had passed into his possession, and he could give them +away. He established all the town paupers in the doctor's clover. He +recalled old Peter Thomas from the poorhouse, and set him at Doctor +Prescott's front window in a broadcloth coat. An imbecile pauper by +the name of Mindy Toggs he established in undisturbed possession of +Simon Basset's house and lands.</p> + +<p>Doctor Seth Prescott little dreamed when he met this small, shabby +lad, and passed him as he might have passed some way-side weed, what +was in his mind. If people, when they meet, could know half the +workings of one another's minds, the recoils from the shocks might +overbalance creation. But Doctor Prescott never saw the phantom +paupers slouching through his clover-fields, and Simon Basset never +jostled Mindy Toggs on his threshold. However, Mindy Toggs had once +lived in Simon Basset's house.</p> + +<p>As Jerome advanced through boyhood it seemed as if everything +combined to strengthen, by outside example, the fancies and beliefs +derived from Ozias Lamb's precepts and his own constantly hard and +toilsome life. Jerome, on his very way to the district school, +learned tasks of bitter realism more impressive to his peculiar order +of mind than the tables and columns in the text-books.</p> + +<p>There was a short cut across the fields between the school-house +and the Edwards house. Jerome and Elmira usually took it, unless the +snow was deep, as by doing so they lessened the distance +considerably.</p> + +<p>The Edwards house was situated upon a road crossing the main +highway of the village where the school-house stood. In the triangle +of fields between the path which the Edwards children followed on +their way to school and the two roads was the poorhouse. It was a +low, stone-basemented structure, with tiny windows, a few of them +barred with iron, retreating ignominiously within thick walls; the +very grovelling of mendicancy seemed symbolized in its architecture +by some unpremeditatedness of art. It stood in a hollow, amid slopes +of stony plough ridges, over which the old male paupers swarmed +painfully with spades and shovels when spring advanced. When spring +came, too, old pauper women and wretched, half-witted girls and +children squatted like toads in the green fields outside the ploughed +ones, digging greens in company with grazing cows, and looked up with +unexpected flashes of human life when footsteps drew near. There was +a thrifty Overseer in the poorhouse, and the village paupers, unless +they were actually crippled and past labor, found small repose in the +bosom of the town. They grubbed as hard for their lodging and daily +bread of charity, with its bitterest of sauces, as if they worked for +hire.</p> + +<p>Old Peter Thomas, for one, had never toiled harder to keep the +roof of independence over his head than he toiled tilling the town +fields. Old Peter, even in his age and indigence, had an active mind. +Only one panacea was there for its workings, and that was tobacco. +When the old man had—which was seldom—a comfortable quid +with which to busy his jaws, his mind was at rest; otherwise it +gnawed constantly one bitter cud of questioning, which never reached +digestion. “Why,” asked old Peter Thomas, toiling +tobaccoless in the town fields—“why couldn't the town +have give me work, an' paid me what I airned, an' let me keep my +house, instead of sendin' of me here?”</p> + +<p>Sometimes he propounded the question, his sharp old eyes twinkling +out of a pitiful gloom of bewilderment, to the Overseer: “Say, +Mr. Simms, what ye s'pose the object of it is? Here I be, workin' +jest as hard for what's give as for what I used to airn.” But +he never got any satisfaction, and his mind never relaxed to ease, +until in some way he got a bit of tobacco. Old Peter Thomas, none of +whose forebears had ever been on the town, who had had in his youth +one of the prettiest and sweetest girls in the village to wife, +toiling hard with his stiff old muscles for no gain of independence, +his mind burdened with his unanswered question, would almost at times +have sold his soul for tobacco. Nearly all he had was given him by +Ozias Lamb, who sometimes crammed a wedge of tobacco into his hand, +with a hard and furtive thrust and surly glance aloof, when he +jostled him on the road or at the village store. Old Peter used to +loaf about the store, whenever he could steal away from the +poorhouse, on the chance of Ozias and tobacco. Ozias was dearly fond +of tobacco himself, but little enough he got, with this hungry old +pensioner lying in wait. He always yielded up his little newly bought +morsel of luxury to Peter, and went home to his shoes without it; +however, nobody knew. “Don't ye speak on't,” he charged +Peter, and he eschewed fiercely to himself all kindly motives in his +giving, considering rather that he was himself robbed by the great +wrong of the existing order of things.</p> + +<p>Jerome, who had seen his uncle cram tobacco into old Peter's hand, +used sometimes to leave the path on his way to school, when he saw +the delving old figure in the ploughed field, and discovered, even at +a distance, that his jaws were still and his brow knotted, run up to +him, and proffer as a substitute for the beloved weed a generous +piece of spruce-gum. The old man always took it, and spat it out when +the boy's back was turned.</p> + +<p>Jerome used to be fond of storing up checker-berries and sassafras +root, and doling them out to a strange small creature with wild, +askant eyes and vaguely smiling mouth, with white locks blowing as +straightly and coarsely as dry swamp grass, who was wont to sit, +huddling sharp little elbows and knees together, even in severe +weather, on a stone by the path. She had come into the world and the +poorhouse by the shunned byway of creation. She had no name. The +younger school-children said, gravely, and believed it, that she had +never had a father; as for her mother, she was only a barely admitted +and shameful necessity, who had come from unknown depths, and died of +a decline, at the town's expense, before the child could walk. She +had nothing save this disgraceful shadow of maternity, her feeble +little body, and her little soul, and a certain half-scared delight +in watching for Jerome and his doles of berries and sassafras. One of +Jerome's dearest dreams was the buying this child a doll like Lucina +Merritt's, with a muslin frock and gay sash and morocco shoes. So +much he thought about it that it fairly seemed to him sometimes, as +he drew near the little thing, that she nursed the doll in her arms. +He wanted to tell her what a beautiful doll she was to have when he +was rich, but he was too awkward and embarrassed before his own kind +impulses. He only bade her, in a rough voice, to hold her hands, and +then dropped into the little pink cup so formed his small votive +offering to childhood and poverty, and was off.</p> + +<p>Occasionally Elmira had cookies given her by kind women for whom +she did extra work, and then she saved one for the little creature, +emulating her brother's example. There was one point on the way to +school where Elmira liked to have her brother with her, and used +often to wait for him at the risk of being late. Even when she was +one of the oldest girls in school, almost a young woman, she scurried +fast by this point when alone, and even when Jerome was with her did +not linger. As for Jerome, he had no fear; but during his winters at +the district school the peculiar bent of his mind was strengthened by +the influence of this place.</p> + +<p>The poorhouse in the hollow had its barn and out-buildings +attached at right angles, with a cart-path leading thereto from the +street; but at the top of the slope, on the other side of the +schoolward path, stood a large, half-ruinous old barn, used only for +storing surplus hay. The door of this great, gray, swaying structure +usually stood open, and in it, on an old wreck of a wheelbarrow, sat +Mindy Toggs, in fair or foul weather.</p> + +<p>Mindy Toggs's head, with its thick thatch of light hair reaching +to his shoulders, had the pent effect of some monstrous mushroom cap +over his meagre body, with its loosely hung limbs, which moved +constantly with uncouth sprawls and flings, as if by some terrible +machinery of diseased nerves. Poor Mindy Toggs's great thatched head +also nodded and lopped unceasingly, and his slobbering chin dipped +into his calico shirt-bosom, and he said over and over, in his +strange voice like a parrot's, the only two words he was ever known +to speak, “Simon Basset, Simon Basset.”</p> + +<p>Mindy Toggs was sixty years old, it was said. His past was as dim +as his intellect. Nobody seemed to know exactly when Mindy Toggs was +born, or just when he had come to the poorhouse. Nobody knew who +either of his parents had been. Nobody knew how he got his name, but +there was a belief that it had a folk-lore-like origin; that +generations of Overseers ago an enterprising wife of one had striven +to set his feeble wits to account in minding the pauper babies, and +gradually, through transmission by weak and childish minds, his task +had become his name. Toggs was held to be merely a reminiscence of +some particularly ludicrous stage of his poorhouse costume.</p> + +<p>Mindy Toggs had dwelt in the poorhouse ever since people could +remember, with the exception of one year, when he was boarded out by +the town with Simon Basset, and learned to speak his two words. Simon +Basset had always had an opinion that work could be gotten out of +Mindy Toggs. Nobody ever knew by what means he set himself to prove +it; there had been dark stories; but one day Simon brought Mindy back +to the poorhouse, declaring with a strange emphasis that he never +wanted to set eyes on the blasted fool again, and Mindy had learned +his two words.</p> + +<p>It was said that the sight of Simon Basset roused the idiot to +terrific paroxysms of rage and fear, and that Basset never +encountered him if he could help it. However, poor Mindy was harmless +enough to ordinary folk, sitting day after day in the barn door, +looking out through the dusty shafts of sunlight, through spraying +mists of rain, and often through the white weave of snow, repeating +his two words, which had been dinned into his feeble brain, the Lord +only knew by what cruelty and terror—“Simon Basset, Simon +Basset.”</p> + +<p>Mindy Toggs was a terrifying object to nervous little Elmira +Edwards, but Jerome used often to bid her run along, and stop himself +and look at him soberly, with nothing of curiosity, but with +indignant and sorrowful reflection. At these times poor Mindy, if he +had only known it, drove his old master, who had illumined his +darkness of mind with one cruel flash of fear, out of house and home, +and sat in his stead by his fireside in warmth and comfort.</p> + +<p>Jerome left school finally when he was seventeen; up to that time +he attended all the winter sessions. During the winter, when Jerome +was seventeen, a man came to the neighboring town of Dale, bought out +the old shoe-factory and store there, and set up business on a more +extensive scale, sending out work in large quantities. Many of the +older boys left school on that account, Jerome among them; he had +special inducements to do so, through his uncle Ozias Lamb.</p> + +<p>“That man that bought out Bill Dickey, over in Dale, has +been talkin' to me,” Lamb told Jerome one evening. “Seems +he's goin' to increase the business; he's laid in an extra lot of +stock, and hired two more cutters, and he says he don't want to fool +with so many small accounts, and he'd rather let some of it out in +big lots. Says, if I'm willin', I can take as much as I can manage, +and let it out myself for bindin' and closin', and he'll pay me +considerable more on a lot than Robinson has, cash down. Now you see, +J'rome, I'm gettin' older, and I can't do much more finishin' than +I've been doin' right along. What I'm comin' at is this: s'pose I set +another bench in here, and take the extra work, and you quit school +and go into business. I can learn you all I know fast enough. You can +nigh about make a shoe now—dun'no' but you can +quite.”</p> + +<p>“I'd have to leave school,” Jerome said, soberly.</p> + +<p>“How much more book-learnin' do you think you need?” +returned Ozias, with his hard laugh. “Don't you forget that all +you came into this world for was to try not to get out of it through +lack of nourishment, and to labor for life with the sweat of your +brow. You don't need much eddication for that. It ain't with you as +it was with Lawrence Prescott, who was too good to go to the district +school, and had to be sent to Boston to have a minister fit him for +college. You don't come of a liberal eddicated race. You've got to +work for the breath of your nostrils, and not for the breath of your +mind or your soul. You'll find you can't fight your lot in life, +J'rome Edwards; you ain't got standin' room enough outside +it.”</p> + +<p>“I don't want to fight my lot in life,” Jerome +replied, defiantly, “but I thought I'd go to school this +winter.”</p> + +<p>“You won't grub a bit better for one more winter of +schoolin',” said his uncle, “and there's another +reason—your mother, she's gettin' older, an' Elmira, she's a +good-lookin' girl, but she's gettin' wore to skin an' bones. They're +both on 'em workin' too hard. You'd ought to try to have 'em let up a +little more.”</p> + +<p>“I wouldn't have either of 'em lift a finger, if I could +help it, the Lord knows!” Jerome cried, bitterly.</p> + +<p>Ozias nodded, grimly. “Women wa'n't calculated to work as +hard as men, nohow,” he said. “Seems as if a man that's +got hands, an' is willin', might be let to keep the worst of it off +'em, but he ain't. Seems as if I might have been able to do somethin' +for Ann when Abel quit, but I wa'n't.</p> + +<p>“There's one thing I've got to be thankful for, an' that +is—a hard Providence ain't been able to hurt Belindy any more +than it would a feather piller. She dints a little, and cries out +when she's hurt, an' then she settles back again, smooth and +comfortable as ever.</p> + +<p>“I don't s'pose you'll understand it, J'rome, because you +ain't come to thinking of such things yet, an' showed your sense that +you ain't, but I took that very thing into account when I picked out +my wife. There was another girl that I used to see home some, but, +Lord, she was a high stepper! Handsome as a picture she was; there +ain't a girl in this town to-day that can compare with her; but her +head was up, an' her nose quiverin', an' her eyes shinin'. I knew she +liked me pretty well, but, Lord, it was no use! Might as well have +set a blooded mare to ploughin'. She was one of the sort that +wouldn't have bent under hardship; she'd have broke. I knew well +enough what a dog-life a wife of mine would have to lead—jest +enough to keep body and soul together, an' no extras—an' I +wa'n't goin' to drag her into it, an' I didn't. I knew just how she'd +strain, an' work her pretty fingers to the bone to try to keep up. I +made up my mind that if I married at all I'd marry somebody that +wouldn't work more'n she could possibly help—not if we were +poor as Job's off ox.</p> + +<p>“So I looked 'round an' got Belindy. I spelled her out right +the first time I see her. She 'ain't had nothin', but I dun'no' but +she's been jest as happy as if she had. I 'ain't let her work hard; +she 'ain't never bound shoes nor done anythin' to earn a dollar since +I married her. Couldn't have kept the other one from doin' +it.”</p> + +<p>“What became of her?” asked Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Dead,” replied Ozias.</p> + +<p>Jerome asked nothing further. It ended in his leaving school and +going to work. This course met with some opposition from his mother, +who had madly ambitious plans for him. She had influenced Elmira to +leave school the year before, that she might earn more, and thereby +enable her brother to study longer, but he knew nothing of that.</p> + +<p>However, a plan which Jerome formed for some evening lessons with +the school-master appeased her. It savored of a private tutor like +Lawrence Prescott's. Nobody knew how Ann Edwards had resented Doctor +Prescott's sending his son to Boston to be fitted for college, while +hers could have nothing better than a few terms at the district +school. Her jealous bitterness was enhanced twofold because her poor +husband was gone, and the memory of his ambition for his son stung +her to sharper effort. Often the imagined disappointments of the +dead, when they are still loved and unforgotten, weigh more heavily +upon the living than their own. “I dun'no' what your father +would have said if he'd thought Jerome had got to leave school so +young,” she told Elmira; and her lost husband's grievance in +the matter was nearer her heart than her own.</p> + +<p>Jerome's plan for evening lessons did not work long. The +school-master to whom he applied professed his entire readiness, even +enthusiasm, to further such a laudable pursuit of knowledge under +difficulties; but he was young himself, scarcely out of college, and +the pretty girls in his school swayed his impressionable nature into +many side issues, even when his mind was set upon the main track. +Soon Jerome found himself of an evening in the midst of a class of +tittering girls, who also had been fired with zeal for improvement +and classical learning, who conjugated <i>amo</i> with foolish +blushes and glances of sugared sweetness at himself and the teacher. +Then he left.</p> + +<p>Jerome at that time felt absolutely no need of the feminine +element in creation, holding himself aloof from it with a patient, +because measureless, superiority. Sometimes in growth the mental +strides into life ahead of the physical; sometimes it is the other +way. At seventeen Jerome's mind took the lead of his body, and the +imaginations thereof, though he was well grown and well favored, and +young girls placed themselves innocently in his way and looked back +for him to follow.</p> + +<p>Jerome's cold, bright glances met theirs, full of the artless +appeal of love and passion, shameless because as yet unrecognized, +and then he turned away with disdain.</p> + +<p>“I came here to learn Latin and higher algebra, not to fool +with a pack of girls,” he told the school-master, bluntly. The +young man laughed and colored. He was honest and good; passion played +over him like wildfire, not with any heat for injury, but with a +dazzle to blind and charm.</p> + +<p>He did not intend to marry until he had well established himself +in life, and would not; but in the meantime he gave his resolution as +loose a rein as possible, and conjugated <i>amo</i> with shades of +meaning with every girl in the class.</p> + +<p>“I don't see what I can do, Edwards,” he said. +“I cannot turn the girls out, and I could not refuse them an +equal privilege with you, when they asked it.”</p> + +<p>Jerome gave the school-master a look of such entire comprehension +and consequent scorn that he fairly cast down his eyes before him; +then he went out with his books under his arm.</p> + +<p>He paid for his few lessons with the first money he could save, in +spite of the school-master's remonstrances.</p> + +<p>After that Jerome went on doggedly with his studies by himself, +and asked assistance from nobody. In the silent night, after his +mother and sister were in bed, he wrestled all alone with the angel +of knowledge, and half the time knew not whether he was smitten hip +and thigh or was himself the victor. Many a problem in his higher +algebra Jerome was never sure of having solved rightly; renderings of +many lines in his battered old Virgil, bought for a sixpence of a +past collegian in Dale, might, and might not, have been correct.</p> + +<p>However, if he got nothing else from his studies, he got the +discipline of mental toil, and did not spend his whole strength in +the labor of his hands.</p> + +<p>Jerome pegged and closed shoes with an open book on the bench +beside him; he measured his steps with conjugations of Latin verbs +when he walked to Dale with his finished work over shoulder; he +studied every spare moment, when his daily task was done, and kept +this up, from a youthful and unreasoning thirst for knowledge and +defiance of obstacles, until he was twenty-one. Then one day he +packed away all his old school-books, and never studied them again +regularly; for something happened which gave his energy the force of +reason, and set him firmly in a new track with a definite end in +view.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XVI</h4> + +<p>One evening, not long after his twenty-first birthday, Jerome +Edwards went to Cyrus Robinson's store on an errand.</p> + +<p>When he entered he found a large company assembled, swinging +booted legs over the counters, perched upon barrels and kegs, or +tilting back in the old scooping arm-chairs around the red-hot stove. +These last were the seats devoted to honor and age, when present, and +they were worthily filled that night. Men who seldom joined the +lounging, gossiping circle in the village store were there: Lawyer +Means, John Jennings, Colonel Lamson, Squire Merritt, even Doctor +Seth Prescott, and the minister, Solomon Wells.</p> + +<p>The recent town-meeting, the elections and appropriations, +accounted in some measure for this unusual company, though the bitter +weather might have had something to do with it. Hard it was for any +man that night to pass windows glowing with firelight, and the inward +swing of hospitable doors; harder it was, when once within the radius +of warmth and human cheer, to leave it and plunge again into that +darkness of winter and death, which seemed like the very outer +desolation of souls.</p> + +<p>The Squire's three cronies had been on their way to cards and +punch with him, but the winking radiance of the store windows had +lured them inside to warm themselves a bit before another half-mile +down the frozen road; and once there, sunken into the battered +hollows of the arm-chairs, within the swimming warmth from the stove, +they had remained. Their prospective host, Squire Eben Merritt, also +had shortly arrived, in quest of lemons for the brewing of his famous +punch, and had been nothing loath to await the pleasure of his +guests.</p> + +<p>The minister had come in giddy, as if with strong drink, being +unable, even with the steady gravity of his mind, to control the +chilly trembling of his thin old shanks in their worn black +broadcloth. His cloak was thin; his daughter had tied a little black +silk shawl of her own around his neck for further protection; his +mildly ascetic old face peered over it, fairly mouthing and +chattering with the cold. He could scarcely salute the company in his +customary reverend and dignified manner.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben sprang up and place his own chair in a warmer corner +for him, and the minister was not averse to settling therein and +postponing for a season the purchase of a quarter pound of tea, and +his shivering homeward pilgrimage.</p> + +<p>Doctor Seth Prescott, who lived nearly across the way, had come +over after supper to prescribe for the storekeeper's wife, who had +lumbago, and joined the circle around the stove, seeing within it +such worthy companions as the lawyer and the Squire, and having room +made promptly and deferentially for him.</p> + +<p>The discussion had been running high upon the subject of town +appropriations for the poor, until Doctor Prescott entered and the +grating arm-chairs made place for him, when there was a hush for a +moment. Ozias Lamb, hunched upon a keg on the outskirts, smiled +sardonically around at Adoniram Judd standing behind him.</p> + +<p>“Cat's come,” he said; “now the mice stop +squeakin'.” The men near him chuckled.</p> + +<p>Simon Basset, who, having arrived first, had the choice of seats, +and was stationed in the least rickety arm-chair the farthest from +draughts, ceased for a moment the rotatory motion of lantern jaws and +freed his mind upon the subject of the undue appropriations for the +poor.</p> + +<p>“Ain't a town of this size in the State begins to lay out +the money we do to keep them good-for-nothin' paupers,” said +he, and chewed again conclusively.</p> + +<p>Doctor Prescott, not as yet condescending to speak, had made a +slight motion and frown of dissent, which the minister at his elbow +saw. Doctor Prescott was his pillar of the sanctuary, upholding +himself and his pulpit from financial and doctrinal +downfall—his pillar even of ideas and individual movements. +Poor old Solomon Wells fairly walked his road of life attached with +invisible leading-strings to Doctor Seth Prescott. He spoke when +Simon Basset paused, and more from his mentor's volition than his +own. “The poor ye have always with ye,” said the +minister, with pious and weighty dissent. Doctor Prescott nodded.</p> + +<p>Ozias Lamb squinted slowly around with ineffable sarcasm of +expression. He took in deliberately every detail of the two +men—Doctor Seth Prescott, the smallest in physical stature of +anybody there, yet as marked among them all as some local Napoleon, +and the one whom a stranger would first have noted, and the old +clergyman leaning towards him with a subtle inclination of mind as +well as body; then he spoke as Jerome entered.</p> + +<p>Jerome laid the empty sack, which he had brought for meal, on the +counter, and stood about to listen with the rest. Squire Eben +Merritt, having given his chair to the minister and squared up his +great shoulders against a pile of boxes on the counter, was near him, +and saluted him with a friendly nod, which Jerome returned with a +more ardent flash of his black eyes than ever a girl had called forth +yet. Jerome adored this kindly Squire, against whom he was always +fiercely on his guard lest he tender him gratuitous favors, and his +indebtedness to whom was his great burden of life.</p> + +<p>His Uncle Ozias did not notice him or pause in his harangue. +“The poor ye have always with ye, the poor ye have always with +ye,” he was repeating, with a very snarl of sarcasm. “I +reckon ye do; an' why? Why is it that folks had the Man that give +that sayin' to the world with 'em, and made Him suffer and die? It +was the same reason for both. D'ye want to know what 'twas? Well, +I'll tell ye—it don't take a very sharp mind to ferret that +out. It don't even take college larnin'. It is because from the very +foundation of this green airth the rich and the wicked and the proud +have had the mastery over it, an' their horns have been exalted. The +Lord knows they've got horns to their own elevation an' the hurt of +others, as much as any horned animals, though none of us can see 'em +sproutin', no matter how hard we squint.”</p> + +<p>With that Ozias Lamb gave a quick glance, pointed with driest +humor, from under his bent brows at Simon Basset's great jumble of +gray hair and Doctor Prescott's spidery sprawl of red wig. A subdued +and half-alarmed chuckle ran through the company. Simon Basset chewed +imperturbably, but Doctor Seth Prescott's handsome face was pale with +controlled wrath.</p> + +<p>Ozias continued: “I tell ye that is the reason for all the +sufferin', an' the wrongs, an' the crucifixion, on this earth. The +rich are the reason for it all; the rich are the reason for the poor. +If the money wa'n't in one pocket it would be in many; if the bread +wa'n't all in one cupboard there wouldn't be so many empty; if all +the garments wa'n't packed away in one chest there wouldn't so many +go bare. There's money enough, an' food enough, an' clothes enough in +this very town for the whole lot, an' it's the few that holds 'em +that makes the paupers.”</p> + +<p>Doctor Seth Prescott's mouth was a white line of suppression. Some +of the men exchanged glances of consternation. Cyrus Robinson's +clerk, Samson Loud, leaning over the counter beside his employer, +said, “I swan!” under his breath. As for Cyrus Robinson, +he was doubtful whether or not to order this turbulent spirit out of +his domain, especially since he was no longer a good customer of his, +but worked for and traded with the storekeeper in Dale.</p> + +<p>He looked around at his son Elisha, who was married now these +three years to Abigail Mack, had two children, and a share in the +business; but he got no suggestion from him. Elisha, who had grown +very stout, sat comfortably on a half-barrel of sugar inside the +counter, sucking a stick of peppermint candy, unmoved by anything, +even the entrance of his old enemy, Jerome. As Cyrus Robinson was +making up his mind to say something, Doctor Seth Prescott spoke, +coldly and magisterially, without moving a muscle in his face, which +was like a fine pale mask.</p> + +<p>“May I ask Mr. Lamb,” he said, “how long, in his +judgment, when the money shall have been divided and poured from one +purse into many others, when the loaves shall have been distributed +among all the empty cupboards, and when all the surplus garments have +been portioned out to the naked, this happy state of equal +possessions will last?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” replied Ozias Lamb, slowly, “I should +say, takin' all things into consideration—the graspin' +qualities of them that had been rich, and the spillin' qualities of +them that had been poor, about fourteen hours an' three-quarters. I +might make it twenty-four—I s'pose some might hang on to it +overnight—but I guess on the whole it's safer to call it +fourteen an' three-quarters.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” returned Doctor Prescott, “what then, +Mr. Lamb?”</p> + +<p>“Give it back again,” said Ozias, shortly.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben Merritt gave a great shout of mirth. “By the +Lord Harry,” he cried, “that's an idea!”</p> + +<p>“It is an entirely erroneous system of charity which you +propose, Mr. Lamb,” said Doctor Prescott; “such a +constant disturbance and shifting of the property balance would shake +the financial basis of the whole country. Our present system of one +public charity, to include all the poor of the town, is the only +available one, in the judgment of the ablest philanthropists in the +country.”</p> + +<p>Ozias Lamb got off his keg, straightened his bowed shoulders as +well as he was able, and raised his right hand. “You call the +poorhouse righteous charity, do ye, Doctor Seth Prescott?” he +demanded. “You call it givin' in the name of the +Lord?”</p> + +<p>Doctor Prescott made no response; indeed, Ozias did not wait for +one. He plunged on in a very fury of crude oratory.</p> + +<p>“It ain't charity!” he cried. “I tell ye what it +is—it's a pushin' an' hustlin' of the poor off the steps of the +temple, an' your own door-steps an' door-paths, to get 'em out of +your sight an' sound, where your purple an' fine linen won't sweep +against their rags, an' your delicate ears won't hear their groans, +an' your delicate eyes an' nose won't see nor scent their sores; +where you yourselves, with your own hands, won't have to nurse an' +tend 'em. I tell ye, that rich man in Scriptur' was a damned fool not +to start a poorhouse, an' not have Lazaruses layin' round his gate. +He'd have been more comfortable, an' <em>mebbe</em> he'd have cheated +hell so.</p> + +<p>“You call it givin'—<em>givin'!</em> You call livin' +in that house over there in the holler, workin' with rheumatic old +joints, an' wearin' stiff old fingers to the bone, not for honest +hire, but for the bread of charity, a gift, do ye? I tell ye, every +pauper in that there house that's got his senses after what he's been +through, knows that he pays for every cent he costs the town, either +by the sweat of his brow an' the labor of his feeble hands, or by the +independence of his soul.”</p> + +<p>Then Simon Basset spat, and shifted his quid and spoke. +“Tell ye what 'tis, all of ye,” said he—“it's +mighty easy talkin' an' givin' away gab instead of dollars. I'll bet +ye anything ye'll put up that there ain't one of ye out of the whole +damned lot that 'ain't got any money that would give it away if he +had it.”</p> + +<p>“I would,” declared a clear young voice from the +outskirts of the crowd. Everybody turned and looked, and saw Jerome +beside Squire Merritt, his handsome face all eager and challenging. +Jerome was nearly as tall as the Squire, though more slender, and +there was not a handsomer young fellow in the village. He had, in +spite of his shoemaking, a carriage like a prince, having overcome by +some erectness of his spirit his hereditary stoop.</p> + +<p>Simon Basset looked at him. “If ye had a big fortune left +ye, s'pose ye'd give it all away, would ye?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir, I would.” Jerome blushed a little with a +brave modesty before the concentrated fire of eyes, but he never +unbent his proud young neck as he faced Simon Basset.</p> + +<p>“S'pose ye'd give away every dollar?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir, I would—every dollar.”</p> + +<p>“Lord!” ejaculated Simon Basset, and his bristling, +grimy jaws worked again.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben Merritt looked at Jerome almost as he might have done +at his pretty Lucina. “By the Lord Harry, I believe you would, +boy!” he said, under his breath.</p> + +<p>“Such idle talk is not to the purpose,” Doctor Seth +Prescott said, with a stately aside to the minister, who nodded with +the utter accordance of motion of any satellite.</p> + +<p>But Simon Basset spoke again, and as he spoke he hit the doctor, +who sat next him, a hard nudge in his broadcloth side with a sharp +elbow. “Stan' ye any amount ye want to put up that that young +bob-squirt won't give away a damned dollar, if he ever gits it to +give,” he said, with a wink of curious confidential scorn.</p> + +<p>“I do not bet,” replied the doctor, shortly.</p> + +<p>“Lord! ye needn't be pertickler, doctor; it's safe +'nough,” returned Simon Basset, with a sly roll of facetious +eyes towards the company.</p> + +<p>The doctor deigned no further reply.</p> + +<p>“I'll stan' any man in this company anything he'll put +up,” cried Simon Basset, who was getting aroused to a singular +energy.</p> + +<p>Nobody responded. Squire Eben Merritt, indeed, opened his mouth to +speak, then turned it off with a laugh. “I'd make the bet, +boy,” he whispered to Jerome, “if it were anybody else +that proposed it, but that old—”</p> + +<p>Simon Basset stood up; the men looked at him with wonder. His eyes +glowed with strange fire. The lawyer eyed him keenly. “I should +think from his face that the man was defending himself in the +dock,” he whispered to Colonel Lamson.</p> + +<p>“I'll tell ye what I'll do, then,” shouted Simon +Basset, “if ye won't none of ye take me up. I'll be damned if I +believe that any rich man on the face of this earth is capable of +givin' away every dollar he's got, for the fear of the Lord or the +love of his fellow-men. I'll be damned if I believe, if the Lord +Almighty spoke to him from on high, and told him to, he'd do it, an' +I'm goin' to prove that I don't believe it. I'll tell ye all what +I'll do. Lawyer Means is here, an' he can take it down in black an' +white, if he wants to, an' I'll sign it reg'lar an' have it +witnessed. If that young man there,” he pointed at Jerome, +“ever comes into any property, an' gives away every dollar of +it, I'll give away one quarter of all I've got in the world to the +poor of this town, an' I'll take my oath on it.</p> + +<p>“But there's more than that,” continued Simon Basset. +“I'll get a condition before I do it. I call on my +fellow-townsman here—I won't say my fellow-Christian, 'cause he +wouldn't think that much of a compliment—to do the same thing. +If he'll do it, I will; if he won't, I won't.” Simon Basset +looked down at Doctor Prescott with malicious triumph. Everybody +stared at the two men.</p> + +<p>“Why don't ye speak up, doctor—hey?” asked Simon +Basset, finally.</p> + +<p>“Because I do not consider such an outrageous proposition +worthy of consideration, Mr. Basset,” returned the doctor, with +a calm aside elevation of his clear profile, and not the slightest +quickening of his even voice.</p> + +<p>“Then ye don't believe there's a man livin' capable of +givin' away his all for the Lord an' His poor any more'n I do, an' I +calculate you jedge so from the workin's of your own heart an' +knowin' what you'd do in like case, jest like me,” said Simon +Basset.</p> + +<p>Doctor Prescott made a quick motion, and the color flashed over +his thin face. “I made no such assertion,” he said, +hotly, for his temper at last was up over his icy bonds of will.</p> + +<p>“Looks so,” said Simon Basset.</p> + +<p>“You have no right to make such a statement, sir,” +returned the doctor, and his lips seemed to cut the air like +scissors.</p> + +<p>“What is it, then?” returned the other. “Are you +afraid the young fellow will come into property, an' then you'll have +to give up too much to the Lord?”</p> + +<p>The veins on Doctor Prescott's forehead swelled visibly as he +looked at Simon Basset's hateful, bantering face.</p> + +<p>“There's another thing I'm willin' to promise,” +continued Simon Basset. “If that young feller comes into money, +an' gives it away, I'll do more than give away a quarter of my +property—I'll believe anything after that. I'll get religion. +But—I won't agree to do that unless you back me up, doctor. +That ought to induce you—the prospect of savin' a brand from +the burnin'; an' if I ain't a brand, I dun'no' who is.”</p> + +<p>“I tell you, sir, I'll have nothing to do with it!” +shouted Doctor Prescott. The minister at his side looked pale and +scared as a woman.</p> + +<p>“Then,” said Simon Basset, “it's settled. You +an' me won't agree to no sech damn foolishness, because we both on us +know that there's no sech Christian charity an' love as that in the +world; an' if there should turn out to be, we're afraid we'd have to +do likewise. I thought I was safe enough proposin' sech a plan, +doctor.”</p> + +<p>There was a great shout of laughter, in spite of the respect for +Doctor Prescott. In the midst of it the doctor sprang to his feet, +looking as none of them had ever seen him look before. “Get a +paper and pen and ink,” he cried, turning to Lawyer Means; +“draw up the document that this man proposes, and I will sign +it!”</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XVII</h4> + +<p>The paper which Lawyer Eliphalet Means, standing at the battered +and hacked old desk whereon Cyrus Robinson made out his accounts, +drew up with a sputtering quill pen—at which he swore under his +breath—was as fully elaborated and as formal in every detail as +his legal knowledge could make it. Apostrophizing it openly, before +he began, as damned nonsense, he was yet not without a certain +delight in the task. It was quite easy to see that Simon Basset, +whatever motive he might have had in his proposition, was beyond +measure terrified at its acceptance. With his bristling chin dropping +nervously, and his forehead contracted with anxious wrinkles, he +questioned Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Look at here,” he said, with a tight clutch on +Jerome's sleeve, “I want to know, young man. There ain't no +property anywheres in your family, is there? There ain't no second +nor third nor fourth cousins out West anywheres that's got +property?”</p> + +<p>“No, there are not,” said Jerome, impatiently shaking +off his hand.</p> + +<p>“Your father didn't have no uncle that had money?”</p> + +<p>“I tell you there isn't a dollar in the family that I know +of,” cried Jerome. “I have nothing to do with all this, +and I want you to understand it. All I said was, and I say it now, if +in any way any money should ever fall to me, I would give it away; +and I will, whether anybody else does or not.”</p> + +<p>“You don't mean money you earn; you mean money that falls to +you—”</p> + +<p>“I mean if ever I get enough money in a lump to make me +rich,” replied Jerome, doggedly.</p> + +<p>“I want to know how much money you are goin' to call +rich,” demanded Simon Basset.</p> + +<p>“Ten thousand dollars,” replied Jerome, whose estimate +of wealth was not large.</p> + +<p>Simon Basset cried out with sharp protest at that, and Doctor +Prescott evidently agreed with him.</p> + +<p>“Any man might scrape together ten thousand dollars,” +said Basset. “Lord! he might steal that much.”</p> + +<p>The amount of wealth which the document should specify was finally +fixed at twenty-five thousand dollars, which was, moreover, to come +into Jerome's possession in full bulk and during the next ten years, +or the obligation would be null and void.</p> + +<p>Basset also insisted upon the stipulation that Jerome, in his +giving, should not include his immediate family. “I've seen men +shift their purses into women folks' pockets, an' take 'em out again, +when they got ready, before now,” he said. “I ain't goin' +to have no such gum-game as that played.”</p> + +<p>That proposition met with some little demur, though not from +Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Might just as well say I wouldn't agree not to give mother +and Elmira the moon, if it fell to me,” he said to Squire +Merritt.</p> + +<p>The Squire nodded. “Let 'em put it any way they want +to,” he said; “it can't hurt you any. Means knows what +he's about. I tell you that old fox of a Basset feels as if the dogs +were after him.” The Squire was highly amused, but Jerome did +not regard it as quite a laughing matter. He wondered angrily if they +were making fun of him, and would have flown out at the whole of +them, with all his young impetuosity, had not Squire Eben restrained +him.</p> + +<p>“Easy, boy, easy,” he whispered. “It won't do +you any harm.”</p> + +<p>The instrument, as drawn up by Lawyer Means, also stipulated, at +Simon Basset's insistence, that the said twenty-five thousand dollars +should come into Jerome's possession within ten years from date, and +be given away by him within one month's time after his acquisition of +the same. Lawyer Means, without objection, filed carefully all +Basset's precautionary conditions; then he proceeded to make it +clearly evident, with no danger of quibble, that “in case the +said Jerome Edwards should comply with all the said conditions, the +said Doctor Seth Prescott and Simon Basset, Esquire, of Upham +Corners, do covenant and engage by these presents to remise, release, +give, and forever quitclaim, each of the aforesaid, one-quarter of +the property of which he may at the time of the acquisition by the +said Jerome Edwards of the said twenty-five thousand dollars, stand +possessed, to all those persons of adult age residing within the +boundaries of the town of Upham Corners who shall not own at the time +of said acquisition homesteads free of encumbrance and the sum of +twelve thousand dollars in bank, to be divided among the aforesaid in +equal measure.</p> + +<p>“In witness whereof we, the said Doctor Seth Prescott and +Simon Basset, have hereunto set our hands and seals,” etc.</p> + +<p>This document, being duly signed, sealed, and delivered in the +presence of the witnesses John Jennings, Eben Merritt, Esquire, and +Cyrus Robinson, was stored away in the pocket of Lawyer Eliphalet +Means's surtout, to be later locked safely in his iron box of +valuables.</p> + +<p>Simon Basset's writing lore was limited, being, many claimed, +confined to the ability to sign his name, and even that seemed likely +in this case to fail him. Simon Basset faltered as if he had +forgotten either his name or his spelling, and it was truly a strange +signature when done, full of sharp slants of rebellion and curves of +indecision. As for Doctor Seth Prescott, who had sat aloof, with a +fine withdrawn majesty, all through the discussion, when it was +signified to him that everything was in readiness for his signature +he arose, went to the desk amid a hush of attention, and signed his +name in characters like the finest copper-plate. Then he went out of +the store without a word, and the minister, forgetting his quarter of +tea, slid after him as noiselessly as his shadow.</p> + +<p>Lawyer Means, when once out in the frosty night with his three +mates, bound at last for cards and punch, shook his long sides with +husky merriment. “I tell you,” he said, “if I were +worth enough, I'd give every dollar of the twenty-five thousand to +that boy before morning, just for the sake of seeing Prescott and +Basset.”</p> + +<p>“Of course, when it comes to a question of legality, that +document isn't worth the paper it's written on,” the Colonel +said, chuckling.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” replied the lawyer, dryly. “Basset +didn't know it, though, nor Jerome, nor scarcely a soul in the store +beside.”</p> + +<p>“Doctor Prescott did.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose so, or he wouldn't have signed.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think the boy would live up to his part of the +bargain?” asked the Colonel, who, being somewhat gouty of late +years, limped slightly on the frozen ground.</p> + +<p>“I'd stake every cent I've got in the world on it,” +cried Squire Eben Merritt, striding ahead—“every cent, +sir!”</p> + +<p>“Well, there's no chance of his being put to the +test,” said Lamson.</p> + +<p>“Chance!” exclaimed the lawyer. “Good heavens! +You might as well talk of his chance of inheriting the throne of the +Cæsars. I know the Edwards family, and I know Jerome's mother's +family, root and branch, and there isn't five thousand dollars among +them down to the sixth cousins; and as for the boy's accumulating it +himself—where are the twenty-five thousand dollars in these +parts for him to accumulate in ten years? You might as well talk of +his discovering a gold-mine in that famous wood-lot. But I'll be +damned if Basset wasn't as much scared as if the poor fellow had been +jingling the gold in his pocket. If Jerome Edwards <em>does</em>, +through the Lord or the devil, get twenty-five thousand dollars, I +hope I shall be alive to see the fun.”</p> + +<p>“Hush,” whispered John Jennings; “he is behind +us, and I would not have such a generous young heart as that think +itself spoken of lightly.”</p> + +<p>“Would he do it?” Colonel Lamson asked, short-winded +and reflective.</p> + +<p>“I'll be damned if he wouldn't!” cried the lawyer.</p> + +<p>“By the Lord Harry, he would!” cried Squire Eben, each +using his favorite oath for confirmation of his opinion.</p> + +<p>Jerome, following in their tracks with his uncle Ozias, heard +perfectly their last remarks, and lagged behind to hear no more, +though his heart leaped up to second with fierce affirmation the +lawyer and the Squire.</p> + +<p>“Keep behind them,” he whispered to Ozias; “I +don't want to listen.”</p> + +<p>“Think you'd give it away if you had it, do ye?” his +uncle asked, with his dry chuckle.</p> + +<p>“I don't <em>think</em>—I <em>know</em>.”</p> + +<p>“How d'ye know?”</p> + +<p>“I <em>know</em>.”</p> + +<p>“Lord!”</p> + +<p>“You think I wouldn't, do you?” asked Jerome, +angrily.</p> + +<p>“I'd be more inclined to believe ye if I see ye more +generous with what ye've got to give now.”</p> + +<p>Jerome started, and stared at his uncle's face, which, in the +freezing moonlight, looked harder, and more possessed of an +inscrutable bitterness of wisdom. “What d'ye mean?” he +asked, sharply. “What on earth have I got to give, I'd like to +know?”</p> + +<p>Ozias Lamb tapped his head. “How about that?” he +asked. “How about the strength you're puttin' into algebry an' +Latin? You don't expect ever to learn enough to teach, do +ye?”</p> + +<p>Jerome shook his head.</p> + +<p>“Well, then it's jest to improve your own mind. Improve your +mind—what's that? What good is that goin' to do your +fellow-bin's? I tell ye, Jerome, ye ain't givin' away what you've got +to give, an' we ain't none of us.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe you're right,” Jerome said, after a little.</p> + +<p>After having left his uncle, he walked more slowly still. Soon the +Squire and his friends were quite out of sight. The moonlight was +very full and brilliant, the trees were crooked in hard lines, and +the snow-drifts crested with white lights of ice; there was no +softening of spring in anything, but the young man felt within him +one of those flooding stirs of the spirit which every spring faintly +symbolizes. A great passion of love and sympathy for the needy and +oppressed of his kind, and an ardent defence of them, came upon +Jerome Edwards, poor young shoemaker, going home with his sack of +meal over his shoulder. Like a bird, which in the spring views every +little straw and twig as towards his nest and purpose of love, Jerome +would henceforth regard all powers and instrumentalities that came in +his way only in their bearing upon his great end of life.</p> + +<p>On reaching home that night he packed away his algebra and his +Latin books on the shelf in his room, and began a new study the next +evening.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XVIII</h4> + +<p>Seth Prescott was the only practising physician for some +half-dozen villages. His mud-bespattered sulky and his smart mare, +advancing always with desperate flings of forward hoofs—which +caused the children to scatter—were familiar objects, not only +in the cluster of Uphams, but also in Dale and Granby, and the little +outlying hamlet of Ford's Hill, which was nothing but a scattering +group of farm-houses, with a spire in their midst, and which came +under the jurisdiction of Upham. In all these villages people were +wont to run from the windows to the doors when they saw the doctor's +sulky whirl past, peer after it, up or down the road, to see where it +might stop, and speculate if this old soul were about to leave the +world, or that new soul to come into it.</p> + +<p>One afternoon, not long before he was twenty-one, Jerome Edwards +walked some three miles and a half to Ford's Hill to carry some shoes +to a woman binder who was too lame to come for them herself. Jerome +walked altogether of late years, for the white horse was dead of old +age: but it was well for him, since he was saved thereby from the +permanent crouch of the shoe-bench.</p> + +<p>When, having left his shoes, he was returning down the steep +street of the little settlement, he saw Doctor Prescott's sulky ahead +of him. Then, just before it reached a small weather-beaten house on +the right, he saw a woman rush out as if to stop it, and a man follow +after her and pull her back through the door.</p> + +<p>The sulky was driven past at a rapid pace; for the weather was +sharp, and the doctor's mare stepped out well after standing. When +Jerome reached the house the doctor was scarcely within hailing +distance; but the woman was out again, calling after him frantically: +“Doctor! Doctor! Doctor Prescott! Stop! Stop here! +Doctor!”</p> + +<p>Jerome sprang forward to offer his assistance in summoning him, +but at that instant the man reappeared again and clutched the woman +by the arm. “Come back, come back in the house, Laura,” +he gasped, faintly, and yet with wild energy.</p> + +<p>Jerome saw then that the man was ghastly, staggering, and +yellow-white, except for blazing red spots on the cheeks, and that +his great eyes were bright with fever. Jerome knew him; he was a +young farmer, Henry Leeds by name, and not long married. Jerome had +gone to school with the wife, and called her familiarly by name. +“What's the matter, Laura?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, J'rome,” she half sobbed, “do help +me—do call the doctor. Henry's awful sick; I know he is. He'd +ought to have the doctor, but he won't because it costs so much. Do +call him; I can't make him hear.”</p> + +<p>Jerome opened his mouth to shout, but the sick man flew at him +with an awful, piteous cry. “Don't ye, don't ye,” he +wailed out; “I tell ye not to, J'rome Edwards. I 'ain't got any +money to pay him with.”</p> + +<p>“But you're sick, Henry,” said Jerome, putting his +hand on the man's shaking shoulder to steady him. “You'd better +let me run after him—I can make him hear now. It won't cost +much.”</p> + +<p>“Don't ye do it,” almost sobbed the young farmer. +“It costs us a dollar every time he comes so far, an' he'll say +right off, the way he did about mother that last time she was +sick—when she broke her hip—that he'd take up a little +piece of land beforehand; it would jest pay his bill. He'll do that, +an' I tell ye I 'ain't got 'nough land now to support me. I 'ain't +got 'nough land now, J'rome.”</p> + +<p>The poor young wife was weeping almost like a child. “Do let +him call the doctor, do let him, Henry,” she pleaded.</p> + +<p>“There's another thing, J'rome,” half whispered the +young man, turning his back on his wife and fastening mysterious +bright eyes on Jerome's—“there's another thing. Laura, +she'll have to have the doctor before long, you can see that, +an'—there'll be another mouth to fill, an' I've been savin' up +a little, an' it ain't goin' for <em>me</em>—I tell ye it ain't +goin' for <em>me</em>, J'rome.”</p> + +<p>All the while poor Henry Leeds, in spite of hot red spots on his +cheeks, was shivering violently, but stiffly, like a tree in a +freezing wind. The doctor had whirled quite out of sight over the +hill. “He's gone,” wailed the wife—“he's +gone, and Henry 'll die—oh, I know he'll die!”</p> + +<p>Then Jerome, who had been standing bewildered, not knowing whether +he should or should not run and call after the doctor, and listening +first to one, then to the other, collected himself. “No, he +isn't going to die, either,” he said to the poor girl, who was +very young; and he said it quite sharply, because he so pitied her in +her innocent helplessness, and would give her courage even in a +bitter dose. He asked her, furthermore, as brusquely as Doctor +Prescott himself could have done, what medicine she had in the house. +Then he bade her hasten, if she wished to help and not hurt her +husband, to the nearest neighbor and beg some sweat-producing +herbs—thoroughwort or sage or catnip—all of which he had +heard were good for fever.</p> + +<p>She went away, wrapped in the thick shawl which Jerome had found +in a closet, and himself pinned over the wild fair head, under the +quivering chin, while he quieted her with grave admonitions, as if he +were her father. Then he led poor Henry Leeds—still crying out +that he would not have the doctor—into his house and his +bedroom, and got him to bed, though it was a hard task.</p> + +<p>“I tell you, Henry,” pleaded Jerome, struggling with +him to loosen his neck-band, “you shall not have the doctor; +I'll doctor you myself.”</p> + +<p>“You don't know how—you don't know how, J'rome! She'll +say you don't know how; she'll send for him, an' then, when he's got +all my land, how am I goin' to get them a livin'?”</p> + +<p>“I tell you, Doctor Prescott sha'n't darken your doors, +Henry Leeds, if you'll behave yourself,” said Jerome, stoutly; +“and I can break up a fever as well as he can, if you'll only +let me. Mother broke up one for me, and I never forgot it. You let me +get your clothes off and get you into bed, Henry.”</p> + +<p>Jerome had had some little experience through nursing his mother, +but, more than that, had the natural instinct of helpfulness, +balanced with good sense and judgment, which makes a physician. +Moreover, he worked with as fiery zeal as if he were a surgeon in a +battle-field. Soon he had Henry Leeds in his feather bed, with all +the wedding quilts and blankets of poor young Laura piled over him. +The fire was almost out, for the girl was a poor house-keeper, and +not shod by nature for any of the rough emergencies of life. Jerome +had the fire blazing in short space, and some hot water and hot +bricks in readiness.</p> + +<p>Poor young Laura Leeds had to go almost half a mile for her +healing herbs, as the first neighbor was away from home and no one +came in answer to her knocks. By the time she returned, with a stout +neighboring mother at her side—both of them laden with dried +aromatic bouquets, and the visitor, moreover, clasping a bottle or +two of household panaceas, such as camphor and +castor-oil—Jerome had the sick man steaming in a circle of hot +bricks, and was rubbing him under the clothes with saleratus and +water.</p> + +<p>Jerome's proceedings might not have commended themselves to a +school of physicians; but he reasoned from the principle that if +remedies were individually valuable, a combination of them would +increase in value in the proportion of the several to one. Sage and +thoroughwort, sarsaparilla, pennyroyal, and burdock—nearly +every herb, in fact, in the neighbor's collection—were infused +into one black and eminently flavored tea, into which he dropped a +little camphor, and even a modicum of castor-oil. Jerome afterwards +wondered at his own daring; but then, with a certainty as absolute as +the rush of a stung animal to a mud bath—as if by some instinct +of healing born with him—he concocted that dark and bitter +beverage, and fed it in generous doses to the sick man. Nobody +interfered with him. The neighbor, though older than Laura and the +mother of several children, had never known enough to bring out their +measles and loosen their colds. The herbs had been gathered and +stored by her husband's mother, and for many a year hung all unvalued +in her garret. Luckily Jerome, through his old gathering for the +apothecary, knew them all.</p> + +<p>Jerome set one of the neighbor's boys to Upham Corners to tell his +mother of his whereabouts; then he remained all night with young +Henry Leeds, and by dint of his medley of herbs, or his tireless +bathing and nursing, or because the patient had great elasticity of +habit, or because the fever was not, after all, of a dangerous +nature, his treatment was quite successful.</p> + +<p>Jerome went home the next morning, and returned late in the +afternoon, to stay overnight again. The day after, the fever did not +appear, and Henry Leeds was on the fair way to recovery. A few weeks +later came the affair of the contract in Robinson's store, and Jerome +grasped a new purpose from the two.</p> + +<p>The next day, when he carried some finished shoes to Dale, he +bought a few old medical books, the remnant of a departed doctor's +library, which had been stowed away for years in a dusty corner of +the great country store. This same store included in its stock such +heterogeneous objects, so utterly irrelevant to one another and at +such tangents of connection, that it seemed sometimes like a very +mad-house of trade.</p> + +<p>It was of this store that the story was told for miles around how +one day Lawyer Means, having driven over with Colonel Lamson from +Upham Corners, made a bet with him that he could not ask for anything +not included in its stock of trade; and the Colonel had immediately +gone in and asked for a skeleton; for he thought that he was thereby +sure of winning his bet, and of putting to confusion his friend and +the storekeeper. The latter, however, who was not the Bill Dickey of +this time, but an unkempt and shrewd old man of an earlier date, had +conferred with his own recollection for a minute, and asked, +reflectively, of his clerk, “Lemme see, we've got a skeleton +somewheres about, 'ain't we, Eph?” And had finally +unearthed—not adjacent to the old doctor's medical books, for +that would have been to much method in madness, but in some +far-removed nook—a ghastly box, containing a reasonably +complete little skeleton. Then was the laugh all on Colonel Jack +Lamson, who had his bet to pay, and was put to hard shifts to avoid +making his grewsome purchase, the article being offered exceedingly +cheap on account of its unsalable properties.</p> + +<p>“It's been here a matter of twenty-five year, ever sence the +old doctor died. Them books, an' that, was cleaned out of his office, +an' brought over here,” the old storekeeper had said. +“Let ye have it cheap, Colonel; call it a shillin'.”</p> + +<p>“Guess I won't take it to-day.”</p> + +<p>“Call it a sixpence.”</p> + +<p>“What in thunder do you suppose I want a skeleton +for?” asked the Colonel, striding out, while the storekeeper +called after him, with such a relish of his own wit that it set all +the loafers to laughing and made them remember it:</p> + +<p>“Guess ye'd find out if ye didn't have one, Colonel; an' I +guess, sence natur's gin ye all the one she's ever goin' to, ye'll +never have a chance to git another as cheap as this.”</p> + +<p>That same little skeleton was yet for sale when Jerome purchased +his medical books at the price of waste-paper, and might possibly +have been thrown into the bargain had he wished to study anatomy.</p> + +<p>Jerome sought only to gain an extension of any old wife's +knowledge of healing roots and herbs and the treatment of simple and +common maladies. Surgery he did not meddle with, until one night, +about a year later, when Jake Noyes, Doctor Prescott's man, came over +secretly with a little whimpering dog in his arms.</p> + +<p>“We run over this little fellar,” he said to Jerome, +when he had been summoned to the door, “an' his leg's broke, +an' the doctor told me I'd better finish him up; guess he's astray; +but”—Jake's voice dropped to a whisper—“I've +heard what you're up to, an' I've brought a splint, an', if you say +so, I'll show you how to set a bone.”</p> + +<p>So up in his little chamber, with his mother and Elmira listening +curiously below, and a little whining, trembling dog for a patient, +Jerome learned to set a bone. His first surgical case was nearly a +complete success, moreover, for the little dog abode with him for +many a year after that, and went nimbly and merrily on his four legs, +with scarcely a limp.</p> + +<p>Later on, Jake Noyes, this time with Jerome himself as +illustration, gave him a lesson in bleeding and cupping, which was +considered indispensable in the ordinary practice of that day. +“Dun'no' what the doctor would say,” Jake Noyes told +Jerome, “an' I dun'no' as I much care, but I'd jest as soon +ye'd keep it dark. Rows ain't favorable to the action of the heart, +actin' has too powerful stimulants in most cases, an' I had an uncle +on my mother's side that dropped dead. But I feel as if the doctor +had ground the face of the poor about long enough; it's about time +somebody dulled his grindstone a little. He's just foreclosed that +last mortgage on John Upham's place, an' they've got to move. Mind +ye, J'rome, I ain't sayin' this to anybody but you, an' I wouldn't +say it to you if I didn't think mebbe you could do something to right +what he'd done wrong. If he won't do it himself, somebody ought to +for him. Tell ye what 'tis, J'rome, one way an' another, I think +considerable of the doctor. I've lived with him a good many years +now. I've got some books I'll let ye take any time. I calculate you +mean to do your doctorin' cheap.”</p> + +<p>“Cheap!” replied Jerome, scornfully. “Do you +think I would take any pay for anything I could do? Do you think +<em>that's</em> what I'm after?”</p> + +<p>Jake Noyes nodded. “Didn't s'pose it was, J'rome. Well, +there'll be lots of things you can't meddle with; but there's no +reason why you can't doctor lots of little ails—if folks are +willin'—an' save 'em money. I'll learn ye all I know, on the +doctor's account. I want it to balance as even as he thinks it +does.”</p> + +<p>The result of it all was that Jerome Edwards became a sort of free +medical adviser to many who were too poor to pay a doctor's fees, and +had enough confidence in him. Some held strenuously to the opinion +that “he knew as much as if he'd studied medicine.” He +was in requisition many of the hours when he was free from his +shoemaker's bench; and never in the Uphams was there a sick man +needing a watcher who did not beg for Jerome Edwards.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XIX</h4> + +<p>In these latter years Ann Edwards regarded her son Jerome with +pride and admiration, and yet with a measure of disapproval. In spite +of her fierce independence, a lifetime of poverty and struggle +against the material odds of life had given a sordid taint to her +character. She would give to the utmost out of her penury, though +more from pride than benevolence; but when it came to labor without +hire, that she did not understand.</p> + +<p>“I 'ain't got anything to say against your watchin' with +sick folks, an' nursin' of 'em, if you've got the spare time an' +strength,” she said to Jerome; “but if you do doctorin' +for nothin' nobody 'll think anything of it. Folks 'll jest ride a +free horse to death, an' talk about him all the time they're doin' of +it. You might just as well be paid for your work as folks that go +ridin' round in sulkies chargin' a dollar a visit. You want to get +the mortgage paid up.”</p> + +<p>“It is almost paid up now, you know, mother,” Jerome +replied.</p> + +<p>“How?” cried his mother, sharply. “By nippin' +an' tuckin' an' pinchin', an' Elmira goin' without things that girls +of her age ought to have.”</p> + +<p>“I don't complain, mother,” said Elmira, with a sweet, +bright glance at her brother, as she gave a nervous jerk of her +slender arm and drew the waxed thread through the shoe she was +binding.</p> + +<p>“You'd ought to complain, if you don't,” returned her +mother. Then she added, with an air of severe mystery, “It +might make a difference in your whole life if you did have more; +sometimes it does with girls.”</p> + +<p>Jerome did not say anything, but he looked in a troubled way from +his sister to his mother and back again. Elmira blushed hotly, and he +could not understand why.</p> + +<p>It was very early in a spring morning, not an hour after dawn, but +they had eaten breakfast and were hurrying to finish closing and +binding a lot of shoes for Jerome to take to his uncle's for +finishing. They all worked smartly, and nothing more was said, but +Ann Edwards had an air of having conclusively established the subject +rather than dropped it. Jerome kept stealing troubled glances at his +sister's pretty face. Elmira was a mystery to him, which was not +strange, since he had not yet learned the letters of the heart of any +girl; but she was somewhat of a mystery to her mother as well.</p> + +<p>Elmira was then twenty-two, but she was very small, and looked no +more than sixteen. She had the dreams and questioning wonder of +extreme youth in her face, and something beyond that even, which was +more like the wide-eye brooding and introspection of babyhood.</p> + +<p>As one looking at an infant will speculate as to what it is +thinking about, so Ann often regarded her daughter Elmira, sitting +sewing with fine nervous energy which was her very own, but with +bright eyes fixed on thoughts beyond her ken. “What you +thinkin' about, Elmira?” she would question sharply; but the +girl would only start and color, and look at her as if she were half +awake, and murmur that she did not know. Very likely she did not; +often one cannot remember dreams when suddenly recalled from them; +though Elmira had one dream which was the reality of her life, and in +which she lived most truly, but which she would always have denied, +even to her own mother, to guard its sacredness.</p> + +<p>When the shoes were done Jerome loaded himself with them, and, +watching his chance, beckoned his sister slyly to follow him as he +went out. Standing in the sweet spring sunlight in the door-yard, he +questioned her. “What did mother mean, Elmira?” he +said.</p> + +<p>“Nothing,” she replied, blushing shyly.</p> + +<p>“What is it you want, Elmira?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing. I don't want anything, Jerome.”</p> + +<p>“Do you want—a new silk dress or anything?”</p> + +<p>“A new silk dress? No.” Elmira's manner, when fairly +aroused and speaking, was full of vivacity, in curious contrast to +her dreaming attitude at other times.</p> + +<p>“I tell you what 'tis, Elmira,” said Jerome, soberly. +“I want you to have all you need. I don't know what mother +meant, but I want you to have things like other girls. I wish you +wouldn't put any more of your earnings in towards the mortgage. I can +manage that alone, with what I'm earning now. I can pay it up inside +of two years now. I told you in the first of it you needn't do +anything towards that.”</p> + +<p>“I wasn't going to earn money and not do my part.”</p> + +<p>“Well, take your earnings now and buy things for yourself. +There's no reason why you shouldn't. I can earn enough for all the +rest. There's no need of mother's working so hard, either. I can't +charge for mixing up doses of herbs, as she wants me to, for I don't +do it for anybody that isn't too poor to pay the doctor, but I earn +enough besides, so neither of you need to work your fingers to the +bone or go without everything. I'll give you some money. Get yourself +a blue silk with roses on it; seems to me I saw one in meeting last +Sunday.”</p> + +<p>Elmira laughed out with a sweet ring. Her black hair was tossing +in the spring wind, her whole face showed variations and +under-meanings of youthful bloom and brightness in the spring +light.</p> + +<p>“'Twas Lucina Merritt wore the blue silk with roses on it; +it rustled against your knee when she passed our pew,” she +cried. “She is just home from her young ladies' school, and +she's as pretty as a picture. I guess you saw more than the silk +dress, Jerome Edwards.”</p> + +<p>With that Elmira blushed, and dropped her eyes in a curious +sensitive fashion, as if she had spoken to herself instead of her +brother, who looked at her quite gravely and coolly.</p> + +<p>“I saw nothing but the silk,” he said, “and I +thought it would become you, Elmira.”</p> + +<p>“I am too dark for blue,” replied Elmira, fairly +blushing for her own blushes. At that time Elmira was as a shy child +to her own emotions, and Jerome's were all sleeping. He had truly +seen nothing but the sweep of that lovely rose-strewn silk, and never +even glanced at the fair wearer.</p> + +<p>“Why not have a red silk, then?” he asked, +soberly.</p> + +<p>“I can't expect to have things like Squire Merritt's +daughter,” returned Elmira. “I don't want a new silk +dress; I am going to have a real pretty one made out of mother's +wedding silk; she's had it laid by all these years, and she says I +may have it. It's as good as new. I'm going over to Granby this +morning to get it cut. When Imogen and Sarah Lawson came over last +week they told me about a mantua-maker there who will cut it +beautifully for a shilling.”</p> + +<p>“Mother don't want to give up her wedding-dress.”</p> + +<p>“Women always have their wedding-dresses made over for their +daughters,” Elmira said, gravely.</p> + +<p>“What color is it?”</p> + +<p>“A real pretty green, with a little sheeny figure in it; and +I am going to have a new ribbon on my bonnet.”</p> + +<p>“It's 'most ten miles to Granby; hadn't I better get a team +and take you over?” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“No; it's a beautiful morning, and it will do me good to +walk. I shall go to Imogen and Sarah's and rest, and have a bite of +something before I come back too. I may not be home very early. You'd +better run along, Jerome, and I've got to get ready.”</p> + +<p>Jerome gave his burden of shoes a hitch of final adjustment. +“Well,” said he, “I'd just as lief take you over, +if you say so.”</p> + +<p>“I don't want to be taken over. I want to take myself +over,” laughed Elmira, and ran into the house before a flurry +of wind.</p> + +<p>That morning the wind was quite high, and though it was soft and +warm, was hard to breast on a ten-mile stretch. Elmira's strength was +mostly of nerve, and she had little staying power of muscle. Before +she had walked three miles on the road to Granby she felt as if she +were wading deeper and deeper against a mightier current of spring; +the scent of the young blossoms suffocated her with sweet heaviness; +the birds' songs rang wearily in her ears. She sat down on the stone +wall to rest a few moments, panting softly. She laid her parcel of +silk on the wall beside her and folded her hands in her lap. The day +was so warm she had put on, for the first time that spring, her pink +muslin gown, which had served her for a matter of eight seasons, and +showed in stripes of brighter color around the skirt where the tucks +had been let out to accommodate her growth. Her pink skirts fluttered +around her as she sat there, smiling straight ahead out of the pink +scoop of a sunbonnet like her dress, with a curious sweet directness, +as if she saw some one whom she loved—as, indeed, she did. +Elmira, full of the innocent selfishness of youth, saw such a fair +vision of her own self clad in her mother's wedding silk, with loving +and approving eyes upon her, that she could but smile.</p> + +<p>Elmira rested a few minutes, then gathered up her parcel and +started again on her way. She reached the place in the road where the +brook willows border it on either side, and on the east side the +brook, which is a river in earliest spring, flows with broken gurgles +over a stony bed, and slackened her pace, thinking she would walk +leisurely there, for the young willows screened the sun like green +veils of gossamer, and the wind did not press her back so hard, and +then she heard the trot, trot of a horse's feet behind her.</p> + +<p>She did not look around, but walked more closely to the side of +the road and the splendid east file of willows. The trot, trot of the +horse's feet came nearer and nearer, and finally paused alongside of +her; then a man's voice, half timid, half gayly daring, called, +“Good-day, Miss Elmira Edwards!”</p> + +<p>With that Elmira gave a great start, though not wholly of +surprise; for the imagination of a maid can, at the stimulus of a +horse's feet, encompass nearly all realities within her dreams. Then +she looked up, and Doctor Prescott's son Lawrence was bending over +from his saddle and smiling into her pink face in her pink +sunbonnet.</p> + +<p>“Good-day,” she returned, softly, and courtesied with +a dip of her pink skirts into a white foam of little way-side weedy +flowers, and then held her pink sun-bonnet slanted downward, and +would not look again into the young man's eager face.</p> + +<p>“It is a full year since I have seen you, and not a glimpse +of your face did I get this time, and yet I knew, the minute I came +in sight of you, who it was,” said he, gayly; still, there was +a loving and wistful intonation in his voice.</p> + +<p>“Small compliment to me,” returned Elmira, with a +pretty spirit, though she kept her pink bonnet slanted, “to +know me by a gown and bonnet I have had eight years.”</p> + +<p>“But 'twas <em>your</em> gown and bonnet,” said the +young man, and Elmira trembled and took an uneven step, though she +strove to walk in a dignified manner beside Lawrence Prescott on his +bay mare. The mare was a spirited creature, and he had hard work to +rein her into a walk. “Let me take your bundle,” he +said.</p> + +<p>“It is not heavy,” said she, but yielded it to +him.</p> + +<p>Lawrence Prescott was small and slight, but held himself in the +saddle with a stately air. He was physically like his father, but his +mother's smile parted his fine-cut lips, and her expression was in +his blue eyes.</p> + +<p>Upham people had not seen much of Lawrence since he was a child, +for he had been away at a preparatory school before entering college, +and many of his vacations had not been spent at home. Now he was come +home to study medicine with his father and prepare to follow in his +footsteps of life. The general opinion was that he would never be as +smart. Many there were, even of those who had come in sore measure +under Doctor Seth Prescott's autocratic thumb, who held in dismay the +prospect of the transference of his sway to his son.</p> + +<p>“Guess you'll see how this town will go down when the old +doctor's gone and the young one's here in his place,” they +said. It is the people who make tyranny possible.</p> + +<p>“How far are you going?” asked Lawrence, of Elmira +flitting along beside his dancing mare.</p> + +<p>“Oh, a little way,” said she, evasively.</p> + +<p>“How far?” There was something of his father's +insistence in Lawrence's voice.</p> + +<p>“To Granby,” replied Elmira then, and tried to speak +on unconcernedly. She was ashamed to let him know how far she had +planned to walk because of her poverty.</p> + +<p>“Granby!” cried Lawrence, with a whistle of +astonishment; “why, that is seven miles farther! You are not +going to walk to Granby and back to day?”</p> + +<p>“I like to walk,” said Elmira, timidly.</p> + +<p>“Why, but it is a warm day, and you are breathing short +now.” Lawrence pulled the mare up with a sharp whoa. +“Now I'll tell you what I'll do,” he said. “You sit +down here on that stone and rest, and I'll ride back home and put the +mare into the chaise, and I'll drive you over there.”</p> + +<p>“No, thank you; I'd rather walk,” said Elmira, all +touched to bliss by his solicitude, but resolved in her pride of poor +maidenhood that she would not profit by it.</p> + +<p>“Let him go back and get the chaise, and have all the town +talking because Lawrence Prescott caught me walking ten miles to get +a dress cut? I guess I won't!” she told herself.</p> + +<p>“You are just the same as ever; you would never let anybody +do anything for you unless you paid them for it,” said +Lawrence, half angrily. Then he added, bending low towards her, +“But you would pay me, measure pressed down and running over, +by going with me—you know that, Elmira.”</p> + +<p>Elmira lost her step again, and her voice trembled a little, +though she strove to speak sharply. “I like to walk,” +said she.</p> + +<p>“And I tell you you're all tired out now,” said +Lawrence. “I can see you pant for breath. Don't you know, I am +going to be a doctor, like father? Let me go back, and you wait +here.”</p> + +<p>Elmira shook her pink bonnet decidedly.</p> + +<p>“Well, then,” said Lawrence, “I tell you what +you must do.” He slipped off the mare as he spoke. +“Now,” he said, and there was real authority in his +voice, “you've got to ride. It's a man's saddle, and you won't +sit so very secure, but I'll lead the mare, and you'll be safe +enough.”</p> + +<p>Elmira shrank back. “Oh, I can't,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Yes, you can. Whoa, Betty. She's gentle enough, for all +she's nervous, and she's used to a lady's riding her. The daughter of +the man who sold her to father used to scour the country on her. +Come, put your foot in my hand and jump up!”</p> + +<p>“What would people say?”</p> + +<p>“There isn't a house for a good mile, and I'll let you get +down before you reach it if you want to; but I don't see what harm it +would be if the whole town saw us. Come.” Lawrence smiled with +gentle importunity at her, and held his hand, and Elmira could not +help putting her little foot in it and springing to the bay mare's +back in obedience to his bidding.</p> + +<p>Elmira, fluttering like a pink flower on the back of the bay mare, +who really ambled along gently enough with Lawrence's hand on her +bridle, journeyed for the next mile as one in a happy dream. She was +actually incredulous of the reality of it all. She was half afraid +that the jolt of the bay mare would wake her from slumber; she kept +her eyes closed in the recesses of her sun-bonnet. Here was Lawrence +Prescott, about whom she had dreamed ever since she was a child, come +home, grown up and grand, grander than any young man in town, grand +as a prince, and not forgetting her, knowing her at a glance, even +when her face was hidden, and making her ride lest she get +over-tired. She had scarcely seen him, to speak to him, since she was +sixteen. Doctor Prescott had kept his son very close when he was home +on his vacations, and not allowed him to mingle much with the village +young people. That summer when Elmira was sixteen there had been +company in the doctor's house, and she had been summoned to assist in +the extra work. Somehow time had hung idly on young Lawrence's hands +that summer; the guests in the house were staid elderly folk and no +company for him. There was also much sickness in the village, and his +father was not as watchful as usual. It happened that Lawrence, for +lack of other amusement, would often saunter about the domestic +byways of the house, and had a hand in various tasks which brought +him into working partnership with pretty, young Elmira—such as +stemming currants or shelling pease and beans. On several occasions, +also, he and Elmira had roamed the pastures in search of blackberries +for tea. Once when they were out together, and had been picking a +long time from one fat bush, neither saying a word—for a +strange silence which abashed them both, though they knew not why, +had come between them—the girl, moved thereto by some quick +impulse of maidenly concealment and shame which she did not herself +understand, made some light and trivial remark about the size of the +fruit, which would well have acquit her had not her little voice +broken with utter self-betrayal of innocent love and passion. And +then young Lawrence, with a quick motion, as of fire which leaps to +flame after a long smoulder, flung an arm about her, with a sigh of +“Oh, Elmira!” and kissed her on her mouth.</p> + +<p>Then they had quickly stood apart, as if afraid of each other, and +finished picking their berries and gone home soberly, with scarce a +word. But all the time it was as if invisible cords, which no +stretching could thin or break, bound them together, and when they +entered the house Doctor Prescott's wife, Lydia, looked at them both +with a gentle, yet keen and troubled air. That night, when Elmira +went home, she said to her softly that since the baking was all done +for the week, and the guests were to leave in three days, and the +weather was so warm, and she looked tired, she need not come again. +But she drew her to her gently, as she spoke, with one great +mother-arm, pressed the little dark head of the girl against her +breast, and kissed her. Lydia Prescott was a large woman, shaped like +a queen, but she was softer in her ways than Elmira's own mother.</p> + +<p>When the girl had gone she turned to her son, who had seen her +caress, and blushed and thrilled as if he had given it himself. +“You must remember you are very young, Lawrence,” said +she; “you must remember that a man has no right to follow his +mind until he has proved it, and you must remember your +father.”</p> + +<p>And Lawrence had blushed and paled a little, and said, “Yes, +mother,” soberly, and gone away up-stairs to his own chamber, +where he had some wakeful hours, and when he fell asleep often +started awake again, with his heart throbbing in his side with that +same joyful pain as when he kissed pretty Elmira.</p> + +<p>As for Elmira, she did not sleep at all, and came down in the +morning with young eyes like stars of love, which no dawn could dim. +For six years the memory of that kiss, which had never been repeated, +for Elmira had never seen Lawrence alone since, had been to her her +sweetest honey savor of life. Lucky it was for her that young +Lawrence, if the taste had not been in his heart as in hers during +his busy life in other scenes, had still the memory of its sweetness +left.</p> + +<p>When they had passed through the avenue of brook willows, and the +brook itself had wound away through fields spotted as with emeralds +and gold, and then had passed some pasture-lands where red cattle +were grazing, and then came to a little stretch of pines, beyond +which the white walls of a house glimmered, Lawrence held up his arms +to Elmira. “It isn't necessary,” said he, “but if +you don't want to ride my horse, with me leading him, past the houses +there, why, I'll take you down, as I said.”</p> + +<p>And with that Elmira slipped down, and Lawrence had kissed her +again, and she had not chidden him, and was following after him, +trembling and quite pale, except for the reflection of her pink +sunbonnet, while he rode slowly ahead.</p> + +<p>When the cluster of houses were well passed he stopped and lifted +her again to the mare's saddle, and the old shyness of the +blackberry-field was over both of them again as they went on their +way. In truth, Lawrence was sorely bewildered betwixt his impulse of +young love and innocent conviction that his honor ought to be pledged +with the kiss, since they were boy and girl no longer, and his memory +of his father and what he might decree for him. As for Elmira, she +was much troubled in mind lest she ought to rebuke the young man for +his boldness, but could not bring herself so to do, not being certain +that she had not kissed him back and been as guilty as he.</p> + +<p>The young couple went so all the way to Granby, striving now and +then, with casual talk, each to blind the other as to perturbation of +spirit. Lawrence lifted her from the saddle when Granby village came +in sight, but he did not kiss her again. Indeed, Elmira kept her head +well down that he might not; but he asked if he might call and see +her, and she said yes, and the next Wednesday evening was mentioned, +that day being Thursday. Then she fluttered up the Granby street to +Imogen and Sarah Lawson's with her mother's wedding silk, and +Lawrence Prescott rode back to Upham. Much he would have liked to +linger and take Elmira back as she had come, or else drive over for +her later with a chaise, but she had refused.</p> + +<p>“Imogen and Sarah can have one of their neighbors' horses +and wagons whenever they like,” said she, “and they will +carry me home if I want them to.”</p> + +<p>A strange maidenly shyness of her own bliss and happiness, which +she longed to repeat, was upon her. She had not told Lawrence what +her errand in Granby was. The truth was that she had planned her new +gown because Lawrence had come home, and she was anxious to wear it +to meeting in the hope that he might admire her in it. Should she +betray this artless preening and trimming of her maiden plumage, +which, though, like a bird's, an open secret of nature, must +nevertheless be kept sacred by an impulse of modest concealment and +deceit towards the one for whose sake it all was?</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XX</h4> + +<p>They who have sensitive palates for all small, sweet, but +secondary savors of life that come in their way, and no imaginative +desires for others, are contented in spirit. When also small worries +and affairs, even those of their neighbors in lieu of their own, +serve them as well as large ones to keep their minds to a healthy +temper of excitement and zest of life, there is no need to pity them +for any lack of full experience.</p> + +<p>Imogen and Sarah Lawson, the two elderly single sisters whom +Elmira Edwards sought in Granby that day, were in a way happier than +she, all flushed with her hope of young love, for they held in +certain tenure that which they had. They were sitting stitching on +fine linen shirts in the little kitchen of the cottage house in which +they had been born. There was a broad slant of sunlight athwart the +floor, a great cat purred in a rocking-chair, the clock ticked, a pot +of greens boiled over the fire. They seemed to look out of a little +secure home radiance of peace at Elmira when she entered, all glowing +and tremulous with sweet excitement which she strove hard to +conceal.</p> + +<p>No romances had there been in the lives of the Lawson sisters, and +no repining over the lack of them. They had, in their youth, +speculated as to what husbands the Lord might provide for them, and +looked about for them with furtive alertness. When He provided none, +they stopped speculating, and went on as sharply askant as hens at +any smaller good pecks life might have for them.</p> + +<p>The Lawson sisters had always been considered dressy. They owned +their house and garden, also several acres which yielded fair crops +of hay, and some good woodland. They earned considerable money making +fine shirts for a little Jew peddler who let out work in several +neighboring villages, and were enabled to devote the greater part of +that to their wardrobes. They were said to always buy everything of +the best—the finest muslins, the stiffest silks, the richest +ribbons. Each of the sisters possessed several silk gowns, a fine +cashmere shawl, and a satin pelisse; each had two beautiful bonnets, +one for winter and one for summer, and each possessed the value of +her fine apparel to the uttermost, and realized from it a petty, +perhaps, but no less comforting, illumination of spirit. Many of the +lights of happiness of this world are feeble and even ignoble, but +one must see to live, and even a penny dip is exalted if it save one +from the darkness of despair. It is not given to every one to light +his way with a sun, or a full moon, or even a star.</p> + +<p>The two Lawson sisters, Imogen and Sarah, greeted Elmira with a +shrill feminine clamor of hospitality, as was their wont, examined +her mother's wedding silk with critical eyes and fingers, and +pronounced it well worth making over. “It's best to buy a good +thing while you're about it, if it does cost a little more,” +said Imogen.</p> + +<p>“Yes, that's true,” assented her sister. “Now I +shouldn't be a mite surprised if Ann paid as much as one an' sixpence +for this silk when 'twas new; but look at it now—there ain't a +break in it. It's as good as your blue-and-yellow changeable silk, +Imogen.”</p> + +<p>“Dun'no' but 'tis,” said Imogen, reflectively.</p> + +<p>Sarah went with Elmira to the mantua-maker's, who lived in the +next house, to get the dress cut, while Imogen prepared the dinner. +In the afternoon the two sisters gave Elmira an hour's work on her +new gown, one stitching up the body, the other sewing breadths; then +they borrowed the neighbor's horse and wagon and drove her home to +Upham.</p> + +<p>Elmira was glad to ride; she thought that she should die of shame +should she walk home and meet Lawrence Prescott again.</p> + +<p>Imogen drove. She was the older, but the larger and stronger of +the two. Elmira sat in the rear gloom of the covered wagon with +Sarah, holding her silk gown spread carefully over her knees. She +thought of nothing all the way but the possibility of meeting +Lawrence. She made up her mind that if she did she would sit far back +in the wagon and not thrust her head forward at all. “If he +acts as if he thought I might be in here, and looks real hard, then +it will be time for me to do my part,” she thought.</p> + +<p>Whenever she saw a man or a team in the distance, her heart beat +violently, but it was never Lawrence. All her sweet panic of +expectation would have been quieted had she known that he was at that +very time seated in Miss Camilla Merritt's arbor, drinking tea and +eating fruit cake with her and pretty Lucina.</p> + +<p>“Didn't you think Elmira seemed dreadful kind of flighty +to-day—still as a mouse one minute and carryin' on the +next?” Sarah asked Imogen, as they were driving home in the +evening. They had waited, staying to tea and letting the horse rest, +until the full moon arose.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I did,” said Imogen, “but Ann was just +like her at her age. That silk is well enough, but it ain't no such +quality as my blue an' yellow changeable one.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I dun'no' as it is. I dun'no' as it's as good as my +figured brown one.”</p> + +<p>It was a beautiful spring night; the moon was one for lovers to +light their fondest thoughts and fancies into reality. The two old +sisters driving home met and passed many young couples on the country +road. “If they don't look out I shall run over some of them +fellars an' girls,” said Imogen. “I don't b'lieve Elmira +has ever had anybody waitin' on her, do you, Sarah?”</p> + +<p>“Never heard of anybody,” replied Sarah. “Well, +anyhow, she's goin' to have a real handsome dress out of that +silk.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, she is,” said Imogen, and just then from before +the great plunging feet of her horse a pair of young lovers sprang +with a laugh, having seen nothing of team nor the old sisters nor yet +of the little side lamps of happiness they bore, in the great +dazzling circle of their own.</p> + +<p>Elmira finished her dress Saturday. She had sat up nearly two +nights stitching on it, but nobody would have dreamed it when she +came down out of her chamber Sunday morning all ready for meeting. +Her mother was sitting in the parlor beside a window, with her Bible +on her knees. The window was opened wide, and the room was full of +the reverberations of the meeting bell. Always on a pleasant Sunday +morning in summer-time Ann Edwards sat with her Bible at the open +window and listened to the meeting bell.</p> + +<p>As Elmira entered, the bell tolled again, and the long wavering +and dying of its sweet multiple tones commenced afresh. Elmira stood +before her mother, and turned slowly about that she might view her on +all sides in her new attire.</p> + +<p>Elmira whirled slowly, in a whispering, shimmering circle of pale +green silk; a little wrought-lace cape, which also had been part of +her mother's bridal array, covered her bare neck, for the dress was +cut low. She had bought a new ribbon of green and white, like the +striped grass of the gardens, for her bonnet, and tied it in a crisp +and dainty bow under her chin. This same bonnet, of a fine Florence +braid, had served her for best for nearly ten years. She had worn a +bright ribbon on it in the winter season and a delicate-hued one in +summer-time, but it was always the same bonnet.</p> + +<p>Elmira had not had a new summer ribbon for three years, and now, +in addition, she had purchased some rosebuds, and arranged them in +little clusters in a frilling of lace inside the brim. Her pretty +face looked out of this little millinery halo with an indescribably +mild and innocent radiance. One caught one's self looking past her +fixed shining eyes for the brightness which they saw and +reflected.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said her mother, “I guess you look as +well as some other folks, if you didn't lay out quite so much money. +I guess folks will have to give in you do.”</p> + +<p>Ann Edwards's little nervous face wore rather an expression of +antagonistic triumph than a smile of motherly approval; so hostile +had been all her conditions of life that she never laid down her +weapons, and went with spear in rest, as it were, even into her few +by-paths of delight.</p> + +<p>She pulled Elmira's skirts here and there to be sure they hung +evenly; she bade her stand close, and picked out the ribbon bow under +her chin. “Now you'd better run along,” said she, +“or the bell will stop tollin'.”</p> + +<p>She watched the girl, in her own old bridal array, step down the +front path, with more happiness than she had known since her +husband's disappearance. Elmira had told her mother that Lawrence +Prescott was coming to see her, and she had immediately leaped to +furthest conclusions. Ann Edwards had not a doubt that Lawrence and +Elmira would be married. She had, when it was once awakened, that +highest order of ambition which ignores even the existence of +obstacles.</p> + +<p>As Elmira's green skirts fluttered out of sight behind some +lilac-bushes pluming to the wind with purple blossoms Jerome came in, +and his mother turned to him. “I guess Elmira will do about as +well as any of the girls,” said she, with her tone of blissful +yet half-vindictive triumph.</p> + +<p>Jerome looked at her wonderingly. “Why shouldn't she?” +said he.</p> + +<p>Immediately Mrs. Edwards put forth her feminine craft like an +involuntary tentacle of protection for her excess of imagination, +against the masculine practicality of her son. Neither she nor Elmira +had said anything about Lawrence Prescott to him; both knew how he +would regard the matter. It seemed to Mrs. Edwards that she had +fairly heard him say: “Marry Doctor Prescott's son! You know +better, mother.” Now she, with her Bible on her knees, shunted +rapidly the whole truth behind a half-truth.</p> + +<p>“I guess she'll cut full as good a figure in my old silk and +her old bonnet with a new ribbon on it as any of the girls,” +said she. Then she added, with a skilful swerve from whole truths and +half-truths alike: “You'd better hurry, Jerome, or you'll be +late to meetin'. Elmira is out of sight, an' the bell's 'most stopped +tollin'.”</p> + +<p>“I am not going this morning,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Why not, I'd like to know?”</p> + +<p>“John Upham sent his oldest boy over here this morning to +tell me the baby's sick. I am going over there and see if I can do +anything.”</p> + +<p>“I should think John Upham had better send for Doctor +Prescott instead of taking you away from meeting.”</p> + +<p>“You know he won't, mother. I believe he'd let the baby die +before he would. I've got to go there and do the best I +can.”</p> + +<p>“Well, all I've got to say is, he ought to be ashamed of +himself if he'd let his own baby die before he'd call in the doctor, +I don't care how bad he's treated him. I shouldn't wonder if John +Upham was some to blame about that; there's always two sides to a +story.”</p> + +<p>Jerome made no reply. He would have been puzzled several times +lately, had he considered it of sufficient moment, by his mother's +change of attitude towards Doctor Prescott. He went to the +china-closet beside the chimney. On the upper shelves was his +mother's best china tea-set; on the lower a little array of cloudy +bottles; some small bunches of herbs, all nicely labelled, were +packed in the wide space at the bottom.</p> + +<p>His mother's antagonistic eyes followed him. “I dun'no' as I +can have them herbs in my china-closet much longer,” said she; +“they're scentin' up the dishes too much. If I want to have a +little company to tea, I ain't goin' to have the tea all flavored +with spearmint an' catnip.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I'll move them when I come home,” said Jerome, +with his usual concession, which always aggravated his mother more +than open rebellion, although she admired him for it. “I only +brought those little bundles down from the barn loft to have them +handy. I'll rig up a cupboard for them in the woodshed.”</p> + +<p>Jerome tucked a bottle or two in his pocket, and rolled up a +little bouquet of herbs in paper.</p> + +<p>“I should think it would be time for you to go and see that +young one after meeting,” said his mother, varying her point of +attack when she met with no resistance.</p> + +<p>“I'll go to meeting this afternoon,” replied Jerome, +in the tone with which he might have pacified a fretful child. There +was no self-justification in it.</p> + +<p>“I s'pose Doctor Prescott will be mad if he hears of your +goin' there, an' I dun'no' but I should be in his place,” she +said, as Jerome went out. Then, as he did not answer, she added, +calling out shrilly:</p> + +<p>“I don't see why John Upham can't call in Lawrence, if he +wants a doctor; he's begun to study with his father; he can't have +nothin' against him. I guess he knows as much as you do.”</p> + +<p>“Mother's queer,” Jerome told himself as he went down +the road, and then dismissed the matter from his mind, for the +consideration of the Upham baby and the probable nature of its +ailment, upon which, however, he did not allow himself to dwell too +long. Early in his amateur practice Jake Noyes had inculcated one +precept in his mind, upon which he always acted.</p> + +<p>“There's one thing I want to tell ye, J'rome, and I want ye +to remember it,” Jake Noyes had said, “and that is, a +doctor had ought to be like jurymen—he'd ought to be sworn in +to be unprejudiced when he goes to see a patient, just as a juryman +is when he goes to court. If you don't know what ails 'em, don't ye +go to speculatin', as to what 'tis an' what ye'll do, on the way +there. Ten chances to one, if you're workin' up measles in your mind +an' what you'll do for them, you'll find it's mumps, an' then you've +got to cure your own measles afore you cure their mumps; an' if +you're hard-bitted an' can't stop yourself easy when you're once +headed, you may give saffron tea to bring out the measles whether or +no. Think of the prospect, or the gals, or your soul's salvation, or +anythin' but the sick folks, before you get to 'em the first time and +don't know what ails 'em.”</p> + +<p>In girls Jerome had, so far, no interest; in his soul's salvation +he had little active concern. The revivals which were occasionally +upstirred in the community by prayer, and the besom of threatened +destruction, passed over him like a hot wind, for which he had no +power of sensation, sometimes to his own wonder. Probably the cause +lay in the fact that he was too thoroughly, without knowing it, +rooted and grounded in his own creed to be emotionally moved by +religious appeals. Jerome had, as most have, consciously or not, and +vitally or not, his own creed. He believed simply in the +unquestionable justice of the intent of God, the thwarting struggles +against it by free man, and that his duty to apply his small strength +towards furthering what he could, if no more than an atom, of the +eternal will lay plain before him.</p> + +<p>Jerome, who had not yet been disturbed by love of woman, who +fretted not over the salvation of his own soul, had therefore, in +order to follow his mentor's advice, to turn his attention to the +prospect. His way led in an opposite direction from the church, and +he was late, so met none of the worshippers bound to meeting. He was +rather glad of that. After he left the village the road lay through +the woods, and now and then between blueberry-fields or open spaces +of meadow, with green water-lines and shadows purple with violets in +the hollows. Red cows in the meadows stared at him as he passed, with +their mysterious abstraction from all reflection, then grazed again, +moving in one direction from the sun. The blueberry-patches spread a +pale green glimmer of blossoms, like a sheen of satin in a high +light; young ferns curled beside the road like a baby's fingers +grasping at life; the trees, which were late in leafing, also reached +out towards the sun little rosy clasping fingers whereby to hold fast +to the motherhood of the spring. The air was full of that odor so +delicate that it is scarcely an odor at all, much less a fragrance, +which certain so-called scentless plants give out, and then only to +wide recognition when they bloom in multitudes—it was only the +simplest evidence of life itself. Through that came now and then +great whiffs of perfume from some unseen flowering bush, calling, as +it were, from its obscurity, with halloos of fragrance, to the +careless passer-by, to search it out.</p> + +<p>Jerome passed along, seeing and comprehending all the sweet +pageant of the spring morning, yet as an observer merely. Nature had +as yet not established her fullest relationship to himself, and he +knew not that her secret glory of meaning was like his own.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXI</h4> + +<p>John Upham's farm, or rather what had been John Upham's farm +(Doctor Prescott owned it now), began at the end of a long stretch of +woods, with some fine fields sloping greenly towards the west. +Farther on, behind a row of feathery elm-trees, stood the old Upham +homestead.</p> + +<p>John Upham did not live there now; his mortgage had been +foreclosed nearly a year before, about the time the last baby was +born. People said that the mother had been cruelly hurried out of her +own house into the little shanty, which her husband was forced to +rent for a shelter. Poor John Upham had lost all his ancestral acres +to Doctor Prescott now, and did not fairly know himself how it had +happened. There had been heavy bills for medicines and attendance, +and the doctor had loaned him money oftentimes, with his land as +security, for other debts. A little innocent saying of one of his six +children to another was much repeated to the village, “Father +bought you of Doctor Prescott, and paid for you with all the +clover-field he had left, and you must be very good, for you came +very dear.”</p> + +<p>It was known positively that John Upham had gone to Doctor +Prescott's the day after he had left his old home, and told him to +his face what he thought of him. “You have planned and +manœuvred to get all my property into your hands from the very +first of it,” said John Upham. “You've drained me dry, +an' now I hope you're satisfied.”</p> + +<p>“You had full value in return,” replied the doctor, +calmly.</p> + +<p>“I haven't had time. In nine cases out of ten, if you had +given me a little time, I could have got myself out, and you know it. +You've screwed me down to the very second.”</p> + +<p>“I cannot afford to give my debtors longer time than that +regulated by the laws of the commonwealth.”</p> + +<p>Then a sudden strange gleam had come into John Upham's blue eyes. +“Thank the Lord,” he cried out, in a trembling fervor of +wrath—“thank the Lord, He gives all the time there is to +His debtors, an' no commonwealth on the earth can make laws agin +it.” He had actually then raised a great fist and shaken it +before the doctor's face. “Now, don't you ever darse to darken +my doors again, Doctor Seth Prescott!” he had cried out. +“If my wife or my children are sick, I'll let them lay and die +before I'll have you in the house!” So saying, John Upham had +stridden forth out of the doctor's yard, where he had held the +conversation with him, with Jake Noyes and two other men covertly +listening.</p> + +<p>After that Jake Noyes had given surreptitious advice, with sly +shoving of medicine-vials into John Upham's or his wife's hands when +the children were ailing, and lately Jerome had taken his place.</p> + +<p>“Guess you had better go there instead of me when the young +ones are out of sorts,” Jake Noyes had told Jerome. Then he had +added, with a crafty twist and wink: “When ye can quarrel with +your own bread an' butter with a cat's-paw might as well do it, +especially when you're gettin' along in years. You 'ain't got +anything to lose if you do set the doctor again ye, and I +have.”</p> + +<p>The house in which the Uphams had taken shelter was in sight of +the old homestead, some rods farther on, on the opposite side of the +road. It stood in a sandy waste of weeds on the border of an old +gravel-pit—an ancient cottage, with a wretched crouch of +humility in its very roof. It had been covered with a feeble coat of +red paint years ago, and cloudy lines of it still survived the wash +of old rains and the beat of old sunbeams.</p> + +<p>Behind it on the north and west rose the sand-hill, dripping with +loose gravel as with water, hollowed out at its base until its crest, +bristling with coarse herbage, magnified against the sky, projected +far out over the cottage roof. The sun was reflected from the sand in +a great hollow of arid light. Jerome, nearing it, felt as if he were +approaching an oven. The cottage door was shut, as were all the +windows. However, he heard plainly the shrill wail of the sick +baby.</p> + +<p>John Upham opened the door. “Oh, it's you, Jerome!” +said he. “Good-day.”</p> + +<p>“Good-day,” returned Jerome. “How is the +baby?”</p> + +<p>“Well, he seems kind of ailin'. Laury has been up with him +all night. Thought maybe you might give him something. Come in, won't +ye?”</p> + +<p>There were only two rooms on the lower floor of the +cottage—one was the kitchen, the other the bedroom where John +Upham and his wife slept with the three youngest children.</p> + +<p>Jerome followed Upham across the kitchen to the bedroom beyond. +The kitchen was littered with all John Upham's poor household goods, +prostrate and unwashed, degraded even from their one dignity of use. +One of the kitchen windows opened towards the sand-hill; the room was +full of its garish glare of reflected sunlight, and the revelations +were pitiless. Laura Upham, once a model housekeeper, had lost all +ambition and domestic pride, now she had such a poor house to keep +and so many children to tend.</p> + +<p>Upham muttered an apology as Jerome picked his way across the +room.</p> + +<p>“Laury has been up all night with the baby, an' she hasn't +had any time to redd up the room,” he said. “The children +have been in here all the mornin', too, an' they've stirred things up +some. I've just sent 'em out to pick flowers to keep 'em +quiet.”</p> + +<p>As he spoke he gathered up awkwardly, with a curious over-motion +of his broad shoulders, as if he would conceal the action, various +articles in his path. When he opened the door into the bedroom he +crammed them behind it with a quick, shifty motion.</p> + +<p>The kitchen had been repulsive, but the bedroom fairly shocked +with the very indelicacy of untidiness. Jerome felt an actual modesty +about entering this room, in which so many disclosures of the closest +secrets of the flesh were made. The very dust and discolorations of +the poor furnishings, the confined air, made one turn one's face +aside as from too coarse a betrayal of personal reserve. The naked +indecency of domestic life seemed to display and vaunt itself, +sparing none of its homely and ungraceful details, to the young man +on the threshold of the room.</p> + +<p>“Laury 'ain't had a chance to redd up this, either,” +poor John Upham whispered in his ear, and gathered up with a furtive +swoop some linen from the floor.</p> + +<p>“Oh, that's all right!” Jerome whispered back, and +entered boldly, shutting as it were all the wretched disclosures of +the room out of his consciousness, and all effort to do was needless +when he saw Mrs. Upham's face.</p> + +<p>Laura Upham's great hollow eyes, filled with an utter passiveness +of despair, stared up at him out of a sallow gloom of face. She had +been pretty once, and she was not an old woman now, but her beauty +was all gone. Her slender shoulders rounded themselves over the +little creature swathed in soiled flannel on her lap. Just then it +was quiet; but it began wailing again, distorting all its miserable +little face into a wide mouth of feeble clamor as Jerome drew +near.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Upham looked down at it hopelessly. She did not try to hush +it. “It's cried this way all night,” she said, in a +monotonous tone. “It's goin' to die.”</p> + +<p>“Now, Laury, you know it ain't any sicker than it was +before,” John said, with a kind of timid conciliation; but she +turned upon him with a fierce gleam lighting her dull eyes to +life.</p> + +<p>“You needn't talk to me,” said she—“you +needn't talk to me, John Upham, when you won't have the doctor when +it's your own flesh an' blood that's dyin'. I don't care what he's +done. I don't care if he has taken the roof from over our heads. My +child is worth more than anything else. He'd come if you asked him, +he couldn't refuse—you know he couldn't, John Upham!”</p> + +<p>John Upham's face was white; his forehead and his chin got a +curious hardness of outline. “He won't have a chance,” he +said, between his teeth.</p> + +<p>“Let your own flesh and blood die, then!” cried his +wife; but the fierceness was all gone from her voice; she had no +power of sustained wrath, so spent was she. She gave a tearless wail +that united with the child's in her lap in a pitiful chord of +woe.</p> + +<p>“Now, Laury, you know J'rome gave Minnie somethin' that +helped her, and she seemed every mite as sick as the baby,” her +husband said, in a softer voice. But she turned her hopeless eyes +again upon the little, squalid, quivering thing in her lap, and paid +no more heed to him. She let Jerome examine the child, with a strange +apathy. There was no hope, and consequently no power of effort, left +in her.</p> + +<p>When Jerome brought some medicine in a spoon, she assisted him to +feed the child with it, but mechanically, and as if she had no +interest. Her sharp right elbow shone like a knob of ivory through a +great rent in her sleeve; her dress was unfastened, and there was a +gleam of white flesh through the opening; she neither knew nor cared. +There was no consciousness of self, no pride and no shame for self, +in her; she had ceased to live in the fullest sense; she was nothing +but the concentration of one emotion of despairing motherhood.</p> + +<p>She heard Jerome and her husband moving about in the next room, +she heard the crackling of fire in the stove, the clinking din of +dishes, the scrape of a broom, not realizing in the least what the +sounds meant. She heard with her mind no sound of earth but the wail +of the sick baby in her lap.</p> + +<p>Jerome Edwards could tidy a house as well as a woman, and John +Upham followed his directions with clumsy zeal. When the kitchen was +set to rights Mrs. Upham went in there, as she was bidden, with the +baby, and sat down in a rocking-chair by the open window towards the +road, through which came a soft green light from some opposite trees, +and a breath of apple-blossoms.</p> + +<p>“We've got the room all redd up, Laury,” John Upham +said, pitifully, stooping over her and looking into her face. She +nodded vaguely, looking at the baby, who had stopped crying.</p> + +<p>Jerome dropped some more medicine, and she took the spoon and fed +it to the baby. “I think it will go to sleep now,” said +Jerome. Mrs. Upham looked up at him and almost smiled. Hope was +waking within her. “I think it is nothing but a little cold and +feverishness, Mrs. Upham,” Jerome added. He had a great pitiful +imagination for this unknown woe of maternity, which possibly gave +him as great a power of sympathy as actual knowledge.</p> + +<p>“You are a good fellow, Jerome, an' I hope I shall be able +to do somethin' to pay you some day,” John Upham said, huskily, +when they were in the bedroom putting that also in order.</p> + +<p>“I don't want any pay for what I give,” Jerome +returned.</p> + +<p>When Jerome started for home, Mrs. Upham and the baby were both +asleep in the clean bedroom. Retracing his steps along the pleasant +road, he was keenly happy, with perhaps the true happiness of his +life, to which he would always turn at last from all others, and +which would survive the death and loss of all others.</p> + +<p>He pictured John Upham's house as he found it and as he left it +with purest self-gratulation. He had not gone far before he heard a +clamor of childish voices; there were two, but they sounded like a +troop. John Upham's twin girls broke through the wayside bushes like +little wild things. Their hands were full of withering flowers. He +called them, and bade them be very still when they went home, so as +not to waken their mother and the baby, and they hung their heads +with bashful assent. They were pretty children in spite of their +soiled frocks, with their little, pink, moist faces and curling crops +of yellow hair.</p> + +<p>“If you keep still and don't wake them up, I will bring you +both some peppermints when I come to-morrow,” said Jerome. He +had nearly reached the village when he met the two eldest Upham +children. They were boys, the elder twelve, the younger eight, sturdy +little fellows, advancing with a swinging trot, one behind the other, +both chewing spruce-gum. They had been in the woods, on their way +home, for a supply. Jerome stopped them, and repeated the charge he +had given to the little girls, then kept on. The bell was ringing for +afternoon meeting—in fact, it was almost done. Jerome walked +faster, for he intended to go. He drew near the little white-steepled +meeting-house standing in its small curve of greensward, with the row +of white posts at the side, to which were tied the farmers' great +plough-horses harnessed to covered wagons and dusty chaises, and then +he caught a glimpse of something bright, like a moving flower-bush, +in the road ahead. Squire Eben Merritt, his wife, his sister Miss +Camilla, and his daughter Lucina, were all on their way to afternoon +meeting.</p> + +<p>The Squire was with them that day, leaving heroically his +trout-pools and his fishing-fields; for was it not his pretty +Lucina's second Sunday only at home, and was he not as eager to be +with her as any lover? Squire Eben had gained perhaps twenty pounds +of flesh to his great frame and a slight overcast of gray to his +golden beard; otherwise he had not changed in Jerome's eyes since he +was a boy. The Squire's wife Abigail, like many a small, dark woman +who has never shown in her looks the true heyday of youth, had +apparently not aged nor altered at all. Little and keenly pleasant, +like some insignificant but brightly flavored fruit, set about with +crisp silk flounced to her trim waist, holding her elbows elegantly +aslant under her embroidered silk shawl, her small head gracefully +alert in her bright-ribboned bonnet, she stepped beside her great +husband, and then came Lucina with Miss Camilla.</p> + +<p>Miss Camilla glided along drooping slenderly in black lace and +lilac silk, with a great wrought-lace veil flowing like a bride's +over her head, and shading with a black tracery of leaves and flowers +her fair faded face; but Jerome saw her no more than he would have +seen a shadow beside Lucina.</p> + +<p>If Lucina's parents had changed little, she had changed much, with +the wonderful change of a human spring, and this time Jerome saw her +as well as her gown. She wore that same silken gown of a pale-blue +color, spangled with roses, and the skirts were so wide and trained +over a hoop and starched petticoats that they swung and tilted like a +great double flower, and hit on this side and that with a quick +musical slur. Over Lucina's shoulders, far below her waist, fell her +wonderful fair hair, in curls, and every curl might well have proved +a twining finger of love. Lucina wore a bonnet of fine straw, trimmed +simply enough with a white ribbon, but over her face hung a white +veil of rich lace, and through it her pink cheeks and lips and great +blue eyes and lines of golden hair shone and bloomed and dazzled like +a rose through a frosted window.</p> + +<p>Lucina Merritt was a rare beauty, and she knew it, from her +looking-glass as well as the eyes of others, and dealt with herself +meekly wherewithal, and prayed innocently that she might consider +more the embellishment of her heart and her mind than her person, and +not to be too well pleased at the admiring looks of those whom she +met. Indeed, it was to this end that she wore the white veil over her +face, though not one of the maiden mates would believe that. She +fancied that it somewhat dimmed her beauty, and that folk were less +given to staring at her, not realizing that it added to her graces +that subtlest one of suggestion, and that folk but stared the harder +to make sure whether they saw or imagined such charms.</p> + +<p>Jerome Edwards saw this beautiful Lucina coming, and it was +suddenly as if he entered a new atmosphere. He did not know why, but +he started as if he had gotten a shock, and his heart beat hard.</p> + +<p>Squire Merritt made as if he would greet him in his usual hearty +fashion, but remembering the day, and hearing, too, the first strains +of the opening hymn from the meeting-house, for the bell had stopped +tolling, he gave him only a friendly nod as he passed on with his +wife. Miss Camilla inclined her head with soft graciousness; but +Jerome looked at none of them except Lucina. She did not remember +him; she glanced slightly at his face, and then her long fair lashes +swept again the soft bloom of her cheeks, and her silken skirts +fairly touched him as she passed. Jerome stood still after they had +all entered the meeting-house; the long drone of the hymn sounded +very loud in his ears.</p> + +<p>He made a motion towards the meeting-house, hesitated, made +another, then turned decidedly to the road. It seemed suddenly to him +that his clothes must be soiled and dusty after his work in John +Upham's house, that his hair could not be smooth, that he did not +look well enough to go to meeting. So he went home, yielding for the +first time, without knowing that he did so, to that decorative +impulse which comes to men and birds alike when they would woo their +mates.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXII</h4> + +<p>The next morning Jerome went early to his uncle Ozias Lamb for +some finished shoes, which he was to take to Dale. For the first time +in his life, when he entered the shop, he had an impulse to avert his +eyes and not meet his uncle's fully. Ozias had grown old rapidly of +late. He sat, with his usual stiff crouch, on his bench and hammered +away at a shoe-heel on his lapstone. His hair and beard were white +and shaggy, his blue eyes peered sharply, as from a very ambush of +old age, at Jerome loading himself with the finished shoes.</p> + +<p>After the usual half-grunt of greeting, which was scarcely more +than a dissyllabic note of salutation between two animals, Ozias was +silent until Jerome was going out.</p> + +<p>“Ain't ye well this mornin'?” he asked then.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” replied Jerome, “I'm well +enough.”</p> + +<p>“When a man's smart,” said Ozias Lamb, “and has +got money in his pocket, and don't want folks to know it, he don't +keep feelin' of it to see if it's safe. He acts as if he hadn't got +any money, or any pocket, neither. I s'pose that's what you're tryin' +to do.”</p> + +<p>“Don't know what you mean,” returned Jerome, +coloring.</p> + +<p>“Oh, nothin'. Go along,” said his uncle.</p> + +<p>But he spoke again before Jerome was out of hearing. “There +ain't any music better than a squeak, in the grind you an' me have +got to make out of life,” said he, “an' don't you go to +thinkin' there is. If you ever think you hear it, it's only in your +own ears, an' you might as well make up your mind to it.”</p> + +<p>“I made up my mind to it as long ago as I can +remember,” Jerome answered back, yet scarcely with bitterness, +for the very music which his uncle denied was too loud in his ears +for him to disbelieve it.</p> + +<p>When Jerome was returning from Dale, an hour later, his back bent +beneath great sheaves of newly cut shoes, like a harvester's with +wheat, he heard a hollow echo of hoofs in the road ahead, then +presently a cloud of dust arose like smoke, and out of it came two +riders: Lawrence Prescott, on a fine black horse—which his +father used seldom for driving, he was so unsuited for standing +patiently at the doors of affliction, yet kept through a latent +fondness for good horse-flesh—and Lucina Merritt, on his pretty +bay mare. Lucina galloped past at Lawrence's side, with an eddying +puff of blue riding-skirt and a toss of yellow curls and blue plumes. +Jerome stood back a little to give them space, and the dust settled +slowly over him after they were by. Then he went on his way, with his +heart beating hard, yet with no feeling of jealousy against Lawrence +Prescott. He even thought that it would be a good match. Still, he +was curiously disturbed, not by the reflection that he was laden with +sheaves of leather—he would have been more ashamed had he been +seen idling on a work-day—but because he feared he looked so +untidy with the dust of the road on his shoes. She might have noticed +his clothes, although she had galloped by so fast.</p> + +<p>The first thing Jerome did, when he reached home, was to brush and +blacken his shoes, though there was no chance of Lucina's seeing +them. He felt as if he ought not to think of her when he had on dusty +shoes.</p> + +<p>The greater part of the next day Jerome passed, as usual, soling +shoes in Ozias Lamb's shop. When he came home to supper, he noticed +something unusual about his mother and sister. They had the +appearance of being strung tightly with repressed excitement, like +some delicate musical instruments. To look at or to speak to them was +to produce in them sensitive vibrations which seemed out of +proportion to the cause.</p> + +<p>Jerome asked no questions. These disturbances in the feminine +current always produced a corresponding stiffness of calm in his +masculine one, as if by an instinct to maintain the equilibrium of +dangerous forces for the safety of the household.</p> + +<p>Elmira and her mother kept looking at each other and at him, +pulses starting up in their delicate cheeks, flushes coming and +going, motioning each other with furtive gestures to speak, then +countermanding the order with sharp negatory shakes of the head.</p> + +<p>At last Mrs. Edwards called back Jerome as he was going to his +chamber, books under arm and lighted candle in hand.</p> + +<p>“Look here,” said she; “I want to show you +something.”</p> + +<p>Jerome turned. Elmira was extending towards him a nicely folded +letter, with a little green seal on it.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” asked Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Read it,” said his mother. Jerome took it, unfolded +it, and read, Elmira and his mother watching him. Elmira was quite +pale. Mrs. Edwards's mouth was set as if against anticipated +opposition, her nervously gleaming eyes were fierce with ready +argument. Jerome knit his brows over the letter, then he folded it +nicely and gave it back to Elmira.</p> + +<p>“You see what it is?” said his mother.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I see,” replied Jerome, hesitatingly. He looked +confused before her, for one of the few times of his life.</p> + +<p>“An invitation for you an' Elmira to Squire +Merritt's—to a party; it's Lucina's birthday,” said his +mother, and she fairly smacked her lips, as if the words were +sweet.</p> + +<p>Elmira looked at her brother breathlessly. Nobody knew how eager +she was to go; it was the first party worthy of a name to which she +had been bidden in her whole life. She and her mother had been +speculating, ever since the invitation had arrived, upon the +possibility of Jerome's refusing to accept it.</p> + +<p>“Nobody can tell what he'll do,” Mrs. Edwards had +said. “He's just as likely to take a notion not to go as to +go.”</p> + +<p>“I can't go if he doesn't,” said Elmira.</p> + +<p>“Why can't you, I'd like to know?”</p> + +<p>Elmira shrank timidly. “I never went into Squire Merritt's +house in my life,” said she.</p> + +<p>“I guess there ain't anything there to bite you,” said +her mother. “I'm goin' to say all I can to have your brother +go; but if he won't, you can put on your new dress an' go without +him.” However, Mrs. Edwards privately resolved to use as an +argument to Jerome, in case he refused to attend the party, the fact +that his sister would not go without him.</p> + +<p>She used it now. Mrs. Edwards's military tactics were those of +direct onslaught, and no saving of powder. “Elmira's afraid to +go unless you do,” said she. “You'll be keepin' her home, +an' she ain't had a chance to go to many parties, poor +child!”</p> + +<p>Jerome met Elmira's beseeching eyes and frowned aside, blushing +like a girl. “Well, I don't know,” said he; “I'll +see.”</p> + +<p>That was the provincial form of masculine concession to feminine +importunity. Mrs. Edwards nodded to Elmira when Jerome had shut the +door. “He'll go,” said she.</p> + +<p>Elmira smiled and quivered with half-fearful delight. Lawrence +Prescott was coming to see her the next day, and the day after that +she would be sure to meet him again at Squire Merritt's. She trembled +before her own happiness, as before an angel whose wings cast shadows +of the dread of delight.</p> + +<p>“You'd better go to bed now,” said her mother, with a +meaning look; “you want to look bright to-morrow, and you've +got a good deal before you.”</p> + +<p>The next day not a word was said to Jerome about Lawrence +Prescott's expected call. He noticed vaguely that something unusual +seemed to be going on in the parlor; then divined, with a careless +dismissal of the subject, that it was house-cleaning. He had a secret +of his own that day which might have rendered him less curious about +the secrets of others. There were scarcely enough shoes finished to +take to Dale, only a half-lot, but Jerome announced his intention of +going, to Ozias Lamb, with assumed carelessness.</p> + +<p>“Why don't ye wait till the lot is finished?” asked +Ozias.</p> + +<p>“Guess I'll take a half-lot this time,” replied +Jerome.</p> + +<p>Ozias eyed him sharply, but said nothing.</p> + +<p>Jerome had in his room a little iron-bound strong-box which had +belonged to his father, though few treasures had poor Abel Edwards +ever had occasion to store in it. After dinner that noon Jerome went +up-stairs, unlocked the strong-box, took out some coins, handling +them carefully lest they jingle, and put them in his leather wallet. +Then he went down-stairs and out the front door as stealthily as if +he had been thieving. Elmira and her mother were at work in the +parlor, and saw him go down the walk and disappear up the road.</p> + +<p>“I'll tell you what 'tis,” said Mrs. Edwards, with one +of her sharp, confirmatory nods, “J'rome's been takin' out some +of that money, an' he's goin' to Dale to get him some new +clothes.”</p> + +<p>“What makes you think so?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you see if he 'ain't. He 'ain't got a coat nor a vest +fit to wear to that party, an' he knows it. If he's taken some of +that money he's savin' up towards the mortgage I'm glad of it. Folks +ought to have a little somethin' as they go along; if they don't, +first thing they know they'll get past it.”</p> + +<p>Jerome did not start for Dale until it was quite late in the +afternoon, working hard meanwhile in the shop. The day was another of +those typical ones of early spring, which had come lately, drooping +as to every leaf and bud with that hot languor which forces bloom. +The door and windows of the little shop were set wide open. The honey +and spice-breaths of flowers mingled with the rank effluvia of +leather like a delicate melody with a harsh bass. Jerome pegged along +in silence with knitted brow, yet with a restraint of smiles on his +lips.</p> + +<p>Ozias Lamb also was silent; his old face bending over his work was +a concentration of moody gloom. Ozias was not as outspoken as +formerly concerning his bitter taste of life, possibly because it had +reached his soul. Jerome sometimes wondered if his uncle had troubles +that he did not know of. He started for Dale so late that it was +after sunset when he returned with a great parcel under his arm. He +felt strangely tired, and just before he reached Upham village he sat +down on a stone wall, laid his parcel carefully at his side, and +looked about him.</p> + +<p>The spring dusk was gathering slowly, though at first through an +enhanced clearness of upper lights. All the gloom seemed to proceed +from the earth in silvery breathings of meadows and gradual stealings +forth of violet shadows from behind forest trees. The sky was so full +of pure yellow light that even the feathery spring foliage was darkly +outlined against it, and one could see far within it the fanning of +the wings of the twilight birds. The air was cooler. The breaths of +new-turned earth, and rank young plants in marshy places and woodland +ponds were in it, overcoming somewhat those of sun-steeped blossoms, +which had prevailed all day.</p> + +<p>The road from Dale to Upham lay through low land, and however dry +the night elsewhere, there was always a damp freshness. The circling +clamor of birds overhead seemed wonderfully near. In the village the +bell had begun to ring for an evening prayer-meeting, and one could +have fancied that the bell hung in one of the neighboring trees. The +clearness of sight seemed to enhance hearing, and possibly also that +imagination which is beyond both senses. Jerome had a vague +impression which he did not express to himself, that he had come to a +door wide open into spaces beyond all needs and desires of the flesh +and the earthly soul, and had a sense of breathing new air. Suddenly, +now that he had gained this clear outlook of spirit, the world, and +all the things thereof, seemed to be at his back, and grown dim, even +to his retrospective thought. The image even of beautiful Lucina, +which had dwelt with him since Sunday, faded, for she was not yet +become of his spirit, and pertained scarcely to his flesh, except +through the simplest and most rudimentary of human instincts. Jerome +glanced at the parcel containing the fine new vest and coat which he +had purchased, and frowned scornfully at this childish vanity, which +would lead him to perk and plume and glitter to the sun, like any +foolish bird which would awake the desire of the eyes in another.</p> + +<p>“What a fool I am!” he muttered, and looked at the +great open of sky again, and was half minded to take his purchases +back to Dale.</p> + +<p>However, when the clear gold of the sky began to pale and a great +star shone out over the west, he rose, took up his parcel, and went +home.</p> + +<p>There was a light in the parlor. He thought indifferently that +Paulina Maria Judd or his aunt Belinda might be in there calling on +his mother; but when he went into the kitchen his mother sat there, +and both the other women were with her.</p> + +<p>The supper-table was still standing. “Where have you been, +Jerome Edwards?” cried his mother. She cast a sharp look at his +parcel, but said nothing about it. Jerome laid it on top of the old +desk which had belonged to his father. “I have been over to +Dale,” he replied; “I didn't start very early.”</p> + +<p>His aunt Belinda looked at him amiably. She had not changed much. +Her face, shaded by her long curls, had that same soft droop as of a +faded flower. Once past her bloom of the flesh, there was, in a woman +so little beset by storms of the spirit as Belinda Lamb, little +further change possible until she dropped entirely from her tree of +life. She looked at Jerome with the amiable light of a smile rather +than a smile itself, and said, with her old, weak, but clinging +pounce upon disturbing trifles, “Why, Jerome, you 'ain't been +all this time gettin' to Dale an' back?”</p> + +<p>“I didn't hurry,” replied Jerome, coldly, drawing a +chair up to the supper-table. He had always a sensation of nervous +impatience with this mild, negatively sweet woman which he could not +overcome, though he felt shamed by it. He preferred to see Paulina +Maria, though between her and himself a covert antagonism survived +the open one of his boyhood—at least, he could dislike her +without disliking himself.</p> + +<p>The candle-light fell full upon Paulina Maria's face, which was +even more transparent than formerly; so transfused was her clear +profile by the candle-light that the outlines seemed almost to waver +and be lost. She was knitting a fine white cotton stocking in an +intricate pattern, and did not look at Jerome, or speak to him, +beyond her first nod of recognition when he entered.</p> + +<p>Presently, however, Jerome turned to her. “How is +Henry?” he inquired.</p> + +<p>“About the same,” she replied, in her clear voice, +which was unexpectedly loud, and seemed to have a curious +after-tone.</p> + +<p>“His eyes are no worse, then?”</p> + +<p>“No worse, and no better.”</p> + +<p>“Can't he do any more than he did last year?” asked +Mrs. Edwards.</p> + +<p>“No, he can't. He hasn't been able to do a stitch on shoes +since last Thanksgiving. He can't do anything but sit at the window +and knit plain knittin'. I don't know how he would get along, if I +hadn't showed him how to do that. I believe he'd go crazy.”</p> + +<p>“Don't you think that last stuff Doctor Prescott put in his +eyes did him any good?” asked Mrs. Edwards.</p> + +<p>“No, I don't. He didn't think it would, himself. He said all +there was to do was to go to Boston and see that great doctor there +and have an operation, an' it's goin' to cost three hundred dollars. +Three hundred dollars!—it's easy enough to talk—three +hundred dollars! Adoniram has been laid up with jaundice half the +winter. I've bound shoes, and I've knit these fine stockin's for Mis' +Doctor Prescott. They go towards the doctor's bill, but they're a +drop in the bucket. She'd allow considerable on them, but it ain't +<em>her</em> say. Three hundred dollars!”</p> + +<p>“It's a sight of money,” said Belinda Lamb. “I +s'pose you could mortgage the house, Paulina Maria, and then when +Henry got his eyesight back he could work to pay it off.”</p> + +<p>A deep red transfused Paulina Maria's transparent pallor, but +before she could speak Ann Edwards interposed. +“Mortgage!” said she, with a sniff of her nostrils, as if +she scented battle. “Mortgage! Load a poor horse down to the +ground till his legs break under him, set a baby to layin' a stone +wall till he drops, but don't talk to me of mortgages; I guess I know +enough about them. My poor husband would have been alive and well +to-day if it hadn't been for a mortgage. It sounds easy +enough—jest a little interest money to pay every year, an' all +this money down; but I tell you 'tis like a leech that sucks at body +and soul. You get so the mortgage looks worse than your sins, an' you +pray to be forgiven that instead of them. I know. Don't you have a +mortgage put on your house, Paulina Maria Judd, or you'll rue the +day. I'd—steal before I'd do it!”</p> + +<p>Paulina Maria made no response; she was quite pale again.</p> + +<p>“I should think you'd be afraid Henry would go entirely +blind if you didn't have something done for him,” said Belinda +Lamb.</p> + +<p>“I be,” replied Paulina Maria, sternly. She rose to +go, and Belinda also, with languid response of motion, as if Paulina +Maria were an upstirring wind.</p> + +<p>When Paulina Maria opened the outer door there was a rush of dank +night air.</p> + +<p>“Don't you want me to walk home with you and Aunt +Belinda?” asked Jerome. “It's pretty dark.”</p> + +<p>“No, thank you,” replied Paulina Maria, grimly, +looking back, a pale, wavering shape against the parallelogram of +night; “the things I'm afraid of walk in the light as much as +the dark, an' you can't keep 'em off.”</p> + +<p>“You make me creep, talkin' so,” Belinda Lamb said, as +she and Paulina Maria, two women of one race, with their souls at the +antipodes of things, went down the path together.</p> + +<p>“I hope Paulina Maria won't put a mortgage on her house; +Henry 'd better be blind,” said Ann Edwards, when they had +gone.</p> + +<p>Jerome, finishing his supper, said nothing, but he knew, and +Paulina Maria knew that he knew, there was already a mortgage on her +house. When Jerome rose from the table his mother pointed at the +parcel on the desk.</p> + +<p>“What's that?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“I had to buy a coat and vest if I was going to that +party,” replied Jerome, with a kind of dogged embarrassment. He +had never felt so confused before his mother's sharp eyes since he +was a child. If she had blamed him for his purchase, he would have +been an easy victim, but she did not.</p> + +<p>“What did you get?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“I'll show you in the morning—you can see them +better.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you needed them, if you are goin' to the party. +You've got to look a little like folks. Where you goin'?” for +Jerome had started towards the door.</p> + +<p>“Into the parlor to get a book.” He opened the door, +but his mother beckoned him back mysteriously, and he closed it +softly.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” he asked, wonderingly. “Who is +there? Has Elmira got company?”</p> + +<p>“Belinda Lamb begun quizzin' as soon as she got in here; +said she thought she heard a man talkin', an' asked if it was you; +an' when I said it wa'n't, wanted to know who it was. I told her +right to her face it was none of her business.”</p> + +<p>“Who is it in there, mother?” asked Jerome.</p> + +<p>“It ain't anybody to make any fuss about.”</p> + +<p>“Who is it in there with Elmira?”</p> + +<p>“It's Lawrence Prescott, that's who it is,” replied +his mother, who was more wary in defence than attack, yet defiant +enough when the struggle came. She looked at Jerome with unflinching +eyes.</p> + +<p>“Lawrence Prescott!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, what of it?”</p> + +<p>“Mother, he isn't going to pay attention to +Elmira!”</p> + +<p>“Why not, if he wants to? He's as likely a young fellow as +there is in town. She won't be likely to do any better.”</p> + +<p>Jerome stared at his mother in utter bewilderment. “Mother, +are you out of your senses?” he gasped.</p> + +<p>“I don't know why I am,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Don't you know that Doctor Prescott would turn Lawrence out +of house and home if he thought he was going to marry +Elmira?”</p> + +<p>“I guess she's good enough for him. You can run down your +own sister all you want to, Jerome Edwards.”</p> + +<p>“I am not running her down. I don't deny she's good enough +for any man on earth, but not with the kind of goodness that counts. +Mother, don't you know that nothing but trouble can come to Elmira +from this? Lawrence Prescott can't marry her.”</p> + +<p>“I'd like to know what you mean by trouble comin' to +her,” demanded his mother. A hot red of shame and wrath flashed +all over her little face and neck as she spoke, and Jerome, +perceiving his mother's thought, blushed at that, and not at his +own.</p> + +<p>“I meant that he would have to leave her, and make her +miserable in the end, and that is all I did mean,” he said, +indignantly. “He can't marry her, and you know it as well as I. +Then there is something else,” he added, as a sudden +recollection flashed over his mind: “he was out riding +horseback with Lucina Merritt Monday.”</p> + +<p>“I don't believe a word of it,” his mother said, +hotly.</p> + +<p>“I saw him.”</p> + +<p>“Well, what of it if he did? She's the only girl here that +rides horseback, an' I s'pose he wanted company. Mebbe her father +asked him to go with her in case her horse got scared at anything. I +shouldn't be a mite surprised if he had to go and couldn't help +himself. He wouldn't like to refuse if he was asked.”</p> + +<p>“Mother, you know that Lucina Merritt is the only girl in +this town that Doctor Prescott would think was fit to marry his son, +and you know his family have always had to do just as he +said.”</p> + +<p>“I don't know any such thing,” returned his mother; +her voice of dissent had the shrill persistency of a cricket's. +“Doctor Prescott always took a sight of notice of Elmira when +she was a little girl and he used to come here. He never took to you, +I know, but he always did to Elmira.”</p> + +<p>Jerome said no more. He lighted a candle, took his parcel of new +clothes, and went up-stairs to his chamber.</p> + +<p>It was twelve o'clock before Lawrence Prescott went home. Jerome +had not gone to bed; he was waiting to speak to his sister. When he +heard her step on the stairs he opened his door. Elmira, candle in +hand, came slowly up the stair, holding her skirt up lest she trip +over it. When she reached the landing her brother confronted her, and +she gave a little startled cry; then stood, her eyes cast down before +him, and the candle-light shining over the sweet redness and radiance +of her face, which was at that moment nothing but a sign and symbol +of maiden love.</p> + +<p>All at once Jerome seemed to grasp the full meaning of it. His own +face deepened and glowed, and looked strangely like his sister's. It +was as if he began to learn involuntarily his own lesson from +another's text-book. Suddenly, instead of his sister's face he seemed +to see Lucina Merritt's. That look of love which levels mankind to +one family was over his memory of her.</p> + +<p>“What did you want?” Elmira asked, at length, timidly, +but laughing before him at the same time like a foolish child who +cannot conceal delight.</p> + +<p>“Nothing,” said her brother; “good-night,” +and went into his chamber and shut his door.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXIII</h4> + +<p>The most intimate friends in unwonted gala attire are always +something of a revelation to one another. Butterflies, meeting for +the first time after their release from chrysalis, might well have +the same awe and confusion of old memories.</p> + +<p>On the night of the party, when they were dressed and had come +down-stairs, Jerome, who had seen his sister every day of his life, +looked at her as if for the first time, and she looked in the same +way at him. Elmira's Aunt Belinda Lamb had given her, some time +before, a white muslin gown of her girlhood.</p> + +<p>“I 'ain't got any daughter to make it over for,” said +she, “an' you might as well have it.” Belinda Lamb had +looked regretfully at its voluminous folds, as she passed it over to +Elmira. Privately she could not see why she should not wear it still, +but she knew that she would not dare face Paulina Maria when attired +in it.</p> + +<p>Elmira, after much discussion with her mother, had decided upon +refurbishing this old white muslin, and wearing that instead of her +new green silk to the party.</p> + +<p>“It will look more airy for an evenin' company,” said +Mrs. Edwards, “an' the skirt is so full you can take out some +of the breadths an' make ruffles.”</p> + +<p>Elmira and her mother had toiled hard to make those ruffles and +finish their daily stent on shoes, but the dress was in readiness and +Elmira arrayed in it before eight o'clock on Thursday night. Her +dress had a fan waist cut low, with short puffs for sleeves. Her +neck, displaying, as it did, soft hollows rather than curves, and her +arms, delicately angular at wrists and elbows, were still beautiful. +She was thin, but her bones were so small that little flesh was +required to conceal harsh outlines.</p> + +<p>She wore a black velvet ribbon tied around her throat, and from it +hung a little gold locket—one of the few treasures of her +mother's girlhood. Elmira had tended a little pot of rose-geranium in +a south window all winter. This spring it was full of pale pink +bloom. She had made a little chaplet of the fragrant leaves and +flowers to adorn her smooth dark hair, and also a pretty knot for her +breast. Her skirt was ruffled to her slender waist with tiniest +frills of the diaphanous muslin. Elmira in her party gown looked like +a double white flower herself.</p> + +<p>As for Jerome, he felt awkwardly self-conscious in his new +clothes, but bore himself so proudly as to conceal it. It requires +genuine valor to overcome new clothes, when one seldom has them. They +become, under such circumstances, more than clothes—they are at +least skin-deep. However, Jerome had that valor. He had bought a suit +of fine blue cloth, and a vest of flowered white satin like a +bridegroom's. He wore his best shirt with delicate cambric ruffles on +bosom and wristbands, and his throat was swathed in folds of sheerest +lawn, which he kept his chin clear of, with a splendid and stately +lift. Jerome's hair, which was darker than when he was a boy, was +brushed carefully into a thick crest over his white forehead, which +had, like a child's, a bold and innocent fulness of curve at the +temples. He had not usually much color, but that night his cheeks +were glowing, and his black eyes, commonly somewhat stern from excess +of earnestness, were brilliant with the joy of youth.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Edwards looked at one, then the other, with the delighted +surprise of a mother bird who sees her offspring in their first +gayety of full plumage. She picked a thread from Jerome's coat, she +put back a stray lock of Elmira's hair, she bade them turn this way +and that.</p> + +<p>When they had started she hitched her chair close to the window, +pressed her forehead against the glass, looked out, and watched the +white flutter of Elmira's skirts until they disappeared in the dark +folds of the night.</p> + +<p>There was, that night, a soft commotion of air rather than any +distinct current of wind, like a gentle heaving and subsidence of +veiled breasts of nature. The tree branches spread and gloomed with +deeper shadows; mysterious white things with indeterminate motions +were seen aloof across meadows or in door-yards, and might have been +white-clad women, or flowering bushes, or ghosts.</p> + +<p>Jerome and Elmira, when one of these pale visions seemed floating +from some shadowy gateway ahead, wondered to each other if this or +that girl were just starting for the party, but when they drew near +the whiteness stirred at the gate still, and was only a bush of +bridal-wreath. Jerome and Elmira were really the last on the road to +the party; Upham people went early to festivities.</p> + +<p>“It is very late,” Elmira said, nervously; she held up +her white skirts, ruffling softly to the wind, with both hands, lest +they trail the dewy grass, and flew along like a short-winged bird at +her brother's side. “Please walk faster, Jerome,” said +she.</p> + +<p>“We'll have time enough there,” returned Jerome, +stepping high and gingerly, lest he soil his nicely blacked +shoes.</p> + +<p>“It will be dreadful to go in late and have them all looking +at us, Jerome.”</p> + +<p>“What if they do look at us,” Jerome argued, manfully, +but he was in reality himself full of nervous tremors. Sometimes, to +a soul with a broad outlook and large grasp, the great stresses of +life are not as intimidating as its small and deceitful +amenities.</p> + +<p>When they reached Squire Merritt's house and saw all the windows, +parallelograms of golden light, shining through the thick growth of +trees, his hands and feet were cold, his heart beat hard. “I'm +acting like a girl,” he thought, indignantly, straightened +himself, and marched on to the front door, as if it were the postern +of a fortress.</p> + +<p>But Elmira caught her brother by the long, blue coat-tail, and +brought him to a stand.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Jerome,” she whispered, “there are so many +there, and we are so late, I'm afraid to go in.”</p> + +<p>“What are you afraid of?” demanded Jerome, with a +rustic brusqueness which was foreign to him. “Come +along.” He pulled his coat away and strode on, and Elmira had +to follow.</p> + +<p>The front door of Squire Merritt's house stood open into the hall +the night was so warm, some girls in white were coming down the wide +spiral of stair within, pressing softly together like scared white +doves, in silence save for the rustle of their starched skirts. From +the great rooms on either side of the hall, however, came the murmur +of conversation, with now and then a silvery break of laughter, like +a sudden cascade in an even current.</p> + +<p>Flower-decked heads and silken-gleaming shoulders passed between +the windows and the light, outlining vividly every line and angle and +curve—the keen cut of profiles, the scallops of perked-up lace, +the sharp dove-tails of ribbons. Before one window was upreared the +great back and head of a man, still as a statue, yet with the +persistency of stillness, of life.</p> + +<p>That dogged stiffness, which betrays the utter self-abasement of +resticity in fine company, was evident in his pose, even to one +coming up the path. This party at Squire Merritt's was democratic, +including many whose only experiences in social gatherings of their +neighbors had come through daily labor and worship. All the young +people in Upham had been invited; the Squire's three boon companions, +Doctor Prescott and his wife, and the minister and his daughter, were +the only elders bidden, since the party was for Lucina.</p> + +<p>“The door's open,” Elmira whispered, nervously. +“Is it right to knock when the door's open, or walk right in, O +Jerome?”</p> + +<p>Jerome, for answer, stepped resolutely in, reached the knocker, +raised it, and let it fall with a great imperious clang of brass, +defying, as it were, his own shyness, like a herald at arms.</p> + +<p>The white-clad girls on the stairs turned as with one accord their +innocently abashed faces towards the door, then pushed one another +on, and into the parlor, with soft titters and whispers.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben Merritt's old servant, Hannah, gravely ponderous in +purple delaine, with a wide white apron enhancing her great front, +came forward from the room in the rear and motioned Jerome and Elmira +to the stairs. She stared wonderingly after Jerome; she did not +recognize him in his fine attire, though she had known him since he +was a child.</p> + +<p>When Jerome and Elmira came down-stairs he led the way at once +into the north parlor, where the most of the guests were assembled. +There were the village young women in their best attire, decked as to +heads and bosoms with sweet drooping flowers, displaying all their +humble stores of lace and ribbons and trinkets, jostling one another +with slurring hisses of silk and crisp rattle of muslins, speaking +affectedly with pursed lips, ending often a sibilant with a fine +whistle, or silent, with mouths set in conscious smiles and cheeks +hot with blushes. There were the village young men, in their Sunday +clothes, standing aloof from the girls, now and then exchanging +remarks with one another in a bravado of low bass. In the rear of the +north parlor were Lucina and her parents, Mrs. Doctor Prescott and +Lawrence, Miss Camilla Merritt, and the Squire's friends, Colonel +Lamson, John Jennings, and Lawyer Means.</p> + +<p>Jerome, with Elmira following, made his way slowly through the +outskirts towards this fine nucleus of the party. Lawrence Prescott +was talking gayly with Lucina, but when he saw Jerome and his sister +approaching he stood back, with a slight flush and start, beside his +mother, who with Miss Camilla was seated on the great sofa between +the north windows. Mrs. Prescott fanned herself slowly with a large +feather fan, and beamed abroad with a sweet graciousness. Her +handsome face seemed to fairly shed a mild light of approval upon the +company. She stirred with opulent foldings of velvet, shaking out +vague musky odors; a brooch in the fine lace plaits over her high +maternal bosom gave out a dull white gleam of old brilliants. Mrs. +Prescott was more sumptuously attired than the Squire's wife, in her +crimson and gold shot silk, which became her well, but was many +seasons old, or than Miss Camilla, in her grand purple satin, that +also was old, but so well matched to her own grace of age that it +seemed like the garment of her youth, which had faded like it, in +sweet communion with peaceful thoughts and lavender and +rose-leaves.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben Merritt stood between his wife and daughter. Lucina +had fastened a pretty posy in his button-hole, and he wore his fine +new broadcloths, to please her, which he had bought for this +occasion.</p> + +<p>The Squire, though scarcely at home in his north parlor, nor in +his grand apparel, which had never figured in haunts of fish or game, +was yet radiant with jovial and hearty hospitality, and not even +impatient for the cards and punch which awaited him and his friends +in the other room, when his social duties should be fulfilled.</p> + +<p>Lucina herself had set out the cards and the tobacco, and made a +garland of myrtle-leaves and violets for the punch-bowl in honor of +the occasion. “I want you to have the best time of anybody at +my party, father,” she had said, “and as soon as all the +guests have arrived, you must go and play cards with Colonel Lamson +and the others.”</p> + +<p>No other in the whole world, not even her mother, did Lucina love +as well as she loved her father, and the comfort and pleasure of no +other had she so deeply at heart.</p> + +<p>At the Squire's elbow, standing faithfully by him until he should +get his release, were his three friends: John Jennings and Lawyer +Eliphalet Means in their ancient swallow-tails—John Jennings's +being of renowned London make, though nobody in Upham appreciated +that—and Colonel Jack Lamson in his old dress uniform. Colonel +Lamson, having grown stouter of late years, wore with a mighty +discomfort of the flesh but with an unyielding spirit his old clothes +of state.</p> + +<p>“I'll be damned if I thought I could get into 'em at first, +Eben,” he had told the Squire when he arrived. “Haven't +had them on since I was pall-bearer at poor Jim Pell's funeral. I was +bound to do your girl honor, but I'll be damned if I'll dance in +'em—I tell you it wouldn't be safe, Eben.”</p> + +<p>The Colonel looked with intense seriousness at his friend, then +laughed hoarsely. His laugh was always wheezy of late, and he +breathed hard when he took exercise.</p> + +<p>Sometime in his dim and shady past Colonel Lamson was reported to +have had a wife. She had never been seen in Upham, and was commonly +believed to have died at some Western post during the first years of +their marriage. Probably the beautiful necklace of carved corals, +which the Colonel had brought that night for a present to Lucina, had +belonged to that long-dead young wife; but not even the Squire +knew.</p> + +<p>As for John Jennings, he had never had a wife, and the trinkets he +had bestowed upon sweethearts remained still in their keeping; but he +brought a pair of little pearly ear-rings for Lucina, and never wore +his diamond shirt-button again. Lawyer Eliphalet Means brought for +his offering a sandal-wood fan, a veritable lacework of wood, +spreading it himself in his lean brown hand, which matched in hue, +and eying it with a sort of dryly humorous satisfaction before he +gave it into Lucina's keeping.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben, despite his gratification for his daughter's sake, +burst into a great laugh. “By the Lord Harry!” cried he; +“you didn't go into a shop yourself and ask for that +folderol?”</p> + +<p>“Got it through a sea-captain, from India, years ago,” +replied the lawyer, laconically.</p> + +<p>“Wouldn't she take it?” inquired Colonel Lamson, with +sly meaning, his round, protruding eyes staring hard at his friend +and the fan.</p> + +<p>“Never gave her the chance,” said Means, with a shrewd +twinkle. Then he turned to Lucina, with a stiff but courtly bow, and +presented the sandal-wood fan, and not one of them knew then, nor +ever after, its true history.</p> + +<p>Lucina had joyfully heard the clang of the knocker when Jerome +arrived, thinking that they were the last guests, and her father +could have his pleasure. Doctor Prescott had been called to Granby +and would not come until late, if at all; the minister, it was +reported, was ill with influenza—she and her mother had agreed +that the Squire need not wait for them.</p> + +<p>When Lucina saw the throng parting for the new-comers, she assumed +involuntarily her pose of sweet and gracious welcome; but when Jerome +and his sister stood before her, she started and lost composure.</p> + +<p>Lucina remembered Elmira well enough, and had thought she +remembered Jerome since last Sunday, when her father, calling to mind +their frequent meetings in years back, had chidden her lightly for +not speaking to him.</p> + +<p>“He has grown and changed so, father,” Lucina had +said; “I did not mean to be discourteous, and I will remember +him another time.”</p> + +<p>Lucina had really considered afterwards, saying nothing to her +father or her mother, that the young man was very handsome. She had +sat quite still that Sunday afternoon in the meeting-house, and, +instead of listening to the sermon, had searched her memory for old +pictures of Jerome. She had recalled distinctly the tea-drinking in +her aunt Camilla's arbor, his refusal of cake, and gift of +sassafras-root in the meadow; also his repulse of her childish +generosity when she would have given him her little savings for the +purchase of shoes. Old stings of the spirit can often be revived with +thought, even when the cause is long passed. Lucina, sitting there in +meeting, felt again the pang of her slighted benevolence. She was +sure that she would remember Jerome at once the next time they met, +but for a minute she did not. She bowed and shook hands prettily with +Elmira, then turned to Jerome and stared at him, all unmindful of her +manners, thinking vaguely that here was some grand young gentleman +who had somehow gotten into her party unbidden. Such a fool do +externals make of the memory, which needs long training to know the +same bird in different feathers.</p> + +<p>Lucina stared at Jerome, at first with grave and innocent wonder, +then suddenly her eyes drooped and a soft blush crept over her face +and neck, and even her arms. Lucina, in her short-sleeved India +muslin gown, flowing softly from its gathering around her white +shoulders to her slender waist, where a blue ribbon bound it, and +thence in lines of transparent lights and blue shadows to her little +pointed satin toe, stood before him with a sort of dumb-maiden +appealing that he should not look at her so, but he was helpless, as +with a grasp of vision which he could not loosen.</p> + +<p>Jerome looked at her as the first man might have looked at the +first woman; the world was empty but for him and her. The voices of +the company were ages distant, their eyes dim across eternal spaces. +The fragrance of sweet lavender and dried rose-leaves from Lucina's +garments, and, moreover, a strange Oriental one, that seemed to +accent the whole, from her sandal-wood fan, was to him, as by a +transposing into a different key of sense, like some old melody of +life which he had always known, and yet so forgotten that it had +become new.</p> + +<p>Jerome never knew how long he stood there, but suddenly he felt +the Squire's kindly hand on his shoulder, and heard his loud, jovial +voice in his ear. “Why, Jerome, my boy, what is the matter? +Don't you remember my daughter? Lucina, where are your +manners?”</p> + +<p>And then Lucina curtesied low, with her fair curls drooping +forward over her blushing face and neck, as pink as her corals, and +Jerome bowed and strove to say something, but he knew not what, and +never knew what he said, nor anybody else.</p> + +<p>“'Twas the new clothes, boy,” said the Squire in his +ear. “By the Lord Harry, 'twas much as ever I knew you myself +at first! I took you for an earl over from the old country. Lucina +meant no harm. Go you now and have a talk with her.”</p> + +<p>Jerome wondered anxiously afterwards if he had spoken properly to +the Squire's wife, to Mrs. Doctor Prescott, to Miss Camilla, and the +others—if he had looked, even, at anybody but Lucina. He +remembered the party as he might have remembered a kaleidoscope, of +which only one combination of form and color abided with him. He +realized all beside, as a broad effect with no detail. The +card-playing and punch-drinking in the other room, the preliminary +tuning of fiddles in the hall, the triumphant strains of a country +dance, the weaving of the figures, the gay voices of the village +youths, who lost all their abashedness as the evening went on, the +supper, the table gleaming with the white lights of silver and the +rainbow lustre of glass, the golden points of candles in the old +candelabra, the fruity and spicy odors of cake and wine, were all as +a dimness and vagueness of brilliance itself.</p> + +<p>He did not know, even, that Lawrence Prescott was at Elmira's side +all the evening, and after his father arrived, and that Elmira danced +every time with him, and set people talking and Doctor Prescott +frowning. He knew only that he had followed Lucina about, and that +she seemed to encourage him with soft, leading smiles. That they sat +on a sofa in a corner, behind a door, and talked, that once they +stepped out on the stoop, and even strolled a little down the path, +under the trees, when she complained of the room being hot and close. +Then, without knowing whether he should do so or not, he bent towards +her, with his arm crooked, and she slipped her hand in it, and they +both trembled and were silent for a moment. He knew every word that +Lucina had spoken, and gave a thousand different meanings to each. +For the first time in his life, he tasted the sweets of praise from +girlish lips. Lucina had heard of his good deeds from her father, how +kind he was to the poor and sick, how hard he had worked, how +faithful he had been to his mother and sister. Jerome listened with +bliss, and shame that he should find it bliss. Then Lucina and he +remembered together, with that perfect time of memory which is as +harmonious as any duet, all the episodes of their childhood.</p> + +<p>“I remember how you gave me sassafras,” said Lucina, +“and how you would not take the nice gingerbread that Hannah +made, and how sad I felt about it.”</p> + +<p>“I will get some more sassafras for you to-morrow,” +said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“And I will give you some more gingerbread if you will take +it,” said she, with a sweet coquettishness.</p> + +<p>“I will, if you want me to,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>They were out in the front yard then, a gust of wind pressed under +the trees, and seemed to blow them together. Lucina's white muslin +fluttered around Jerome's knees, her curls floated across his +breast.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” murmured Lucina, confusedly, “this wind +has come all of a sudden,” and she stood apart from him.</p> + +<p>“You will take cold; we had better go in,” said +Jerome. They went into the house, Jerome being a little hurt that +Lucina had shrunk away from him so quickly, and Lucina disappointed +that Jerome was so solicitous lest she take cold. Then they sat down +again in the corner, and remembered that Jerome ate two pieces of +cake at Miss Camilla's tea-party and she two and a half.</p> + +<p>Somehow, before the party broke up that night, it was understood +that Jerome was to come and see her the next Sunday night. And yet +Lucina had not invited him, nor he asked permission to come.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXIV</h4> + +<p>Jerome's mind, during the two days after the party, was in a sort +of dazzle of efflorescence, and could not precipitate any clear ideas +for his own understanding. Love had been so outside his calculation +of life, that his imagination, even, had scarcely grasped the +possibility of it.</p> + +<p>He worked on stolidly, having all the time before his mental +vision, like one with closed eyes in a bright room, a shifting +splendor as of strange scenes and clouds.</p> + +<p>He could not sleep nor eat, his spirit seemed to inhabit his flesh +so thoroughly as to do away with the material needs of it. Still, all +things that appealed to his senses seemed enhanced in power, becoming +so loud and so magnified that they produced a confusion of hearing +and vision. The calls of the spring birds sounded as if in his very +ear, with an insistence of meaning; the spring flowers bloomed where +he had never seen them, and the fragrance of each was as evident to +him as a voice.</p> + +<p>Jerome wondered vaguely if this strange exaltation of spirit were +illness. Sunday morning, when he could not eat his breakfast, his +mother told him that there were red spots on his cheeks, and she +feared he was feverish.</p> + +<p>He laughed scornfully at the idea, but looked curiously at himself +in his little square of mirror, when he was dressing for meeting. The +red spots were there, burning in his cheeks, and his eyes were +brilliant. For a minute he wondered anxiously if he were feverish, if +he were going to be ill, and, if so, what his mother and sister would +do. He even felt his own pulse as he stood there, and discovered that +it was quick. Then, all at once, his face in the glass looked out at +him with a flash as from some sub-state of consciousness in the +depths of his own being, which he could not as yet quite fathom.</p> + +<p>“I don't know what ails me,” he muttered, as he turned +away. He felt as he had when puzzling over the unknown quantity in an +algebraic equation. It was not until he was sitting in meeting, +looking forward at Lucina's fair profile, cut in clear curves like a +lily, that the solution came to him.</p> + +<p>“I'm what they call in love,” Jerome said to himself. +He turned very pale, and looked away from Lucina. He felt as if +suddenly he had come to the brink of some dread abyss of nature.</p> + +<p>“That is why I want to go to see her to-night,” he +thought. “I won't go; I won't!”</p> + +<p>Just before the bell stopped tolling, Doctor Prescott's family +went up the aisle in stately file, the doctor marching ahead with an +imperious state which seemed to force contributions from followers +and beholders, as if a peacock were to levy new eyes for his plumage +from all admiration along his path. The doctor's wife, in her satins +and Indian cashmeres, followed him, moving with massive gentleness, a +long ostrich plume in her bonnet tossing softly. Last came Lawrence, +slight and elegantly erect, in his city broadcloth and linen, a +figure so like his father as to seem almost his double, and yet with +a difference beyond that of age, so palpable that a child might see +it—a self-spelled word, with a different meaning in two +languages.</p> + +<p>The Merritt pew was just behind Doctor Prescott's. Lawrence had +not been seated long before he turned slightly and cast a smiling +glance around at beautiful Lucina, who inclined her head softly in +response. Jerome had thus far never felt on his own account jealousy +of any human being, he had also never been made ignominious by +self-pity; now, both experiences came to him. Seeing that look of +Lawrence Prescott's, he was suddenly filled with that bitterness of +grudging another the sweet which one desires for one's self which is +like no other bitterness on earth; and he who had hitherto pitied +only the deprivations of others pitied his own, and so became the +pauper of his own spirit. “He likes her,” he told +himself; “of course she'll like him. He's Doctor Prescott's +son. He's got everything without working for it—I've got +nothing.”</p> + +<p>Jerome looked at neither of them again. When meeting was over, he +strode rapidly down the aisle, lest he encounter them.</p> + +<p>“What ailed you in meeting, Jerome?” Elmira asked as +they were going home.</p> + +<p>“Nothing.”</p> + +<p>“You looked so pale once I thought you were going to faint +away.”</p> + +<p>“I tell you nothing ailed me.”</p> + +<p>“You were dreadfully pale,” persisted Elmira. She was +so happy that morning that she had more self-assertion than usual. +Lawrence Prescott had looked around at her three times; he had smiled +at her once, when he turned to leave the pew at the close of meeting. +Jerome had not noticed that, and she had not noticed Lawrence's smile +at Lucina. She had been too fluttered to look up when Lawrence first +entered.</p> + +<p>That afternoon Jerome and Elmira set out for meeting again, but +when they reached the turn of the road Jerome stopped.</p> + +<p>“I guess I won't go this afternoon,” said he.</p> + +<p>“Why, what's the matter? Don't you feel well?” Elmira +asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I feel well enough, but it's warm. I guess I won't +go.” Elmira stared at him wonderingly. “Run along; +you'll be late,” said he, trying to smile.</p> + +<p>“I'm afraid you are sick, Jerome.”</p> + +<p>“I tell you I am not. You'll be late.”</p> + +<p>Finally Elmira went on, though with many backward glances. Jerome +sat down on the stone wall, behind a huge growth of lilac. He could +see through a leafy screen the people in the main road wending their +way to meeting. He had suddenly resolved not to go, lest he see +Lucina Merritt again.</p> + +<p>Presently there was out in the main road a graceful swing of light +skirts and a gliding of shoulders and head which made his heart leap. +Lucina was going to meeting with her mother. The moment she stirred +the distance with dim advances of motion, Jerome knew her. It seemed +to him that he would have known her shadow among a nightful, her step +among a thousand. It was as if he had developed ultimate senses for +her recognition.</p> + +<p>Jerome, when he had once glimpsed her, looked away until he was +sure that she had passed. When the bell had stopped ringing, he arose +and climbed over the stone wall, then went across a field to the path +skirting the poor-house which he had used to follow to school.</p> + +<p>When he came opposite the poor-house in the hollow, he looked down +at it. The day was so mild that the paupers were swarming into +evidence like insects. Many of the house windows were wide open, and +old heads with palsied nods, like Chinese toys, appeared in them; +some children were tumbling about before the door.</p> + +<p>Old Peter Thomas—who seemed to have become crystallized, as +it were, in age and decrepitude, and advanced no further in +either—was pottering around the garden, eying askant, like an +old robin, the new plough furrows. Pauper women humped their calico +backs over the green slopes of the fields, searching for dandelion +greens, but not digging, because it was Sunday.</p> + +<p>Their shrill, plaintive voices, calling to one another, came +plainly to Jerome. When he reached the barn, there sat Mindy Toggs, +as of old, chanting his accusatory refrain, “Simon Basset, +Simon Basset.”</p> + +<p>Hitherto Jerome had viewed all this humiliation of poverty from a +slight but no less real eminence of benefaction; to-day he had a +miserable sense of community with it. “It is not having what we +want that makes us all paupers,” he told himself, bitterly; +“I'm as much a pauper as any of them. I'm in a worse poor-house +than the town of Upham's. I'm in the poor-house of life where the +paupers are all fed on stones.”</p> + +<p>Then suddenly, as he went on, a brave spirit of revolt seized him. +“It is wanting what we have not that makes us paupers,” +he said, “and I will not be one, if I tear my heart +out.”</p> + +<p>Jerome climbed another stone wall into a shrubby pasture, and went +across that to a pine wood, and thence, by devious windings and +turnings, through field and forest, to his old woodland. It was his +now; he had purchased it back from the Squire. Then he sat himself +down and looked about him out of his silence and self-absorption, and +it was as if he had come into a very workshop of nature. The hummings +of her wheels and wings were loud in his ear, the fanning of them +cool on his cheek. The wood here was very light and young, and the +spring sun struck the roots of the trees.</p> + +<p>Little swarms of gossamer gnats danced in the sunlit spaces; when +he looked down there was the blue surprise of violets, and anemones +nodded dimly out of low shadows. There was a loud shrilling of birds, +and the tremulousness of the young leaves seemed to be as much from +unseen wings as wind. However, the wind blew hard in soft, frequent +gusts, and everything was tilting and bowing and waving.</p> + +<p>Jerome looked at it all, and it had a new meaning for him. The +outer world is always tinctured more or less to the sight by one's +mental states; but who can say, when it comes to outlooks from the +keenest stresses of spirit, how impalpable the boundary-lines between +beholder and object may grow? Who knows if a rose does not really +cease to be, in its own sense, to a soul in an extremity of joy or +grief?</p> + +<p>Whatever it might be for others, the spring wood was not to-day +what it had ever been before to Jerome. All its shining, and +sweetening, and growing were so forced into accord with himself that +the whole wood took, as it were, the motion of his own soul. Jerome +looked at a fine young poplar-tree, and saw not a tree but a maid, +revealing with innocent helplessness her white body through her +skirts of transparent green. The branches flung out towards him like +a maiden's arms, with shy intent of caresses. Every little flower +upon which his idle gaze fell was no flower, but an eye of +love—a bird called to his mate with the call of his own heart. +Every sight, and sound, and sweetness of the wood wooed and tempted +him, with the reflex motion of his own new ardor of love and passion. +He had not gone to meeting lest he see Lucina Merritt again, and +wished to drive her image from his mind, and here he was peopling his +solitude with symbols of her which were bolder than she, and made his +hunger worse to bear.</p> + +<p>A childlike wonder was over him at the whole. “Why haven't I +ever felt this way before?” he thought. He recalled all the +young men he knew who had married during the last few years, and +thought how they must have felt as he felt now, and he had no +conception of it. He had been secretly rather proud that he had not +encumbered himself with a wife and children, but had given his best +strength to less selfish loves. He remembered his scorn of the +school-master and his adoring girls, and realized that his scorn had +been due, as scorn largely is, to ignorance. Instead of contempt, a +fierce pity seized him for all who had given way to this great need +of love, and yet he felt strange indignation and shame that he +himself had come into the common lot.</p> + +<p>“It is no use; I can't,” he said, quite out loud, and +set a hard face against all the soft lights and shadows which moved +upon him with the motion of his own desires.</p> + +<p>When he said “I can't,” Jerome meant not so much any +ultimate end of love as love itself. He never for a second had a +thought that he could marry Lucina Merritt, Squire Eben Merritt's +daughter, nor indeed would if he could. He never fancied that that +fair lady in her silk attire could come to love him so unwisely as to +wed him, and had he fancied it the fierce revolt at receiving so much +where he could give so little, which was one of his first instincts, +would have seized him. Never once he thought that he could marry +Lucina, and take her into his penury or profit by her riches. All he +resolved against was the love itself, which would make him weak with +the weakness of all unfed things, and he made a stand of +rebellion.</p> + +<p>“I'm going to put her out of my mind,” said Jerome, +and stood up to his full height among the sweet spring growths, +flinging back his head, as if he defied Nature herself, and went +pushing rudely through the tremulous outreaching poplar branches, and +elbowed a cluster of white flowering bushes huddling softly together, +like maidens who must put themselves in a man's way, though to their +own shaming.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXV</h4> + +<p>Jerome decided that he would not go to see Lucina Merritt that +Sunday night. He knew that she expected him, though there had been no +formal agreement to that effect; he knew that she would wonder at his +non-appearance, and, even though she were not disappointed, that she +would think him untruthful and unmannerly.</p> + +<p>“Let her,” he told himself, harshly, fairly scourging +himself with his resolution. “Let her think just as badly of me +as she can. I'll get over it quicker.”</p> + +<p>The ineffable selfishness of martyrdom was upon him. He considered +only his own glory and pain of noble renunciation, and not her agony +of disillusion and distrust, even if she did not care for him. That +last possibility he did not admit for a moment. In the first place, +though he had loved her almost at first sight, the counter-reasoning +he did not imagine could apply to her. It had been as simple and +natural in his case as looking up at a new star, but in +hers—what was there in him to arrest her sweet eyes and +consideration, at a moment's notice, if at all? As well expect the +star to note a new eye of admiration upon the earth.</p> + +<p>In all probability, Lucina's heart had turned already to Lawrence +Prescott, as was fitting. She had doubtless seen much of him—he +was handsome and prosperous; both families would be pleased with such +a match. Jerome faced firmly the jealousy in his heart. “You've +got to get used to it,” he told himself.</p> + +<p>He did not think much of his sister in this connection, but simply +decided that his mother, and possibly Elmira, had overrated Lawrence +Prescott's attention, and jumped too hastily at conclusions. It was +incredible that any one should fancy his sister in preference to +Lucina. Lawrence had merely called in a friendly way. He did not once +imagine any such feeling on Elmira's part for young Prescott, as on +his for Lucina, and had at the time more impatience than pity. +However, he resolved to remonstrate if Lawrence should stay so late +again with his sister.</p> + +<p>“She may think he means more than he does, girls are so +silly,” he said. He did not class Lucina Merritt among +girls.</p> + +<p>That Sunday night, after dark, though he was resolved not to visit +Lucina, he strolled up the road, past her house. There was no light +in the parlor. “She doesn't expect me, after all,” he +thought, but with a great pang of disappointment rather than relief. +He judged such proceedings from the rustic standpoint. Always in +Upham, when a girl expected a young man to come to spend an evening +with her, she lighted the best parlor and entertained him there in +isolation from the rest of her family. He did not know how different +a training in such respects Lucina had had. She never thought, since +he was not her avowed lover, of sequestering herself with him in the +best parlor. She would have been too proudly and modestly fearful as +to what he might think of her, and she of herself, and her parents of +them both. She expected, as a matter of course, to invite him into +the sitting-room, where were her father and mother and Colonel Jack +Lamson.</p> + +<p>However, she permitted herself a little innocent manœuvre, +whereby she might gain a few minutes of special converse with him +without the presence of her elders. A little before dusk Lucina +seated herself on the front door-step. Her mother brought presently a +little shawl and feared lest she take cold, but Lucina said she +should not remain there long, and there was no wind and no +dampness.</p> + +<p>Lucina felt uneasy lest she be deceiving her mother, but she could +not bring herself to tell her, though she did not fairly know why, +that she expected a caller.</p> + +<p>The dusk gathered softly, like the shadow of brooding wings. She +thought Jerome must come very soon. She could just see a glimmer of +white road through the trees, and she watched that eagerly, never +taking her eyes from it. Now and then she heard an approaching +footstep, and a black shadow slanted athwart the road. Her heart +sank, though she wondered at it, when that happened.</p> + +<p>When Jerome came up the road she made sure at once that it was he. +She even stirred to greet him, but after an indefinable pause he +passed on also; then she thought she had been mistaken.</p> + +<p>He saw the flutter of pale drapery on the door-step, but never +dreamed that Lucina was actually there watching for him. After a +while he went back. Lucina, who was still sitting there, saw him +again, but this time did not stir, since he was going the other +way.</p> + +<p>When, at half-past eight, she saw the people from the evening +prayer-meeting passing on the road, she made sure that Jerome would +not come that night.</p> + +<p>She gave a soft sigh, leaned her head back against the fluted +door-post, and tried to recall every word he had said to her, and +every word she had said to him, about his coming. She began to wonder +if she had possibly not been cordial enough, if she could have made +him fear he would not be welcome. She repeated over and over, trying +to imagine him in her place as listener, all she had said to him. She +gave it the furthest inflections of graciousness and coolness of +which she could have been capable, and puzzled sorely as to which she +had used.</p> + +<p>“It makes so much difference as to how you say a +thing,” thought poor Lucina, “and I know I was afraid +lest he think me too glad to have him come. I wonder if I did not say +enough, or did not say it pleasantly.”</p> + +<p>It did not once occur to Lucina that Jerome might mean to slight +her, and might stay away because he wished to do so. She had been so +petted and held precious and desirable during her whole sweet life, +that she could scarcely imagine any one would flout her, though so +timid and fearful of hurting and being hurt was she by nature, that +without so much love and admiration she would have been a piteous +thing.</p> + +<p>She decided that it must be her fault that Jerome had not come. +She reflected that he was very proud; she remembered, and the memory +stung her with something of the old pain of the happening, how he +would not take the cakes when she was a child, how he would not take +her money to buy shoes. She shrank even then, remembering the flash +with which he had turned upon her.</p> + +<p>“I did not say enough, I was so afraid of saying too much, +and that is why he has not come,” she told herself, and sadly +troubled her gentle heart thereby.</p> + +<p>The tears came into her eyes and rolled slowly down her fair +cheeks as she sat there in the dusk. She did not yet feel towards +Jerome as he towards her. She had been too young and childish when +she had known him for love to have taken fast root in her heart; and +she was not one to love fully until she felt her footing firm, and +her place secure in a lover's affections. Still, who can tell what +may be in the heart of the gentlest and most transparent little girl, +who follows obediently at her mother's apron-strings? In those old +days when Abigail had put her little daughter to bed, heard her say +her prayers for forgiveness of her sins of innocence, and blessings +upon those whom she loved best, then kissed the fair baby face sunken +in its white pillow, she never dreamed what happened after she had +gone down-stairs. Every night, for a long time after she had first +spoken to Jerome, did the small Lucina, her heart faintly stirred +into ignorant sweetness with the first bloom of young romance, slip +out of her bed after her mother had gone, kneel down upon her +childish knees, and ask another blessing for Jerome Edwards.</p> + +<p>“Please, God, bless that boy, and give him shoes and +gingerbread, because he won't take them from me,” Lucina used +to pray, then climb into bed again with a little wild scramble of +hurry.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, when she was a little girl, though her mother never +knew it, Lucina used to be thinking about Jerome, and building +artless air-castles when she bent her grave childish brow over her +task of needle-work. Sometimes, on the heights of these castles +reared by her innocent imagination, she and Jerome put arms around +each other's necks and embraced and kissed, and her mother sat close +by and did not know.</p> + +<p>She also did not know that often, when she had curled Lucina's +hair with special care on the Sabbath day, and dressed her in her +best frock, that her little daughter, demurely docile under her +maternal hands, was eagerly wondering if Jerome would not think her +pretty in her finery.</p> + +<p>Of course, when Lucina was grown up, and went away to school, +these childish love-dreams seemed quite lost and forgotten, in her +awakening under the light of older life. In those latter days Lucina +had never thought about Jerome Edwards. She had even, perhaps, had +her heart touched, at least to a fancy of love, by the admiration of +others. It was whispered in the village that Lucina Merritt had had +chances already. However, if she had, she had waved them back upon +the donors before they had been fairly given, with that gentlest +compassion which would permit no need of itself. Lucina, however her +heart might have been swerved for a season to its natural inclination +of love, had never yet admitted a lover, for, when it came to that +last alternative of open or closed doors, she had immediately been +seized with an impulse of flight into her fastness of childhood and +maidenhood.</p> + +<p>But now, though she scarcely loved Jerome as yet, the power of her +old dreams was over her again. No one can over-estimate the tendency +of the human soul towards old ways of happiness which it has not +fully explored.</p> + +<p>Lucina had begun, almost whether she would or not, to dream again +those old sweet dreams, whose reality she had never yet tasted. Had +life ever broken in upon the dreams, had a word or a caress ever +become a fact, it is probable she would have looked now upon it all +as upon some childish fruit of delight, whose sweetness she had +proved and exhausted to insipidity. And this, with no disparagement +to her, for the most faithful heart is in youth subject to growth and +change, and not free as to the exercise of its own faithfulness.</p> + +<p>Lucina that Sunday evening had put on one of her prettiest muslin +frocks, cross-barred with fine pink flowers set between the bars. She +tied a pink ribbon around her waist, too, and wore her morocco shoes. +She looked down at the crisp flow of muslin over her knees, and +thought if Jerome had known that she had put on that pretty dress, he +would have been sure she wanted him to come. Still, she would not +have liked him to know she had taken as much pains as that, but she +wished so she had invited him more cordially to come.</p> + +<p>The tears rolled down her cheeks and dropped on the fair triangle +of neck between the folds of her lace tucker; she was weeping for +Jerome's hurt, but it seemed strangely like her own. She was +half-minded to go into the house and tell her mother all about it, +repeat that miserable little dialogue between herself and Jerome, +which was troubling her so, and let her decide as to whether she had +been lacking in hospitality or not, and give her advice. But she +could not quite bring herself to do that.</p> + +<p>The moon arose behind the house, she could not see it, but she +knew it was there by the swarming of pale lights under the +pine-trees, and the bristling of their tops as with needles of +silver. She heard a whippoorwill in the distance calling as from some +undiscovered country; there was an undertone of frogs from marshy +meadows swelling and dying in even cadences of sound.</p> + +<p>Lucina's mother came to the door and put her hand on the girl's +head. “You must come in,” she said; “your hair +feels quite damp. You will take cold. Your dress is thin, +too.”</p> + +<p>Lucina rose obediently and followed her mother into the +sitting-room, where sat Squire Eben and Colonel Lamson in swirling +clouds of tobacco smoke.</p> + +<p>Lucina's cheeks had a wonderful clear freshness of red and white +from the damp night air. There were no traces of tears on her sweet +blue eyes. She came into the bright room with a smiling shrinking +from the light, which gave her the expression of an angel. Both men +gazed at her with a sort of passion of tenderest admiration, and also +a certain sadness of yearning—the Squire because of that +instinct of insecurity and possibility of loss to which possession +itself gives rise, the Colonel because of the awakening of old vain +longings in his own heart.</p> + +<p>The Squire reached out a hand towards Lucina, caught her first by +her flowing skirt, then by her fair arm, and drew her close to his +side and pulled down her soft face to his. “Well, Pretty, how +goes the world?” he said, with a laugh, which had almost the +catch of a sob, so anxiously tender he was of her, and so timid +before his own delight in her.</p> + +<p>When she had kissed him and bade him good-night, Lucina went up to +her own chamber and her mother with her.</p> + +<p>“Abigail follows the child, since she came home, like a hen +with one chicken,” the Squire said, smiling almost foolishly in +his utter pride of this beautiful daughter.</p> + +<p>The Colonel nodded, frowning gravely over his pipe at the opposite +window. “She makes me think a little of my wife at her +age,” he said.</p> + +<p>The Squire started. It was the first time he had ever heard the +Colonel mention his wife. He sighed, looked at him, and hesitated +with a delicacy of reticence. “It must have been a hard +blow,” he ventured, finally.</p> + +<p>The Colonel nodded.</p> + +<p>“Any children?” asked the Squire, after a little.</p> + +<p>“No,” replied Colonel Lamson. He puffed at his pipe, +his face was redder than usual. “Well, Eben,” he said, +after a pause, during which the two men smoked energetically, +“I hope you'll keep her a while.”</p> + +<p>“You don't think she looks delicate?” cried the +Squire, turning pale. “Her mother doesn't think so.”</p> + +<p>The Colonel laughed heartily. “When a girl blossoms out like +that there'll be plenty trying the garden-gate,” said he.</p> + +<p>The Squire flushed angrily. “Let 'em try it and be +damned!” he said.</p> + +<p>“You can't lock the gate, Eben; if you do, she'll open it +herself, and no blame to her.”</p> + +<p>“She won't, I tell you. She's too young, and there's not a +man I know fit to tie her little shoes.”</p> + +<p>“How's young Prescott?”</p> + +<p>“Young Prescott be damned!”</p> + +<p>The Colonel hesitated. He had seen with an eye, sharpened with +long and thorough experience, Jerome Edwards and Lucina the night of +the party. “How's that young Edwards?”</p> + +<p>Squire Merritt stared. “The smartest young fellow in this +town,” he said, with a kind of crusty loyalty, “but when +it comes to Lucina—Lucina!”</p> + +<p>“I've liked that boy, Eben, ever since that night in +Robinson's store,” said the Colonel, with a curious +gravity.</p> + +<p>“So have I,” returned the Squire, defiantly, +“and before that—ever since his father died. He was the +bravest little rascal. He's a hero in his way. I was telling Lucina +the other day what he'd done. But when it comes to his lifting his +eyes to her, to her—by the Lord Harry, Jack, nobody shall have +her, rich or poor, good or bad. I don't care if he's a prince, or an +angel from heaven. Don't I know what men are? I'm going to keep my +angel of a child a while myself. I'll tell you one thing, sir, and +that is, Lucina thinks more to-day of her old father than any man +living; I'll bet you a thousand she does!” Squire Eben's voice +fairly broke with loving emotion and indignation.</p> + +<p>“Can't take you up, Eben,” said the Colonel, dryly; +“I'd be too darned sure to lose, and I couldn't pay a dollar; +but—to-morrow's coming.”</p> + +<p>Squire Eben Merritt stood looking at his friend, a frown of +jealous reverie on his open face. Suddenly, with no warning, as if +from a sudden uplifting of the spirit, it cleared away. He laughed +out his great hearty laugh. “Well, by the Lord Harry, +Jack,” said he, “when the girl does lose her heart, +though I hope it won't be for many a day yet, if it's to a good man +that can take care of her and fight for her when he's gone, her old +father won't stand in the way. Lucina always did have what she +wanted, and she always shall.”</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXVI</h4> + +<p>For three weeks after that Jerome never saw Lucina at all. He +avoided the sight of her in every way in his power. He went to Dale +and returned after dark; he stayed away from meeting. He also strove +hard to drive, even the thought of her, from his mind. He got out his +algebra and Latin books again; every minute during which he was not +at work, and even during his work, he tried to keep his mind so full +that Lucina's image could not enter. But sometimes he had a +despairing feeling, that her image was so incorporated with his very +soul, that he might as well strive to drive away a part of +himself.</p> + +<p>He had no longer any jealousy of Lawrence Prescott. One day +Lawrence had come to the shop when he was at work, and asked to speak +to him a moment outside. He told him how matters stood between +himself and Elmira. “I like your sister,” Lawrence had +said, soberly and manfully. “I don't see my way clear to +marrying her yet, and I told her so. I want you to understand it and +know just what I mean. I've got my way to make first. I don't +suppose—I can count on much encouragement from father in this. +You know it's no disparagement to Elmira, Jerome. You know +father.”</p> + +<p>“Does your father know about it?” asked Jerome.</p> + +<p>“I told mother,” Lawrence answered, “and she +advised me to say nothing about it to father yet. Mother thought I +had better go on and study medicine, and get ready to practice, and +perhaps then father might think better of it. She says we are both +young enough to wait two or three years.”</p> + +<p>Jerome, in his leather apron, with his grimy hands, and face even, +darkened with the tan of the leather, looked half suspiciously and +bitterly at this other young man in his fine cloth and linen, with +his white hands that had never done a day's labor. “You know +what you are about?” he said, almost roughly. “You know +what you are, you know what she is, and what we all are. You know you +can't separate her from anything.”</p> + +<p>“I don't want to,” cried Lawrence, with a great blush +of fervor. “I'll be honest with you, Jerome. I didn't know what +to do at first. I knew how much I thought of your sister, and I hoped +she thought something of me, but I knew how father would feel, and I +was dependent on him. I knew there was no sense in my marrying +Elmira, or any other girl, against his wishes, and starving +her.”</p> + +<p>“There are others he would have you marry,” said +Jerome, a pallor creeping through the leather grime on his face.</p> + +<p>Lawrence colored. “Yes, I suppose so,” he said, +simply; “but it's no use. I could never marry any other girl +than Elmira, no matter how rich and handsome she was, nor how much +she pleased father, even if she cared about me, and she +wouldn't.”</p> + +<p>“You have been—going a little with some one else, +haven't you?” Jerome asked, hoarsely.</p> + +<p>Lawrence stared. “What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“I—saw you riding—”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Lawrence, laughing, “you mean I've +been horseback-riding with Lucina Merritt. That was +nothing.”</p> + +<p>“It wasn't nothing if she thought it was something,” +Jerome said, with a flash of white face and black eyes at the +other.</p> + +<p>Lawrence looked wonderingly at him, laughed first, then responded +with some indignation, “Good Lord, Jerome, what are you talking +about?”</p> + +<p>“What I mean. My sister doesn't marry any man over another +woman's heart if I know it.”</p> + +<p>“Good Lord!” said Lawrence. “Why, Jerome, do you +suppose I'd hurt little Lucina? She doesn't care for me in that way, +she never would. And as for me—why, look here, Jerome, I never +so much as held her hand. I never looked at her even, in any +way—” Lawrence shook his head in emphatic reiteration of +denial.</p> + +<p>“I might as well tell you that Lucina was the one I meant +when I said father would like others better,” continued +Lawrence, “but Lucina Merritt would never care anything about +me, even if I did about her, and I never could. Handsome as she is, +and I do believe she's the greatest beauty in the whole county, she +hasn't the taking way with her that Elmira has—you must see +that yourself, Jerome.”</p> + +<p>Jerome laughed awkwardly. Nobody knew how much joy those words of +Lawrence Prescott's gave him, and how hard he tried to check the joy, +because it should not matter to him except for Elmira's sake.</p> + +<p>“Did you ever see a girl with such sweet ways as your +sister?” persisted Lawrence.</p> + +<p>“Elmira is a good girl,” Jerome admitted, confusedly. +He loved his sister, and would have defended her against depreciation +with his life, but he compared inwardly, with scorn, her sweet ways +with Lucina's.</p> + +<p>“There isn't a girl her equal in this world,” cried +her lover, enthusiastically. “Don't you say so, Jerome? You're +her brother, you know what she is. Did you ever see anything like +that cunning little face she makes, when she looks up at +you?”</p> + +<p>“Elmira's a good girl,” Jerome repeated.</p> + +<p>Lawrence had to be contented with that. He went on, to tell Jerome +his plans with regard to the engagement between himself and Elmira. +He was clearly much under the wise influence of his mother. +“Mother says, on Elmira's account as well as my own, I had +better not pay regular attention to her,” he said, ruefully, +yet with submission. “She says to go to see her occasionally, +in a way that won't make talk, and wait. She's coming to see Elmira +herself. I've talked it over with her, and she's agreed to it all, +as, of course, she would. Some girls wouldn't, but she—Jerome, +I don't believe when we've been married fifty years that your sister +will ever have refused to do one single thing I thought best for +her.”</p> + +<p>Jerome nodded with a puzzled and wistful expression, puzzled +because of any man's so exalting his sister when Lucina Merritt was +in the world, wistful at the sight of a joy which he must deny +himself.</p> + +<p>When he went home that night he saw by the way his mother and +sister looked up when he entered the room that they were wondering if +Lawrence had told him the news, and what he thought of it. Elmira's +face was so eager that he did not wait. “Yes, I've seen +him,” he said.</p> + +<p>Elmira blushed, and quivered, and bent closer over her work.</p> + +<p>“What did I tell you?” said his mother, with a kind of +tentative triumph.</p> + +<p>“You don't know now what Doctor Prescott will say,” +said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Lawrence says his mother thinks his father will come round +by-and-by, when he gets started in his profession; he always liked +Elmira.”</p> + +<p>“Well, there's one thing,” said Jerome, “and +that is—of course you and Elmira are not under my control, but +no sister of mine will ever enter any family where she is not +welcome, with my consent.”</p> + +<p>“Lawrence says he knows his father will be willing +by-and-by,” said Elmira, tremulously.</p> + +<p>“You know Doctor Prescott always liked your sister,” +said Ann Edwards.</p> + +<p>“Well, if he likes her well enough to have her marry his +son, it's all right,” said Jerome, and went out to wash his +hands and face before supper.</p> + +<p>That night Lawrence stole in for a short call. When Elmira came +up-stairs after he had gone, Jerome, who had been reading in his +room, opened his door and called her in.</p> + +<p>“Look here, Elmira,” said he, “I don't want you +to think I don't want you to be happy. I do.”</p> + +<p>Elmira held out her arms towards him with an involuntary motion. +“Oh, Jerome!” she whispered.</p> + +<p>The brother and sister had always been chary of caresses, but now +Jerome drew Elmira close, pressed her little head against his +shoulder, and let her cry there.</p> + +<p>“Don't, Elmira,” he said, at length, brokenly, +smoothing her hair. “You know brother wants you to be happy. +You are the only little sister he's got.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Jerome, I couldn't help it!” sobbed Elmira.</p> + +<p>“Of course you couldn't,” said Jerome. “Don't +cry—I'll work hard and save, and maybe I can get enough money +to give you a house and furniture when you're married, then you won't +be quite so beholden.”</p> + +<p>“But you'll—get married yourself, Jerome,” +whispered Elmira, who had built a romance about her brother and +Lucina after the night of the party.</p> + +<p>“No, I shall never get married myself,” said Jerome, +“all my money is for my sister.” He laughed, but that +night after Elmira was fast asleep in her chamber across the way, he +lay awake tasting to the fullest his own cup of bitterness from its +contrast with another's sweet.</p> + +<p>The longing to see Lucina, to have only the sight of her dear +beautiful face to comfort him, grew as the weeks went on, but he +would not yield to it. He had, however, to reckon against odds which +he had not anticipated, and they were the innocent schemes of Lucina +herself. She had hoped at first that his call was only deferred, that +he would come to see her of his own accord, but she soon decided that +he would not, and that all the advances must be from herself, since +she was undoubtedly at fault. She had fully resolved to make amends +for any rudeness and lack of cordiality of which she might have been +guilty, at the first opportunity she should have. She planned to +speak to him going home from meeting, or on some week day on the +village street—she had her little speech all ready, but the +chance to deliver it did not come.</p> + +<p>But when she went to meeting Sunday after Sunday, dressed in her +prettiest, looking like something between a rose and an angel, and no +Jerome was there for her soft backward glances, and when she never +met him when she was alone on the village street, she grew +impatient.</p> + +<p>About this time Lucina's father bought her a beautiful little +white horse, like the milk-white palfrey of a princess in a fairy +tale, and she rode every day over the county. Usually Squire Eben +accompanied her on a tall sorrel which had been in his possession for +years, but still retained much youthful fire. The sorrel advanced +with long lopes and fretted at being reined to suit the pace of the +little white horse, and Squire Eben had disliked riding from his +youth, unless at a hard gallop with gun on saddle, towards a distant +lair of game. Both he and the tall sorrel rebelled as to their nerves +and muscles at this ladylike canter over smooth roads, but the Squire +would neither permit his tender Lucina to ride fast, lest she get +thrown and hurt, or to ride alone.</p> + +<p>Lawrence Prescott never asked her to ride with him in those days. +Lucina in her blue habit, with a long blue plume wound round her hat +and floating behind in the golden blowing of her curls, on her pretty +white horse, and the great booted Squire on his sorrel, to her side, +reined back with an ugly strain on the bits, were a frequent +spectacle for admiration on the county roads. No other girl in Upham +rode.</p> + +<p>It was one day when she was out riding with her father that Lucina +made her opportunity to speak with Jerome. Now she had her horse, +Jerome was finding it harder to avoid the sight of her. The night +before, returning from Dale by moonlight, he had heard the quick +tramp of horses' feet behind him, and had had a glimpse of Lucina and +her father when they passed. Lucina turned in her saddle, and her +moon-white face looked over her shoulder at Jerome. She nodded; +Jerome made a stiff inclination, holding himself erect under his load +of shoes. Lucina was too shy to ask her father to stop that she might +speak to Jerome. However, before they reached home she said to her +father, in a sweet little contained voice, “Does he go to Dale +every night, father?”</p> + +<p>“Who?” said the Squire.</p> + +<p>“Jerome Edwards.”</p> + +<p>“No, I guess not every day; not more than once in three +days, when the shoes are finished. He told me so, if I remember +rightly.”</p> + +<p>“It is a long walk,” said Lucina.</p> + +<p>“It won't hurt a young fellow like him,” the Squire +said, laughing; but he gave a curious look at his daughter. +“What set you thinking about that, Pretty?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“We passed him back there, didn't we, father?”</p> + +<p>“Sure enough, guess we did,” said the Squire, and they +trotted on over the moonlit road.</p> + +<p>“Looks just like the back of that dapple-gray I had when you +were a little girl, Pretty,” said the Squire, pointing with his +whip at the net-work of lights and shadows.</p> + +<p>He never thought of any significance in the fact that for the two +following days Lucina preferred riding in the morning in another +direction, and on the third day preferred riding after sundown on the +road to Dale. He also thought nothing of it that they passed Jerome +Edwards again, and that shortly afterwards Lucina professed herself +tired of riding so fast, though it had not been fast for him, and +reined her little white horse into a walk. The sorrel plunged and +jerked his head obstinately when the Squire tried to reduce his pace +also.</p> + +<p>“Please ride on, father,” said Lucina; her voice +sounded like a little silver flute through the Squire's bass +whoas.</p> + +<p>“And leave you? I guess not. Whoa, Dick; whoa, can't +ye!”</p> + +<p>“Please, father, Dick frightens me when he does +so.”</p> + +<p>“Can't you ride a little faster, Pretty? Whoa, I tell +ye!”</p> + +<p>“In just a minute, father, I'll catch up with you. Oh, +father, please! Suppose Dick should frighten Fanny, and make her run, +I could never hold her. Please, father!”</p> + +<p>The Squire had small choice, for the sorrel gave a fierce plunge +ahead and almost bolted. “Follow as fast as you can, +Pretty!” he shouted back.</p> + +<p>There was a curve in the road just ahead, the Squire was out of +sight around it in a flash. Lucina reined her horse in, and waited as +motionless as a little equestrian statue. She did not look around for +a moment or two—she hoped Jerome would overtake her without +that. A strange terror was over her, but he did not.</p> + +<p>Finally she looked. He was coming very slowly; he scarcely seemed +to move, and was yet quite a distance behind. “I can't +wait,” Lucina thought, piteously. She turned her horse and rode +back to him. He stopped when she came alongside. +“Good-evening,” said she, tremulously.</p> + +<p>“Good-evening,” said Jerome. He made such an effort to +speak that his voice sounded like a harsh trumpet.</p> + +<p>Lucina forgot her pretty little speech. “I wanted to say +that I was sorry if I offended you,” she said, faintly.</p> + +<p>Jerome had no idea what she meant; he could, indeed, scarcely take +in, until later, thinking of them, the sense of her words. He tried +to speak, but made only an inarticulate jumble of sounds.</p> + +<p>“I hope you will pardon me,” said Lucina.</p> + +<p>Jerome fairly gasped. He bowed again, stiffly.</p> + +<p>Lucina said no more. She rode on to join her father. That night, +after she had gone to bed, she cried a long while. She reflected how +she had never even referred to the matter in question, in her suit +for pardon.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXVII</h4> + +<p>Lucina in those days was occupied with some pieces of embroidery +in gay wools on cloth. There were varied designs of little dogs with +bead eyes, baskets of flowers, wreaths, and birds on sprays. She had +an ambition to embroider a whole set of parlor-chairs, as some young +ladies in her school had done, and there was in her mind a dim and +scarcely admitted fancy that these same chairs might add state to +some future condition of hers.</p> + +<p>Lucina had always innocently taken it for granted that she should +some day be married and have a house of her own, and very near her +father's. When she had begun the embroidery she had furnished a +shadowy little parlor of a shadowy house with the fine chairs, and +admitted at the parlor door a dim and stately presence, so shadowy to +her timid maiden fancy that there was scarcely a suggestion of +substance.</p> + +<p>Now, however, the shadow seemed to deepen and clear in outline. +Lucina fell to wondering if Jerome Edwards thought embroidered chairs +pretty or silly. Often she would pause in her counting and setting +even cross-barred stitches, lean her soft cheek on her slender white +hand, and sit so a long while, with her fair curls drooping over her +gentle, brooding face. Her mother often noticed her sitting so, and +thought, partly from quick maternal intuition, partly from knowledge +gained from her own experience, that if it were possible, she should +judge her to have had her heart turned to some maiden fancy. But she +knew that Lucina had cared for none of her lovers away from home, and +at home there were none feasible, unless, perhaps, Lawrence Prescott. +Lawrence had not been to see her lately; could it be possible the +child was hurt by it? Abigail sounded cautiously the depths of her +daughter's heart, and found to her satisfaction no image of Lawrence +Prescott therein.</p> + +<p>“Lawrence is a good boy,” said Lucina; “it is a +pity he is no taller, and looks so like his father; but he is very +good. I do think, though, he might go to ride with me sometimes and +save father from going. I would rather have father, but I know he +does not like to ride. Lawrence had been planning to go to ride with +me all through the summer. It was strange he stopped—was it +not, mother?”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps he is busy. I saw him driving with his father the +other day,” said Abigail.</p> + +<p>“Well, perhaps he is,” assented Lucina, easily. Then +she asked advice as to this or that shade in the ears of the little +poodle-dog which she was embroidering.</p> + +<p>“Lucina is as transparent as glass,” her mother +thought. “She could never speak of Lawrence Prescott in that +way if she were in love with him, and there is no one else in +town.”</p> + +<p>Abigail Merritt, acute and tender mother as she was, settled into +the belief that her daughter was merely given to those sweetly +melancholy and wondering reveries natural to a maiden soul upon the +threshold of discovery of life. “I used to do just so, busy as +I always was, before Eben came,” she thought, with a little +pang of impatient shame for herself and her daughter that they must +yield to such necessities of their natures. Abigail Merritt had never +been a rebel, indeed, but there had been unruly possibilities within +her. She remembered well what she had told her mother when her vague +dreams had ended and Eben Merritt had come a-wooing. “I like +him, and I suppose, because I like him I've got to marry him, but it +makes me mad, mother.”</p> + +<p>Looking now at this daughter of hers, with her exceeding beauty +and delicacy, which a touch would seem to profane and soil as much as +that of a flower or butterfly, she had an impulse to hide her away +and cover her always from the sight and handling of all except +maternal love. She took much comfort in the surety that there was as +yet no definite lover in Lucina's horizon. She did not reflect that +no human soul is too transparent to be clouded to the vision of +others, and its own, by the sacred intimacy with its own desires. Her +daughter, looking up at her with limpid blue eyes, replying to her +interrogation with sweet readiness, like a bird that would pipe to a +call, was as darkly unknown to her as one beyond the grave. She could +not even spell out clearly her hieroglyphics of life with the key in +her own nature.</p> + +<p>The day after Lucina had met Jerome on the Dale road, and had +failed to set the matter right, she took her embroidery-work over to +her Aunt Camilla's. She had resolved upon a plan which was to her +quite desperate, involving, as it did, some duplicity of +manœuvre which shocked her.</p> + +<p>The afternoon was a warm one, and she easily induced, as she had +hoped, her Aunt Camilla to sit in the summer-house in the garden. +Everything was very little changed from that old summer afternoon of +years ago. If Miss Camilla had altered, it had been with such a fine +conservation of general effect, in spite of varying detail, that the +alteration was scarcely visible. She wore the same softly spreading +lilac gown, she wrote on her portfolio with the same gold pencil +presumably the same thoughts. If her softly drooping curls were faded +and cast lighter shadows over thinner cheeks, one could more easily +attribute the dimness and thinness to the lack of one's own memory +than to change in her.</p> + +<p>The garden was the same, sweetening with the ardor of pinks and +mignonette, the tasted breaths of thyme and lavender, like +under-thoughts of reason, and the pungent evidence of box.</p> + +<p>Lucina looked out of the green gloom of the summer-house at the +same old carnival of flowers, swarming as lightly as if untethered by +stems, upon wings of pink and white and purpling blue, blazing out to +sight as with a very rustle of color from the hearts of green bushes +and the sides of tall green-sheathed stalks, in spikes and plumes, +and soft rosettes of silken bloom. Even the yellow cats of Miss +Camilla's famous breed, inheriting the love of their ancestors for +following the steps of their mistress, came presently between the box +rows with the soft, sly glide of the jungle, and established +themselves for a siesta on the arbor bench.</p> + +<p>Lucina was glad that it was all so like what it had been, even to +the yellow cats, seeming scarcely more than a second rendering of a +tune, and it made it possible for her to open truthfully and easily +upon her plan. She herself, whose mind was so changed from its old +childish habit of simple outlook and waiting into personal effort for +its own ends, and whose body was so advanced in growth of grace, was +perhaps the most altered of all. However, there was much of the child +left in her.</p> + +<p>“Aunt Camilla,” said she, in almost the same tone of +timid deprecation which the little Lucina of years before might have +used.</p> + +<p>Camilla looked up, with gentle inquiry, from her portfolio.</p> + +<p>“I have been thinking,” said Lucina, bending low over +her embroidery that her aunt might not see the pink confusion of her +face, which she could not, after all, control, “how I came here +and spent the afternoon, once, years ago; do you remember?”</p> + +<p>“You came here often—did you not, dear?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Lucina, “but that once in +particular, Aunt Camilla?”</p> + +<p>“I fear I do not remember, dear,” said Camilla, whose +past had been for years a peaceful monotone as to her own emotions, +and had so established a similar monotone of memory.</p> + +<p>“Don't you remember, Aunt Camilla? I came first with a stent +to knit on a garter, and we sat out here. Then the yellow cats came, +and father had been fishing, and he brought some speckled trout, +and—then—the Edwards boy—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, the little boy I had to weed my garden! A good little +boy,” Camilla said.</p> + +<p>Lucina winced a little. She did not quite like Jerome to be spoken +of in that mildly reminiscent way. “He's grown up now, you +know, Aunt Camilla,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Yes, my dear, and he is as good a young man as he was a +boy, I hear.”</p> + +<p>“Father speaks very highly of him,” said Lucina, with +a soft tremor and mounting of color, to which her aunt responded +sensitively.</p> + +<p>People said that Camilla Merritt had never had a lover, but the +same wind can strike the same face of the heart.</p> + +<p>“I have heard him very highly spoken of,” she agreed; +and there was a betraying quiver in her voice also.</p> + +<p>“We had plum-cake, and tea in the pink cups—don't you +remember, Aunt Camilla?”</p> + +<p>“So many times we had them—did we not, +dear?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but that one time?”</p> + +<p>“I fear that I cannot distinguish that time from the others, +dear.”</p> + +<p>There was a pause. Lucina took a few more stitches on her +embroidery. Miss Camilla poised her gold pencil reflectively over her +portfolio. “Aunt Camilla,” said Lucina then.</p> + +<p>“Well, dear?”</p> + +<p>“I have been thinking how pleasant it would be to have +another little tea-party, here in the arbor; would you have any +objections?”</p> + +<p>“My dear Lucina!” cried Miss Camilla, and looked at +her niece with gentle delight at the suggestion.</p> + +<p>The early situation was not reversed, for Lucina still admired and +revered her aunt as the realization of her farthest ideal of +ladyhood, but Miss Camilla fully reciprocated. The pride in her heart +for her beautiful niece was stronger than any which she had ever felt +for herself. She pictured Lucina instead of herself to her fancy; she +seemed to almost see Lucina's face instead of her own in her +looking-glass. When it came to giving Lucina a pleasure, she gave +twofold.</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Aunt Camilla,” said Lucina, delightedly, +and yet with a little confusion. She felt very guilty—still, +how could she tell her aunt all her reasons for wishing the +party?</p> + +<p>“Shall we have your father and mother, or only young people, +dear?” asked Miss Camilla.</p> + +<p>“Only young people, I think, aunt. Mother comes any time, +and as for father, he would rather go fishing.”</p> + +<p>“You would like the Edwards boy, since he came so long +ago?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I think so, aunt.”</p> + +<p>“He is poor, and works hard, and has not been in fine +company much, I presume, but that is nothing against him. He will +enjoy it all the more, if he is not too shy. You do not think he is +too shy to enjoy it, dear?”</p> + +<p>“I should never have known from his manners at my party that +he had not been in fine company all his life. He is not like the +other young men in Upham,” protested Lucina, with a quick rise +of spirit.</p> + +<p>“Well, I used to hear your grandfather say that there are +those who can suit their steps to any gait,” her aunt said. +“I understand that he is a very good young man. We will have +him and—”</p> + +<p>“I think his sister,” said Lucina; “she is such +a pretty girl—the prettiest girl in the village, and it will +please her so to be asked.”</p> + +<p>“The Edwards boy and his sister, and who else?”</p> + +<p>“No one else, I think, Aunt Camilla, except Lawrence +Prescott. There will not be room for more in the arbor.”</p> + +<p>Lucina did not blush when she said Lawrence Prescott, but her aunt +did. She had often romanced about the two. “Well, dear,” +she said, “when shall we have the tea-party?”</p> + +<p>“Day after to-morrow, please, Aunt Camilla.”</p> + +<p>“That will give 'Liza time to make cake,” said +Camilla. “I will send the invitations to-morrow, +dear.”</p> + +<p>“'Liza will be too busy cake-making to run on +errands,” said Lucina, though her heart smote her, for this was +where the true gist of her duplicity came in; “write them now, +Aunt Camilla, and give them to me. I will see that they are +delivered.”</p> + +<p>The afternoon of the next day Lucina, being out riding, passed +Doctor Prescott's house, and called to Jake Noyes in the yard to take +Miss Camilla's little gilt-edged, lavender-scented note of +invitation. “Please give this to Mr. Lawrence,” said she, +prettily, and rode on. The other notes were in her pocket, but she +had not delivered them when she returned home at sunset.</p> + +<p>“I am going to run over to Elmira Edwards and carry +them,” she told her mother after supper, and pleaded that she +would like the air when Mrs. Merritt suggested that Hannah be +sent.</p> + +<p>Thus it happened that Jerome Edwards, coming home about nine +o'clock that night, noticed, the moment he opened the outer door, the +breath of roses and lavender, and a subtle thrill of excitement and +almost fear passed over him. “Who is it?” he thought. He +listened, and heard voices in the parlor. He wanted to pass the door, +but he could not. He opened it and peered in, white-faced and +wide-eyes, and there was Lucina with his mother and sister.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Edwards and Elmira looked nervously flushed and elated; there +were bright spots on their cheeks, their eyes shone. On the table +were Miss Camilla's little gilt-edged missives. Lucina was somewhat +pale, and her face had been furtively watchful and listening. When +Jerome opened the door, her look changed to one of relief, which had +yet a certain terror and confusion in it. She rose at once, bowed +gracefully, until the hem of her muslin skirt swept the floor, and +bade Jerome good-evening. As for Jerome, he stood still, looking at +her.</p> + +<p>“Why, J'rome, don't you see who 'tis?” cried his +mother, in her sharp, excited voice, yet with an encouraging +smile—the smile of a mother who would put a child upon its best +behavior for the sake of her own pride.</p> + +<p>Jerome murmured, “Good-evening.” He made a desperate +grasp at his self-possession, but scarcely succeeded.</p> + +<p>Lucina pulled a little fleecy white wrap over her head, and +immediately took leave. Jerome stood aside to let her pass. Elmira +followed her to the outer door, and his mother called him in a sharp +whisper, “J'rome, come here.”</p> + +<p>When he had reached his mother's side she pinched his arm hard. +“Go home with her,” she whispered.</p> + +<p>Jerome stared at her.</p> + +<p>“Do ye hear what I say? Go home with her.”</p> + +<p>“I can't,” he almost groaned then.</p> + +<p>“Can't? Ain't you ashamed of yourself? What ails ye? Lettin' +of a lady like her go home all alone this dark night.”</p> + +<p>Elmira ran back into the parlor. “Oh, Jerome, you ought to +go with her, you ought to!” she cried, softly. “It's real +dark. She felt it, I know. She looked real sober. Run after her, +quick, Jerome.”</p> + +<p>“When she came to invite you to a party, too!” said +Mrs. Edwards, but Jerome did not hear that, he was out of the house +and hurrying up the road after Lucina.</p> + +<p>She had not gone far. Jerome did not know what to say when he +overtook her, so he said nothing—he merely walked along by her +side. A great anger at himself, that he had almost let this tender +and beautiful creature go out alone in the night and the dark, was +over him, but he knew not what to say for excuse.</p> + +<p>He wondered, pitifully, if she were so indignant that she did not +like him to walk home with her now. But in a moment Lucina spoke, and +her voice, though a little tremulous, was full of the utmost +sweetness of kindness.</p> + +<p>“I fear you are too tired to walk home with me,” she +said, “and I am not afraid to go by myself.”</p> + +<p>“No, it is too dark for you to go alone; I am not +tired,” replied Jerome, quickly, and almost roughly, to hide +the tumult of his heart.</p> + +<p>But Lucina did not understand that. “I am not afraid,” +she repeated, in a little, grieved, and anxious way; “please +leave me at the turn of the road, I am truly not afraid.”</p> + +<p>“No, it is too dark for you to go alone,” said Jerome, +hoarsely, again. It came to him that he should offer her his arm, but +he dared not trust his voice for that. He reached down, caught her +hand, and thrust it through his arm, thinking, with a thrill of +terror as he did so, that she would draw it away, but she did +not.</p> + +<p>She leaned so slightly on his arm that it seemed more the +inclination of spirit than matter, but still she accepted his support +and walked along easily at his side. So far from her resenting his +summary taking of her hand, she was grateful, with the humble +gratitude of the primeval woman for the kindness of a master whom she +has made wroth.</p> + +<p>Lucina had attributed Jerome's stiffness at sight of her, and his +delay in accompanying her home, to her unkind treatment of him. Now +he showed signs of forgiveness, her courage returned. When they had +passed the turn of the road, and were on the main street, she spoke +quite sweetly and calmly.</p> + +<p>“There is something I have been wanting to say to +you,” said she. “I tried to say it the other night when I +was riding and met you, but I did not succeed very well. What I +wanted to say was—I fear that when you suggested coming to see +me, the Sunday night after my party, I did not seem cordial enough, +and make you understand that I should be very happy to see you, and +that was why you did not come.”</p> + +<p>“O—h!” said Jerome, with a long-drawn breath of +wonder and despair. He had been thinking that he had offended her +beyond forgiveness and of his own choice, and she, with her sweet +humility, was twice suing him for pardon.</p> + +<p>“I am very sorry,” Lucina said, softly.</p> + +<p>“That was not the reason why I did not,” Jerome +gasped.</p> + +<p>“Then you were not hurt?”</p> + +<p>“No; I—thought you spoke as if you would like to have +me come—”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you were ill,” Lucina said, hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>“No, I was not. I did not—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it was not because you did not want to come!” +Lucina cried out, quickly, and yet with exceeding gentleness and sad +wonder, that he should force such a suspicion upon her.</p> + +<p>“No, it was not. I—wanted to come more than—I +wanted to come, but—I did not think it—best.” +Jerome said the last so defiantly that poor Lucina started.</p> + +<p>“But it was because of nothing I had said, and it was not +because you did not want to?” she said, piteously.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Jerome. Then he said, again, as if he found +strength in the repetition. “I did not think it +best.”</p> + +<p>“I thought you were coming that night,” Lucina said, +with scarcely the faintest touch of reproach but with more of wonder. +Why should he not have thought it best?</p> + +<p>“I am sorry,” said Jerome. “I wanted to tell +you, but I had no reason but that to give, and I—thought you +might not understand.”</p> + +<p>Lucina made no reply. The path narrowed just there and gave her an +excuse for quitting Jerome's arm. She did so with a gentle murmur of +explanation, for she could do nothing abruptly, then went on before +him swiftly. Her white shawl hung from her head to her waist in sharp +slants. She moved through the dusk with the evanescent flit of a +white moth.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” stammered Jerome, painfully and boyishly, +“I—knew—you would not care if—I did not come. +It was not as if—I had thought you—would.”</p> + +<p>Lucina said nothing to that either. Jerome thought miserably that +she did not hear, or, hearing, agreed with what he said.</p> + +<p>Soon, however, Lucina spoke, without turning her head. “I +can understand,” said she, with the gentlest and yet the most +complete dignity, for she spoke from her goodness of heart, +“that a person has often to do what he thinks best, and not +explain it to any other person, because it is between him and his own +conscience. I am quite sure that you had some very good reason for +not coming to see me that Sunday night, and you need not tell me what +it was. I am very glad that you did not, as I feared, stay away +because I had not treated you with courtesy. Now, we will say no more +about it.” With that, the path being a little wider, she came +to his side again, and looked up in his face with the most innocent +friendliness and forgiveness in hers.</p> + +<p>Jerome could have gone down at her feet and worshipped her.</p> + +<p>“What a beautiful night it is!” said Lucina, tilting +her face up towards the stars.</p> + +<p>“Beautiful!” said Jerome, looking at her, +breathlessly.</p> + +<p>“I never saw the stars so thick,” said she, musingly. +“Everybody has his own star, you know. I wonder which my star +is, and yours. Did you ever think of it?”</p> + +<p>“I guess my star isn't there,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Why, yes,” cried Lucina, earnestly, “it must +be!”</p> + +<p>“No, it isn't there,” repeated Jerome, with a soft +emphasis on the last word.</p> + +<p>Lucina looked up at him, then her eyes fell before his. She +laughed confusedly. “Did you know what I came to your house +to-night for?” said she, trying to speak unconsciously.</p> + +<p>“To see Elmira?”</p> + +<p>“No, to give both of you an invitation to tea at Aunt +Camilla's to-morrow afternoon at five o'clock.”</p> + +<p>“I am very much obliged to you,” said Jerome, +“but—”</p> + +<p>“You cannot come?”</p> + +<p>“No, I am afraid not.”</p> + +<p>“The tea is to be in the arbor in the garden, the way it was +that other time, when we were both children; there is to be plum-cake +and the best pink cups. Nobody is asked but you and your sister and +Lawrence Prescott,” said Lucina, but with no insistence in her +voice. Her gentle pride was up.</p> + +<p>“I am very much obliged, but I am afraid I can't +come,” Jerome said, pleadingly.</p> + +<p>Lucina did not say another word.</p> + +<p>Jerome glanced down at her, and her fair face, between the folds +of her white shawl, had a look which smote his heart, so full it was +of maiden dignity and yet of the surprise of pain.</p> + +<p>A new consideration came to Jerome. “Why should I stay away +from her, refuse all her little invitations, and treat her so?” +he thought. “What if I do get to wanting her more, and get +hurt, if it pleases her? There is no danger for her; she does not +care about me, and will not. The suffering will all be on my side. I +guess I can bear it; if it pleases her to have me come I will do it. +I have been thinking only of myself, and what is a hurt to myself in +comparison with a little pleasure for her? She has asked me to this +tea-party, and here I am hurting her by refusing, because I am so +afraid of getting hurt myself!”</p> + +<p>Suddenly Jerome looked at Lucina, with a patient and tender smile +that her father might have worn for her. “I shall be very happy +to come,” said he.</p> + +<p>“Not unless you can make it perfectly convenient,” +Lucina replied, with cold sweetness; “I would rather not urge +you.”</p> + +<p>“It will be perfectly convenient,” said Jerome. +“I thought at first I ought not to go, that was all.”</p> + +<p>“Of course, Aunt Camilla and I will be very happy to have +you come, if you can,” said Lucina. Still, she was not +appeased. Jerome's hesitating acceptance of this last invitation had +hurt her more than all that had gone before. She began to wish, with +a great pang of shame, that she had not gone to his house that night, +had not tried to see him, had not proposed this miserable party. +Perhaps he did mean to slight her, after all, though nobody ever had +before, and how she had followed him up!</p> + +<p>She walked on very fast; they were nearly home. When they reached +her gate, she said good-night, quickly, and would have gone in +without another word, but Jerome stopped her. He had begun to +understand her understanding of it all, and had taken a sudden +resolution. “Better anything than she should think herself +shamed and slighted,” he told himself.</p> + +<p>“Will you wait just a minute?” he said; “I've +got something I want to say.”</p> + +<p>Lucina waited, her face averted.</p> + +<p>“I've made up my mind to tell you why I thought I ought not +to come, that Sunday night,” said Jerome; “I didn't think +of telling you, but I can see now that you may think I meant to +slight you, if I don't. I did not think at first that you could dream +I <em>could</em> slight anybody like you, and not want to go to see +you, but I begin to see that you don't just know how every one looks +at you.”</p> + +<p>“I thought I ought not to come, because all of a sudden I +found out that I was—what they call in love with +you.”</p> + +<p>Lucina stood perfectly still, her face turned away.</p> + +<p>“I hope you are not offended,” said Jerome; “I +knew, of course, that there is no question of—your liking me. I +would not want you to. I am not telling you for that, but only that +you may not feel hurt because I slighted your invitation the other +night, and because I thought at first I could not accept this. But I +was foolish about it, I guess. If you would like to have me come, +that is enough.”</p> + +<p>“You have not known me long enough to like me,” said +Lucina, in a very small, sweet voice, still keeping her face +averted.</p> + +<p>“I guess time don't count much in anything like this,” +said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Lucina, with a soft, long breath, +“I cannot see why your liking me should hinder you from +coming.”</p> + +<p>“I guess you're right; it shouldn't if you want me to +come.”</p> + +<p>“Why did you ever think it should?” Lucina flashed +her blue eyes around at him a second, then looked away again.</p> + +<p>“I was afraid if—I saw you too often I should want to +marry you so much that I would want nothing else, not even to help +other people,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Why need you think about marrying? Can't you come to see me +like a friend? Can't we be happy so?” asked Lucina, with a kind +of wistful petulance.</p> + +<p>“I needn't think about it, and we can—”</p> + +<p>“I don't want to think about marrying yet,” said +Lucina; “I don't know as I shall ever marry. I don't see why +you should think so much about that.”</p> + +<p>“I don't,” said Jerome; “I shall never +marry.”</p> + +<p>“You will, some time,” Lucina said, softly.</p> + +<p>“No; I never shall.”</p> + +<p>Lucina turned. “I must go in,” said she.</p> + +<p>Her hand and Jerome's found each other, with seemingly no volition +of their own. “I am glad you didn't come because you didn't +like me,” Lucina said, softly; “and we can be friends and +no need of thinking of that other.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Jerome said, all of a tremble under her touch; +“and—you won't feel offended because I told +you?”</p> + +<p>“No, only I can't see why you stayed away for +that.”</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXVIII</h4> + +<p>The next afternoon Jerome went to Miss Camilla's tea-party. +Sitting in the arbor, whose interior was all tremulous and vibrant +with green lights and shadows, as with a shifting water-play, sipping +tea from delicate china, eating custards and the delectable +plum-cake, he tasted again one of the few sweet savors of his +childhood.</p> + +<p>Jerome, in the arbor with three happy young people, taking for the +first time since his childhood a holiday on a work-day, seemed to +comprehend the first notes of that great harmony of life which proves +by the laws of sequence the last. The premonition of some final +blessedness, to survive all renunciation and sacrifice, was upon him. +He felt raised above the earth with happiness. Jerome seemed like +another person to his companions. The wine of youth and certainty of +joy stirred all the light within him to brilliancy. He had naturally +a quicker, readier tongue than Lawrence Prescott, now he gave it +rein.</p> + +<p>He could command himself, when he chose and did not consider that +it savored of affectation, to a grace of courtesy beyond all +provincial tradition. In his manners he was not one whit behind even +Lawrence Prescott, with his college and city training, and in face +and form and bearing he was much his superior. Lawrence regarded him +with growing respect and admiration, Elmira with wonder.</p> + +<p>As for Miss Camilla, she felt as if tripping over her own +inaccuracy of recollection of him. “I never saw such a change +in any one, my dear,” she told Lucina the next day. “I +could scarcely believe he was the little boy who used to weed my +garden, and with so few advantages as he has had it is really +remarkable.”</p> + +<p>“Father says so, too,” remarked Lucina, looking +steadily at her embroidery.</p> + +<p>Miss Camilla gazed at her reflectively. She had a mild but active +imagination, which had never been dispelled by experience, for +romance and hearts transfixed with darts of love. “I hope he +will never be so unfortunate as to place his affections where they +cannot be reciprocated, since he is in such poor circumstances that +he cannot marry,” she sighed, so gently that one could scarcely +suspect her of any hidden meaning.</p> + +<p>“I do not think,” said Lucina, still with steadfast +eyes upon her embroidery, “that a woman should consider poverty +if she loves.” Then her cheeks glowed crimson through her +drooping curls, and Miss Camilla also blushed; still she attributed +her niece's tender agitation to her avowal of general principles. She +did not once consider any danger to Lucina from Jerome; but she had +seen, on the day before, the young man's eyes linger upon the girl's +lovely face, and had immediately, with the craft of a female, however +gentle, for such matters, reached half-pleasant, half-melancholy +conclusions.</p> + +<p>It was gratifying and entirely fitting that her beautiful Lucina +should have a heart-broken lover at her feet; still, it was sad, very +sad, for the poor lover. “When the affections are enlisted, one +should not hesitate to share poverty as well as wealth,” she +admitted, with a little conscious tremor of delicacy at such +pronounced views.</p> + +<p>“I do not think Jerome himself wants to be married,” +said Lucina, quickly.</p> + +<p>Miss Camilla sighed. She remembered again the young man's fervent +eyes. “I hope he does not, my dear,” she said.</p> + +<p>“<em>I</em> do not intend to marry either. I am never going +to be married at all,” said Lucina, with a seeming irrelevance +which caused Camilla to make mild eyes of surprise and wonder sadly, +after her niece had gone home, if it were possible that the dear +child had, thus early, been crossed in love.</p> + +<p>Lucina, ever since Jerome's confession of love, had experienced a +curious revulsion from her maiden dreams. She had such instinctive +docility of character that she was at times amenable to influences +entirely beyond her own knowledge. Not understanding in the least +Jerome's attitude of renunciation, she accepted it for herself also. +She no longer builded bridal air-castles. She still embroidered her +chair-covers, thinking that they would look very pretty in the north +parlor, and some of the old chairs could be moved to the garret to +make room for them. She gazed at her aunt Camilla with a peaceful eye +of prophecy. Just so would she herself look years hence. Her hair +would part sparsely to the wind, like hers, and show here and there +silver instead of golden lustres. There would be a soft rosetted cap +of lace to hide the thinnest places, and her cheeks, like her aunt's, +would crumple and wrinkle as softly as old rose leaves, and, like her +aunt, in this guise she would walk her path of life alone.</p> + +<p>Lucina seemed to see, as through a long, converging tunnel of +years, her solitary self, miniatured clearly in the distance, gliding +on, like Camilla, with that sweet calm of motion of one who has left +the glow of joy behind, but feels her path trend on peace.</p> + +<p>“I dare say it may be just as well not to marry, after +all,” reasoned Lucina, “a great many people are not +married. Aunt Camilla seems very happy, happier than many married +women whom I have seen. She has nothing to disturb her. I shall be +happy in the way she is. When I am such an old maid that my father +and mother will have died, because they were too old to live longer, +I will leave this house, because I could not bear to stay here with +them away, and go to Aunt Camilla's. She will be dead, too, by that +time, and her house will be mine. Then I, in my cap and spectacles, +will sit afternoons in the summer-house, +and—perhaps—he—he will be older than I then, and +white-haired, and maybe stooping and walking with a +cane—perhaps—he will come often, and sit with me there, +and we will remember everything together.”</p> + +<p>In all her forecasts for a single life, Lucina could not quite +eliminate her lover, though she could her husband. She and Jerome +were always to be friends, of course, and he was to come and see her. +Lucina, when once Jerome had begun to visit her, never contemplated +the possibility of his ever ceasing to do so. He did not come +regularly—the wisdom of that was tacitly understood between +them; since there was to be no marriage, there could necessarily be +no courtship. There was never any sitting up together in the north +parlor, after the fashion of village lovers. Jerome merely spent an +hour or two in the sitting-room with the Squire and his wife and +Lucina. Sometimes he and the Squire talked politics and town affairs +while Lucina and her mother sewed. Sometimes the four played whist, +or bezique, for in those days Jerome was learning to take a hand at +cards, but he had always Mrs. Merritt for his partner, and the Squire +Lucina. Indeed, Lucina would have considered herself highly false and +treacherous had she manifested an inclination to be the partner of +any other than her father. Sometimes the Squire sat smoking and +dozing, and sometimes he was away, and in those cases Mrs. Merritt +sewed, and Jerome and Lucina played checkers.</p> + +<p>It tried Jerome sorely to capture Lucina's men and bar her out +from the king-row, and she sometimes chid him for careless +playing.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, after Jerome was gone and Lucina in bed, Abigail +Merritt, who had always a kind but furtively keen eye upon the two +young people, talked a little anxiously to the Squire. “I know +that he does not come regularly and he sees us all, but—I don't +know that it is wise for us to let them be thrown so much +together,” she would say, with a nervous frown on her little +dark face.</p> + +<p>The Squire's forehead wrinkled with laughter, but he was finishing +his pipe before going to bed, and would not remove it. He rolled +humorously inquiring eyes through the cloud of smoke, and his wife +answered as if to a spoken question. “I know Jerome Edwards +doesn't seem like other young men, but he is a young man, after all, +and, if we shouldn't say it, I am afraid somebody will get hurt. We +both know what Lucina is—”</p> + +<p>“You don't mean to say you're afraid Lucina will get +hurt,” spluttered the Squire, quickly.</p> + +<p>“It isn't likely that a girl like Lucina could get hurt +herself,” cried Abigail, with a fine blush of pride.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you're right,” assented the Squire, with a +chuckle. “I suppose there's not a young fool in the country but +would think himself lucky for a chance to tie the jade's shoestring. +I guess there'll be no hanging back of dancers whenever she takes a +notion to pipe, eh?”</p> + +<p>“She has not taken a notion to pipe, and I doubt if she will +at present,” said Abigail, with a little bridle of feminine +delicacy, “and—he is a good young man, though, of course, +it would scarcely be advisable if she did fancy him, but she does +not. Lucina has never concealed anything from me since she was born, +and I know—”</p> + +<p>“Then it's the boy you're worrying about?”</p> + +<p>Abigail nodded. “He's a good young man, and he has had a +hard struggle. I don't want his peace of mind disturbed through any +means of ours,” said she.</p> + +<p>The Squire got up, shook the ashes out of his pipe, and laid it +with tender care on the shelf. Then he put his great hands one upon +each of his wife's little shoulders, and looked down at her. Abigail +Merritt had a habit of mind which corresponded to that of her body. +She could twist and turn, with the fine adroitness of a fox, round +sudden, sharp corners of difficulty, when her husband might go far on +the wrong road through drowsy inertia of motion; but, after all, he +had sometimes a clearer view than she of ultimate ends, past the +petty wayside advantages of these skilful doublings and turnings.</p> + +<p>She could deal with details with little taper-finger touches of +nicety, but she could not judge as well as he of generalities and the +final scope of combinations. It was doubtful if Abigail ever fairly +appreciated her own punch.</p> + +<p>“Abigail,” said the Squire, looking down at her, his +great bearded face all slyly quirked with humor—“Abigail, +look here. There are a good many things that you and I can do, and a +few that we can't do. I can fish and shoot and ride with any man in +the county, and bluster folks into doing what I want them to mostly, +if I keep my temper; and as for you—you know what you can do in +the way of fine stitching, and punch-making, and house-keeping, and +you and I together have got the best, and the handsomest, and the +most blessed”—the Squire's voice +broke—“daughter in the county, by the Lord Harry we have. +I can shoot any man who looks askance at her, I can lie down in the +mud for her to walk over to keep her little shoes dry, and you can +fix her pretty gowns and keep her curls smooth, and watch her lest +she breathe too fast or too slow of a night, but there we've got to +stop. You can't make the posies in your garden any color you have a +mind, my girl, and I can't change the spots on the trout I land. We +can't, either of us, make a sunset, or a rainbow, or stop a +thunder-storm, or raise an east wind. There are things we run up +blind against, and I reckon this is one of 'em. It's got to come out +the way it will, and you and I can't hinder it, Abigail.”</p> + +<p>“We can hinder that poor boy from having his heart +broken.”</p> + +<p>The Squire whistled. “Lock the stable-door after the colt is +stolen, eh?”</p> + +<p>“Eben Merritt, what do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“I mean that the boy comes here now an then, not courting +the girl, as I take it, at all, and shows so far no signs of anything +amiss, and had, in my opinion, best be let alone. Lord, when I was +his age, if a girl like Lucina had been in the question, and anybody +had tried to rein me up short, I'd have kicked over the breeches +entirely. I'd have either got her or blown my brains out. That boy +can take care of himself, anyhow. He'll stop coming here of his own +accord, if he thinks he'd better.”</p> + +<p>Abigail sniffed scornfully with her thin nostrils.</p> + +<p>“Wait and see,” said the Squire.</p> + +<p>“I shall wait a long time before I see,” she said, but +she was mistaken. The very next week Jerome did not come, then a +month went by and he had not appeared once at the Squire's house.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXIX</h4> + +<p>One Sunday afternoon, during the latter part of July, Lucina +Merritt strolled down the road to her aunt Camilla's. The day was +very warm—droning huskily with insects, and stirring lazily +with limp leaves.</p> + +<p>There had been no rain for a long time, and the road smoked high +with white dust at every foot-fall. Lucina raised her green and white +muslin skirts above her embroidered petticoat, and set her little +feet as lightly as a bird's. She carried a ruffled green silk parasol +to shield herself from the sun, though her hat had a wide brim and +flapped low over her eyes.</p> + +<p>Her mother had remonstrated with her for going out in the heat, +since she had not looked quite well of late. “You will make +your head ache,” said she.</p> + +<p>“It is so cool in Aunt Camilla's north room,” pleaded +Lucina, and had her way.</p> + +<p>She walked slowly, as her mother had enjoined, but it was like +walking between a double fire of arrows from the blazing white sky +and earth; when she came in sight of her aunt Camilla's house her +head was dizzy and her veins were throbbing.</p> + +<p>Lucina had not been happy during the last few weeks, and +sometimes, in such cases, physical discomfort acts like a tonic +poison. For the latter part of the way she thought of nothing but +reaching the shelter of Camilla's north room; her mind regarding all +else was at rest.</p> + +<p>Miss Camilla's house was closed as tightly as a convent; not a +breath of out-door air would she have admitted after the early +mornings of those hot days. Lucina entered into night and coolness in +comparison with the glare of day outside. When she had her hat +removed, and sat in the green gloom of the north parlor, sipping a +glass of water which Liza had drawn from the lowest depths of the +well, then flavored with currant-jelly and loaf-sugar, she felt +almost at peace with her own worries.</p> + +<p>Her aunt Camilla, clad in dimly flowing old muslin, sat near the +chimney-place, swaying a feather fan. She had her Bible on her knees, +but she had not been reading; the light was too dim for her eyes. The +fireplace was filled with the feathery green of asparagus, which also +waved lightly over the gilded looking-glass, and was reflected airily +therein. Asparagus plumes waved over all the old pictures also. The +whole room from this delicate garnishing, the faded green tone of the +furniture covers and carpet, from the wall-paper in obscure +arabesques of green and satiny white, appeared full of woodland +shadows. Miss Camilla, swaying her feather fan, served to set these +shadows slowly eddying with a motion of repose. She had dozed in her +chair, and her mind had lapsed into peaceful dreams before her niece +arrived. Now she sat beaming gently at her. “Do you feel +refreshed, dear?” she asked, when Lucina had finished her +tumbler of currant-jelly water.</p> + +<p>“Yes, thank you, Aunt Camilla.”</p> + +<p>“I fear you were not strong enough to venture out in such +heat, glad as I am to see you, dear. Had you not better let 'Liza +bring you a pillow, and then you can lie down on the sofa and perhaps +have a little nap?”</p> + +<p>“No, thank you, Aunt Camilla, I am not sleepy. I am quite +well. I am going to sit by the window and read.”</p> + +<p>With that Lucina rose, got a book bound in red and gold from the +stately mahogany table, and seated herself by the one window whose +shutters were not tightly closed. It was a north window, and only one +leaf of the upper half of the shutter was open. The aperture +disclosed, instead of burning sky, a thick screen of horse-chestnut +boughs. The great fan-like leaves almost touched the window-glass, +and tinted all the dim parallelogram of light.</p> + +<p>Even Lucina's golden head and fair face acquired somewhat of this +prevailing tone of green, being transposed into another key of color. +All her golden lights, and her roses, were lost in a delicate green +pallor, which might have beseemed a sea-nymph. Her aunt, sitting +aloof in that same green shaft of day filtered through horse-chestnut +leaves, and also changed thereby, kept glancing at her uneasily. She +knew that her brother and his wife had been anxious lately about +Lucina. She ventured a few more gently solicitous remarks, which +Lucina met sweetly, still with a little impatience of weariness, +scarcely lifting her face from her book; then she ventured no +more.</p> + +<p>“The child does not like to have us so anxious over +her,” she thought, with that unfailing courtesy and +consideration which would spare others though she torment herself +thereby. She longed exceedingly to offer Lucina a wineglass of a +home-brewed cordial, compounded from the rich juice of the +blackberry, the finest of French brandy, and sundry spices, which was +her panacea, but she abstained, lest it disturb her. Miss Camilla set +a greater value upon peace of mind than upon aught else.</p> + +<p>Lucina bent her face over her book, and turned the leaves quickly, +as if she were reading with absorption. Presently Miss Camilla +thought she looked better. The soft lapping as of waves, of the +Sabbath calm, began again to oversteal her body and spirit. Visions +of her peaceful past seemed to confuse themselves with the present. +“You—must stay to tea, and—not—go home +until—after sunset, when it is cooler,” she murmured, +drowsily, and with a dim conviction that this was a Sabbath of long +ago, that Lucina was a little girl in a short frock and pantalettes; +then in a few minutes her head drooped limply towards her shoulder, +and all her thoughts relaxed into soft slumberous breaths.</p> + +<p>When her aunt fell asleep, Lucina looked up, with that quick, +startled sense of loneliness which sometimes, in such case, comes to +a sensitive consciousness. “Aunt Camilla is asleep,” she +thought; she turned to her book again. It was a copy of Mrs. Hemans's +poems. Somehow the vivid sentiment of the lines failed to please her, +though she, like her young lady friends, had heretofore loved them +well. Lucina read the first stanza of “The warrior bowed his +crested head” with no thrill of her maiden breast; then she +turned to “The Bride of the Greek Isles,” and that was no +better.</p> + +<p>She arose, tiptoed softly over to the table, and examined the +other books thereon. There were volumes of the early English poets, +an album, and <cite>A Souvenir of Friendship</cite>, in red and gold, +like the Hemans. She opened the souvenir, and looked idly at the +small, exquisitely fine steel engravings, the alliterative verses, +the tales of sentiment beginning with long preambles couched in +choicest English. She shut the book with a little weary sigh, and +looked irresolutely at her sleeping aunt, then at the chair by the +north window.</p> + +<p>Lucina felt none of the languor which is sometimes caused by +extreme heat. Instead, there was a fierce electric tension through +all her nerves. She was weary almost to death, the cool of this dark +room was unutterably grateful to her, yet she could not remain quiet. +She had left her parasol and hat on the hall-table. She stole out +softly, with scarcely the faintest rustle of skirts, tied on her hat, +took her parasol, and went through the house to the back-garden +door.</p> + +<p>Looking back, she saw the old servant-woman's broadly +interrogatory face in a vine-wreathed kitchen-window. “I am +going out in the garden a little while, 'Liza,” said +Lucina.</p> + +<p>The garden was down-crushed, its extreme of sweetness pressed out +beneath the torrid sunbeams as under flaming hoofs. Lucina passed +between the wilting ranks and flattened beds of flowers, and the +breath of them in her face was like the rankest sweetness of love, +when its delicacy, even for itself, is all gone. The pungent odor of +box was like a shameless call from the street. Lucina went into the +summer-house and sat down. It was stifling, and the desperate +sweetnesses of the garden seemed to have collected there, as in a +nest.</p> + +<p>Lucina, after a minute, sprang up, her face was a deep pink, she +had a gentle distracted frown on her sweet forehead, her lips were +pouting; she did not look in the least like the Lucina of the early +spring.</p> + +<p>She went out of the summer-house, and down the garden paths, and +then over a stone wall, into the rear field, which bounded it. This +field had been mowed not long before, and the stubble was pink and +gold in the afternoon light.</p> + +<p>The field was broad, and skirted on the west by a thick wood. +Lucina, holding her green parasol, crossed the field to the wood. The +stubble was hot to her feet, white butterflies flew in her face, +rusty-winged things hurled themselves in her path, like shrill +completions from some mill of insect life.</p> + +<p>All along the wood there was a border of shadow. Lucina kept close +to the trees, and so down the field. A faint, cool dampness stole out +from the depths of the wood and tempered the heat for the width of +its shade. Lucina put down her parasol; she was walking quite +steadily, as if with a purpose.</p> + +<p>The wood extended the length of many fields, running parallel with +the main village street, behind the houses. Lucina, passing the +Prescott house from the rear, instead of the front, seeing the +unpainted walls and roof-slopes of barn and wood-sheds, and the +garden, had a curious sense of retroversion in material things which +suited well her mind. She felt that day as if she were turned +backward to her own self.</p> + +<p>The fields were divided from one another by stone walls. Lucina +crossed these, and kept on until she reached a field some distance +beyond Doctor Prescott's house. Then she left the shadow of the wood, +and crossed the field to the main road. In crossing this she kept +close to the wall, slinking along rapidly, for she felt guilty; this +field was all waving with brown heads of millet which should not have +been trampled.</p> + +<p>She got to the road and nobody had seen her. She crossed it, +entered a rutty cart-path, and was in the Edwards' woodland.</p> + +<p>For the first time in her life, Lucina Merritt was doing something +which she acknowledged to herself to be distinctly unmaidenly. She +had come to this wood because she had heard Jerome say that he often +strolled here of a Sunday afternoon. Her previous little schemes for +meeting him had been innocent to her own understanding, but now she +had tasted the fruit of knowledge of her own heart.</p> + +<p>She felt fairly sick with shame at what she was doing, she blushed +to her own thoughts, but she had a helpless impulse as before, some +goading spur in her own nature which she could not withstand.</p> + +<p>She hurried softly down the cart-path between the trees, then +suddenly stood still, for under a great pine-tree on the right lay +Jerome. His hat was off, one arm was thrown over his head, his face +was flushed with heat and slumber. Lucina, her body bent aloof with +an indescribable poise of delicacy and the impulse of flight, yet +looked at her sleeping lover until her whole heart seemed to feed +itself through her eyes.</p> + +<p>Lucina had not seen him for more than six weeks, except by sly +glimpses at meeting and on the road. She thought, pitifully, that he +had grown thin; she noticed what a sad droop his mouth had at the +corners. She pitied, loved, and feared him, with all the trifold +power of her feminine heart.</p> + +<p>As she looked at him, her remembrance of old days so deepened and +intensified that they seemed to close upon the present and the +future. Love, even when it has apparently no past, is at once a +memory and a revelation. Lucina saw the little lover of her innocent +childish dreams asleep there, she saw the poor boy who had gone +hungry and barefoot, she saw the young man familiar in the +strangeness of the future. And, more than that, Lucina, who had +hitherto shown fully to her awakening heart only her thought of +Jerome, having never dared to look at him and love him at the same +time, now gazed boldly at him asleep, and a sense of a great mystery +came over her. In Jerome she seemed to see herself also, the unity of +the man and woman in love dawned upon her maiden imagination. She +felt as if Jerome's hands were her hands, his breath hers. “I +never knew he looked like me before,” she thought with awe.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly Jerome, with no stir of awaking, opened his eyes and +looked at her. Often, on arousing from a deep sleep, one has a sense +of calm and wonderless observation as of a new birth. Jerome looked +for a moment at Lucina with no surprise. In a new world all things +may be, and impossibilities become commonplaces.</p> + +<p>Then he sprang up, and went close to her. “Is it you?” +he said, in a sobbing voice.</p> + +<p>Lucina looked at him piteously. She wanted to run away, but her +limbs trembled, her little hands twitched in the folds of her muslin +skirt. Jerome saw her trembling, and a soft pink suffusing her fair +face, even her sweet throat and her arms, under her thin sleeves. He +knew, with a sudden leap of tenderness, which would have its way in +spite of himself, why she was there. She had wanted to see him so, +the dear child, the fair, wonderful lady, that she had come through +the heat of this burning afternoon, stealing away alone from all her +friends, and even from her own decorous self, for his sake. He +pointed to the clear space under the pine where he had been lying. +“Shall we sit down there—a minute?” he +stammered.</p> + +<p>“I—think I—had better go,” said Lucina, +faintly, with the quick impulse of maidenhood to flee from that which +it has sought.</p> + +<p>“Only a few minutes—I have something to tell +you.”</p> + +<p>They sat down, Lucina with her back against the pine-tree, Jerome +at her side. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but instead it +widened into a vacuous smile. He looked at Lucina and she at him, +then he came closer to her and took her in his arms.</p> + +<p>Neither of them spoke. Lucina hid her face on his breast, and he +held her so, looking out over her fair head at the wood. His mouth +was shut hard, his eyes were full of fierce intent of combat, as if +he expected some enemy forth from the trees to tear his love from +him. For the first time in his life he realized the full might of his +own natural self. He felt as if he could trample upon the needs of +the whole world, and the light of his own soul; to gain this first +sweet of existence, whose fragrance was in his face.</p> + +<p>The strongest realization of his nature hitherto, that of the +outreaching wants of others, weakened. He was filled with the +insensate greed of creation for himself. He held Lucina closer, and +bent his head down over hers. Then she turned her face a little, and +their lips met.</p> + +<p>Lucina had never since her childhood kissed any man but her +father, and as for Jerome, he had held such things with a shame of +scorn. This meant much to both of them, and the shock of such deep +meaning caused them to start apart, as if with fear of each other. +Lucina raised her head, and even pushed Jerome away, gently, and he +loosened his hold and stood up before her, all pale and +trembling.</p> + +<p>“You must forgive me—I—forgot myself,” he +said, with quick gasps for breath, “I +won't—sit—down there again.” Then he went on, +speaking fast: “I have been—wanting to tell you, but +there was no chance. I could not come to see you any longer. I could +not. I thought a man could go to see a woman when he was in love with +her, and could bear it when the love was all on his side, and there +was no—chance of marriage. I thought I could bear it if it +pleased you, but—I didn't know it would be like this. I was +never in love, and I did not know. I could think of nothing but +wanting you. It was spoiling me for everything else, and there are +other things in the world besides this. If I came much longer I +should not be fit to come. I <em>could</em> not come any +longer.” Jerome looked down at Lucina, with an air of stern, +yet wistful, argument. She sat before him with downcast, pale, and +sober face, then she rose, and all her girlish irresolution and shame +dropped from her, and left for a moment the woman in her +unveiled.</p> + +<p>“I love you as much as you love me,” she said, +simply.</p> + +<p>Jerome looked at her. “You—don't +mean—that?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I suppose I did when you told me first, but I did not +know it then. Now I know it. I have been very unhappy because I +feared you might be staying away because you thought I did not love +you, but I dared not try to see you as I did before, because I had +found myself out. To-day I could not help it, whatever you might +think of me, or whatever I might think of myself. I could not bear to +worry any longer, lest you might be unhappy because you thought I did +not love you. I do, and you need not stay away any more for +that.”</p> + +<p>“Lucina—you don't mean—”</p> + +<p>“Do you think I would have let you—do as you did a +minute ago, if I had not?” said she, and a blush spread over +her face and neck.</p> + +<p>“I—thought—it was +all—me—that—<em>you</em>—did +not—”</p> + +<p>“No, I let you,” whispered Lucina.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you don't mean that you—like me this same way +that I do you—enough to marry me! You don't mean +that?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I do,” replied Lucina; she looked up at him with +a curious solemn steadfastness. She was not blushing any more.</p> + +<p>“I—never thought of this,” Jerome said, drawing +a long, sobbing breath. He stood looking at her, his face all white +and working. “Lucina,” he began, then paused, for he +could not speak. He walked a little way down the path, then came +back. “Lucina,” he said, brokenly, “as God is my +witness—I never thought of this—I never—thought +that you—could— Oh, look at yourself, and look at me! You +know that I could not have thought—oh, look at yourself, there +was never anybody like you! I did not think that you could—care +for or—be hurt by—<em>me</em>.”</p> + +<p>“I have never seen anybody like you, not even father,” +Lucina said. She looked at him with the shrinking yet loving +faithfulness of a child before emotion which it cannot comprehend. +She could not understand why, if Jerome loved her and she him, there +was anything to be distressed about. She could not imagine why he was +so pale and agitated, why he did not take her in his arms and kiss +her again, why they could not both be happy at once.</p> + +<p>“Oh, my God!” cried Jerome, and looked at her in a way +which frightened her.</p> + +<p>“Don't,” she said, softly, shrinking a little.</p> + +<p>“Lucina, you know how poor I am,” he said, hoarsely. +“You know I—can't—marry.”</p> + +<p>“I don't need much,” said she.</p> + +<p>“I couldn't—give you what you need.”</p> + +<p>“Father would, then.”</p> + +<p>“No, he would not. I give my wife all or nothing.”</p> + +<p>Lucina trembled. The same look which she remembered when Jerome +would not take her little savings was in his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Then—I would not take anything from father,” +she said, tremulously. “I wouldn't +mind—being—poor.”</p> + +<p>“I have seen the wives of poor men, and you shall not be +made one by me. If I thought I had not strength enough to keep you +from that, as far as I was concerned, I would leave you this minute, +and throw myself in the pond over there.”</p> + +<p>“I am not afraid to be the wife of—a poor man—if +I love him. I—could save, and—work,” Lucina said, +speaking with the necessity of faithfulness upon her, yet timidly, +and turning her face aside, for her heart had begun to fear lest +Jerome did not really love her nor want her, after all. A woman who +would sacrifice herself for love's sake cannot understand the +sacrifice, nor the love, which refuses it.</p> + +<p>“You shall not be, whether you are afraid or not!” +Jerome cried out, fiercely. “Haven't I seen John Upham's wife? +Oh, God!”</p> + +<p>Lucina began moving slowly down the path towards the road; Jerome +followed her. “I must go,” she said, with a gentle +dignity, though she trembled in all her limbs. “I came across +the fields from Aunt Camilla's. I left her asleep, and she will wake +and miss me.”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” cried Jerome, “I wish—” then +he stopped himself. “Yes, she will, I suppose,” he added, +lamely.</p> + +<p>“He does not want me to stay,” thought Lucina, with a +sinking of heart and a rising of maiden pride. She walked a little +faster.</p> + +<p>Jerome quickened his pace, and touched her shoulder. “You +must not think about me—about this,” he murmured, +hoarsely. “<em>You</em> must not be unhappy about +it!”</p> + +<p>Lucina turned and looked in his face sadly, yet with a soft +stateliness. “No,” said she, “I will not. I do not +see, after all, why I should be unhappy, or you either. Many people +do not marry. I dare say they are happier. Aunt Camilla seems happy. +I shall be like her. There is nothing to hinder our friendship. We +can always be friends, like brothers and sisters even, and you can +come to see me—”</p> + +<p>“No, I can't,” said Jerome, “I can't do that +even. I told you I could not.”</p> + +<p>Lucina said no more. She turned her face and went on. She said +good-bye quickly when she reached the road, and was across it and +under the bars into the millet.</p> + +<p>Jerome did not attempt to follow her; he stood for a moment +watching her moving through the millet, as through the brown waves of +a shallow sea; then he went back into the woods. When he reached the +place where he had sat with Lucina he stopped and spoke, as if she +were still there.</p> + +<p>“Lucina,” he said, “I promise you before God, +that I will never, so long as I live, love or marry any other woman +but you. I promise you that I will work as I never did +before—my fingers to the bone, my heart to its last drop of +blood—to earn enough to marry you. And then, if you are free, I +will come to you again. I will fight to win you, with all the +strength that is in me, against the whole world, and I will love you +forever, forever, but I promise you that I will never say this in +your hearing to bind you and make you wait, when I may die and never +come.”</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXX</h4> + +<p>Lucina did not go into her aunt Camilla's house again that +afternoon. She crossed the fields—her aunt's +garden—skirted the house to the road—thence home.</p> + +<p>When she entered the south door her mother met her. “Why +didn't you wait until it was cooler?” she asked; then, before +the girl could answer, “What is the matter? Why, Lucina, you +have been crying!”</p> + +<p>“Nothing,” replied Lucina, piteously, pushing past her +mother.</p> + +<p>“Where are you going?”</p> + +<p>“Up-stairs to my chamber.” With that Lucina was on +the stairs, and her mother followed.</p> + +<p>The two were a long time in Lucina's chamber; then Abigail came +down alone to her husband in the sitting-room.</p> + +<p>The Squire, who was as alert as any fox where his beloved daughter +was concerned, had scented something wrong, and looked up anxiously +when his wife entered.</p> + +<p>“She isn't sick, is she?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“She will be, if we don't take care,” Abigail replied, +shortly.</p> + +<p>“You don't mean it!” cried the Squire, jumping up. +“I'll go for the doctor this minute. It was the heat. Why +didn't you keep her at home, Abigail?”</p> + +<p>“Sit down, for mercy's sake, Eben!” said Abigail. She +sat down herself as she spoke, and crossed her little slender feet +and hands with a quick, involuntary motion, which was usual to her. +“It is as I told you,” said she. Abigail Merritt, good +comrade of a wife though she was, yet turned aggressively feminine at +times.</p> + +<p>The Squire sat down. “What do you mean, Abigail?”</p> + +<p>“I mean—that I wish that Edwards boy had never entered +this house.”</p> + +<p>“Abigail, you don't mean that Lucina— What <em>do</em> +you mean, Abigail?” finished the Squire, feebly.</p> + +<p>“I mean that I was right in thinking some harm would come +from that boy being here so much,” replied his wife. Then she +went on and repeated in substance the innocent little confession +which Lucina had made to her in her chamber.</p> + +<p>The Squire listened, his bearded chin sunken on his chest, his +forehead, under the crest of yellow locks, bent gloomily.</p> + +<p>“It seems as if you and I had done everything that we could +for the child ever since she was born,” he said, huskily, when +his wife had finished. His first emotion was one of cruel jealousy of +his daughter's love for another man.</p> + +<p>Abigail looked at him with quick pity, but scarcely with full +understanding. She could never lose, as completely as he, their +daughter, through a lover. She had not to yield her to another of the +same sex, and in that always the truest sting of jealousy lies.</p> + +<p>“So far as that goes, it is no more than we had to expect, +Eben,” she said. “You know that. I turned away from my +parents for you.”</p> + +<p>“I know it, Abigail, but—I thought, maybe, it wouldn't +come yet a while. I've done all I could. I bought her the little +horse—she seemed real pleased with that, Abigail, you know. I +thought, maybe, she would be contented a while here with +us.”</p> + +<p>“Eben Merritt, you don't for a minute think that she can be +anywhere but with us, for all this!”</p> + +<p>“It's the knowledge that she's willing to be that comes +hard,” said the Squire, piteously—“it's that, +Abigail.”</p> + +<p>“I don't know that she's any too willing to,” returned +Abigail, half laughing. “The principal thing that seems to +trouble the child is that Jerome won't come to see her. I rather +think that if he would come to see her she would be perfectly +contented.”</p> + +<p>“And why can't he come to see her, if she wants him +to—will you tell me that?” cried the Squire, with sudden +fervor.</p> + +<p>“Eben Merritt, would you have the poor child getting to +thinking more of him than she does, when he isn't going to marry +her?”</p> + +<p>“And why isn't he going to marry her, if she wants him? By +the Lord Harry, Lucina shall have whoever she wants, if it's a prince +or a beggar! If that fellow has been coming here, and +now—”</p> + +<p>“Eben, listen to me and keep quiet!” cried Abigail, +running at her great husband's side, with a little, wiry, +constraining hand on his arm, for the Squire had sprung from his seat +and was tramping up and down in his rage that Lucina should be denied +what she wanted, even though it were his own heart's blood. +“You know what I told you,” Abigail said. “Jerome +is behaving well. You know he can't marry Lucina—he hasn't a +penny.”</p> + +<p>“Then I'll give 'em pennies enough to marry on. The girl +shall have whom she wants; I tell you that, Abigail.”</p> + +<p>“How much have you got to give them until we are gone, even +if Jerome would marry under such conditions; and I told you what he +said to Lucina about it,” returned his wife, quietly.</p> + +<p>“I'll go to work myself, then,” shouted the Squire; +“and as for the boy, he shall swallow his damned pride before +he gives my girl an anxious hour. What is he, to say he will or will +not, if she lifts her little finger? By the Lord Harry, he ought to +go down on his face like a heathen when she looks at him!”</p> + +<p>“Eben,” said Abigail, “will you listen to me? I +tell you, Jerome is behaving as well as any young man can. I know he +is, from what Lucina has told me. He loves her, and he is proving it +by giving her up. You know that he cannot marry her unless he drags +her into poverty, and you know how much you have to help them with. +You know, too, good as Jerome is, and worthy of praise for what he +has done, that Lucina ought to do better than marry him.”</p> + +<p>“He is a good boy, Abigail, and if she's got her heart set +on him she shall have him.”</p> + +<p>“You don't know that her heart is set on him, Eben. I think +the best thing we can do is to send her down to Boston for a little +visit—she may feel differently when she comes home.”</p> + +<p>“I won't have her crossed, Abigail. Was she crying when you +left her?”</p> + +<p>“She will soon be quiet and go to sleep. I am going to make +some toast for her supper. Eben, where are you going?” The +Squire had set forth for the door in a determined rush.</p> + +<p>“I am going to see that boy, and know what this work +means,” he cried, in a loud voice of wrath and pity.</p> + +<p>However, Abigail's vivacious persistency of common-sense usually +overcame her husband's clumsy headlongs of affection. She carried the +day at last, and the Squire subsided, though with growls of +remonstrance, like a partially tamed animal.</p> + +<p>“Have your way, and send her down to Boston, if you want to, +Abigail,” said he; “but when she comes back she shall +have whatever she wants, if I move heaven and earth to get it for +her.”</p> + +<p>So that day week Jerome, going one morning to his work, stood +aside to let the stage-coach pass him, and had a glimpse of Lucina's +fair face in the wave of a blue veil at the window. She bowed, but +the stage dashed by in such a fury of dust that Jerome could scarcely +discern the tenor of the salutation. He thought that she smiled, and +not unhappily. “She is going away,” he told himself; +“she will go to parties, and see other people, and forget +me.” He tried to dash the bitterness of his heart at the +thought, with the sweetness of unselfish love, but it was hard. He +plodded on to his work, the young springiness gone from his back and +limbs, his face sternly downcast.</p> + +<p>As for Lucina, she was in reality leaving Upham not unhappily. She +was young, and the sniff of change is to the young as the smell of +powder to a war-horse. New fields present always wide ranges of +triumphant pleasure to youth.</p> + +<p>Lucina, moreover, loved with girlish fervor the friend, Miss Rose +Soley, whom she was going to visit in Boston. She had not seen her +for some months, and she tasted in advance the sweets of mutual +confidences. That morning Jerome's face was a little confused in +Lucina's mind with that of a rosy-cheeked and dark-ringleted girl, +and young passion somewhat dimmed by gentle affection for one of her +own sex.</p> + +<p>Then, too, Lucina had come, during the last few days, to a more +cheerful and hopeful view of the situation. After all, Jerome loved +her, and was not that the principal thing? Perhaps, in time, it would +all come right. Jerome might get rich; in the meantime, she was in no +hurry to be married and leave her parents, and if Jerome would only +come to see her, that would be enough to make her very happy. She +thought that after her return he would very probably come. She +reasoned, as she thought, astutely, that he would not be able to help +it, when he saw her after a long absence. Then she had much faith in +her father's being able to arrange this satisfactorily for her, as he +had arranged all other matters during her life.</p> + +<p>“Now don't you fret, Pretty,” he had said, when she +bade him good-bye, “father will see to it that you have +everything you want.” And Lucina, all blushing with innocent +confusion, had believed him.</p> + +<p>In addition to all this she had in her trunks, strapped at the +back of the stage-coach, two fine, new silk gowns, and one muslin, +and a silk mantilla. Also she carried a large blue bandbox containing +a new plumed hat and veil, which cheered her not a little, being one +of those minor sweets which providentially solace the weak feminine +soul in its unequal combat with life's great bitternesses.</p> + +<p>Lucina was away some three months, not returning until a few days +before Thanksgiving; then she brought her friend, Miss Rose Soley, +with her, and also a fine young gentleman, with long, curling, fair +locks, and a face as fair as her own.</p> + +<p>While Lucina was gone, Jerome led a life easier in some respects, +harder in others. He had no longer the foe of daily temptation to +overcome, but instead was the steady grind of hunger. Jerome, in +those days, felt the pangs of that worst hunger in the +world—the hunger for the sight of one beloved. Some mornings +when he awoke it seemed to him that he should die of mere exhaustion +and starvation of spirit if he saw not Lucina before night. In those +days he would rather have walked over fiery plough-shares than +visited any place where he had seen Lucina, and where she now was +not. He never went near the wood, where they had sat together; he +would not pass even, if he could help it, the Squire's house or Miss +Camilla's. His was one of those minds for whom, when love has once +come, place is only that which holds, or is vacant of, the beloved. +He was glad when the white frost came and burned out the gardens and +the woodlands with arctic fires of death, for then the associations +with old scenes were in a measure lost.</p> + +<p>One Sunday after the frost, when the ground was shining stiff with +it, as with silver mail, and all the trees thickened the distance as +with glittering furze, he went to his woodland, and found that he +could bear the sight of the place where he and Lucina had been +together; its strangeness of aspect seemed to place it so far in the +past.</p> + +<p>Jerome threw up his head in the thin, sparkling air. “I will +have her yet,” he said, quite aloud; and “if I do not, I +can bear that.”</p> + +<p>He felt like one who would crush the stings of fate, even if +against his own heart. He had grown old and thin during the last +weeks; he had worked so hard and resolutely, yet with so little hope; +and he who toils without hope is no better than a slave to his own +will. That day, when he went home, his eyes were bright and his +cheeks glowing. His mother and sister noticed the difference.</p> + +<p>“I was afraid he was gettin' all run down,” Ann +Edwards told Elmira; “but he looks better to-day.”</p> + +<p>Elmira herself was losing her girlish bloom. She was one who +needed absolute certainties to quiet distrustful imaginations, and +matters betwixt herself and Lawrence Prescott were less and less on a +stable footing. Lawrence was working hard; she should not have +suspected that his truth towards her flagged, but she sometimes did. +He did not come to see her regularly. Sometimes two weeks went past, +sometimes three, and he had not come. In fact, Lawrence endeavored to +come only when he could do so openly.</p> + +<p>“I hate to deceive father more than I can help,” he +told Elmira, but she did not understand him fully.</p> + +<p>She was a woman for whom the voluntary absence of a lover who yet +loves was almost an insoluble problem, and in that Lucina was not +unlike her. She was not naturally deceptive, but, when it came to +love, she was a Jesuit in conceiving it to sanctify its own ends.</p> + +<p>The suspense, the uncertainty, as to her lover coming or not, was +beginning to tell upon her. Every nerve in her slight body was in an +almost constant state of tension.</p> + +<p>It was just a week from that day that Jerome and Elmira, being +seated in meeting, saw Lucina enter with her parents and her visiting +friends. Jerome's heart leaped up at the sight of Lucina, then sank +before that of the young man following her up the aisle. “He is +going to marry her; she has forgotten me,” he thought, +directly.</p> + +<p>As for Elmira, she eyed Miss Rose Soley's dark ringlets under the +wide velvet brim of her hat, the crimson curve of her cheek, and the +occasional backward glance of a black eye at Lawrence Prescott seated +directly behind her. When meeting was over, she caught Jerome by the +arm. “Come out quick,” she said, in a sharp whisper, and +Jerome was glad enough to go.</p> + +<p>Lucina's guests spent Thanksgiving with her. Jerome saw them +twice, riding horseback with Lawrence Prescott—Lucina on her +little white horse, Miss Soley on Lawrence's black, the strange young +man on the Squire's sorrel, and Lawrence on a gray.</p> + +<p>Lucina colored when she saw Jerome, and reined her horse, +lingering behind the others, but he did not seem to notice it, and +never looked at her after his first grave bow; then she touched her +horse, and galloped after her friends with a windy swirl of blue veil +and skirts.</p> + +<p>Jerome wondered if his sister would hear that Lawrence Prescott +had been out riding with Lucina and her friends. When he got home +that night, he met Belinda Lamb coming out of the gate; when he +entered, he saw by Elmira's face that she had heard. She was binding +shoes very fast; her little face was white, except for red spots on +the cheeks, her mouth shut hard. Her mother kept looking at her +anxiously.</p> + +<p>“You'd better not worry till you know you've got something +to worry about; likely as not, they asked him to go with them 'cause +Lucina's beau don't know how to ride very well, and he couldn't help +it,” she said, with a curious aside of speech, as if Jerome, +though on the stage, was not to hear.</p> + +<p>He took no notice, but that night he had a word with his sister +after their mother had gone to bed. “If he has asked you to +marry him, you ought to trust him,” said he. “I don't +believe his going to ride with that girl means anything. You ought to +believe in him until you know he isn't worthy of it.”</p> + +<p>Elmira turned upon him with a flash of eyes like his own. +“Worthy!” she cried—“don't I think he would +be worthy if he did leave me for her! Do you think I would blame him +if he did leave anybody as poor as I am, worked 'most to skin and +bone, of body and soul too, for anybody like that girl? I guess I +wouldn't blame him, and you needn't. I don't blame him; it's true, I +know, he'll never come to see me again, but I don't blame +him.”</p> + +<p>“If he doesn't come to see you again he'll have me to hear +from,” Jerome said, fiercely.</p> + +<p>“No, he won't. Don't you ever dare speak to him, or blame +him, Jerome Edwards; I won't have it.” Elmira ran into her +chamber, leaving an echo of wild sobs in her brother's ears.</p> + +<p>The day after Thanksgiving, Lucina's friends went away; when +Jerome came home that night Elmira's face wore a different +expression, which Mrs. Edwards explained with no delay.</p> + +<p>“Belinda Lamb has been here,” she said, “and +that young man is that Boston girl's beau; he ain't Lucina's, and +Lawrence Prescott ain't nothing to do with it. He was up there last +night, but it wa'n't anything. Why, Jerome Edwards, you look as pale +as death!”</p> + +<p>Jerome muttered some unintelligible response, and went out of the +room, with his mother staring after him. He went straight to his own +little chamber, and, standing there in the still, icy gloom of the +winter twilight, repeated the promise which he had made in +summer.</p> + +<p>“If you are true to me, Lucina,” he said, in a +straining whisper—“if you are true to me—but I'll +leave it all to you whether you are or not, I'll work till I win +you.”</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXXI</h4> + +<p>On the evening of the next day Jerome went to call on Lawyer +Eliphalet Means. Lawyer Means lived near the northern limit of the +village, on the other side of the brook.</p> + +<p>Jerome, going through the covered bridge which crossed the brook, +paused and looked through a space between the side timbers. This +brook was a sturdy little torrent at all times; in spring it was a +river. Now, under the white concave of wintry moonlight, it broke +over its stony bed with a fierce persistency of advance. Jerome +looked down at the rapid, shifting water-hillocks and listened to +their lapsing murmur, incessantly overborne by the gathering rush of +onset, then nodded his head conclusively, as if in response to some +mental question, and moved on.</p> + +<p>Lawyer Eliphalet Means lived in the old Means house. It upreared +itself on a bare moon-silvered hill at the right of the road, with a +solid state of simplest New England architecture. It dated back to +the same epoch as Doctor Prescott's and Squire Merritt's houses, but +lacked even the severe ornaments of their time.</p> + +<p>Jerome climbed the shining slope of the hill to the house door, +which was opened by Lawyer Means himself; then he followed him into +the sitting-room. A great cloud of tobacco smoke came in his face +when the sitting-room door was thrown open. Through it Jerome could +scarcely see Colonel Jack Lamson, in a shabby old coat, seated before +the blazing hearth-fire, with a tumbler of rum-and-water on a little +table at his right hand.</p> + +<p>“Sit down,” said Means to Jerome, and pulled another +chair forward. “Quite a sharp night out,” he added.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” replied Jerome, seating himself.</p> + +<p>Lawyer Means resumed his own chair and his pipe, at which he +puffed with that jealous comfort which comes after interruption. +Colonel Lamson, when he had given a friendly nod of greeting to the +young man, without removing his pipe from his mouth, leaned back his +head again, stretched his legs more luxuriously, and blew the smoke +in great wreaths around his face. This sitting-room of Lawyer Means's +was a scandal to the few matrons of Upham who had ever penetrated it. +“Don't look as if a woman had ever set foot in it,” they +said. The ancient female relative of Lawyer Means who kept his house +had not been a notable house-keeper in her day, and her day was +nearly past. Moreover, she had small control over this particular +room.</p> + +<p>The great apartment, with the purple clouds of tobacco smoke, +which were settling against its low ceiling and in its far corners, +transfused with golden gleams of candles and rosy flashes of +fire-light, dingy as to wall-paper and carpet, with the dust of +months upon all shiny surfaces, seemed a very fortress of +bachelorhood wherein no woman might enter.</p> + +<p>The lawyer's books in the tall cases were arranged in close ranks +of strictest order, as were also the neatly ticketed files of letters +and documents in the pigeon-holes of the great desk; otherwise the +whole room seemed fluttering and protruding out of its shadows with +loose ends of paper and corners of books. All the free lines in the +room were the tangents of irrelevancy and disorder.</p> + +<p>The lawyer, puffing at his pipe, with eyes half closed, did not +look at Jerome, but his attitude was expectant.</p> + +<p>Jerome stared at the blazing fire with a hesitating frown, then he +turned with sudden resolution to Means. “Can I see you alone a +minute?” he asked.</p> + +<p>The Colonel rose, without a word, and lounged out of the room; +when the door had shut behind him, Jerome turned again to the lawyer. +“I want to know if you are willing to sell me two hundred and +sixty-five dollars' worth of your land,” said he.</p> + +<p>“Which land?”</p> + +<p>“Your land on Graystone brook. I want one hundred and +thirty-two dollars and fifty cents' worth on each side.”</p> + +<p>“Why don't you make it even dollars, and what in thunder do +you want the land on two sides for?” asked the lawyer, in his +dry voice, threaded between his lips and pipe.</p> + +<p>Jerome took an old wallet from his pocket. “Because two +hundred and sixty-five dollars is all the money I've got +saved,” he replied, “and—”</p> + +<p>“You haven't brought it here to close the bargain on the +spot?” interrupted the lawyer.</p> + +<p>“Yes; I knew you could make out the deed.”</p> + +<p>Means puffed hard at his pipe, but his face twitched as if with +laughter.</p> + +<p>“I want it on both sides of the brook,” Jerome said, +“because I don't want anybody else to get it. I want to build a +saw-mill, and I want to control all the water-power.”</p> + +<p>“I thought you said that was all the money you +had.”</p> + +<p>“It is.”</p> + +<p>“How are you going to build a saw-mill, then? That money +won't pay for enough land, let alone the mill.”</p> + +<p>“I am going to wait until I save more money; then I shall +buy more land and build the mill,” replied Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Why not borrow the money?”</p> + +<p>Jerome shook his head.</p> + +<p>“Suppose I let you have some money at six per cent.; suppose +you build the mill, and I take a mortgage on that and the +land.”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Why not? If I am willing to trust a young fellow like you +with money, what is your objection to taking it?”</p> + +<p>“I would rather wait until I can pay cash down, sir,” +replied Jerome, sturdily.</p> + +<p>“You'll be gray as a badger before you get the +money.”</p> + +<p>“Then I'll be gray,” said Jerome. His handsome young +face, full of that stern ardor which was a principle of his nature, +confronted the lawyer's, lean and dry, deepening its shrewdly +quizzical lines about mouth and eyes.</p> + +<p>Means looked sharply at Jerome. “What has started you in +this? What makes you think it will be a good thing?” he +asked.</p> + +<p>“No saw-mill nearer than Westbrook, good water-power, +straight course of brook, below the falls can float logs down to the +mill from above, then down to Dale. People in Dale are paying heavy +prices for lumber on account of freight; then the railroad will go +through Dale within five years, and they will want sleepers, +and—”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps they won't take them from you, young +man.”</p> + +<p>“I have been to Squire Lennox, in Dale; he is the prime +mover in the railroad, and will be a director, if not the president; +he has given me the refusal of the job.”</p> + +<p>“Where will you get your logs?”</p> + +<p>“I have bargained with two parties.”</p> + +<p>“Five years is a long time ahead.”</p> + +<p>“It won't be, if I wait long enough.”</p> + +<p>“You are a damned fool not to borrow the money. The railroad +may go through in another year, and all the standing wood in the +county may burn down,” said Means, quietly.</p> + +<p>“Let it then,” said Jerome, looking at him.</p> + +<p>The lawyer laughed, silently.</p> + +<p>When Jerome went home he had in his pocket a deed of the land, but +on the right bank of the brook only, the lawyer having covenanted not +to sell or build upon the left bank. Thus he had enough land upon +which to build his mill when he should have saved the money. He felt +nearer Lucina than he had ever done before. The sanguineness of +youth, which is its best stimulant for advance, thrilled through all +his veins. He had mentioned five years as the possible length of time +before acquisition; secretly he laughed at the idea. Five years! Why, +he could save enough money in three years—in less than three +years—in two years! It had been only a short time since he had +made the last payment on the mortgage, and he had saved his two +hundred and sixty-five dollars. A saw-mill would not cost much. He +could build a great part of it himself.</p> + +<p>That night Jerome truly counted his eggs before they were hatched. +All the future seemed but a nest for his golden hopes. He would work +and save—he was working and saving. He would build his mill; as +he thought further, the foundation-stones were laid, the wheel +turned, and the saw hissed through the live wood. He would marry +Lucina; he saw her in her bridal white—</p> + +<p>All this time, with that sublime cruelty which man can show +towards one beloved when working for love's final good, and which is +a feeble prototype of the Higher method, Jerome gave not one thought +to the fact that Lucina knew nothing of his plans, and, if she loved +him, as she had said, must suffer. When, moreover, one has absolute +faith in, and knowledge of, his own intentions for the welfare of +another, it is difficult to conceive that the other may not be able +to spell out his actions towards the same meaning.</p> + +<p>Jerome really felt as if Lucina knew. The next Sunday he watched +her come into meeting with an exquisite sense of possession, which he +imagined her to understand.</p> + +<p>When he did not go to see her that night, but, instead, sat +happily brooding over the future, it never once occurred to him that +it might be otherwise with her.</p> + +<p>All poor Lucina's ebullition of spirits from her pleasant visit, +her pretty gowns, and her fond belief that Jerome could not have +meant what he said, and would come to see her after her return, was +fast settling into the dregs of disappointment.</p> + +<p>Night after night she put on one of her prettiest gowns, and +waited with that wild torture of waiting which involves uncertainty +and concealment, and Jerome did not come. Lucina began to believe +that Jerome did not love her; she tried to call her maidenly pride to +her aid, and succeeded in a measure. She stopped putting on a special +gown to please Jerome should he come; she stopped watching out for +him; she stopped healing her mind with hope in order that it might be +torn open afresh with disappointment, but the wound remained and +gaped to her consciousness, and Lucina was a tender thing. She held +her beautiful head high and forced her face to gentle smiles, but she +went thin and pale, and could not sleep of a night, and her mother +began to fret about her, and her father to lay down his knife and +fork and stare at her across the table when she could not eat.</p> + +<p>Squire Eben at that time ransacked the woods for choice game, and +himself stood over old Hannah or his wife, broiling the delicate +birds that they be done to a turn, and was fit to weep when his +pretty Lucina could scarcely taste them. Often, too, he sent +surreptitously to Boston for dainties not obtainable at +home—East India fruits and jellies and such—to tempt his +daughter's appetite, and watched her with great frowns of anxious +love when they were set before her.</p> + +<p>One afternoon, when Lucina had gone up to her chamber to lie down, +having left her dinner almost untasted, though there was a little fat +wild bird and guava jelly served on a china plate, and an orange and +figs to come after, the Squire beckoned his wife into the +sitting-room and shut the door.</p> + +<p>“D'ye think she's going into a decline?” he whispered. +His great frame trembled all over when he asked the question, and his +face was yellow-white. Years ago a pretty young sister of his, whose +namesake Lucina was, had died of a decline, as they had termed it, +and, ever since, death of the young and fair had worn that guise to +the fancy of the Squire. He remembered just how his young sister had +looked when she was fading to her early tomb, and to-day he had +seemed to see her expression in his daughter's face.</p> + +<p>Abigail laid her little hand on his arm. “Don't look so, +Eben,” she said. “I don't think she is in a decline; she +doesn't cough.”</p> + +<p>“What ails her, Abigail?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Merritt hesitated. “I don't know that much ails her, +Eben,” she said, evasively. “Girls often get run down, +then spring up again.”</p> + +<p>“Abigail, you don't think the child is fretting +about—that boy again?”</p> + +<p>“She hasn't mentioned his name to me for weeks, Eben,” +replied Abigail, and her statement carried reassurance, since the +Squire argued, with innocent masculine prejudice, that what came not +to a woman's tongue had no abiding in her mind.</p> + +<p>His wife, if she were more subtle, gave no evidence of it. +“I think the best plan would be for her to go away +again,” she added.</p> + +<p>The Squire looked at her wistfully. “Do you think it would, +Abigail?”</p> + +<p>“I think she would brighten right up, the way she did +before.”</p> + +<p>“She did brighten up, didn't she?” said the Squire, +with a sigh. “Well, maybe you're right, Abigail, but you've got +to go with her this time. The child isn't going away, looking as she +does now, without her mother.”</p> + +<p>So it happened that, a week or two later, Jerome, going to his +work, met the coach again, and this time had a glimpse of Abigail +Merritt's little, sharply alert face beside her daughter's pale, +flower-like droop of profile. He had not been in the shop long before +his uncle's wife came with the news. She stood in the doorway, quite +filling it with her voluminosity of skirts and softly palpitating +bulk, holding a little fluttering shawl together under her chin.</p> + +<p>“They've gone out West, to Ohio, to Mis' Merritt's cousin, +Mary Jane Anstey, that was; she married rich, years ago, and went out +there to live, and Abigail 'ain't seen her since. She's been teasin' +her to come for years; her own folks are all dead an' gone, an' her +husband is poorly, an' she can't leave him to come here. Camilla, she +paid the expenses of one of 'em out there. Lucina's been real +miserable lately, an' they're worried about her. The Squire's sister, +that she was named for, went down in a decline in six months; so her +mother has taken her out there for a change, an' they're goin' to +make a long visit. Lucina is real poorly. I had it from 'Lizy Wells. +Camilla told her.”</p> + +<p>Jerome shifted his back towards his aunt as he sat on his bench. +His face, bent over his work, was white and rigid.</p> + +<p>“You're coldin' of the shop off, Belindy,” said +Ozias.</p> + +<p>“Well, I s'pose I be,” said she, with a pleasant +titter of apology, and backed off the threshold and shut the +door.</p> + +<p>“That's a woman,” said Ozias, “who 'ain't got +any affairs of her own, but she's perfectly contented an' happy with +her neighbors', taken weak. That's the kind of woman to marry if you +ain't got anythin' to give her—no money, no interests in life, +no anythin'.”</p> + +<p>Jerome made no reply. His uncle gave a shrewd glance at him. +“When ye can't eat lollypops, it's jest as well not to have +them under your nose,” he remarked, with seemingly no +connection, but Jerome said nothing to that either.</p> + +<p>He worked silently, with fierce energy, the rest of the morning. +He had not heard before of Lucina's ill health; she had not been to +church the Sunday previous, but he had thought of nothing serious +from that. Now the dreadful possibility came to him—suppose she +should die and leave his world entirely, of what avail would all his +toil be then? When he went home that noon he ate his dinner hastily, +then, on his way back to the shop, left the road, crossed into a +field, and sat down in the wide solitude, on a rock humping out of +the dun roll of sere grass-land. Always, in his stresses of spirit, +Jerome sought instinctively some closet which he had made of the free +fastnesses of nature.</p> + +<p>The day was very dull and cold; snow threatened, should the +weather moderate. Overhead was a suspended drift of gray clouds. The +earth was stark as a corpse in utter silence. The stillness of the +frozen air was like the stillness of death and despair. A fierce +blast would have given at least the sense of life and fighting power. +“Suppose she dies,” thought Jerome—“suppose +she dies.”</p> + +<p>He tried to imagine the world without Lucina, but he could not, +for with all his outgoing spirit his world was too largely within +him. For the first time in his life, the conception of the death of +that which he loved better than his life was upon him, and it was a +conception of annihilation. “If Lucina is not, then I am not, +and that upon which I look is not,” was in his mind.</p> + +<p>When he rose, he staggered, and could scarcely see his way across +the field. When he entered his uncle's shop, Ozias looked at him +sharply. “If you're sick you'd better go home and go to +bed,” he said, in a voice of harsh concern.</p> + +<p>“I am not sick,” said Jerome, and fell to work with a +sort of fury.</p> + +<p>As the days went on it seemed to him that he could not bear life +any longer if he did not hear how Lucina was, and yet the most +obvious steps to hear he did not take. It never occurred to him to +march straight to the Squire's house, and inquire of him concerning +his daughter's health. Far from that, he actually dreaded to meet +him, lest he read in his face that she was worse. He did not go to +meeting, lest the minister mention her in his prayer for the sick; he +stayed as little as possible in the company of his mother and sister, +lest they repeat the sad news concerning her; if a neighbor came in, +he got up and left the room directly. He never went to the village +store of an evening; he ostracized himself from his kind, lest they +stab him with the confirmation of his agonizing fear. For the first +time in his life Jerome had turned coward.</p> + +<p>One day, when Lucina had been gone about a month, he was coming +home from Dale when he heard steps behind him and a voice shouting +for him to stop. He turned and saw Colonel Jack Lamson coming with +breathless quickening of his stiff military gait.</p> + +<p>When the Colonel reached him he could scarcely speak; his wheezing +chest strained his coat to exceeding tightness, his face was purple, +he swung his cane with spasmodic jerks. “Fine day,” he +gasped out.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>It was near the end of February, the snow was thawing, and for the +first time there was a suggestion of spring in the air which caused +one, with the recurrence of an old habit of mind, to listen and sniff +as for birds and flowers.</p> + +<p>The two men stepped along, picking their way through the melting +snow. “The doctor has ordered me out for a three-mile march +every day. I'm going to stent myself,” said the Colonel, still +breathing hard; then he looked keenly at Jerome. “What have you +been doing to yourself, young fellow?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Nothing. I don't know what you mean,” answered +Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Nothing! Why, you have aged ten years since I last saw +you!”</p> + +<p>“I am well enough, Colonel Lamson.”</p> + +<p>“How about that deed I witnessed? Have you got enough money +to build the mill yet?”</p> + +<p>“No, I haven't,” replied Jerome, with a curious tone +of defiance and despair, which the Colonel interpreted wrongly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, don't give up yet,” he said, cheerfully. +“Rome wasn't built in a day, you know.”</p> + +<p>Jerome made no reply, but trudged on doggedly.</p> + +<p>“How is she?” asked the Colonel, suddenly.</p> + +<p>Jerome turned white and looked at him. “Who?” he +said.</p> + +<p>The Colonel laughed, with wheezy facetiousness. “Why, +she—<em>she</em>. Young men don't build nests or saw-mills +unless there is a she in the case.”</p> + +<p>“There isn't—” began Jerome. Then he shut his +mouth hard and walked on.</p> + +<p>“It's only my joke, Jerome,” laughed the Colonel, but +there was no responsive smile on Jerome's face. Colonel Lamson eyed +him narrowly. “The Squire had a letter from his wife +yesterday,” he said, with no preface. Then he started, for +Jerome turned upon him a face as of one who is braced for death.</p> + +<p>“How—is she?” he gasped out.</p> + +<p>“Who? Mrs. Merritt? No, confound it all, my boy, she's +better! Hold on to yourself, my boy; I tell you she's +better.”</p> + +<p>Jerome gave a deep sigh, and walked ahead so fast that the Colonel +had to quicken his pace. “Wait a minute,” he panted; +“I want a word with you.”</p> + +<p>Jerome stopped, and the Colonel came up and faced him. “Look +here, young man,” he said, with sudden wrath, “if I +thought for a minute you had jilted that girl, I wouldn't stop for +words; I would take you by the neck like a puppy, and I'd break every +bone in your body.”</p> + +<p>Jerome squared his shoulders involuntarily; his face, confronting +the Colonel's, twitched. “I'll kill you or any other man who +dares to say I did,” he cried out, fiercely.</p> + +<p>“If I hadn't known you didn't I would have seen you damned +before I'd spoken to you,” returned the Colonel; “but +what I want to ask now is, what in—are you doing?”</p> + +<p>“I'd like to know what business 'tis of yours!”</p> + +<p>“What in—are you doing, my boy?” repeated the +Colonel.</p> + +<p>There was something ludicrous in the contrast between his strong +language and his voice, into which had come suddenly a tone of +kindness which was almost caressing. Jerome, since his father's day, +had heard few such tones addressed to him, and his proudly +independent heart was softened and weakened by his anxiety and relief +over Lucina.</p> + +<p>“I am—working my fingers to the bone—to win her, +sir,” he blurted out, brokenly.</p> + +<p>“Does she know it?”</p> + +<p>“Do you think I would say anything to her to bind her when I +might never be able to marry her?” said Jerome, with almost an +accent of wonder.</p> + +<p>The Colonel whistled and said no more, for just then Belinda Lamb +and Paulina Maria came up, holding their petticoats high out of the +slush.</p> + +<p>The two men walked on to Upham village, the Colonel straight, as +if at the head of a battalion, though his lungs pumped hard at every +step, holding back his square shoulders, protruding his tight +broadcloth, swinging his stick airily, Jerome at his side, burdened +like a peasant, with his sheaf of cut leather, but holding up his +head like a prince.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXXII</h4> + +<p>Lucina and her mother were away some three months; it was late +spring when they returned. It had been told in Upham that Lucina was +quite well, but when people saw her they differed as to her +appearance. “She looks dreadful delicate now, accordin' to my +way of thinkin',” some of the women, spying sharply upon her +from their sitting-room windows and their meeting-house pews, +reported.</p> + +<p>Jerome saw her for the first time after her return when she +followed her father and mother up the aisle one Sunday in May when +all the orchards were white. He thought, with a great throb of joy, +that she looked quite well, that she must be well. If the red and +white of her cheeks was a little too clear, he did not appreciate it. +She was all in white, like the trees, with some white blossoms and +plumes on her hat.</p> + +<p>After meeting, he lingered a little on the porch, though Elmira +was walking on, with frequent pauses turning her head and looking for +him. However, when Lucina appeared, he did not get the kindly glance +for which he had hoped. She was talking so busily with Mrs. Doctor +Prescott that she did not seem to see him, but the color on her +cheeks was deeper. Jerome joined his sister hastily and went home +quite contented, thinking Lucina was very well.</p> + +<p>However, in a few weeks' time he began to hear whispers to the +contrary. Sometimes Lucina did not go to meeting; still, she was seen +out frequently riding and walking. When Jerome caught a glimpse of +her he strove to shut away the knowledge that she did not look well +from his own consciousness. But when Lucina had been at home six +weeks she took a sudden turn for the better, which could have been +dated accurately from a certain morning when she met Colonel Jack +Lamson, she being out riding and he walking. He kept pace with the +slow amble of her little white horse for some distance, sometimes +grasping the bridle and stopping in a shady place to talk more at +ease.</p> + +<p>When Lucina got home that noon her mother noticed a change in her. +“You look better than you have done for weeks,” said +she.</p> + +<p>“I enjoyed my ride,” Lucina said, with a smile and a +blush which her mother could not fathom. The girl ate a dinner which +gladdened her father's heart; afterwards she went up to her chamber, +and presently came down with her hat on and her silk work-bag on her +arm.</p> + +<p>“I am going to take one of my chair-covers over to Aunt +Camilla's,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Well, walk slowly,” said her mother, trying to +conceal her delight lest it betray her past anxiety. Lucina had not +touched her embroidery for weeks, nor stepped out-of-doors of her own +accord.</p> + +<p>When she was gone her father and mother looked at each other. +“She's better,” Eben said, with a catch in his voice.</p> + +<p>“I haven't seen her so bright for weeks,” replied +Abigail. She had a puzzled look in spite of her satisfaction. That +night she ascertained through wariest soundings that Lucina had not +met Jerome when riding in the morning. She had suspected something, +though she scarcely knew what. Lucina's secrecy lately had deceived +even her mother. She had begun to think that the girl had not been as +much in earnest in her love affair as she had thought, and was +drooping from some other cause.</p> + +<p>When Lucina revealed with innocent readiness that she had met +Colonel Lamson that morning and talked with him, and with no one +else, Abigail could make nothing of it.</p> + +<p>However, Lucina from that day on improved. She took up her little +tasks; she seemed quite as formerly, only, possibly, somewhat older +and more staid.</p> + +<p>The Squire thought that her recovery was due to a certain bitter +medicine which Doctor Prescott had given her, and often extolled it +to his wife. “It is singular that medicine should work like a +flash of lightning after she had been taking it for weeks with no +effect,” thought Abigail, but she said nothing.</p> + +<p>One afternoon, not long after her talk with Colonel Lamson, Lucina +met Jerome face to face in the road, and stopped and held out her +hand to him. “How do you do?” she said, paling and +blushing, and yet with a sweet confidence which was new in her +manner.</p> + +<p>Jerome bowed low, but did not offer his hand. She held out hers +persistently.</p> + +<p>“I can't shake hands,” he said, “mine is stained +with leather; it smells of it, too.”</p> + +<p>“I am not afraid of leather,” Lucina returned, +gently.</p> + +<p>“I am,” Jerome said, with a defiance in which there +was no bitterness. Then, as Lucina still looked at him and held out +her hand, with an indescribable air of pretty, childish insistence +and womanly pleading, her blue eyes being sober almost to tears, he +motioned her to wait a moment, and swung over the fence and down the +road-side, which was just there precipitous, to the brook-bed. He got +down on his knees, plunged his hands into the water, like a golden +net-work in the afternoon light, washed his hands well, and returned +to Lucina. She laid her little hand in his, but she shook her head, +smiling. “I liked it better the other way,” said she.</p> + +<p>“I couldn't touch your hand with mine like that.”</p> + +<p>“You would give me more if you let me give you something +sometimes,” said Lucina, with a pretty, sphinx-like look at him +as she drew her hand away.</p> + +<p>Jerome wondered what she had meant after they had separated. Acute +as he was, and of more masterly mind than she, he was at a loss, for +she had touched that fixed idea which sways us all to greater or less +degree and some to delusion. Jerome, with his one principle of +giving, could not even grasp a problem which involved taking.</p> + +<p>He puzzled much over it, then decided, not with that lenient +slighting, as in other cases when womankind had vexed him with blind +words, but with a fond reverence, as for some angelic mystery, that +it was because Lucina was a girl. “Maybe girls are given to +talking in that riddlesome kind of way,” thought Jerome.</p> + +<p>He was blissfully certain upon one point, at all events. Lucina's +whole manner had given evidence to a confidence and understanding +upon her part.</p> + +<p>“She knows what I am doing,” he told himself. +“She knows how I am working, and she is contented and willing +to wait. She knows, but she isn't bound.” Jerome had not +dreamed that Lucina's indisposition had had aught to do with distress +of mind upon his account.</p> + +<p>Now he fell upon work as if it had been a veritable dragon of old, +which he must slay to rescue his princess. He toiled from earliest +dawn until far dark, and not with hands only. Still he did not +neglect his gratuitous nursing and doctoring. He saved like a miser, +though not at his mother's and sister's expense. He himself would +taste, in those days, no butter, no sugar, no fresh meat, no bread of +fine flour, but he saw to it that is mother and Elmira were well +provided.</p> + +<p>When winter came again, he used to hasten secretly along the road, +not wishing to meet Lucina for a new reason—lest she discover +how thin his coat was against the wintry blast, how thin his shoes +against the snow.</p> + +<p>“I never thought Jerome was so close,” Elmira +sometimes said to her mother.</p> + +<p>“He ain't close, he's got an object,” returned Ann, +with a shrewd, mysterious look.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, mother?”</p> + +<p>“Nothin'.”</p> + +<p>Elmira's and Lawrence's courtship progressed after the same +fashion. If Doctor Prescott suspected anything he made no sign. +Lawrence was attending patients regularly with his father and reading +hard.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, during his occasional calls upon Elmira, he saw Jerome. +The two young men, when they met on the road, exchanged covertly +cordial courtesies; a sort of non-committal friendship was struck up +between them. Lawrence was the means of introducing Jerome to a new +industry, of which he might otherwise never have heard.</p> + +<p>“Father and I were on the old Dale road this morning,” +he said, “and there is a fine cranberry-meadow there on the +left, if anybody wants to improve it. There's plenty of chance for +drainage from that little stream that runs into Graystone, and it's +sheltered from the frost. Old Jonathan Hawkins owns it; we went +there—his wife is sick—and he said he used to sell +berries off it, but it had run down. He said he'd be glad to let +somebody work it on shares, just allowing him for the use of the +land. He's too old to bother with it himself, and he is pretty well +straitened for money. There's money in it, I guess.”</p> + +<p>Jerome listened, and the next day went over to Jonathan Hawkins's +place, on the old Dale road, and made his bargain. Some of his work +on the cranberry-meadow was done before light, his lantern moving +about the misty expanse like a marsh candle. When the berries were +ripe he employed children to pick them, John Upham's among the rest. +He cleared quite a sum by this venture, and added it to his store. In +two years' time he had saved enough money for his mill, and early in +the fall had the lumber all ready. He had engaged one carpenter from +Dale; he thought that he could build the mill himself with his help, +and that of some extra hands for raising.</p> + +<p>On the evening before the day on which he expected to begin work +he went to see Adoniram Judd. The Judds lived off the main road, in a +field connected with it by a cart-path. Their house, after the +commonest village pattern—a long cottage with two windows on +either side of the front door—stood closely backed up against a +wood of pines and larches. The wind was cold, and the sound of it in +the evergreens was like a far-off halloo of winter. The house had a +shadowy effect in waning moonlight, the walls were mostly gray, being +only streaked high on the sheltered sides with old white paint.</p> + +<p>Since Paulina Maria could not afford to have a coat of new paint +on her house, she had a bitter ambition, from motives of tidiness and +pride, to at least remove all traces of the old. She felt that the +chief sting of present deprivation lay in the evidence of its +contrast with former plenty. She hated the image in her memory of her +cottage glistening with the white gloss of paint, and would have +weakened it if she could. Paulina Maria accordingly, standing on a +kitchen-chair, had scrubbed with soap and sand the old paint-streaks +as high as her long arms would reach, and had, at times, when his +rheumatism would permit, set her tall husband to the task. The paint, +which was difficult to remove by any but its natural +effacers—the long courses of nature—was one of those +minor material antagonisms of life which keep the spirit whetted for +harder ones.</p> + +<p>Paulina Maria Judd had many such; when the pricks of fate were too +firm set against her struggling feet she saved herself from the +despair of utter futility by taking soap and water and sand, and +going forth to attack the paint on her house walls, and also the +front door-stone worn in frequent hollows for the collection of dirt +and dust.</p> + +<p>This evening, when Jerome drew near, he saw a long rise of back +over the door-step, and a swiftly plying shoulder and arm. Paulina +Maria looked up without ceasing when Jerome stood beside her.</p> + +<p>“You're working late,” he said, with an attempt at +pleasantry.</p> + +<p>“I have to do my cleanin' late or not at all,” replied +Paulina Maria, in her cold, calm voice. She rubbed more soap on her +cloth.</p> + +<p>“Uncle Adoniram at home?” Jerome had always called +Adoniram “Uncle,” though he was his father's cousin.</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“I want to see him a minute about something.”</p> + +<p>“You'll have to go round to the back door. I can't have more +dirt tracked into this while it's wet.”</p> + +<p>Jerome went around the house to the back door. As he passed the +lighted sitting-room windows he saw a monstrous shadow with steadily +moving hands on the curtain. He fumbled his way through the lighted +room, in which sat Adoniram Judd closing shoes and his son Henry +knitting. When the door opened Henry, whose shadow Jerome had seen on +the window-pane, looked up with the vacant peering of the blind, but +his fingers never ceased twirling the knitting-needles.</p> + +<p>“How are you?” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>Adoniram returned his salutation without rising, and bade him take +a chair. Henry spoke not at all, and bent his dim eyes again over his +knitting without a smile. Henry Judd had the lank height of his +father, and his blunt elongation of face and features, informed by +his mother's spirit. The result in his expression was an absolute +ferocity instead of severity of gloom, a fury of resentment against +his fate, instead of that bitter leaning towards it which is the acme +of defiance.</p> + +<p>Henry Judd bent his heavy, pale brows over the miserable feminine +work to which he was forced. His long hands were white as a girl's, +and revealed their articulation as they moved; his face, +transparently pale, showed a soft furze of young beard on cheek and +chin.</p> + +<p>“How are you, Henry?” asked Jerome.</p> + +<p>Henry made no reply, only scowled more gloomily. Paulina Maria's +ardent severity of Christianity had produced in her son, under his +first stress of life, a fierce rebound. To no word of Scripture would +Henry Judd resort for comfort; he never bent knee in prayer, and +would not be led, even by his mother's authority, to meeting on +Sunday. The voice of his former mates, who had with him no sympathy +of like affliction, filled him with a sullen rage of injury. He was +somewhat younger than Jerome, but had seemed formerly much attracted +to him. Now he had not spoken to him for a year.</p> + +<p>Jerome, when he entered, had looked happy and eager, as if he was +burdened with some pleasant news. Now his expression changed; he +looked at Adoniram, then at Henry, then at Adoniram again, and +motioned an inquiry with his lips. Adoniram shook his head sadly.</p> + +<p>Paulina Maria came in through the kitchen, where she had left her +scrubbing utensils, got an unfinished shoe, and sat down to her +binding. She did not notice Jerome again, and he sat frowning moodily +at the floor.</p> + +<p>“It is a cold night for the season,” remarked +Adoniram, at length, with an uneasy attempt at entertainment, to +which Jerome did not respond with much alacrity. He acted at first as +if he did not hear, then collected himself, said that it was cold, +and there might be a frost if the wind went down, and rose.</p> + +<p>“You ain't goin' so soon?” asked Adoniram, with slow +surprise.</p> + +<p>“I only ran over for a minute; I've got some work to +do,” muttered Jerome, and went out.</p> + +<p>He went along the ridgy cart-path across the field to the road, +but when he reached it he stopped short. He stood for ten minutes or +more, motionless, thinking so intently that it was as if his body +stood aside from his swift thought, then he returned to the Judd +house.</p> + +<p>He went around to the back door, but when he reached it he stopped +again. After a little he crept noiselessly back to the cart-path, and +so to the road again.</p> + +<p>But it was as if, when he reached the road, he met some unseen and +mighty arm of denial which barred it. He stopped there for the second +time. Then he went back again to the Judd house, and this time when +he reached the door he opened it and went in.</p> + +<p>When he entered the sitting-room, where Adoniram and Paulina Maria +and Henry were, they all looked up in astonishment.</p> + +<p>“Forgot anything?” inquired Adoniram.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” replied Jerome. Then he went on, speaking fast, +in a strained voice, which he tried hard to make casual. “There +was something I wanted to say. I've been thinking about Henry's eyes. +If—you want to take him to Boston, to that doctor, I've got the +money. I've got five hundred dollars you're welcome to. I believe you +said it would take that.” He looked straight at Paulina Maria +as he spoke, and she dropped her work and looked at him.</p> + +<p>Adoniram made a faint, gasping noise, then sat staring at them +both. Henry started, but knitted on as remorselessly as his own +fate.</p> + +<p>“How did you come by so much money?” asked Paulina +Maria, in her pure, severe voice.</p> + +<p>“I saved if from my earnings.”</p> + +<p>“What for?”</p> + +<p>“You'll be welcome to take it, and use it for +Henry.”</p> + +<p>“That ain't answering my question.”</p> + +<p>Jerome was silent.</p> + +<p>“You needn't answer if you don't want to,” said +Paulina Maria, “for I know. You've kept it dark from everybody +but Lawyer Means and your mother and Elmira, but your mother told me +a year ago. I haven't told a soul. You've been saving up this money +to build a mill with and—I've been over to your mother's this +afternoon—you are going to start it to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“I am not obliged to start it to-morrow,” said +Jerome.</p> + +<p>“You're obliged to for all me. Do you think I'll take that +money?”</p> + +<p>Jerome turned to Henry. “Henry, it's for you, and not your +mother,” said he. “Will you take it?”</p> + +<p>Henry, still knitting, shook his head.</p> + +<p>“I tell you there is no hurry about the mill. I can wait and +earn more. I give it to you freely.”</p> + +<p>“We shouldn't take it unless I give you a note of hand, +Jerome,” Adoniram interposed, in a quavering voice.</p> + +<p>Paulina Maria looked at her husband. “What is your note of +hand worth?” she asked, sternly.</p> + +<p>“Won't you take it, Henry? I've always thought a good deal +of you, and I don't want you to be blind,” Jerome said.</p> + +<p>Henry shook his head; there was an awful inexorableness with +himself displayed in his steady knitting.</p> + +<p>“There are things worse than blindness,” said Paulina +Maria. “Nobody shall sacrifice himself for my son. If our own +prayers and sacrifices are not sufficient, it is the will of the Lord +that he should suffer, and he will suffer.”</p> + +<p>“Take it, Henry,” pleaded Jerome, utterly disregarding +her.</p> + +<p>“Would you take it in my son's place?” demanded +Paulina Maria, suddenly. She looked fixedly at Jerome. “Answer +me,” said she.</p> + +<p>“That has nothing to do with it!” Jerome cried, +angrily. “He is going blind, and this money will cure him. If +you are his mother—”</p> + +<p>“Don't ask anybody to take even a kindness that you wouldn't +take yourself,” said Paulina Maria.</p> + +<p>Jerome flung out of the room without another word. When he got +out-of-doors, he found Adoniram at his elbow.</p> + +<p>“I want ye to know that I'm much obliged to ye, +J'rome,” he whispered. He felt for Jerome's hand and shook it. +“Thank ye, thank ye, J'rome,” he repeated, brokenly.</p> + +<p>“I don't want any thanks,” replied Jerome. +“Can't you take the money and make Henry go with you to Boston +and see the doctor, if she won't?”</p> + +<p>“It's no use goin' agin her, J'rome.”</p> + +<p>“I believe she's crazy.”</p> + +<p>“No, she ain't, J'rome—no, she ain't. She knows how +you saved up that money, an' she won't take it. She's made so she +can't take anybody else's sufferin' to ease hers, an' so's +Henry—he's like his mother.”</p> + +<p>“Can't you make her take it, Uncle Adoniram?”</p> + +<p>“She can't make herself take it; but I'm jest as much +obliged to ye, J'rome.”</p> + +<p>Adoniram was about to re-enter the house. “She'll wonder +where I be,” he muttered, but Jerome stopped him. “If I +do begin work on the mill to-morrow,” said he, “I sha'n't +be able to fetch and carry to Dale, nor to do as much work in Uncle +Ozias's shop. Do you suppose you can help out some?”</p> + +<p>“I can, if I'm as well as I be now, J'rome.”</p> + +<p>“Of course, you can earn more than you do now,” said +Jerome. That was really the errand upon which he had come to the +Judds that evening. He had been quite elated with the thought of the +pleasure it would give them, when the possibility of larger +service—Henry's cure by means of his cherished hoard—had +suddenly come to him.</p> + +<p>He arranged with Adoniram Judd that he should go to the shop the +next morning, then bade him good-night, and turned his own steps +thither.</p> + +<p>When he came in sight of Ozias Lamb's shop, its window was +throwing a long beam of light across the field creeping with dry +grass before the frosty wind. When Jerome opened the door, he started +to see Ozias seated upon his bench, his head bowed over and hidden +upon his idle hands. Jerome closed the door, then stood a moment +irresolute, staring at his uncle's dejected figure. “What's the +matter, Uncle Ozias?” he asked.</p> + +<p>Ozias did not speak, but made a curious, repellent motion with his +bowed shoulders.</p> + +<p>“Are you sick?”</p> + +<p>Again Ozias seemed to shunt him out of the place with that +speaking motion of his shoulder.</p> + +<p>Jerome went close to him. “Uncle Ozias, I want to know what +is the matter?” he said, then started, for suddenly Ozias +raised his face and looked at him, his eyes wild under his shaggy +grizzle of hair, his mouth twisted in a fierce laugh. “Want to +know, do ye?” he cried—“want to know? Well, I'll +tell ye. Look at me hard; I'm a sight. Look at me. Here's a man, +'most threescore years and ten, who's been willin' to work, an' has +worked, an' 'ain't been considered underwitted, who's been strugglin' +to keep a roof over his head an' his wife's, an' bread in their two +mouths; jest that, no more. He 'ain't had any children; nobody but +himself an' his wife, an' she contented with next to nothin'. Jest a +roof an' bread for them—jest that; an' he an able-bodied man, +that's worked like a dog—jest that; an' he's got to give it up. +Look at him, he's a sight for wise men an' fools.” Ozias +laughed.</p> + +<p>“What on earth do you mean, Uncle Ozias?”</p> + +<p>“Simon Basset is goin' to foreclose to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>Jerome stared at his uncle incredulously. “Why, I thought +you had earned plenty to keep the interest up of late years!” +he said.</p> + +<p>“There was more than present interest to pay; there was back +interest, and I've been behind on taxes, and there was an old doctor +bill, when I had the fever; an' that wa'n't all—I never told +ye, nor anybody. I was fool enough to sign a note for George Henry +Green, in Westbrook, some years ago. He come to me with tears in his +eyes, said he wouldn't care so much if it wa'n't for his wife an' +children; he'd got to raise the money, an' couldn't get nobody to +sign his note. I lost every dollar of it. It's been all I could do to +pay up, an' I couldn't keep even with the interest. I knew it was +comin'.”</p> + +<p>“How much interest do you owe?” asked Jerome, in an +odd voice. He was very pale.</p> + +<p>“Two hundred an' seventy dollars—it's twelve per +cent.”</p> + +<p>“And you can't raise it?”</p> + +<p>“Might as well try to raise the dead.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I can let you have it,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“You?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>His uncle looked at him with his sharp, strained eyes; then he +made a hoarse noise, between a sob and a cough. “Rob you of +that money you've been savin' to build your mill! We'll take to the +woods first!” he cried.</p> + +<p>“I've saved a good deal more than two hundred and seventy +dollars.”</p> + +<p>“You want every dollar of it for your mill. Don't talk to +me.”</p> + +<p>“I'd want every dollar if I was going to build it, but I am +not,” said Jerome.</p> + +<p>“What d'ye mean? Ain't ye goin' to start it +to-morrow?”</p> + +<p>“No, I've decided not to.”</p> + +<p>“Why not, I'd like to know?”</p> + +<p>“I'm going to wait until the Dale railroad seems a little +nearer. I shouldn't have much business for the mill now if I built +it, and there's no use in its standing rotting. I'm going to wait a +little.”</p> + +<p>Poor Ozias Lamb looked at him with his keen old eyes, which were, +perhaps, dulled a little by the selfishness of his sore distress. +“D'ye mean what ye say, J'rome?” he asked, wistfully, in +a tone that was new to him.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I do; you can have the money as well as +not.”</p> + +<p>“I'll give ye my note, an' ye can have this piece of land +an' the shop—this ain't mortgaged—as security, an' I'll +pay ye—fair per cent.,” Ozias said, hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>“All right,” returned Jerome.</p> + +<p>“An',” Ozias faltered, “I'll work my fingers to +the bone; I'll steal—but you shall have your money back before +you are ready to begin the mill.”</p> + +<p>“That may be quite a while,” Jerome said, laughing as +openly as a child. His uncle suspected nothing, though once he could +scarcely have been deceived.</p> + +<p>“I've been round to Uncle Adoniram's to-night,” Jerome +added, “to get him to come here to-morrow and help with that +lot of shoes. I'm going to take up with an offer I've had to cut some +wood on shares. I think I can make some money out of it, and it'll be +a change from so much shoemaking, for a while.”</p> + +<p>“You never was the build for a shoemaker,” said his +uncle.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXXIII</h4> + +<p>Jerome gave his mother the same reason which he had given Ozias +for the postponement of the mill.</p> + +<p>“It seems to me it's dreadful queer you didn't find out it +wa'n't best till the day before you were goin' to start work on +it,” said she, but she suspected nothing.</p> + +<p>As for Elmira, she manifested little interest in that or anything +else. She was not well that autumn. Elmira's morbidly sensitive +temperament was working her harm under the trial of circumstances. +Extreme love, sensitiveness, and self-depreciation in some natures +produce jealousy as unfailingly as a chemical combination its given +result. Elmira, though constantly spurring herself into trust in her +lover, was again jealous of him and Lucina Merritt.</p> + +<p>Lawrence had been seen riding and walking with Lucina. He had +called at the Squire's on several evenings, when Elmira had hoped +that he might visit her. She was too proud to mention the matter to +Lawrence, but she began to be galled into active resentment by her +clandestine betrothal. Why should not everybody know that she had a +beau like other girls; that Lawrence was hers, not Lucina Merritt's? +Elmira wished, recklessly and defiantly, that people could find out +every time that Lawrence came to see her. Whenever she heard a hint +to the effect that he was attentive to her, she gave it significance +by her bearing. Possibly in that way she herself precipitated +matters.</p> + +<p>She had not been feeling well for some time, having every +afternoon a fever-ache in her limbs and back, and a sensation of +weariness which almost prostrated her, when, one evening, Lawrence +came, and, an hour afterwards, his father.</p> + +<p>Elmira never forgot, as long as she lived, Doctor Prescott's +handsome, coldly wrathful old face, as he stood in the parlor door +looking at her and Lawrence. He had come straight in, without +knocking. Mrs. Edwards had gone to bed, Jerome was not at home.</p> + +<p>Lawrence had been sitting on the sofa with Elmira, his arm around +her waist. He arose with her, still clasping her, and confronted his +father. “Well, father,” he said, with an essay at his gay +laugh, though he blushed hotly, and then was pale. As for Elmira, she +would have slipped to the floor had it not been for her lover's +arm.</p> + +<p>Doctor Prescott stood looking at them.</p> + +<p>“Father, this is the girl I am going to marry,” +Lawrence said, finally, with a proudly defiant air.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” replied the doctor; “but when you +marry her, it will be without one penny from me, in realization or +anticipation. You will have only what your wife brings +you.”</p> + +<p>“I can support my wife myself,” returned Lawrence, +with a look which was the echo of his father's own.</p> + +<p>“So you can, before long, at the expense of your father's +practice, which he himself has given you the ability to +undermine,” said the doctor, in his cold voice. “I bid +you both good-evening. You, my son, can come home within a half-hour, +or you will find the doors locked.” With that the doctor went +out; there was a creak of cramping wheels, and a lantern-flash in the +window, then a roll, and clatter of hoofs.</p> + +<p>Elmira showed more decision of spirit than her lover had dreamed +was in her. She drove him away, in spite of his protestations. +“All is over between us, if you don't go at once—at +once,” said she, with a strange, hysterical force which +intimidated him.</p> + +<p>“Elmira, you know I will be true to you, dear. You know I +will marry you, in spite of father and the whole world,” vowed +Lawrence; but he went at her insistence, not knowing, indeed, what +else to do.</p> + +<p>The next day Elmira wrote him a letter setting him free. When she +had sent the letter she sat working some hours longer, then she went +up-stairs and to bed. That night she was in a high fever.</p> + +<p>Lawrence came, but she did not know it. He had a long talk with +Jerome, and almost a quarrel. The poor young fellow, in his wrath and +shame of thwarted manliness, would fain have gone to that excess of +honor which defeats its own ends. He insisted upon marrying Elmira +out of hand. “I'll never give her up—never, I'll tell you +that. I've told father so to his face!” cried Lawrence. When he +went up-stairs with Jerome and found Elmira in the uneasy stupor of +fever, he seemed half beside himself.</p> + +<p>“I'm to blame, father's to blame. Oh, poor girl—poor +girl,” he groaned out, when he and Jerome were down-stairs +again.</p> + +<p>That night Lawrence had a stormy scene with his father. He burst +upon him in his study and upbraided him to his face. “You've +almost killed her; she's got a fever. If she lives through it I am +going to marry her!” he shouted.</p> + +<p>The doctor was pounding some drugs in his mortar. He brought the +pestle down with a dull thud, as he replied, without looking at his +son. “You will marry her or not, as you choose, my son. I have +not forbidden you; I have simply stated the conditions, so far as I +am concerned.”</p> + +<p>The next morning, before light, Lawrence was over to see Elmira. +After breakfast his mother came and remained the greater part of the +day. Elmira grew worse rapidly. Since Doctor Prescott was out of the +question, under the circumstances, a physician from Westbrook was +summoned. Elmira was ill several weeks; Lawrence haunted the house; +his mother and Paulina Maria did much of the nursing, as Mrs. Edwards +was unable. Neither Lawrence nor Mrs. Prescott ever fairly knew if +Doctor Prescott was aware that she nursed the sick girl. If he was, +he made no sign. He also said nothing more to Lawrence about his +visits.</p> + +<p>It was nearly spring before Elmira was quite recovered. Her +illness had cost so much that Jerome had not been able to make good +the deficit occasioned by his loan to Ozias Lamb, as he would +otherwise have been. He postponed his mill again until autumn, and +worked harder than ever. That summer he tried the experiment of +raising some of the fine herbs, such as summer savory, +sweet-marjoram, and thyme, for the market. Elmira helped in that. +There is always a relief to the soul in bringing it into intimate +association with the uniformity of nature. Elmira, bending over the +bed of herbs, with the sweet breath of them in her nostrils, gained a +certain quiet in her unrest of youth and passion. It was as if she +kept step with a mightier movement which tended towards eternity. She +had persisted, in spite of Lawrence's entreaties, in her +determination that he should cease all attention to her. He had gone +away, scarcely understanding, almost angry, with her, but she was +firm, with a firmness which she herself had not known to be within +her capacity.</p> + +<p>She looked older that summer, and there was a staidness in her +manner. She always worked over the herb-beds with her back to the +road, lest by any chance she should see Lawrence riding by with +Lucina.</p> + +<p>“I know what you're working so extra hard for,” she +told Jerome one day, with wistful, keen eyes upon his face.</p> + +<p>“I've always worked hard, haven't I?” he said, +evasively.</p> + +<p>“Yes, you've worked hard, but this is extra hard. Jerome +Edwards, you think, maybe, if you can earn enough, you can marry her +by-and-by.”</p> + +<p>Jerome colored, but he met his sister's gaze freely. “Well, +suppose I do,” said he.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Jerome, do you suppose it's any use—do you +suppose she will?” Elmira cried out, in a kind of incredulous +pity.</p> + +<p>“I know she will.”</p> + +<p>“Did she say so—did she say she would wait? Oh, +Jerome!”</p> + +<p>“Do you think I would bind her to wait?”</p> + +<p>“But she must have owned she liked you. Did she?”</p> + +<p>“That's between her and me.”</p> + +<p>“Don't you feel afraid that she may turn to somebody else? +Don't you, Jerome?” Elmira questioned him with a feverish +eagerness which puzzled him.</p> + +<p>“Not with her,” he answered.</p> + +<p>Elmira felt comforted by his faith in a way which he did not +suspect. It strengthened her own. Perhaps, after all, Lawrence would +not care for Lucina; perhaps he would work and wait for her, as, +indeed, he had vowed to do. After that Elmira worked over the +herb-beds with her face to the road. When Belinda Lamb reported that +Lawrence and Lucina had been out riding, and Ann said, with a bitter +screw of her nervous little face, “Fish in shallow waters bites +easy, especially when there's gold on the hook,” she was not +much disturbed.</p> + +<p>Ann fully abetted her daughter in her resolution to dismiss her +suitor, after his father's manifestation. “I guess there's as +good fish in the sea as ever was caught,” said she, “and +I guess Doctor Seth Prescott 'll find out that. If there's them he +don't think fit to tie his son's shoestrings, there's them that feels +above tyin' 'em.”</p> + +<p>In September Jerome began work on his mill. He had never been so +hopeful in his life. It cost him more self-denial not to go to Lucina +and speak out his hope than ever before. He queried with himself if +he could not go, then shut his heart, opening like a mouth of hunger +for happiness, hard against it. “The mill may burn down; they +may not buy the logs. I've got to wait,” he told himself.</p> + +<p>By early spring the mill was in full operation. The railroad +through Dale was surveyed, and work was to be commenced on it the +next fall, and Jerome had the contract for the sleepers. Again he +wondered if he should not go to Lucina and tell her, and again he +resolved to wait. He had made up his mind that he would not speak +until a fixed income was guaranteed by at least a year's test.</p> + +<p>“I wish they would put railroads through for us every +year,” he said to the man whom he had secured to help him. He +was an elderly man from Granby, who had owned a mill there, which had +been sold three years before. He had a tidy sum in bank, and people +wondered at his going to work again.</p> + +<p>“I 'ain't got so very many years to work,” he told +Jerome when he sought to hire him, “an' I thought I'd give up +for good three years ago; thought I'd take it easy, an' have a +comfortable old age. I got fifty dollars more'n I expected when I +sold out the mill, an' I laid it out for extras for mother an' me; +bought her a sofy an' stuffed rockin'-chair, a new set of dishes, an' +some teaspoons, an' some strainers for the windows agin fly-time. +‘Now, mother,’ says I, ‘we'll jest lay down in the +daytime, an' rock, an' eat with our new spoons out of our new dishes, +an' keep the flies out, the rest of our lives.’</p> + +<p>“But mother she looked real sober. ‘What's the +matter?’ says I.</p> + +<p>“‘Nothin',’ says she, ‘only I was thinkin' +about your father.’</p> + +<p>“‘What about him?’ says I.</p> + +<p>“‘Nothin',’ says she, ‘only I remember +mother's sayin', when he quit work, he wouldn't live long. She always +said it was a bad sign.’</p> + +<p>“That settled me. I remembered father didn't live six months +after he quit work, an' grandfather before him, an' I'd every reason +to think it run in the family. So says I to mother, ‘Well, I'm +havin' too good a time livin' to throw it away settin' in +rockin'-chairs an' layin' down in the daytime. If work is goin' to +keep up the picnic a while longer, why, I'm goin' to work.’</p> + +<p>“So the very next day I hired out to the man that bought my +mill, an' there I've worked ever since, till now, when he's got his +son he wants to give the job to. I'll go with ye, an' welcome, for a +spell. Mother ain't afeard to stay alone, an' I'll go home over +Sundays. Ye need somebody who knows somethin' about a mill, if ye're +green at it yourself.”</p> + +<p>This man, whose name was Martin Cheeseman, was hoary with age, but +far from being past his prime of work. He had a large and shambling +strength of body and limb, like an old bear, and his sinews were, of +their kind, as tough as those of the ancient woods which he +severed.</p> + +<p>One afternoon, when the mill had been in operation about two +months, Squire Eben Merritt, John Jennings, and Colonel Lamson came +through from the thick woods into the clearing. The Squire bore his +fishing-rod and dangled a string of fine trout. John Jennings had a +book under his arm.</p> + +<p>When they emerged into the clearing, the Colonel sat down upon a +stump and wiped his red face. The veins in his forehead and neck were +swollen purple, and he breathed hard. “It's hotter than seven +devils,” he gasped.</p> + +<p>“Devils are supposed to be acclimated,” John Jennings +remarked, softly. He stood looking about him. The Squire had gone +into the mill, where Jerome was at work.</p> + +<p>Martin Cheeseman was outside, shearing from lengths of logs some +last straggling twigs before they were taken into the mill for +sawing. The old man's hat had lost its brim, and sat back on his head +like a crown; some leaves were tangled in his thick, gray fleece of +hair and beard. His shaggy arms were bare; he wielded his hatchet +with energy, grimacing at every stroke.</p> + +<p>“He might be the god Pan putting his fallen trees out of +their last agonies,” said Jennings, dreamily, and yet half +laughing, as if at himself, for the fancy.</p> + +<p>The Colonel only groaned in response. He fanned himself with his +hat. Jennings stood, backed up against a tree, surveying things, his +fine, worn face full of a languid humor and melancholy.</p> + +<p>The place looked like a sylvan slaughter-field. The ground was +thick-set with the mangled and hacked stumps of great chestnut-trees, +and strewn with their lifeless limbs and trunks, as with members of +corpses; every stump, as Jennings surveyed it with fanciful gaze, +looked with its spread of supporting roots upon the surface, +curiously like a great foot of a woody giant, which no murderer could +tear loose from its hold in its native soil.</p> + +<p>All the clearing was surrounded with thickets of light-green +foliage, amidst which clouds of white alder unfolded always in the +soft wind with new surfaces of sweetness.</p> + +<p>However, all the fragrant evidence of the new leaves and blossoms +was lost and overpowered here. One perceived only that pungent aroma +of death which the chestnut-trees gave out from their fresh wounds +and their spilled sap of life. One also could scarcely hear the +spring birds for the broad whir of the saw-mill, which seemed to cut +the air as well as the logs. Even the gurgling rush of the brook was +lost in it, but not the roar of water over the dam.</p> + +<p>The Squire came out of the mill, whither he had been to say a good +word to Jerome, and stood by Martin Cheeseman. “Lord,” he +said, “think of the work those trees had to grow, and the fight +they made for their lives, and then along comes a man with an axe, +and breaks in a minute what he can never make nor mend! What d'ye +mean by it, eh?”</p> + +<p>Martin Cheeseman looked at him with shrewd, twinkling eyes. He was +waist-deep in the leafy twigs and boughs as in a nest. +“Well,” he said, “we're goin' to turn 'em into +somethin' of more account than trees, an' that's railroad-sleepers; +an' that's somethin' the way Natur' herself manages, I reckon. Look +at the caterpillar an' the butterfly. Mebbe a railroad-sleeper is a +butterfly of a tree, lookin' at it one way.”</p> + +<p>“That's all very well, but how do you suppose the tree +feels?” said the Squire, hotly.</p> + +<p>“Not bein' a tree, an' never havin' been a tree, so's to +remember it, I ain't able to say,” returned the old man, in a +dry voice; “but, mebbe, lookin' at it on general principles, it +ain't no more painful for a tree to be cut down into a +railroad-sleeper than it is for a man to be cut down into an +angel.”</p> + +<p>John Jennings laughed.</p> + +<p>“You'd make a good lawyer on the defence,” said the +Squire, good-naturedly, “but, by the Lord Harry, if all the +trees of the earth were mine, men might live in tents and travel in +caravans till doomsday for all I'd cut one down!”</p> + +<p>The Colonel and Jennings did not go into the mill, but they nodded +and sang out good-naturedly to Jerome as they passed. He could not +leave—he had an extra man to feed the saw that day, and had +been rushing matters since daybreak—but he looked out at them +with a radiant face from his noisy interior, full of the crude light +of fresh lumber and sawdust.</p> + +<p>The Squire's friendly notice had pleased his very soul.</p> + +<p>“That's a smart boy,” panted the Colonel, when they +had passed.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir; he's the smartest boy in this town,” +assented the Squire, with a nod of enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>Not long after they emerged from the woods into the road they +reached Jennings's house, and he left his friends.</p> + +<p>The Colonel lived some quarter of a mile farther on. He had +reached his gate, when he said, abruptly, to the Squire, “Look +here, Eben, you remember a talk we had once about Jerome Edwards and +your girl?”</p> + +<p>The Squire stared at him. “Yes; why?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing, only seeing him just now set me to wondering if +you were still of the same mind about it.”</p> + +<p>“If being willing that Lucina should have the man she sets +her heart on is the same mind, of course I am; but, good Lord, Jack, +that's all over! He hasn't been to the house for a year, and Lucina +never thinks of him!”</p> + +<p>Colonel Lamson laughed wheezily. “Well, that's all I wanted +to know, Eben.”</p> + +<p>“What made you ask me that?” asked the Squire, +suspiciously.</p> + +<p>“Nothing; seeing Jerome and his mill brought it to mind. +Well, I'll be along to-night.”</p> + +<p>“That's all over,” the Squire called out again to the +Colonel, going slowly up the hill to the house door. However, when he +got home, he questioned Abigail.</p> + +<p>“I haven't heard Lucina mention Jerome Edwards's name for +months,” said she, “and he never comes here; but she +seems perfectly contented and happy. I think that's all +over.”</p> + +<p>“I thought so,” said Eben.</p> + +<p>Abigail was preparing the punch, for the Squire expected his +friends that evening. Jennings came first; some time after Means and +Lamson arrived. They had a strange air of grave excitement and +elation.</p> + +<p>When the game of cards was fairly under way, the Colonel played in +a manner which confused them all.</p> + +<p>“By the Lord Harry, Jack, this is the third time you've +thrown away an honor!” the Squire roared out, finally. +“Is it the punch that's gone to your head?”</p> + +<p>“No, Eben,” replied the Colonel, in a hoarse voice, +with solemn and oratorical cadences, as if he rose to address a +meeting. “It is not the punch. I am <em>used</em> to punch. It +is money. I've just had word that—that old mining stock I +bought when I was in the service, and haven't thought worth more than +a New England sheep farm, has been sold for sixty-five thousand +dollars.”</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXXIV</h4> + +<p>The next week Colonel Lamson went to Boston, and took his friend +John Jennings with him. Whether the trip was purely a business one, +or was to be regarded in the light of a celebration of the Colonel's +good fortune, never transpired.</p> + +<p>Upham people exchanged wishes to the effect that John Jennings and +Colonel Lamson might not take, in their old age, to sowing again the +wild oats of their youth. “John Jennings drank himself most +into his grave; an' as for Colonel Lamson, it's easy enough to see +that he's always had his dram, when he felt like it. If they get home +sober an' alive with all that money, they're lucky,” people +said. It was the general impression in Upham that the Colonel had +gone to Boston with his sixty-five thousand dollars in his pocket. +Lawyer Means's ancient relative, who served as house-keeper, was +reported to have confessed that she was on tenter-hooks about it.</p> + +<p>However, in a week the Colonel and his friend returned, and the +most anxious could find nothing in their appearance to justify their +gloomy fears. They had never looked so spick and span and prosperous +within the memory of Upham, for both of them were clad in glossiest +new broadcloth, of city cut, and both wore silk bell-hats, which gave +them the air of London dandies. Jennings, moreover, displayed in his +fine shirt-front a new diamond pin, and the Colonel stepped out with +stately flourishes of a magnificent gold-headed cane.</p> + +<p>Soon it was told on good authority that the lawyer's house-keeper, +and John Jennings's also, had a present from the Colonel of a rich +black satin gown, that the lawyer had a gold-headed cane—which +he was, indeed, seen to carry, holding it stiff and straight, like a +roll of parchment, with never a flourish—and the Squire a gun +mounted in silver, and such a fishing-rod as had never been seen in +the village. When Lucina Merritt came to meeting the Sunday after the +Colonel's return, there glistened in her little ears, between her +curls, some diamond ear-drops, and Abigail wore a shawl which had +never been seen in Upham before.</p> + +<p>Lawyer Means's female relative, and Jennings's house-keeper, said, +emphatically, that they didn't believe that either of them drank a +drop of anything stronger than water all the time they were gone.</p> + +<p>The Colonel was radiant with satisfaction; he went about with his +face beaming as unreservedly as a child's who has gotten a treasure. +He often confided to Means his perfect delight in his new wealth. +“Hang it all, Means,” he would say, “I wouldn't +find a word of fault, not a word, I'd strut like a peacock, if that +poor little girl I married was only alive, and I could buy her a +damned thing out of it; then there's something else, +Means—” the Colonel's face would take on an expression of +mingled seriousness and humor—“Means,” he would +conclude, in a hoarse, facetious whisper, “I bought those +stocks when I was first married; thought I'd got to pitch in and +provide for my family, and in order to save enough money to get them +I ran in debt for a new uniform and some cavalry boots and a pony, +and damned if I know if I ever paid for them.”</p> + +<p>Jerome, going to the mill one day shortly afterwards, reached the +Means house as the Colonel was coming down the hill. “Stop a +moment,” the Colonel called, and Jerome waited until he reached +him. “Fine day,” said the Colonel.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir, 'tis,” replied Jerome; then he added, +“I was glad to hear of your good fortune, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Suppose,” said the Colonel, abruptly, “that +twenty-five thousand of it had come to you, what would you have done +with it?”</p> + +<p>Jerome looked at him in a bewildered fashion. “It wasn't +mine, and there's no use talking about it,” he said.</p> + +<p>“What would you do with it? Out with it! Would you stick to +that bargain you made in Robinson's that evening?”</p> + +<p>Jerome hesitated.</p> + +<p>“You needn't be afraid to speak,” urged the Colonel. +“If you'd stick to it, say so. I sha'n't call it any reflection +upon me; I haven't the slightest intention of giving twenty-five +thousand dollars to the poor, and if you've changed your mind, say +so.”</p> + +<p>“I haven't changed my mind, and I would stick to it,” +Jerome replied then.</p> + +<p>“And,” said the Colonel, “you are sticking to +that other resolution of yours, to work until you win a certain fair +lady, are you?”</p> + +<p>Jerome colored high. He was inclined to be indignant, but there +was a strange earnestness in the Colonel's manner.</p> + +<p>“I'm not the sort of fellow not to stick to a resolution of +that kind when I've once made it,” he replied, shortly.</p> + +<p>The Colonel chuckled. “Well, I didn't think you were,” +he returned—“didn't think you were, Jerome. That's all. +Good-day.” With that, to Jerome's utter astonishment, Colonel +Lamson trudged laboriously up the hill to the Means house again.</p> + +<p>“He must have come down just to ask me those +questions,” thought Jerome, and thought with more bewilderment +still that the Colonel must even have been watching for him. He had +no conception of his meaning, but he laughed to himself at the bare +fancy of twenty-five thousand dollars coming to him, and also at the +suggestion that he would not be true to his resolution to win Lucina. +Jerome was beginning to feel as if she were already won. The next +spring, if he continued to prosper, he had decided to speak to her, +and, as the months went on, nothing happened to discourage him.</p> + +<p>The next winter the snows were uncommonly heavy. They began before +Thanksgiving and came in thick storms. There were great drifts in all +the door-yards, the stone walls and fences were hidden, the trees +stood in deep, swirling hollows of snow. Now and then a shed-roof +broke under the frozen weight; one walked through the village street +as through clear-cut furrows of snow, all the shadows were blue, +there was a dazzle of glacier light over the whole village when the +sun arose. However, it was a fine winter for Jerome, as far as his +work was concerned. Wood is drawn easily on sleds, and the snow air +nerves one for sharp labors. Jerome calculated that by May he should +be not only doing a prosperous business, but should have a snug +little sum clear. Then he would delay no longer.</p> + +<p>On the nineteenth day of March came the last snow-storm, and the +worst of the season. Martin Cheeseman went home early. Jerome did not +stay in the mill long after he left. The darkness was settling down +fast, and he could do little by himself.</p> + +<p>Moreover, an intense eagerness to be at home seized him. He began +to imagine that something had happened to his mother or Elmira, and +imagination of evil was so foreign to him that it had almost the +force of conviction.</p> + +<p>He fell also to thinking of his father, inconsequently, as it +seemed, yet it was not so, for imagined disasters lead back by +retrograde of sequence to memories of real ones.</p> + +<p>He lived over again his frenzied search for his father, his +discovery of the hat on the shore of the deep pond. “Poor +father!” he muttered.</p> + +<p>All the way home this living anxiety for his mother and sister, +and this dead sorrow haunted him. He thought as he struggled through +the snow, his face bent before the drive of the sleet as before a +flail of ice, how often in all weathers his father had traversed this +same road, how his own feet could scarcely step out of his old +tracks. He thought how many a night, through such a storm as this, +his father had toiled wearily home, and with no such fire of youth +and hope in his heart to cheer him on. “Father must have given +up a long time before he died,” he said to himself.</p> + +<p>The imagination of his father plodding homeward in his old harness +of hopeless toil grew so strong that his own identity paled. He +seemed to lose all ambition and zeal, a kind of heredity of +discouragement overspread him. “I don't know but I'll have to +give up, finally, the way he did,” he muttered, panting under +the buffeting of the snow wind.</p> + +<p>He met no one on his way home. Once a loaded wood-sled came up +behind him with a faint creak and jingle of harness, then the +straining flanks of the horse, the cubic pile of wood shaded out of +shape by the snow, the humped back of the driver on the top, passed +out of sight, as behind a slanting white curtain. The village houses +receded through shifting distances of pale gloom; one could scarcely +distinguish the white slants of their roofs, and the lamp-lights +which shone out newly in some of the windows made rosy nimbuses.</p> + +<p>When Jerome drew near his own home he looked eagerly, and saw, +with relief, that the white thickness of the storm was suffused with +light opposite the kitchen windows.</p> + +<p>“Everything all right?” he asked, when he entered, +stamping and shaking himself.</p> + +<p>Elmira was toasting bread, and she turned her flushed face +wonderingly. “Yes; why shouldn't it be?” she said.</p> + +<p>“No reason why. It's an awful storm.”</p> + +<p>Ann was knitting fast, sitting over against a window thick with +clinging shreds of snow. Her face was in the shadow, but she looked +as if she had been crying. She did not speak when Jerome entered.</p> + +<p>“What ails mother?” he whispered to Elmira, following +her into the pantry when he had a chance.</p> + +<p>“She's been telling a dream she had last night about father, +and it made her feel bad. Hush!”</p> + +<p>When they were all seated at the supper-table, Ann, of her own +accord, began to talk again of her dream.</p> + +<p>“I've been tellin' your sister about a dream I had last +night,” said she, with a curious, tearful defiance, “an' +I'm goin' to tell you. It won't hurt you any to have your poor father +brought to mind once in a while.”</p> + +<p>“Of course you can tell it, mother, though I don't need that +to bring father to mind. I was thinking about him all the way +home,” Jerome answered.</p> + +<p>“Well, I guess you don't often think about him all the way +home. I guess you and your sister both don't think about your poor +father, that worked and slaved for you, enough to hurt you. I had a +dream last night that I 'ain't been able to get out of my mind all +day. I dreamt that I was in this room, an' it was stormin', jest as +it is now. I could hear the wind whistlin' an' howlin', an' the +windows were all thick with snow. I dreamt I had a little baby in my +arms that was sick; it was cryin' an' moanin', an' I was walkin' up +an' down, up an' down, tryin' to quiet it. I didn't have my +rheumatism, could walk as well as anybody. All of a sudden, as I was +walkin', I smelt flowers, an' there on the hearth-stone was a +rose-bush, all in bloom. I went up an' picked a rose, an' shook it in +the baby's face to please it, an' then I heard a strange noise, that +drowned out the wind in the chimney an' the baby's cryin'. It sounded +like cattle bellowing, dreadful loud and mournful. I laid the baby +down in the rockin'-chair, an' first thing I knew it wasn't there. +Instead of it there was a most beautiful bird, like a dove, as white +as snow. It flew 'round my head once, and then it was gone. I thought +it went up chimney.</p> + +<p>“The cattle bellowing sounded nearer, an' I could hear them +trampin'. I run to the front door, an' there they were, comin' down +the road, hundreds of 'em, horns a-tossin' an' tails a-lashin', +flingin' up the snow like water. I clapped to the front door, an' +bolted it, an' run into the parlor, an' looked out of the window, an' +there on the other side, as plain as I ever see it in my life, was +your father's face—there was my husband's face.</p> + +<p>“He didn't look a day older than when he left, an' his eyes +an' his mouth were smilin' as I hadn't seen 'em since he was a young +man.</p> + +<p>“‘Oh, Able!’ says I. ‘Oh, Abel!’ +An' then the face wa'n't there, an' I heard a noise behind me, an' +looked around.</p> + +<p>“I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that parlor. All the +chairs an' the sofa were covered with my weddin'-dress, that was made +over for Elmira; the window-curtains were made of it, an' the +table-spread. Thinks I, ‘How was there enough of that silk, +when we had hard work to get Elmira's dress out?’</p> + +<p>“Then I saw, in the middle of the room, a great long thing, +all covered over with silk, an' I thought it was a coffin. I went up +to it, an' there was Abel's hat on it, the one he wore when he went +away. I took the hat off, an' the weddin'-silk, an' there was a +coffin.</p> + +<p>“I thought it was Abel's. I raised the lid and looked. The +coffin was full of beautiful clear water, an' I could see through it +the bottom, all covered with bright gold dollars. I leant over it, +and there was my own face in the water, jest as plain as in a +lookin'-glass, an' there was Abel's beside it. Then I turned around +quick, an' there was Abel—there was my husband, standin' there +alive an' well. Then I woke up.”</p> + +<p>Ann ended with a hysterical sob. Jerome and Elmira exchanged +terrified glances.</p> + +<p>“That was a beautiful dream, mother,” Jerome said, +soothingly. “Now try to eat your supper.”</p> + +<p>“It's been so real all day. I feel as if—your father +had come an' gone again,” Ann sobbed.</p> + +<p>“Try and eat some of this milk-toast, mother; it's real +nice,” urged Elmira.</p> + +<p>But Ann could eat no supper. She seemed completely unstrung, for +some mysterious reason. They persuaded her to go to bed early; but +she was not asleep when they went up-stairs, about ten o'clock, for +she called out sharply to know if it was still snowing.</p> + +<p>“No, mother,” Jerome answered, “I have just +looked out, and there are some stars overhead. I guess the storm is +over.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Jerome, you don't suppose mother is going to be sick, +do you?” Elmira whispered, when they were on the stairs.</p> + +<p>“No, I guess she's only nervous about her dream. The storm +may have something to do with it, too.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Jerome, I feel exactly as if something was going to +happen!”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense,” said Jerome, laughing. “You are +nervous yourself. I'll give you and mother some valerian, both of +you.”</p> + +<p>“Jerome, I am <em>sure</em> something is going to +happen.”</p> + +<p>“It would be strange if something didn't. Something is +happening all over the earth with every breath we draw.”</p> + +<p>“Jerome, I mean to <em>us!</em>”</p> + +<p>Jerome gave his sister a little push into her room. “Go to +bed, and to sleep,” said he, “and leave your door open if +you're scared, and I'll leave mine.”</p> + +<p>Jerome himself could not get to sleep soon; once or twice Elmira +spoke to him, and he called back reassuringly, but his own nerves +were at a severe tension. “What has got into us all?” he +thought, impatiently. It was midnight before he lost himself, and he +had slept hardly an hour when he wakened with a great start.</p> + +<p>A wild clamor, which made his blood run cold, came from below. He +leaped out of bed and pulled on his trousers, hearing all the while, +as in a dream, his mother's voice shrilling higher and higher. +“Oh, Abel, Abel, Abel! Oh, Abel!”</p> + +<p>Elmira, with a shawl over her night-gown, bearing a flaring +candle, rushed across the landing from her room. “Oh,” +she gasped, “what is it? what is it?”</p> + +<p>“I guess mother has been dreaming again,” Jerome +replied, hoarsely, but the thought was in his mind that his mother +had gone mad.</p> + +<p>“There's—cold air—coming—in,” Elmira +said, in her straining voice. “The front door is—wide +open.”</p> + +<p>At that Jerome pushed her aside and rushed down the stairs and +into the kitchen.</p> + +<p>There stood his mother over an old man, seated in her +rocking-chair. There she stood, pressing his white head against her +breast, calling over and over again in a tone through whose present +jubilation sounded the wail of past woe, “Oh, Abel, Abel, +Abel!”</p> + +<p>Jerome looked at them. He wondered, dazedly, if he were really +there and awake, or asleep and dreaming up-stairs in his bed. Elmira +came close beside him and clutched his arm—even that did not +clear his bewildered perceptions into certainty. It is always easier +for the normal mind, when confronted by astonishing spectacles, to +doubt its own accuracy rather than believe in them. “Do +<em>you</em> see him?” he whispered, sharply, to Elmira.</p> + +<p>“Yes; who is it? <em>Who</em> is it?”</p> + +<p>Then Jerome, in his utter bewilderment, spoke out the secret which +he had kept since childhood.</p> + +<p>“It can't be father,” said he—“it can't +be. I found his hat on the shore of the Dead Hole. Father drowned +himself there.”</p> + +<p>At the sound of his voice Ann turned around. “It's your +father!” she cried out, sharply—“it's your father +come home. Abel, here's the children.”</p> + +<p>Jerome eyed a small japanned box, or trunk, on the floor, a stout +stick, and a handkerchief parcel. He noted then clots of melting snow +where the old man had trod. Somehow the sight of the snow did more to +restore his faculties than anything else. “For Heaven's sake, +let us go to work!” he cried to Elmira, “or he'll die. +He's exhausted with tramping through the snow. Get some of that +brandy in the cupboard, quick, while I start up the fire.”</p> + +<p>“Is it father? Oh, Jerome, is it father?”</p> + +<p>“Mother says so. Get the brandy, quick.”</p> + +<p>Jerome stirred the fire into a blaze, and put on the kettle, then +he went to his mother and laid his hand on her shoulder. “Now, +mother,” he said, “he must be put into a warm +bed.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, put him into his own bed—his own bed!” +shrieked his mother. “Oh, Abel, dear soul, come and sleep in +your own bed again, after all these years! Poor man, poor man, you've +got home to your own bed!”</p> + +<p>Jerome gave his mother's thin, vibrating shoulder a firm shake. +“Mother,” he said, “tell me—you must tell +me—is this man father?”</p> + +<p>“Don't you know him? Don't you know your own father? Look at +him.” Ann threw back her head and pointed at the old worn face +on her breast.</p> + +<p>Jerome stared at it. “Where—did he +come—from?” he panted.</p> + +<p>“I don't know. He's come. Oh, Abel, Abel, you've come +home!”</p> + +<p>“Give me some of that brandy, quick,” Jerome called to +Elmira, who stood trembling, holding the bottle and glass. He poured +out some brandy, and, with a teaspoon, fed the old man, a few drops +at a time. Presently he raised his head feebly, but it sank back. He +tried to speak. “Don't try to talk,” said Jerome; +“wait till you're rested. Mother, let him alone now; sit down +there. Elmira, you must try and help me a little.”</p> + +<p>“If you've got to be helped, I'll help,” cried Ann, +fiercely.</p> + +<p>With that his mother, who had not walked since he could remember, +ran into the bedroom, and began spreading the sheets smooth and +shaking the pillows.</p> + +<p>The old man was a light-weight. Jerome almost carried him into the +bedroom, and laid him on the bed. He fed him with more brandy, and +put hot-water bottles around him. Presently he breathed evenly in a +sweet sleep. Ann sat by his side, holding his hand, and would not +stir, though Jerome besought her to go up-stairs to Elmira's +room.</p> + +<p>“I guess I don't leave him to stray away again,” said +she.</p> + +<p>Out in the kitchen, Elmira pressed close to Jerome. “Is +it,” she whispered in his ear—“is it +father?”</p> + +<p>Jerome nodded.</p> + +<p>“How do you know?”</p> + +<p>“I remember.”</p> + +<p>“Are you sure?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, he's grown old, but I remember.”</p> + +<p>“Where—did he—come from?”</p> + +<p>“I don't know. We must wait till he wakes up.”</p> + +<p>The brother and sister huddled close together over the fire, and +waited. Elmira held Jerome's hand fast in her little cold one.</p> + +<p>“What's in that little tin trunk?”</p> + +<p>“Hush; I don't know.”</p> + +<p>“Jerome, mother <em>walked!</em>”</p> + +<p>“Hush; I saw her.”</p> + +<p>It was an hour before they heard a sound from the bedroom. Then +Ann's voice rang out clearly, and another, husky and feeble, sounded +in response. Jerome and Elmira went into the room, and stood beside +the bed.</p> + +<p>“Here's the children, Abel,” said Ann.</p> + +<p>The face on the pillow looked stranger than before to Jerome. When +half unconscious it had worn a certain stern restraint, which +coincided with his old memories; now it was full of an innocent +pleasantness, like a child's, which puzzled him. The old man began +talking eagerly too, and Jerome remembered his father as very +slow-spoken, though it might have been the slowness of self-control, +not temperament.</p> + +<p>“How they've grown!” he said, looking at his children +and then at Ann. “That's Jerome, and that's Elmira. How I've +lotted on this day.” He held out a feeble hand; Elmira took +it, timidly, then leaned over and kissed him. Jerome took it then, +and it seemed to him like a hand from the grave. His doubt passed; he +knew that this man was his father.</p> + +<p>“I hadn't got asleep,” Ann said; “I was thinkin' +about him. I heard somebody at the front door; I got up and went; I +knew it was him.”</p> + +<p>The old man smiled at them all. “I'll tell you where I've +been,” he said. “It won't take long. I was behindhand in +that interest money. I couldn't earn enough to get ahead nohow. I was +nothin' but a drag on you all, nothin' but a drag. All of a sudden, +that day when I went away, I reasoned of it out. Says I, that +mortgage will be foreclosed; my stayin' where I be won't make no +difference about that. I ain't doin' anythin' for my family, anyway. +I'm wore out tryin', and it's no use. If I go away, I can do more for +'em than if I stay. I can save every cent I earn, till I get enough +to pay that mortgage up. I'll get a chance that way to do somethin' +for 'em. So I went.”</p> + +<p>The utter inconsequence of his father's reasoning struck Jerome +like a chill. “His mind isn't just right,” he +thought.</p> + +<p>“Where did you go, Abel?” asked his mother.</p> + +<p>“To West Linfield.”</p> + +<p>“What!” cried Jerome. “That's only twenty miles +away.”</p> + +<p>Abel Edwards laughed with child-like cunning. “I know +it,” he said. “I went to work on Jabez Summers's farm +there. It's way up the hill-road; nobody ever came there that knew +me. I took another name, too—called myself Ephraim Green. I've +saved up fifteen hundred dollars. It's there in that little tin +chist. I bought that of Summers for a shillin', to keep my money in. +There's five hundred in gold, an' the rest in bank-bills. You needn't +worry now, mother. We'll pay that mortgage up to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“The mortgage is all paid. We've paid it, Abel,” cried +Ann.</p> + +<p>“Paid! The mortgage ain't paid!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, we've paid it. We all earnt money an' paid +it.”</p> + +<p>“Then we can keep the money,” said the old man, +happily. “We can keep it, mother; I thought it would go kinder +hard partin' with it. I've worked so hard to save it. I 'ain't had +many clothes, an' I 'ain't ever been to meetin' lately, my coat got +so ragged.”</p> + +<p>Elmira was crying.</p> + +<p>“How did you get here to-night, father?” Jerome asked, +huskily.</p> + +<p>“I walked from West Linfield; started yesterday afternoon. I +come as far as Westbrook, an' it began to snow. I put up at Hayes's +Tavern.”</p> + +<p>“At Hayes's Tavern, with all that money!” exclaimed +Elmira.</p> + +<p>“Why, ain't they honest there?” asked the old man, +quickly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, father, they're all right, I guess. Go on.”</p> + +<p>“They seemed real honest,” said his father. “I +told 'em all about it, and they acted real interested. Mis' Hayes she +fried me some slapjacks for supper. I had a good room, with a man who +was goin' to Boston this mornin'. He started afore light; he was gone +when I woke up. I stayed there till afternoon, then I started out. I +got a lift as far as the Corners, then I walked a spell and went into +a house, where they give me some supper, and give me another lift as +far as the Stone Hill Meetin'-house. I've been trampin' since. It was +ruther hard, on account of the roads bein' some drifted, but it's +stopped snowin'.”</p> + +<p>“Why didn't you come on the coach, Abel, when you had all +that money?” asked Ann, pitifully. “I wonder it hadn't +killed you.”</p> + +<p>“Do you suppose I was goin' to spend that money for coach +hire? You dun'no' how awful hard it come, mother,” replied the +old man. He closed his eyes as he spoke; he was weary almost to +death.</p> + +<p>“He'll go to sleep again if you don't talk, mother,” +Jerome whispered.</p> + +<p>“Well, I'll lay down side of him, an' mebbe we'll both go to +sleep,” his mother said, with a strange docility. Jerome +assisted her into the bed, then he and Elmira went back to the +kitchen.</p> + +<p>Jerome motioned to Elmira to be quiet, and cautiously lifted the +little japanned trunk and passed it from one hand to the other, as if +testing its weight. Elmira watched him with her bewildered, tearful +eyes. Finally he tiptoed softly out with it, motioning her to follow +with the candle. They went into the icy parlor and closed the +door.</p> + +<p>“What's the matter, Jerome?” Elmira whispered.</p> + +<p>“I'm afraid there may be something wrong with the money. I'm +going to find it out before he does, if there is.”</p> + +<p>There was a little padlock on the trunk, but it was tied together +with a bit of leather shoestring, not locked. Jerome took out his +jack-knife, cut the string, and opened the trunk. Elmira held the +candle while he examined the contents. There was a large old wallet +stuffed with bank-notes, also several parcels of them tied up +carefully.</p> + +<p>“It's just as I thought,” Jerome muttered.</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“Some of the money is gone. The gold isn't here. It might +have been the man who roomed with him at Hayes's Tavern. There have +been queer things done there before now. All I wonder is, he didn't +take it all.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Jerome, it isn't gone?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, the gold is gone. Here is the bag it was in. The thief +left that. Suppose he thought he might be traced by it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, poor father, poor father, what will he do!” +moaned Elmira.</p> + +<p>“He'll do nothing. He'll never know it,” said +Jerome.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Wait here a minute.” Jerome went noiselessly out of +the room and up-stairs. He returned soon with a leathern bag, which +he carried with great caution. “I'm trying to keep this from +jingling,” he whispered.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Jerome, what is it?”</p> + +<p>Jerome laughed and untied the mouth of the bag. “You must +help me put it into the other bag; every dollar will have to be +counted out separately.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Jerome, is it money you've saved?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; and don't you ever tell of it to either of them, or +anybody else, as long as you live. I guess poor father sha'n't know +he's lost any of his money he's worked so hard to get, if I can help +it.”</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXXV</h4> + +<p>A stranger passing Abel Edwards's house the day after his return +might have gotten the impression that one of the functions of village +life—a wedding or a funeral—was going on there. From +morning until late at night the people came down the road, wading +through the snow, the men with trousers tucked into boots, the women +with yarn-stockings over their shoes, their arms akimbo, pinning +their kilted petticoats to their hips. Many drove there in sleighs, +tilting to the drifts. The Edwards's door-yard was crowded with +teams.</p> + +<p>All the relatives who had come fourteen years before to Abel +Edwards's funeral came now to his resurrection. They had gotten the +news of it in such strange, untraceable ways, that it seemed almost +like mental telegraphy. The Greens of Westbrook were there—the +three little girls in blue, now women grown. One of them came with +her husband and baby; another with a blushing lout of a lad, to whom +she was betrothed; and the third, with a meek blue eye, on the watch +for a possible lover in the company. The Lawson sisters, from Granby, +arrived early in the day, being conveyed thither by an obliging +neighbor. Amelia Stokes rode to Upham on the butcher's wagon, in lieu +of another conveyance, and her journey was a long one, necessitating +hot ginger-tea and the toasting of her slim feet at the fire upon her +arrival. Amelia was clad in mourning for her old mother, who had died +the year before. At intervals she wept furtively, incited to grief by +recollections of her mother, which the place and occasion +awakened.</p> + +<p>“Every once in a while it comes over me how poor mother +relished them hot biscuits and that tea at your funeral,” she +whispered softly to Abel, who smiled with child-like serenity in +response.</p> + +<p>All day Abel sat in state, which was, however, intensified in the +afternoon by a new suit of clothes, which Jerome had purchased in +Dale. As soon as Jerome returned with it, he was hustled into the +bedroom with his father.</p> + +<p>“Get your father into 'em quick, before anybody else +comes,” said Ann Edwards. She was dressed in her best, and +Elmira had further adorned her with a little worked lace kerchief of +her own, fastened at the bosom with a sprig of rose-geranium leaves +and blossoms. Ann had confined herself to her chair since arising +that morning. She made no allusion to her walking the night before, +and seemed to expect assistance as usual.</p> + +<p>“Do you suppose mother can't walk this morning?” +Elmira whispered to Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Hush,” he replied, “don't bother her with it +unless she speaks of it herself. I have a book which gives instances +of people recovering under strong excitement, and then going back to +where they were before. I don't believe mother can walk, or she +would.”</p> + +<p>Ann Edwards and Abel sat side by side on the sofa in the parlor, +and the visitors came and greeted them, with a curious manner, which +had in it not so much of the joy of greeting, as awe and a solemn +perplexity. Always, after shaking hands with the united couple, they +whispered furtively to one another that Abel Edwards was much +changed, they should scarcely have known him. Yet, with their simple +understandings, they could not have defined the change, which they +recognized plainly enough, for it lay not so much in form and feature +as in character. Abel Edwards's hair was white, he was somewhat +fuller in his face, but otherwise he was little altered, so far as +mere physical characteristics went. The change in him was subtler. +Jerome had noticed it the night before, and it was evidently a +permanent condition. Abel Edwards, from being a reserved man, with +the self-containment of one who is buffeted by unfair odds of fate, +yet will not stoop to vain appeals, but holds always to the front his +face of dumb dissent and purpose, was become a garrulous and happy +child. People hinted that Abel Edwards's mind was affected, but it +was a question whether that was the case, or whether it was the +simple result of his abandonment, fourteen years before, of the reins +which had held an original nature in check. He might possibly have +merely, when renouncing his toil over the up-grade of life, slipped +back to his first estate, and thus have experienced in one sense no +change at all.</p> + +<p>Many of Abel's old friends and neighbors were not fully convinced +of the desirability of his reappearance. When a man has been out of +his foothold in the crowd for fourteen years, he cannot regain it +without undue jostling of people's shoulders, and prejudices even. +The resurrection of the dead might have, if the truth were told, +uncomfortable and perplexing features for their nearest and dearest, +and Abel Edwards had been practically dead and buried.</p> + +<p>“They were gettin' along real well before he come; of +course, they're glad to see him, but I dun'no' whether they'll get +along as well with him or not,” proclaimed Mrs. Green of +Westbrook, with the very aggressiveness of frankness, and many looked +assent.</p> + +<p>Abel's wife had no question in her inmost heart of its utter +blessedness at his return, but her grief at his loss had never +healed. For that resolute feminine soul, which had fought on in spite +of it, her husband had died anew every morning of those fourteen +years when she awoke to consciousness of life; but it was different +with his children. For both of them the old wounds had closed; it was +now like tearing them asunder, for it is often necessary to revive an +old pain to fully appreciate a present joy. Had Jerome and Elmira +been older at the time of their father's disappearance, it would have +been otherwise, but as it was, their old love for him had been +obliterated, not merely by time and absence, but growth. It was +practically impossible, though they would not have owned it to +themselves, for them to love their father, when he first returned, as +they had used. They were painfully anxious to be utterly faithful, +and had an odd sort of tender but imaginative pity towards him, but +they could grasp no more. Both of them hesitated when they said +father; every time they returned home and found him there it was with +a sensation of surprise.</p> + +<p>Three days after Abel Edwards's return came one of the severest +rain-storms ever known in Upham. The storm began before light; when +people first looked out in the morning their windows were glazed with +streaming wet, but it did not reach its full fury until eleven +o'clock. Then the rain fell in green and hissing sheets.</p> + +<p>“Gorry,” Martin Cheeseman said, looking out of the +mill door, which seemed to open into a solid wall of water, +“looks as if the great deep was turned upsidedown overhead. If +it keeps on this way long there'll be mischief.”</p> + +<p>“Think there'll be danger to the mill?” Jerome asked, +quickly.</p> + +<p>“No, I guess not, it's built strong; but I wouldn't resk the +solid airth long under Niagry. Where you goin'?”</p> + +<p>“Down to Robinson's store. I want to get +something.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I should think you were half-witted to go out in this +soak if you could keep a roof over your head,” cried Cheeseman, +but Jerome was gone.</p> + +<p>He bought strong rope at Robinson's store, and before night the +mill was anchored to some stout trees and one great granite bowlder. +Cheeseman helped grumblingly. “I shall get laid up with +rheumatiz out of it,” he said; “an' this rain can't keep +on, it ain't in natur', out of the Old Testament.”</p> + +<p>But the rain continued all that day and night, and the next day, +with almost unremitting fury. At times it seemed more than +rain—there were liquid shafts reaching from earth to sky. By +noon of the second day, half the cellars in the village were flooded; +coops floated in slatted wrecks over fields; the roads were knee-deep +in certain places; the horses drew back—it was like fording a +stream. People began to be alarmed.</p> + +<p>“If this keeps on an hour longer, there'll be the devil to +pay,” Squire Eben Merritt said, when he came home to dinner. He +had been down to Lawyer Means's and crossed the Graystone brook, +which was now a swollen river.</p> + +<p>“What will happen?” asked Abigail.</p> + +<p>“Happen? The Main Street bridge will go, and the saw-mill, +and the Lord knows what else.”</p> + +<p>Lucina turned pale.</p> + +<p>“It will be hard on Jerome if he loses his mill,” said +her mother.</p> + +<p>“Well, the boy will lose it if it keeps on,” returned +the Squire. “He's working hard, with four men to help him; +they're loading it with stones and anchoring it with ropes, but it +can't stand much more. I miss my guess, if the foundations are not +undermined now.”</p> + +<p>Lucina said not a word, but as soon as she could she slipped +up-stairs to her chamber and prayed that her Heavenly Father would +save poor Jerome's mill, and stop the rain; but it kept on raining. +When Lucina heard the fierce dash of it on her window-pane, like an +angry dissent to her petition, she prayed more fervently, sobbing +softly in the whiteness of her maiden bed; still it rained.</p> + +<p>The mighty body of snow, pierced in a thousand places by the rain +as by liquid fingers, settled with inconceivable rapidity. Great +drifts which had slanted to the tops of north windows twelve hours +before were almost gone. The wide snow-levels of the fields were all +honey-combed and glistening here and there with pools. The trees +dripped with clots of melting snow, there were avalanches from the +village roofs, and even in the houses was heard the roar of the +brook. It was, however, no longer a brook, not even a river, but a +torrent. It over spread its banks on either side. Forest trees stood +knee-deep in it, their branches swept it. At three o'clock Jerome's +mill was surrounded, though on one side by only a rippling shallow of +water. He had plenty of helpers all day; for if his dam and mill +went, there was danger to the Main Street bridge. Now they had all +taken advantage of the last firm footing, and left the mill. They had +joined a watching group on a rise of ground beyond the flood. The +rain was slacking somewhat, and half the male portion of the village +seemed assembled, watching for the possible destruction of the mill. +Now and then came a hoarse shout across the swelling water to Jerome. +He alone remained in his mill, standing by the great door that +overlooked the dam and the falls. He was high above it, but the spray +wet his face.</p> + +<p>The great yellow flood came leaping tumultuously over the dam, and +rebounding in wild fountains of spray. Trees came with it, and +joists—a bridge somewhere above had gone. Strange, uncanny +wreckage, which could not be defined, bobbed on the torrent, and took +the plunge of annihilation over the dam. Every now and then came a +cry and a groan of doubt from the watchers, who thought this or that +might be a drowned man.</p> + +<p>Besides the thundering rush of the water there were other sounds, +which Jerome seemed to hear with all his nervous system. The mill +hummed with awful musical vibrations, it strained and creaked like a +ship at sea.</p> + +<p>The hoarse shouts from the shore for him to leave the mill were +redoubled, but he paid no heed. He was on the other side, and knew +nothing of a sudden commotion among the people when Jake Noyes came +dashing through the trees and calling for Doctor Prescott, who had +joined them some half hour before.</p> + +<p>“Come quick, for God's sake!” he shouted; +“you're wanted on the other side of the brook, and the bridge +will be gone, and you'll have to go ten miles round. Colonel Lamson +is down with apoplexy!”</p> + +<p>Jerome did not know when the doctor followed Noyes hurriedly out +to the road where his team was waiting, and Squire Eben Merritt went +at a run after them, shouting back, “Don't let that boy stay in +that mill too long; see to it, some of you.”</p> + +<p>There came a great barn-roof down-stream, followed by a tossing +wake of hay and straw. The crowd on shore groaned. It broke when it +passed the falls, and so the danger to the bridge below was averted, +but a heavy beam slewed sidewise as it passed the mill, and struck +it. The mill quivered in every beam, and the floor canted like the +deck of a vessel. Martin Cheeseman rushed in and caught Jerome +roughly by the arm. “For God's sake, what ye up to?” he +shouted above the roar of the water, “Come along with ye. She's +goin'!”</p> + +<p>The old man had a rope tied to his middle; Jerome followed him, +unresistingly, and they crossed, almost waist-deep and in danger of +being swept from their foothold by the current. Cheeseman kept tight +hold of Jerome's arm. “Bear up,” he said, in a hoarse +whisper, as they struggled out of the water; “life's more'n a +mill.”</p> + +<p>“It's more than a mill that's going down,” replied +Jerome, in a dull monotone which Cheeseman did not hear. There were +plenty of out-stretched hands to help them to the shore; the men +pressed around with rude sympathy.</p> + +<p>“It's darned hard luck,” one and another said, with +the defiant emphasis of an oath.</p> + +<p>Then they turned from Jerome and riveted their attention upon the +mill, which swayed visibly. Jerome stood apart, his back turned, +looking away into the depths of the dripping woods. Cheeseman came up +and clapped his shoulder hard. “Don't ye want to see it +go?” he cried. “It's a sight. Might as well get all ye +can out of it.”</p> + +<p>Jerome shook his head.</p> + +<p>“Ye'd better. I tell ye, it's a sight. I've seen three go in +my lifetime, an' one of 'em was my own. Lord, I looked on with the +rest! Might as well get all the fun you can out of your own funeral. +Hullo! There—there goes the dam, an'—there goes the +mill!”</p> + +<p>There was a wild chorus of shouts and groans. Jerome's mill went +reeling down-stream, but he did not see it. He had heard the new +spouting roar of water and the crash, and knew what it meant, but +look he would not.</p> + +<p>“Ye missed it,” said Cheeseman.</p> + +<p>Some of the men came up and wrung his hand hurriedly, then were +off with the crowd to see the Main Street bridge go. Jerome sat down +weakly on a pile of sodden logs, which the flood had not reached.</p> + +<p>Cheeseman stared at him. “What on airth are you settin' down +there for?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“I'm going, pretty soon,” Jerome replied.</p> + +<p>“You'll catch your death, settin' there in those wet +clothes. Come, git up and go home.”</p> + +<p>Jerome did not stir; his white face was set straight ahead; he +muttered something which the other could not hear. Cheeseman looked +at him perplexedly. He laid hold of his shoulder and shook him again, +and ordered him angrily, with no avail; then set off himself. He was +old, and the chill of his wet clothes was stealing through him.</p> + +<p>Not long afterwards Jerome went down the road towards home. Half +way there he met a hurrying man, belated for the tragic drama on the +village stage.</p> + +<p>“Hullo!” he called, excitedly. “Your mill +gone?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Dam gone?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Gosh! Bridge gone?”</p> + +<p>“Don't know.”</p> + +<p>“Gosh! if I ain't quick, I'll miss the whole show,” +cried the man, with a spurt ahead; but, after all, he stopped a +moment and looked back curiously at Jerome plodding down the flooded +road, his weary figure bent stiffly, with the slant of his own +dejectedness, athwart the pelting slant of the storm.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXXVI</h4> + +<p>Jerome, when his mill went down, felt that his dearest hope in +life went with it. His fighting spirit did not fail him; he had not +the least inclination to settle back for the buffets of fate; but the +combat henceforth would be for honor only, not victory. He felt that +his defeats had established themselves in an endless ratio to his +efforts.</p> + +<p>“I shall go to work again, and save up money for a new mill. +I shall build it after a long while; but something will always happen +to put me back, and I shall never marry her,” he told +himself.</p> + +<p>Had he the money with which he had made good his father's loss, he +could have rebuilt in a short time, but he did not consider the +possibility of taking that and, perhaps, supplementing it by a loan +from his father. “It would break the old man's heart to touch +his money,” he said, “and the mill might go again, and it +would all be lost.”</p> + +<p>On the morning after the destruction of his mill, Squire Eben +Merritt came to Jerome's door, and gave him a daintily folded little +note. “Lucina sent this to you,” he said, and eyed him +with a sort of sad keenness as he took it and thanked him in a +bewildered fashion, his haggard face reddening.</p> + +<p>The Squire himself looked as if he had passed a sleepless night, +his fresh color had faded, his face was elongated. “I'm sorry +enough about your loss, my boy,” he said, “but I can't +say as much as I might, or feel as much as I might, if my old friend +hadn't gone down in—a deeper flood.” The Squire's voice +broke. Jerome looked away from his working face. He had scarcely, in +his own selfishness of loss, grasped the news of Colonel Lamson's +death, which had taken place before the bridge went down and before +the doctor arrived. He muttered something vaguely sympathetic in +response. Lucina's little letter seemed to burn his fingers.</p> + +<p>The Squire dashed his hand across his eyes, coughed hard, then +glanced at the letter. “Lucina has been talking to her +mother,” he said, abruptly. “It seems the—Colonel +Lamson had told her something that you said to him. We didn't know +how matters stood. By-and-by you and I will have a talk. Don't be too +down-hearted over the mill—there's more than one way out of +that difficulty. In the meantime, there's her letter—I've read +it. She's cried all night because your damned mill has gone, and +looks sick enough to call the doctor this morning, and, by the Lord +Harry! sir, you can think yourself a lucky fellow!” With that +the Squire shook his head fiercely and strode down the path with +bowed shoulders. Jerome went up-stairs with his letter.</p> + +<p>“What did the Squire want?” his mother called, but he +did not heed her.</p> + +<p>It was his first letter from Lucina. He opened it and read; there +were only a few delicately formed lines, but for him they were as +finely cut, with all possible lights of meaning, as a diamond:</p> + +<p>“Dear Friend” [wrote Lucina],—“I beg you +to accept my sympathy in the disaster which has befallen your +property, and I implore you not to be disheartened, and not to +consider me unmaidenly for signing myself your ever faithful and +constant friend, through all the joys or vicissitudes of life. +<br> “Lucina Merritt.”</p> + +<p>This letter, modelled after the fashion which Lucina had learned +at school, whereby she bound and laced over with set words and +phrases, as with a species of emotional stays, her love and pity, not +considering it decorous to give them full breath, filled Jerome with +happiness and despair. He understood that Colonel Lamson had betrayed +him, that Lucina, all unasked, had bound herself in love and +faithfulness to him through all his failing efforts.</p> + +<p>“I won't have it—I won't have it!” he muttered, +fiercely, but he kissed the little letter with exulting rapture. +“I've got this much, anyhow,” he thought.</p> + +<p>He wondered if he should answer it. How could he refuse her dear +constancy and affection, yet how could he accept it? He had no hope +of marrying her, he reasoned that it would be better for her should +he even repulse her rudely. It would be like screwing the rack for +his own body to do that, but he declared to himself that he ought. +“She'll never marry at all, if she waits for you; it'll hinder +her looking at somebody else; she'll be an old maid, she'll be all +alone in the world, with no husband or children, and you know +it,” he told himself, with a kind of mental squaring of his own +fists in his face. All the time, with that curious, dogmatic +selfishness which has sometimes its roots in unselfishness itself, he +never considered the effect upon poor Lucina of the repulse of her +love and constancy. Such was his ardor for unselfishness that, in its +pursuit, he would have made all others selfish nor cared.</p> + +<p>That day the sun shone in a bright, windy sky. The snow was nearly +gone, the brook still leaped in a furious torrent, but there was no +more danger from it. The waters were, in fact, receding slowly. +Jerome worked all day near the ruinous site of his mill, and Martin +Cheeseman with him. He had a quantity of logs and lumber, which had +escaped the flood, to care for. Cheeseman inquired if he was going to +rebuild the mill.</p> + +<p>“When I get money enough,” Jerome replied, with a +sturdy fling of a log.</p> + +<p>“'Ain't ye got most enough?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Ye ought to have. What ye done with it?”</p> + +<p>“Put it to a good use,” Jerome said, with no +resentment of the other's curiosity.</p> + +<p>“Why don't ye hire money, if ye 'ain't got +enough?”</p> + +<p>“I don't hire money,” answered Jerome, and heaved +another log with a splendid swing from his shoulders.</p> + +<p>Cheeseman looked at him doubtfully. “Well,” he said, +“I 'ain't got none to hire. I've got my money out of mills on +the banks of roarin' streams, an' I'm goin' to keep it out. I believe +in Providence, but I don't believe in temptin' of it. I 'ain't got no +money to hire.”</p> + +<p>“And I don't want to hire, so we sha'n't quarrel about +that,” Jerome replied, shortly.</p> + +<p>“I don't say that I wouldn't let ye have a little money, if +you needed it, an' it was for somethin' safe for both of us,” +said Cheeseman, uneasily, “but, as I said before, I don't +believe in temptin' of Providence, especially when it seems set agin +you.”</p> + +<p>“I am not going to shirk any blame off on to +Providence,” Jerome responded, scornfully. “It was +Stimson's weak dam up above.”</p> + +<p>“Mebbe the dam was weak, but Providence took advantage of +it,” insisted Cheeseman, who, in spite of his cheerful +temperament, had a gloomy theology. “I'd like to know why ye +think your mill went down; do ye think ye done anything to deserve +it?” he said, further, in an argumentative tone.</p> + +<p>“If I thought I had, I'd do it again,” Jerome +returned, and went off to a distant pile of lumber out of sound of +Cheeseman's voice.</p> + +<p>He felt a proud sensitiveness, almost a shame, over his calamity, +which he would have been at a loss to explain. All day long, when men +came to view the scene of disaster, he tried to avoid them. He shrank +in spirit even from their sympathy.</p> + +<p>“No worse for me than for anybody else,” he would +reply, when told repeatedly, with gruff condolence, that it was hard +luck. His sensitiveness might have arisen from some hereditary taint +from his orthodox ancestors of their belief that misfortune is the +whip-lash for sin, or from his native resentment of pity. At home he +could not talk of it either with his mother or Elmira; as for his +father, he sat in the sun and dozed. It was doubtful if he fully +realized what had happened.</p> + +<p>Jerome worked in the woods that day until after dark; when he went +home he found that the Squire had been there with a request for him +to be one of the bearers at the Colonel's funeral. That was +considered a post of melancholy honor, and his mother looked sadly +important over it.</p> + +<p>“I s'pose as long as the poor Colonel is gone himself, an' +there's only three left that he used to be so intimate with, that +they thought you would be a good one,” said she.</p> + +<p>“It is strange they did not ask some one nearer his +age,” Jerome said, wonderingly.</p> + +<p>The funeral was appointed for the next afternoon. Jerome sat in +the parlor of the Means house with the mourners, who were few, as the +dead man had no kin in Upham. Indeed, there was nobody except his +three old friends, his house-keeper, and Abigail Merritt and +Lucina.</p> + +<p>Jerome did not look at Lucina, nor she at him; as the service went +on, he heard her weeping softly. The minister, Solomon Wells, +standing near the black length of the coffin, lifted his voice in +eulogy of the dead. The parlor door-way and that of the room beyond, +were set with faces straining with attention.</p> + +<p>The minister's voice was weak; every now and then people looked +inquiringly at one another, and there were fine hisses of +interrogation. This parlor of the Means house had never been used +since the time of the lawyer's mother. Women had been hard at work +there all day, but still there was over everything a dim, filmy +effect, as of petrified dust and damp. A great pier-glass loomed out +of the gloom of a wall like a sheet of fog, with scarcely a gleam of +gold left in its tarnished frame. The steel engravings over the +mantel-shelf and between the windows showed blue hazes of mildew. The +mahogany and rosewood of the furniture was white in places; there had +been a good fire all day, but all the covers and the carpet steamed +in one's face with cold damp. However, scarcely a woman in Upham but +would have been willing to be a legitimate mourner for the sake of +investigating the mysterious best-room, which had had a certain glory +in the time of the lawyer's mother.</p> + +<p>A great wreath of white flowers lay on the coffin. Its breathless +sweetness clung to the nostrils and seemed to fill the whole house. +Now and then a curl of pungent smoke floated from the door-cracks of +the air-tight stove. All the high lights in the room were the silver +of the coffin trimmings and the white wreath.</p> + +<p>Solomon Wells had a difficult task. The popular opinion of Colonel +Jack Lamson in Upham was that he had led a hard life, and had +hastened his end by strong drink. He could neither tell the commonly +accepted truth out of respect to the deceased, nor lies out of regard +to morality. However, one favorable point in the character of the +deceased, upon which people were agreed, was his geniality and bluff +heartiness of good-humor. That the minister so enlarged and displayed +to the light of admiration that he almost made of it the aureole of a +saint. He was obliged then to take refuge in the broad field of +generalities, and discourse upon his text of “All flesh is as +grass,” until his hearers might well lose sight of the +importance of any individual flicker of a grass blade to this wind or +that, before the ultimate end of universal hay.</p> + +<p>Solomon Wells was not a brilliant man, but he had a fine instinct +for other people's corns and prejudices. Everybody agreed that his +remarks were able; there were no dissenting voices. He concluded with +an apt and solemnly impressive reference to the wheat and the chaff, +the garnering and the casting into furnace, leaving the application +concerning the deceased wholly to his audience. That completed his +success. When he sat down there was a heaving sigh of applause.</p> + +<p>All through the discourse, the hymns, and the concluding prayer, +Lucina sobbed softly at intervals, her face hidden in her cambric +handkerchief. Somehow it went to her tender soul that the poor +Colonel should be lying there with no wife or child to mourn him; +then she had loved him, as she had loved everybody and everything +that had come kindly into her life. Every time she thought of the +corals and the beautiful ear-rings which the Colonel had given her +she wept afresh. Moreover, the motive for tears is always complex; +hers may have been intensified somewhat by her anxiety about her +lover and his misfortune. Now and then her mother touched her arm +remonstratingly. “Hush; you'll make yourself sick, +child,” she whispered, softly; but poor Lucina was helpless +before her grief.</p> + +<p>The Squire, John Jennings, and Lawyer Means all sat by the dead +body of their friend, with pale and sternly downcast faces. Jerome +looked scarcely less sad. He remembered as he sat there every kind +word which the Colonel had ever spoken to him, and every one seemed +magnified a thousand-fold. This call to lend his living strength +towards the bearing of the dead man to his last home seemed like a +call to a labor of love and gratitude, though he was still much +perplexed that he should have been selected.</p> + +<p>“There's Doctor Prescott and Cyrus Robinson and Uncle +Ozias—any one of them nearer his own age,” he thought. It +was not until the next day but one that the mystery was solved. That +night Lawyer Eliphalet Means came to see Jerome, and informed him +that the Colonel had left a will, whereby he was entitled to a legacy +of twenty-five thousand dollars.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXXVII</h4> + +<p>Colonel Lamson's will divided sixty-five thousand dollars among +five legatees—ten thousand was given to John Jennings, five +thousand to Eliphalet Means, five thousand to Eben Merritt, twenty +thousand to Lucina Merritt, and twenty-five thousand to Jerome +Edwards.</p> + +<p>Upham was not astonished by the first four bequests; the last +almost struck it dumb. “What in creation did he leave +twenty-five thousand dollars to that feller for? He wa'n't nothin' to +him,” Simon Basset stammered, when he first heard the news on +Tuesday night in Robinson's store. His face was pale and gaping, and +folk stared at him.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a man cried out, “By gosh, J'rome promised to give +the hull on't away! Don't ye remember?”</p> + +<p>“That's so,” cried another; “an' Doctor Prescott +an' Basset have got to hand out ten thousand apiece if he does. Fork +over, Simon.”</p> + +<p>“Guess ye'll wait till doomsday afore J'rome sticks to his +part on't,” said Basset, with a sneer; but his lips were +white.</p> + +<p>“No, I won't; no, I won't,” responded the man, +hilariously. “J'rome's goin' to do it; Jake here says he heard +so; it come real straight.” He winked at the others, who +closed around, grinning maliciously.</p> + +<p>Basset broke through them with an oath and made for the door. +“It's a damned lie, I tell ye!” he shouted, hoarsely; +“an' if J'rome's sech a G— d— fool, I'll see ye all +to h—, and him too, afore I pay a dollar on't.”</p> + +<p>When the door had slammed behind him, the men looked at one +another curiously. “You don't s'pose J'rome will do it,” +one said, meditatively.</p> + +<p>“He'll do it when the river runs uphill an' crows are +white,” answered another, with a hard laugh.</p> + +<p>“I dun'no',” said another, doubtfully. “J'rome +Edwards 's always been next-door neighbor to a fool, an' there's no +countin' on what a fool 'll do!”</p> + +<p>“S'pose you'd calculate on comin' in for some of the fool's +money, if he should give it up,” remarked a dry and unexpected +voice at his elbow.</p> + +<p>The man looked around and saw Ozias Lamb. “Ye don't think +he'll do it, do ye?” he cried, eagerly.</p> + +<p>“'Ain't got nothin' to say,” replied Ozias. “I +s'pose when a fool does part with his money, there's always wise men +'nough to take it.”</p> + +<p>John Upham, who, with some meagre little purchases in hand, had +been listening to the discussion, started for the door. When he had +opened it, he turned and faced them. “I'll tell ye one thing, +all of ye,” he said, “an' that is, <em>he'll</em> do +it.”</p> + +<p>There was a clamor of astonishment. “How d'ye know it? Did +he tell ye so?” they shouted.</p> + +<p>“Wait an' see,” returned John Upham, and went out.</p> + +<p>Plodding along his homeward road, a man passed him at a rapid +stride. John Upham started. “Hullo, J'rome,” he called, +but getting no response, thought he had been mistaken.</p> + +<p>However, the man was Jerome, but the tumult of his soul almost +deafened him to voices of the flesh. He was, for the time, out of the +plane of purely physical sounds on one of the spirit, full of +unutterable groanings and strivings.</p> + +<p>When Jerome had received the news of his legacy, he had felt, for +the first time in his whole life, the joy of sudden acquisition and +possession. His head reeled with it; he was, in a sense, intoxicated. +“Am I rich? <em>I—I?</em>” he asked himself. +Pleasures hitherto out of his imagination of possession seemed to +float within his reach on this golden tide of wealth.</p> + +<p>He would have been more than man had not this first grasp of the +divining-rod of the pleasures of earth filled him with the lust of +them. Even his love for Lucina, and his parents and sister, seemed +for a while subverted by that love for himself, to which the chance +of its gratification gave rise. Vanities which he had never known +within his nature, and petty emulations, rose thick, like a crop of +weeds on a rich soil. He saw himself in broadcloth and fine linen, +with a great festoon of gold chain on his breast and a gold watch in +pocket, walking with haughty flourishes of a cane, or riding in his +own carriage. He saw himself in a new house, grander than Doctor +Prescott's; he saw his parlor more richly furnished, <em>his</em> +wife, <em>his</em> mother and sister more finely attired than any +women in the village, <em>his</em> father throned like a king in the +late sunshine of life. Jerome had usually sound financial judgment +and conservative estimate of the value of money, but now he thought +of twenty-five thousand dollars as almost unlimited wealth.</p> + +<p>That night, after he had the news from Lawyer Means, he could not +sleep until nearly morning. He lay awake, spending, mentally, +principal and interest of his little fortune over and over, and +spending, besides that, much of the singleness and unselfishness of +his own heart.</p> + +<p>However, after an hour or two of sleep, which seemed to turn, as +sleep sometimes will, the erratic currents of his mind back into the +old channels, from which it had been forced by this earthquake stress +of life, he experienced a complete revulsion.</p> + +<p>He remembered—what he had either forgotten or +ignored—the scene in the store, his vow, the drawing up of the +document which registered it. He awoke into this memory as into a +chilling atmosphere, and went down-stairs with a grave face. He met +his mother's and sister's almost hysterical delight, which had not +abated overnight, his father's child-like wonder and admiration, +soberly; as soon as he could, he got away to his work, which was +still in the wood where his mill had stood. Cheeseman had gone home, +still Jerome was not alone much of the day. People came to +congratulate him, also out of curiosity. The little village was wild +over the legacy, and the document concerning its division among the +poor.</p> + +<p>There were two distinct factions, one upholding the belief that +Jerome would remain true to his promise, the other full of scoffing +and scorn at the insanity of it. Both factions invaded Jerome, and +while neither broached the matter directly, strove by indirect and +sly methods to ascertain his mind.</p> + +<p>“S'pose ye'll quit work now, J'rome; s'prised to see ye here +this mornin',” said one.</p> + +<p>“When ye goin' to run for Congress, J'rome?” asked +another.</p> + +<p>Still another inquired, meaningly, with a sly wink at his +comrades, how much money he was going to allow for home missions? and +another, when he was going to Boston to buy his gold watch and chain? +Until he went home at night he was haunted by the doubtful attention +of the idle portion, just now large, of the village population.</p> + +<p>It was too early for planting, and quite recently the supply of +work from the Dale shoe-dealer had been scanty. People were at a loss +to account for it, as the business had increased during the last two +years, and many Upham men had been employed. Lately there had been a +rumor as to the cause, but few had given it credence.</p> + +<p>This afternoon, however, it was confirmed. Just before dark, a +man, breathless, as if he had been running, joined the knot of +loafers. “Well,” he said, panting, “I've found out +why the shoes have been so scarce.”</p> + +<p>The others stared at him, inquiringly.</p> + +<p>“That—durned varmint, over to Dale, he's bought the +old meetin'-house, an'—sent down to Boston fer—some +machines, an'—he's goin' to have a factory. There's no more +handwork to be done; that's the reason he's been holdin' it +back.”</p> + +<p>“How'd ye find it out? Who told ye?” asked one and +another, scowling.</p> + +<p>“Saw 'em, with my own eyes, unloadin' of the new machines at +the railroad, an' saw the gang of men he's got to work 'em hangin' +round his store. It's the railroad that's done it. It's made freight +to Boston cheap enough so's he can make it pay. Robinson's goin' to +give up shoes here. I had it straight. He don't want to compete with +machine-work, and he don't want to put in machines himself. It was an +unlucky day for Upham when that railroad went through +Dale.”</p> + +<p>“Curse the railroad, an' curse all the new ideas that take +the bread out of poor men's mouths to give it to the rich,” +said a bitter voice, and there was a hoarse amen from the crowd.</p> + +<p>“I'd give ten years of my life if I could raise enough +money, or, if a few of us together could raise enough money, to start +a factory in Upham,” cried a man, fiercely, “then we'd +see whether it was brains as good as other men's that were +lacking!”</p> + +<p>The man, who had not been there long, was quite young, not much +older than Jerome, and had a keen, thin face, with nervous red spots +coming and going in his cheeks, and fiery, deep-set eyes. He had the +reputation of being very smart and energetic, and having considerable +self-taught book-knowledge. He had a wife and two babies, and was, if +the truth were told, staying away from home that day that his wife, +who was a delicate, anxious young thing, might think he was at work. +He had eaten nothing since morning.</p> + +<p>“We shouldn't be no better off, if you put machines in your +factory,” said a squat, elderly man, with a surly overhanging +brow and a dull weight of jaw.</p> + +<p>“I guess we who are not too old to learn could run machines +as well as anybody, if we tried,” returned the young man, +scornfully; “and as for the rest, handwork is always going to +have a market value, and there'll always be some sort of a demand for +it. It would go hard if we couldn't give those that couldn't run +machines something to do, if we had the factory; but we haven't, and, +what's more, we sha'n't have.” As he spoke, he went over to +Jerome, who was prying up a heavy log, and lifted with him.</p> + +<p>“Do you think you could form a company, if you had enough +money between you?” Jerome asked him.</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course; we'd be fools if we didn't,” he +said.</p> + +<p>“I say, curse the railroads and the machines! I wish every +railroad track in the country was tore up! I wish every train of cars +was kindlin'-wood, an' all the engine wheels an' the machine wheels +would lock, till the crack of doom!” shouted the bitter voice +again.</p> + +<p>“There's no use in damning progress because we happen to be +in the way of it. I'd rather be run over than lock the wheels +myself,” Jerome said, suddenly.</p> + +<p>“It remains to be seen whether ye would or not,” the +voice returned, with sarcastic meaning. There was a smothered chuckle +from the crowd, which began to disperse; the shadows were getting +thick in the wood.</p> + +<p>After supper that night, Jerome went up to his room, and sat down +at his window. His curtain was pulled high. He looked out into the +darkness and tried to think, but directly a door slammed, and a +shrill babble of feminine tongues began in the room below. Belinda +Lamb had arrived.</p> + +<p>Jerome got his hat, stole softly down-stairs, and out of the front +door. “I've got to be alone somewhere, where I can +think,” he said to himself, and forthwith made for the site of +his mill; he could be sure of solitude there at that hour.</p> + +<p>When he arrived, he sat down on a pile of logs and gazed +unseeingly at the broad current of the brook, silvering out of the +shadows to the light of a young moon. The roar of it was loud in his +ears, but he did not seem to hear it. There are times when the spirit +of the living so intensifies that it comes into a silence and +darkness of nature like death.</p> + +<p>Jerome, in the solitude of the woods, without another human soul +near, could concentrate his own into full action. As he sat there, he +began to defend his own case like a lawyer against a mighty opponent, +whom he recognized from the dogmas of orthodoxy, and also from an +insight inherited from generations of Calvinistic ancestors, as his +own conscience.</p> + +<p>Jerome presented his case tersely, the arguments were all clearly +determined beforehand. “This twenty-five thousand +dollars,” he said, “will lift me and mine out of grinding +poverty. If I give it up, my father and mother and sister will have +none of it. Father has come home unfit for any further struggles; +mother has aged during the last few days. She was nerved up to bear +trouble, the shock of joy has taken her last strength. She can do +little now. This money will make them happy and comfortable through +their last days. If I give up this money, they may come to want. I +have lost my work in Dale, like the rest; I may not be able to get a +living, even; we may all suffer. This money will give my sister a +marriage-portion, and possibly influence Doctor Prescott to favor his +son's choice. If that does not, my failure to carry out my part of +the agreement, and the doctor's consequent release from his, may +influence him to make no further opposition. If I give the money, and +so force the doctor to give his, or put him to shame for refusing, +Elmira can never marry Lawrence. I can give more to Uncle Ozias than +he would receive as his share of a common division. I can send Henry +Judd to Boston to have his eyes cured. And—I can marry Lucina +Merritt. She loves me, she is waiting for me. I have not answered her +letter. She is wondering now why I do not come. If I give up the +money, I can never marry her—I can never come.”</p> + +<p>Then the great still voice, which was, to his conception, within +him, yet without, through all nature, had its turn, and Jerome +listened.</p> + +<p>Then he answered, fiercely, as to spoken arguments. “I know +the whole is greater than the parts; I know that to make a whole +village prosperous and happy is more than the welfare of three or +four, but the three and the four come first, and that which I would +have for myself is divine, and of God, and I cannot be what I would +be without it, for no man who hungers gets his full strength. If I +give this, it is all. I can make no more of my life.”</p> + +<p>He looked as if he listened again for a moment, and then stood up. +“Well,” he said, “it is true, if a man gives his +all he can do no more, and no more can be asked of him. What I have +said I will do, I will do, and I will save neither myself nor mine by +a lie which I must lie to—my own soul!”</p> + +<p>Jerome went down the path to the road, but stopped suddenly, as if +he had got a blow. “Oh, my God!” he cried, +“Lucina!” All at once a consideration had struck him +which had never fully done so before. All at once he grasped the +possibility that Lucina might suffer from his sacrifice as much as +he. “I can bear it—myself,” he groaned, “but +Lucina, Lucina; suppose—it should kill her—suppose it +should—break her heart. I am stronger to suffer than she. If I +could bear hers and mine, if I could bear it all. Oh, Lucina, I +cannot hurt <em>you</em>—I cannot, I cannot! It is too much to +ask. God, I <em>cannot!</em>”</p> + +<p>Jerome stood still, in an involuntary attitude of defiance. His +arm was raised, his fist clinched, as if for a blow; his face +uplifted with stern reprisal; then his arm dropped, his tense muscles +relaxed. “I could not marry her if I did not give it up,” +he said. “I should not be worthy of her; there is no other +way.”</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXXVIII</h4> + +<p>Jerome went to Lawyer Means's that night. Means, himself, answered +his knock, and Jerome opened abruptly upon the subject in his mind. +“I want to give away that money, as I said I would,” he +declared.</p> + +<p>The lawyer peered above a flaring candle into the darkness. +“Oh, it is you, is it! Come in.”</p> + +<p>“No, I can't come in. It isn't necessary. I have nothing to +say but that. I want to give away the money, according to that paper +you drew up, and I want you to arrange it.”</p> + +<p>“You've made up your mind to keep that fool's promise, have +you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Look here, young man, have you thought this +over?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“You know what you're going to lose. You remember that your +own family—your father and mother and sister—can't profit +by the gift?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir; I have thought it all over.”</p> + +<p>“Do you realize that if you stick to your part of the +bargain, it does not follow that the doctor and Basset will stick to +theirs?”</p> + +<p>Jerome stared at him. “Didn't they sign that document before +witnesses?”</p> + +<p>The lawyer laughed. “That document isn't worth the paper +it's written on. It was all horse-play. Didn't you know that, +Jerome?”</p> + +<p>“Did the doctor and Basset know it?”</p> + +<p>“The doctor did. He wouldn't have signed, otherwise. As for +Basset—well, I don't know, but if he comes and asks me, as he +will before he unties his purse strings, I shall tell him the truth +about it, as I'm bound to, and not a dollar will he part with after +he finds out that he hasn't got to. You can judge for yourself +whether Doctor Seth Prescott is likely to fling away a fourth of his +property in any such fool fashion as this.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I don't know that it makes any difference to me +whether they give or not,” said Jerome, proudly.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean that you will abide by your part of the +agreement if the others do not abide by theirs?”</p> + +<p>“I mean, that I keep my promise when I can; and if every +other man under God's footstool breaks his, it is no reason why I +should break mine.”</p> + +<p>“That sounds very fine,” said the lawyer, dryly; +“but do you realize, my young friend, how far your large +fortune alone would go when divided among the poor of this +village?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir; I have reckoned it up. There are about one +hundred who would come under the terms of the agreement. My money +alone, divided among them, would give about two hundred and fifty +dollars apiece.”</p> + +<p>“That is a large sum.”</p> + +<p>“It is large to a man who has never seen fifty dollars at +once in his hand, and it is large when several unite and form a +company for a new factory, with machines.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think they will do that?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir. Henry Eames will set it going; give him a +chance.”</p> + +<p>“Why don't you, instead of parting with your money, set up +the factory yourself, and employ the whole village?”</p> + +<p>“That is not what I said I would do, and it is better for +the village to employ itself. I might fail, or my factory might go, +as my mill has.”</p> + +<p>“How long do you suppose it will be that every man will have +his two hundred and fifty dollars after you have given it to him? +Tell me that, if you can.”</p> + +<p>“That isn't my lookout.”</p> + +<p>“Why isn't it your lookout? A careless giver is as bad as a +thief, sir.”</p> + +<p>“I am not a careless giver,” replied Jerome, stoutly. +“I can't tell, and no man can tell, how long they will keep +what I give them, or how long it will be before the stingiest and +wisest get their shares away from the weak; but that is no more +reason why I should not give this money than it is a reason why the +Lord Almighty should not furnish us all with fingers and toes, and +our five senses, and our stomachs.”</p> + +<p>“You might add, our immortal souls, which the parsons say +we'll get snatched away from us if we don't watch out,” said +Means, with a short laugh. “Well, Jerome, it is too late for me +to attend to this business to-night. I am worn out, too, by what I +have been through lately. Come to-morrow, and, if you are of the same +mind, we'll fix it up.”</p> + +<p>Somewhat to Jerome's surprise, the lawyer extended a lean, brown +hand for his, which he shook warmly, with a hearty “Good-night, +sir.”</p> + +<p>“I don't believe he was trying to hinder me from giving it, +after all,” Jerome thought, as he went down the hill.</p> + +<p>Eliphalet Means, shuffling in loose slippers, returned to his +sitting-room, where were John Jennings and Eben Merritt. There were +no cards, and no punch, and no conviviality for the three bereaved +friends that night. The three sat before the fire, and each smoked a +melancholy pipe, and each, when he looked at or spoke to the others, +looked and spoke, whatever his words might be, to the memory of their +dead comrade.</p> + +<p>The chair in which the Colonel had been used to sit stood a little +aloof, at a corner of the fireplace. Often one of the trio would eye +it with furtive mournfulness, looking away again directly without a +glance at the others.</p> + +<p>When Means entered, he was smiling, for the first time that +evening. “Well,” he said, “I have seen something +to-night that I have never seen before, that I shall never see again, +and that no man in this town has ever seen before, or will see again, +unless he lives till the millennium.”</p> + +<p>The others stared at him. “What d'ye mean?” asked the +Squire.</p> + +<p>“I have seen something rarer than a white black-bird, and +harder to discover than the north pole. I have seen a poor man, +clothed and in his right mind, give away every dollar of a fortune +within three days after he got it.”</p> + +<p>The two men looked at him, speechless. “He hasn't!” +gasped the Squire, finally.</p> + +<p>“He has.”</p> + +<p>“By the Lord Harry!”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said John Jennings, slowly, “if I had +started out on a search for such a man I should have wanted more than +Diogenes's lantern.”</p> + +<p>“And I should have called for blue-lights and rockets, the +aurora borealis, chain lightning, the solar system, and the eternal +light of nature, but I discovered him with a penny dip,” said +Eliphalet Means, chuckling. He stood on the hearth before his two +friends, his back to the fire; it was a cool night, and he had got +chilled at the open door.</p> + +<p>“He is going to give away the whole of it?” John +Jennings said, with wondering rumination.</p> + +<p>“Every dollar.”</p> + +<p>Means looked at them, all the shrewd humor faded out of his face. +“I've got something to tell both of you,” he said, +gravely; “and, Eben, while I think of it, I have a letter that +<em>he</em> wanted given to your daughter. Remind me to hand it over +to you to take to her when you go home to-night. I've got something +to tell you; the time has come; <em>he</em> said it would. I didn't +half believe it, God forgive me. I tell you, I've got a keen scent +for the bad in human nature, but he had a keen one for the good. He'd +have made a sharp counsel on the right side. After <em>he</em> got +his money, he used to talk day and night about the poverty of this +town. He had a great heart. He—<em>wanted and intended that +twenty-five thousand dollars to go just the way it is +going</em>.” The lawyer, with every word, shook his skinny +right hand before the others' faces; he paused a second and looked at +them with solemn impressiveness; then he continued: “He wanted +to give that twenty-five thousand dollars, in equal parts, to the +poor of this town, as indicated in that instrument which I drew up at +Robinson's for Prescott and Basset, but instead of giving it himself +he left it to Jerome Edwards to give. He said that it would amount to +the same thing, and I tried to argue him out of it. I did not believe +any man could stand the temptation of a fortune between his fingers, +but <em>he</em> said Jerome Edwards could and would, and the money +was as sure to go as he intended it to as if he doled it out himself +in dollars and cents, and he was right. God bless him! +And—<em>that twenty-five thousand dollars is going just the way +he meant it to go</em>.”</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXXIX</h4> + +<p>The next day Jerome went again to Lawyer Means's. It was near noon +when he returned; he met many people on the road, and they all looked +at him strangely. Men stood in knots, and the hum of their +conversation died low when he drew near. They nodded to him with +curious respect and formality; after he had passed, the rumble of +voices began anew. One woman, whom he met just before he turned the +corner of his own road, stopped and held out a slender, trembling +hand.</p> + +<p>“I want to shake hands with you, J'rome,” she said, in +a sweet, hysterical voice. Then she raised to his a worn face, with +the piteous downward lines of old tears at mouth and eyes, and a +rasped red, as of tears and frost, on thin cheeks. “That money +is goin' to save my little home for me; I didn't know but I'd got to +go on the town. God bless you, J'rome,” she whispered, +quaveringly.</p> + +<p>“The Colonel's the one to be thanked,” Jerome +said.</p> + +<p>“I come under that agreement, don't I?” she asked, +anxiously. “They told me that lone women without anybody to +support 'em came under it.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you do, Miss Patch.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, God bless you, God bless you, J'rome Edwards!” +she cried, with a fervor strange upon a New England tongue.</p> + +<p>“Colonel Lamson is the one to have the thanks and the +credit,” Jerome repeated, pushing gently past her. His face was +hot. He wondered, as he approached his house, if his own family had +heard the news. As soon as he opened the door he saw that they had. +Elmira did not lift a white, dumbly accusing face from her work; his +father looked at him with curious, open-mouthed wonder; his mother +spoke.</p> + +<p>“I want to know if it's true,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Yes, mother, it is.”</p> + +<p>“You've given it all away?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, mother.”</p> + +<p>“Your own folks won't get none of it?”</p> + +<p>Jerome shook his head. He had a feeling as if he were denying his +own flesh and blood; for the moment even his own conscience turned +upon him, and accused him of injustice and lack of filial love and +gratitude.</p> + +<p>Ann Edwards looked at her son, with a face of pale recrimination +and awe. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it without a +word. “I never had a black silk dress in my life,” said +she, finally, in a shaking voice, and that was all the reproach which +she ever offered.</p> + +<p>“You shall have a black silk dress anyhow, mother,” +Jerome replied, piteously. He went out of the room, and his father +got up and followed him, closing the door mysteriously.</p> + +<p>“That was a good deal to give away, J'rome,” he +whispered.</p> + +<p>“I know it, father, and I'll work my fingers to the bone to +make it good to you and mother. That's all I've got to live for +now.”</p> + +<p>“J'rome,” whispered the father, thrusting his old face +into his son's, with an angelic expression.</p> + +<p>“What is it, father?”</p> + +<p>“<em>You shall have my fifteen hundred, an' build a new +mill.</em>”</p> + +<p>“Father, I'd <em>die</em> before I'd touch a dollar of your +money!” cried Jerome, passionately, and, tears in his eyes, +flung away out to the barn, whither he was bound, to feed the +horse.</p> + +<p>He watched all day for a chance to speak alone to Elmira, but she +gave him none, until after supper that night. Then, when he beckoned +her into the parlor, she followed him.</p> + +<p>“Elmira,” he said, “don't feel any worse about +this than you can help. I had to do it.”</p> + +<p>“If you care more about strangers than you do about your +own, that is all there is to it,” she said, in a quiet voice, +looking coldly in his face.</p> + +<p>“Elmira, it isn't that. You don't understand.”</p> + +<p>“I have said all I have to say.”</p> + +<p>“Let me tell you—”</p> + +<p>“I have heard all I want to.”</p> + +<p>“Elmira, don't give up so. Maybe things will be brighter +somehow. I had to do my duty.”</p> + +<p>“It is a noble thing to do your duty,” she said, with +a bitter smile on her little face. Elmira, that night, seemed like a +stranger to Jerome, and maybe to herself. Despair had upstirred from +the depths of her nature strange, tigerish instincts, which otherwise +might have slept there unmanifest forever. She also had not failed to +appreciate Jerome's action in all its bearings upon herself and +Lawrence Prescott, and, when she heard of it, had given up all her +longing hope of happiness.</p> + +<p>“You have to do it, whether it is noble or not,” +returned Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said she, “and if your sister is in +the way of it, trample her down; don't stop for that.” She +went out, but turned back, and added, harshly, “I saw Jake +Noyes this afternoon on my way home. He was coming here to ask you to +go up to Doctor Prescott's this evening; he wants to see you. If he +says anything about me, you can tell him that as long as he and you +do your duty, I am satisfied. I ask nothing more, not even his +precious son.” Elmira rushed across the entry, with a dry sob. +Jerome stood still a moment; it seemed to him that he had undertaken +more than he could bear. A dreadful thought came to him; suppose +Lucina were to look upon him as his sister did. Suppose she were to +take it all in the same way. It did not seem as if she could, but she +was a woman, like his sister, and how could he tell?</p> + +<p>Jerome got his hat and went to Doctor Prescott's. He wondered why +he had been summoned there, and braced himself for almost anything in +the way of contumely, but with no dread of it. The prospect of +legitimate combat, where he could hit back, acted like a stimulant +after his experience with his sister.</p> + +<p>Lawrence Prescott answered his knock, and Jerome wondered, +vaguely, at his radiant welcome. He shook his hand with warm +emphasis. “Father is in the study,” he said; “walk +right in—walk right in, Jerome.” Then he added, speaking +close to Jerome's ear, “God bless you, old fellow!”</p> + +<p>Jerome gave an astonished glance at him as he went into the study, +whose door stood open. Doctor Prescott was seated at his desk, his +back towards the entrance.</p> + +<p>“Good-evening. Sit down,” he said, curtly, without +turning his head.</p> + +<p>“Good-evening, sir,” replied Jerome, but remained +standing. He stood still, and stared, with that curious retrospection +into which the mind can often be diverted from even its intensest +channels, at the cases of leather-bound books and the grimy +medicine-bottles, green and brown with the sediments of old doses, +which had so impressed him in his childhood. He saw, with an acute +throb of memory, the old valerian bottle, catching the light like +liquid ruby. He had stepped back so completely into his past, of a +little, pitiful suppliant, yet never wholly intimidated, boy, in this +gloomy, pungent interior, that he started, as across a chasm of time, +when the doctor arose, came forward, and spoke again. “Be +seated,” he said, with an imperious wave towards a chair, and +took one for himself.</p> + +<p>Jerome sat down; in spite of himself, as he looked at the doctor +opposite, the same old indignant, yet none the less vital, sense of +subjection in the presence of superiority was over him as in his +childhood. He saw again Doctor Seth Prescott as the incarnation of +force and power. There was, in truth, something majestic about the +man—he was an autocrat in a narrow sphere; but his autocracy +was genuine. The czar of a little New England village may be as real +in quality as the Czar of all the Russias.</p> + +<p>The doctor began to speak, moving his finely cut lips with clear +precision.</p> + +<p>“I understand,” said he, “that you have +fulfilled the promise which you made in my presence several years +ago, to give away twenty-five thousand dollars, should such a sum be +given to you. Am I right in so understanding?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Do you know that the instrument, drawn up by Lawyer Means +at that time is illegal, that no obligation stated therein could be +enforced?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Who told you—Mr. Means?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Before you gave the money or after?”</p> + +<p>“Before.”</p> + +<p>“You know that I am not under the slightest legal +restriction to give the sum for which I stand pledged in that +instrument, even though you have fulfilled your part of the +agreement.”</p> + +<p>“It depends upon what you consider a legal +restriction.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean by that?”</p> + +<p>“I mean that I make no promise which is not a legal +restriction upon myself,” replied Jerome, with a proud look at +the other man.</p> + +<p>“Neither do I,” returned the doctor, with a look as +proud; “but your remark is simply a quibble, which we will pass +over. I say again, that I am under no legal restriction, in the +common acceptance of that term, to give a fourth part of my property +to the poor of this town. That you admit?”</p> + +<p>Jerome nodded.</p> + +<p>“Well, sir,” said the doctor, “knowing that fact +myself, having it admitted by you and all others, I have yet +determined to abide by my part of that instrument, and relinquish one +fourth part of the property of which I stand possessed.”</p> + +<p>Jerome started; he could scarcely believe his ears.</p> + +<p>“But,” the doctor continued, “since I am in no +wise bound by the terms of the instrument, as drawn up by Lawyer +Means, I propose to alter some of them, as I deem judicious for the +public welfare. One-fourth of my property, which consists largely of +real estate, cannot manifestly be given in ready money without great +delay and loss. Therefore I propose giving to a large extent in land, +and in a few cases liquidations of mortgage deeds; and—I also +propose giving in such proportions and to such individuals as I shall +approve and select; a strictly indiscriminate division is directly +opposed to my views. I trust that you do not consider that this +method is to be objected to on the grounds of any infringement upon +my legal restrictions.”</p> + +<p>“No, sir, I don't,” replied Jerome.</p> + +<p>“There is one other point, then I have done,” said +Doctor Prescott. “I have withdrawn my objection to my son's +marriage with your sister. That is all. I have said and heard all I +wish, and I will not detain you any longer.” Doctor Prescott +looked at him with a pale and forbidding majesty in his clear-cut +face. Jerome arose, and was passing out without a word, as he was +bidden, when the old man held out his hand. He had the air of +extending a sceptre, and a haughty downward look, as if the whole +world, and his own self, were under his feet. Jerome shook the +proffered hand, and went. His hand was on the latch of the outer +door, when the sitting-room door on the left opened, and he felt +himself enveloped, as it were, in a softly gracious feminine +presence, made evident by wide rustlings of silken skirts, pointed +foldings of lavender-scented white wool over out-stretched arms, and +heaving waves of white lace over a high, curving bosom. Doctor +Prescott's wife drew Jerome to her as if he were still a child, and +kissed him on his cheek. “Give your sister my fondest love, and +may God give you your own reward, dear boy,” she said, in her +beautiful voice, which was like no other woman's for sweetness and +softness, though she was as large as a queen.</p> + +<p>Then she was gone, and Jerome went home, with the scent of +lavender from her laces and silks and white wools still in his +nostrils, and a subtler sweetness of womanhood and fine motherhood +dimly perceived in his soul.</p> + +<p>When he got home, he knew, by the light in the parlor windows, +that Lawrence was with his sister. He had been in bed some time +before he heard the front door shut.</p> + +<p>Elmira, when she came up-stairs, opened his door a crack, and +whispered, in a voice tremulous with happiness, “Jerome, you +asleep?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Do—you know—about Lawrence and me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; I'm real glad, Elmira.”</p> + +<p>“I hope you'll forgive me for speaking to you the way I did, +Jerome.”</p> + +<p>“That's all right, Elmira.”</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XL</h4> + +<p>The next morning Jerome was just going out of the yard when he met +Paulina Maria Judd and Henry coming in. Paulina Maria held her blind +son by the hand, but he walked with an air of resisting her +guidance.</p> + +<p>“J'rome, I've come to see you about that money,” said +Paulina Maria. “I hear you're goin' to give us two hundred and +fifty dollars. I told you once we wouldn't take your +money.”</p> + +<p>“This is different. This is the money Colonel Lamson left +me, that I'd agreed to give away.”</p> + +<p>“It ain't any different to us. You can keep it.”</p> + +<p>“I sha'n't keep it, anyway. For God's sake, aunt, take it! +Henry, take it, and get your eyes cured!”</p> + +<p>“I sha'n't take money that's given in any such way, and +neither will my son. I haven't changed my mind about what I said the +other night, and neither has he. You need this money yourself. If the +money had been left to us, it would have been different; we sha'n't +take it, and you needn't offer it to us; you can count us out in your +division. We sha'n't take what Doctor Prescott has offered +neither—to give us the mortgage on our house. It's an honest +debt, and we don't want to shirk it. If we're paupers, we'll be +paupers of God, but of no man!”</p> + +<p>“Henry,” pleaded Jerome, “just listen to +me.” But it was of no avail. His cousin turned his blind face +sternly away from his pleading voice, and went out of the yard, still +seeming to strive against his mother's leading hand.</p> + +<p>Jerome followed them, still arguing with them; he even walked with +them a little, after the turn of the road. Then he gave it up, and +went on to the store, where he had an errand. He resolved to see +Adoniram, and try to influence him to take the money for his blind +son. He could not believe that he would not do so. Long before he +reached the store he could hear the gabble of excited voices, and +loud peals of rough laughter. “What's going on?” he +thought. When he entered, he saw Simon Basset backed up against a +counter, at bay, as it were, before a great throng of village men and +boys. Basset was deathly white through his grime and beard-stubble, +his gaunt jaws snapping like a wolf's, his eyes fierce with +terror.</p> + +<p>“Shell out, Simon,” shouted a young man, with a +butting motion of a shock head towards the old man. “Shell out, +I tell ye, or ye'll have a writ served on ye.”</p> + +<p>“I tell ye I won't; ye don't know nothin' about it; I 'ain't +got no property!” shrieked Simon Basset, amidst a wild burst of +laughter.</p> + +<p>“He 'ain't got no property, he 'ain't, hi!” shouted +the boys on the outskirts, with peals of goblin merriment.</p> + +<p>“I tell ye I 'ain't got more'n five thousand dollars to my +name!”</p> + +<p>“You 'ain't, eh? Where's all your land, you old liar?” +asked the young man, who seemed spokesman for the crowd.</p> + +<p>“It ain't wuth nothin'. I couldn't sell it to-day if I +wanted to.”</p> + +<p>“Gimme the land, then, an' we'll take the risk,” was +the cry. “J'rome and the doctor have shelled out; now it's your +turn, or you'll hev the officers after ye.”</p> + +<p>Jerome pushed his way through the crowd. “What are you +scaring him for?” he demanded. “He's an old man, and you +ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”</p> + +<p>“He ain't more'n seventy,” replied the young man, +“an' he's smart as a cricket—he's smart enough to gouge +the whole town, old 's he is.”</p> + +<p>“That's so, Eph!” chorused his supporters.</p> + +<p>Jerome grasped Basset by the shoulder. “Don't you know you +are not obliged to give a dollar, if you don't want to?” he +asked. “That paper wasn't legal.”</p> + +<p>The old man shrank before him with craven terror, and yet with the +look of a dog which will snap when he sees an unwary hand. “Ye +don't git me into none of yer traps,” he snarled. “What +made Doctor Prescott give anythin'?”</p> + +<p>“He gave because he wanted to keep his promise, not because +he was forced to by that paper.”</p> + +<p>“Likely story,” said Simon Basset.</p> + +<p>“I tell you it's so.”</p> + +<p>“Likely story, Seth Prescott ever give it if he wa'n't +obliged to. Ye can't trap me.”</p> + +<p>“Go and ask him, if you don't believe me,” said +Jerome.</p> + +<p>“Ye don't trap me, I'm too old.”</p> + +<p>“Go and ask Lawyer Means, then.”</p> + +<p>“I guess, when ye git me into that pesky lawyer's clutches, +ye'll know it! Ye can't trap me. I guess I know more about law than +ye do, ye damned little upstart ye! Why couldn't ye have kept your +dead man's shoes to home, darn ye? Ye'll come on the town yerself, +yet; ye won't have money enough to pay fer your buryin', an' I hope +to God ye won't! Curse ye! I'll live to see ye in your pauper's grave +yet, old 's I be. Ye <em>thief!</em> I tell ye, I 'ain't got no +money. I 'ain't got more'n five thousand dollars, countin' everythin' +in the world, an' I'll see ye all damned to hell afore I'll give ye a +dollar. Let me out, will ye?” Simon Basset made a clawing, +cat-like rush through the crowd to the door.</p> + +<p>“I tell you, Simon Basset, you haven't got to give a +dollar,” shouted Jerome; but he might as well have shouted to +the wind.</p> + +<p>“No use, J'rome,” chuckled the shock-headed young man, +“he's gone plumb crazy over it. You can't make him listen to +nothin'.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, badgering him so?” cried Jerome, +angrily.</p> + +<p>“He's a mean old cuss, anyhow,” said the young man, +with a defiant laugh.</p> + +<p>“That's so! Serves him right,” grunted the others. +They were all much younger than Jerome, and many of them were mere +boys. It seemed strange that a man as sharp as Basset had taken them +seriously.</p> + +<p>Jerome, the more he thought it over, was convinced that Simon +Basset was half crazed with the fear of parting with his money. When +he came out of the store, he hesitated; he was half inclined to +follow Basset home, and try to reason him into some understanding of +the truth. Then, remembering his violent attitude towards himself, he +decided that it would be useless, and went home. He planned to plough +his garden that day.</p> + +<p>“I've got to work at something,” Jerome told himself; +“if it isn't one thing, it's got to be another.” He +dwelt always upon Lucina: what she was thinking of him; if she +thought that he did not love her, because he had given her up; if she +would look at him, if she were to see him, as his sister had done the +night before. Jerome had not yet answered Lucina's letter. He did not +know how to answer it; but he carried it with him night and day.</p> + +<p>He went home, got his horse and plough, and fell to work in his +hilly garden ground. His father came out and sat on a stone and +watched him happily. Jerome was scarcely accustomed to his father +yet, but he treated him as tenderly as if he were a child, and the +old man followed him like one. Indeed, he seemed to prefer his son to +his wife, though Ann watched him with jealous affection. Ann Edwards +had never walked since the night of her husband's return. She never +alluded to it; sometimes her children thought that she had not known +it herself.</p> + +<p>Jerome was still ploughing in the afternoon when his uncle Ozias +Lamb came.</p> + +<p>Ozias stumped softly through the new-turned mould. He had a folded +paper in his hand, and he extended it towards Jerome. “D'ye +know anythin' about this?” he asked. His face was ashy.</p> + +<p>Jerome brought his horse to a stand. “What is it?”</p> + +<p>“Don't ye know?”</p> + +<p>“No, I don't.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it's that mortgage deed that Basset held on my place, +with—the signature torn off, cancelled—” Ozias +said, in a hoarse voice. “D'ye know anythin' about it +now?”</p> + +<p>“No, I don't,” replied Jerome, with emphasis.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Ozias, “I found it under the front +door-sill. Belindy said she heard a knock on the front door, but when +she went there wa'n't nobody there, an' there was this paper. She +come runnin' out to the shop with it. It was jest before noon. What +d'ye s'pose it means?”</p> + +<p>Jerome took the deed and examined it closely. “Have you read +what's written above the heading of it?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“No; what is it, J'rome?”</p> + +<p>Ozias put on his spectacles; Jerome pointed to a crabbed line +above the heading of the mortgage deed.</p> + +<p>“I giv as present the forth part of my proputty, this +morgidge to Ozier Lamm. <br> “Simon +Basset.”</p> + +<p>“He's took crazy!” cried Ozias, staring wildly at +it.</p> + +<p>“Guess he's been crazy over dollars and cents all his life, +and this is just an acute phase of it,” replied Jerome, calmly, +taking up his plough handles again.</p> + +<p>“I b'lieve the hull town's crazy. I've heard that Doctor +Prescott has give his place back to John Upham, an' Peter Thomas is +comin' out of the poor-farm an' goin' back to his old house. J'rome, +I declar' to reason, I b'lieve you're crazy, an' the hull town has +caught it. What's that? Who's comin'?”</p> + +<p>A wild-eyed little boy, with fair hair stiff to the breeze, came +racing across the plough ridges. “Come quick! Come +quick!” he gasped. “They've sent me—Doctor +Prescott's ain't to home—he's most dead! Come quick!”</p> + +<p>“Where to?” shouted Jerome, pulling the tackle off the +horse.</p> + +<p>“Come quick, J'rome!”</p> + +<p>“Where <em>to?</em>”</p> + +<p>“Speak up, can't ye?” cried Ozias, shaking the boy by +his small shoulder.</p> + +<p>“To Basset's!” screamed the boy, shrilly, jerked away +from Ozias, and was off, clearing the ground like a hound, with long +leaps.</p> + +<p>“Lord,” said Ozias, looking at the deed, “it's +killed him!”</p> + +<p>Jerome had freed the horse from the plough, and now sprang upon +his back.</p> + +<p>“Ye ain't goin' to ride him bare-back?” asked +Ozias.</p> + +<p>“I'm not going to stop for a saddle. G'long!” Jerome +bent forward, slapped the horse on the neck, dug his heels into his +sides, and was off at a gallop.</p> + +<p>Ozias followed, still clutching the deed. Abel Edwards came out as +he reached the house. “Where's J'rome goin' to?” he +asked.</p> + +<p>“Down to Basset's; somethin's happened. He's fell dead or +somethin'. I'm goin' to see what the matter is.”</p> + +<p>“Wait till I git my hat, an' I'll go with ye.”</p> + +<p>The two old men went at a fast trot down the road, and many joined +them, all hurrying to Simon Basset's.</p> + +<p>They had reached Lawyer Means's house, which stood in sight of +Basset's, before they met a returning company. “It's no use +your goin',” shouted a man in advance. “He's gone. J'rome +Edwards said so the minute he see him, an' now Doctor Prescott he's +come, an' he says so. He was dead before they cut him +down.”</p> + +<p>With the throng of excited men and boys came one pale-faced, +elderly woman, with her cap awry and her apron over her shoulders. +She was Miss Rachel Blodgett, Eliphalet Means's house-keeper.</p> + +<p>She took up her position by the Means's gate, and the crowd +gathered about her as a nucleus. Other women came running out of +neighboring houses, and pressed close to her skirts. Cyrus Robinson's +son pushed before her, and, when she began to speak in a strained +treble, overpowered it with a coarse volume of bass. “Let me +tell what I've got to first,” he ordered, importantly. +“My part comes first, then it's your turn. I've got to go back +to the store. It was just about noon that Simon Basset come in ag'in +and asked for a piece of rope. Said he wanted it to tie his cow with. +I got out some rope, and he tried to beat me down on it; asked me if +I hadn't got some second-hand rope I'd let him have a piece of. +Finally I got mad, and asked him why, if he wasn't willing to pay for +rope what it was worth, he didn't use a halter or his +clothes-line.</p> + +<p>“He whined out that his halter was broke, and he hadn't had +a clothes-line for years. That last I believed, quick enough, for I +knew he didn't ever have any washing done.</p> + +<p>“Then I asked him why he didn't steal a rope if he was too +poor to pay for it, and he said he was too poor. He wasn't worth more +than five thousand dollars in the world, and he'd given away all he +was going to of that. When he got started on that, he ripped and +raved the way he did this morning; hang it, if I didn't begin to +think he was out of his mind. Then he went off, about ten minutes +past twelve, without his rope. I suppose there were pieces of rope +enough around, but I got mad, he acted so darned mean about it, and +wouldn't hunt it up for him, and I'm glad now I didn't.”</p> + +<p>Rachel Blodgett, who had been teetering with eagerness on her thin +old ankles, interposing now and then sharp quavers of abortive +speech, cut short Robinson's last words with the impetuosity of her +delivered torrent. “I washed to-day,” said she. “I +didn't wash yesterday because it wasn't a good drying-day, and last +week I had my clothes around three days in the tub, and I made up my +mind I wouldn't do it again. So I washed to-day.</p> + +<p>“I got my clothes all hung out before dinner. I had an +uncommon heavy wash to-day, an extra table-cloth—Mr. Means +tipped his coffee over yesterday morning—and the sheets of the +spare chamber bed were in, so I put up a little piece of line I had, +between those two trees, beside my regular clothes-line.</p> + +<p>“About an hour ago I thought to myself the clothes ought to +be dry, and I'd just step out and look. So I run out, and there were +the clothes I'd hung on the little line—some dish-towels, and +two of my aprons, and one of Mr. Means's shirts—down on the +ground in the dirt, and the line was gone. Thinks I, ‘Where's +that line gone to?’</p> + +<p>“I stood there gaping, I couldn't make head or tail of it. +Then I see the little Crossman boy out in the yard, and I hollered to +him—‘Willy,’ says I, ‘come here a +minute.’</p> + +<p>“He come running over, and I asked him if he'd seen anybody +in our yard since noon. He said he hadn't seen anybody but Mr. +Basset. He saw him coming out of our yard tucking something under his +coat.</p> + +<p>“That put me on the track. If I do say it of the dead, and +one that's gone to his account in an awful way, Mr. Basset had been +over here time and time again, and helped himself. I ain't going to +say he stole; he helped himself. He helped himself to our kindling +wood, and our hammer, and our spade, and our rake. After the spade +went, I made a notch on the rake-handle so I could tell it, and when +that went, I slipped over to Mr. Basset's one day when I knew he +wasn't there, and there was our rake in his shed. I said nothing to +nobody, but I just brought our rake home again, and I hid it where he +didn't find it again. Mr. Means, though he's a lawyer, looks out +sharper for other folks' belongings than he does for his own. He'd +never say anything; he went and bought another spade and hammer, and +he'd bought another rake if I hadn't got that.</p> + +<p>“When that little Crossman boy said he'd seen Mr. Basset +coming out of our yard tucking something under his coat, it put me +right on the track, though I couldn't think what he wanted with that +little piece of rope. I should have thought he wanted it to mend a +harness with, but his old horse died last winter; folks said he +didn't have enough to eat, but I ain't going to pass any judgment on +that, and I knew he sold his old harness, because the man he sold it +to had been to Mr. Means to get damages for being taken in. The +harness had broke, and his horse had run away, and the man declared +that that harness had been glued together in places.</p> + +<p>“But I don't know anything about that. The poor man is dead, +and if he glued his harness, it's for him to give account of, not me. +I couldn't think what he wanted that rope for, but I felt mad. The +rope wasn't worth much, but it was his helping himself to it, without +leave or license, that riled me, and there were my clean clothes all +down in the dirt—there they are now, you can see 'em +there—and I knew I'd got to wash 'em over.</p> + +<p>“So I made up my mind I'd got spunk enough, and I'd go right +over there and tell Simon Basset I wanted my rope. So I took off my +apron and clapped it over my shoulders—I've had a little +rheumatism lately, and the wind's kind of cold to-day—and I run +over there.</p> + +<p>“I—don't know what came over me. When I got to the +house, a chill struck all through my bones. I trembled like a leaf. I +felt as if something had happened. I thought, at first, I'd turn +around and go home, and then I thought I wouldn't be so silly, that +it was just nerves, and nothing had happened. I went round to the +side door, and I didn't see him puttering around anywhere, so I +peeked into the wood-shed. I thought if I saw my rope there I'd just +take it, and run home and say nothing to nobody.</p> + +<p>“But I didn't see it, so I went back to the door and +knocked. I knocked three times, and nobody came. Then I opened the +door a crack, and hollered—‘Mr. Basset!’ says I, +‘Mr. Basset!’</p> + +<p>“I called a number of times, then I got out of patience. I +thought he'd gone away somewhere, and I might as well go in and see +if I couldn't find my rope. So I opened the door wide and stepped +in.</p> + +<p>“It was awful still in there—somehow the stillness +seemed to hit my ears. It was just like a tomb. That dreadful horror +came over me again. I felt the cold stealing down my back. I made up +my mind I'd just peek into the kitchen, and if I didn't see my rope, +I wouldn't look any farther; I'd go home.</p> + +<p>“So—the kitchen door was ajar, and I pushed it, and it +swung open, and—I looked, and there—there!”</p> + +<p>Suddenly the woman's shrill monologue was intensified by hysteria. +She pointed wildly, as if she saw again the awful sight which she had +seen through that open door.</p> + +<p>“There, there!” she shrieked—“there! He +was—there—oh—Willy—the doctor—Jerome +Edwards—Willy—oh, there, there!” She caught her +breath with choking sobs, she laughed, and the laugh ended in a +wailing scream; she clutched her throat, she struggled, she was +beside herself for the time, run off her track of reason by her +panic-stricken nerves.</p> + +<p>Two pale, chattering women, nearly as hysterical as she, led her, +weeping shrilly all the way, into the house, and the crowd dispersed; +some, whose curiosity was not yet satisfied, to seek the scene of the +tragedy, some to return home with the news. Two men of the latter, +walking along the village street, discussed the amount of the +property left by the dead man. “It's as much as fifty thousand +dollars,” said one.</p> + +<p>“Every dollar of it,” assented the other.</p> + +<p>“It ain't likely he's made a will. Who's goin' to heir it? +He 'ain't got a relation that I know of. All the folks I ever heard +of his havin', since I can remember, was his step-father an' his +brother Sam, an' they died twenty odd years ago.”</p> + +<p>“Adoniram Judd's father was Simon Basset's mother's +cousin.”</p> + +<p>“He wa'n't.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, he was. They both come from Westbrook, where I was +born.”</p> + +<p>“Now they can pay off the mortgage, and get Henry's eyes +fixed.”</p> + +<p>“Adoniram Judd ain't goin' to get all that money!”</p> + +<p>“I wouldn't sell ye his chance on 't for forty thousand +dollars.”</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XLI</h4> + +<p>During Jerome's absence at Simon Basset's, Squire Eben Merritt's +wife came across lots to the Edwardses' house. A little red shawl +over her shoulders stood out triangularly to the gusts of spring +wind; a forked end of red ribbon on her bonnet fluttered sharply. +Abigail Merritt moved with nervous impetus across the fields, like an +erratic thread of separate purpose through an even web. All the red +of the spring landscape was in the swift passing of her garments. All +that was not in straight parallels of accord with the universal +yielding of nature to the simplest law of growth was in her soul. She +passed on her own errand, cutting, as it were, a swath of spirit +through the soft influence of the spring. Abigail Merritt's mouth was +tightly shut, her eyes were narrow gleams of resolution, there were +red spots on her cheeks. She had left Lucina weeping on the bed in +her little chamber; she had said nothing to her, nor her husband, but +she had resolved upon her own course of action.</p> + +<p>“It is time something was done,” said Abigail Merritt, +nodding to herself in the glass as she tied on her bonnet, “and +I am going to do it.”</p> + +<p>When she reached the Edwardses' house, she stepped briskly up the +path, bowing to Mrs. Edwards in the window, and Elmira opened the +door before she knocked.</p> + +<p>“Good-afternoon; I would like to see your brother a +moment,” Abigail announced, abruptly.</p> + +<p>“He isn't at home,” said Elmira; “something has +happened at Simon Basset's—I don't know what. A boy came after +Jerome, and he hurried off. Father's gone too.” Elmira blushed +all over her face and neck as she spoke. “Jerome will be sorry +he wasn't at home,” she added. She had a curious sense of +innocent confusion over the situation.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Edwards blushed too, like an echo, though she gave her little +dark head an impatient toss.</p> + +<p>“Then please ask your brother if he will be so kind as to +come to the Squire's after supper to-night,” she returned, in +her smart, prettily dictatorial way, and took leave at once, though +Elmira urged her politely to come in and rest and wait for her +brother's return.</p> + +<p>She gave the message to Jerome when he came home. “What do +you suppose she wants of you?” she asked, wonderingly. Jerome +shook his head.</p> + +<p>“Why, you look as white as a sheet!” said Elmira, +staring at him.</p> + +<p>“I've seen enough this afternoon to make any man look +white,” Jerome replied, evasively.</p> + +<p>“Well, I suppose you have; it is awful about Simon +Basset,” Elmira assented, shudderingly.</p> + +<p>Jerome had to force himself to his work after he had received Mrs. +Merritt's message. The tragedy of Simon Basset had given him a +terrible shock, and now this last set his nerves in a tumult in spite +of himself.</p> + +<p>“What can she want?” he questioned, over and over. +“Shall I see Lucina? What can her mother have to say to +me?”</p> + +<p>One minute, thinking of Simon Basset, he stood convicted, to his +shame, of the utter despicableness of all his desires pertaining to +the earth and the flesh, by that clear apprehension of eternity which +often comes to one at the sight of sudden death. He settled with +himself that wealth and success and learning, and love itself even, +where as nothing beside that one surety of eternity, which holds the +sequence of good and evil, and is of the spirit.</p> + +<p>Then, in a wild rebellion of honesty, he would own to himself +that, whether he would have it so or not, to his understanding, still +hampered by the conditions of the flesh, perhaps made morbid by +resistance to them, but that he could not tell, love was the one +truth and reality and source of all things; that life was because of +love, not love because of life.</p> + +<p>Jerome set his mouth hard as he ploughed. The newly turned sods +clung to his feet and made them heavy, as the fond longings of the +earth clung to his soul. It seemed to Jerome that he had never loved +Lucina as he loved her then, that he had never wanted her so much. +Also that he had never been so firmly resolved to give her up. If +Lucina had seemed beyond his reach before, she seemed doubly so then, +and her new wealth loomed between them like an awful golden flood of +separation. “I have given away all my money,” he said. +“Shall I marry a wife with money, to make good my loss?” +He laughed at himself with bitter scorn for the fancy.</p> + +<p>After supper, he dressed himself in his best clothes, and set out +for Squire Merritt's, evading as much as he could his mother's +questions and surmises. Ann's bitterness at his disposal of his money +was softened to loquacity by her curiosity.</p> + +<p>“I s'pose,” said she, “that if that poor girl +goes down on her knees to you, an' tells you her heart is breakin', +that you'll jest hand her over to the town poor, the way you did your +money.”</p> + +<p>“Don't, mother,” whispered Elmira, as Jerome went out, +making no response.</p> + +<p>“I'm goin' to say what I think 's best. I'm his +mother,” returned Ann. But when Jerome was gone, she broke down +and cried, and complained that the poor boy hadn't eat any supper, +and she was afraid he'd be sick. Abel, sitting near her, snivelled +softly for sympathy, not fairly comprehending her cause for tears. +When she stopped weeping, and took up her knitting-work again, he +drew a sigh of relief and fell to eating an apple.</p> + +<p>As for Elmira, she tried to comfort her mother, and she had an +anxious curiosity about Jerome and his call at the Merritts'; but +Lawrence Prescott was coming that evening.</p> + +<p>Presently Ann heard her singing up-stairs in her chamber, whither +she had gone to curl her hair and change her gown.</p> + +<p>“I'm glad somebody can sing,” muttered Ann; but in the +depths of her heart was a wish that her son, instead of her daughter, +could have had the reason for song, if it were appointed to one only. +“Women don't take things so hard as men,” reasoned Ann +Edwards.</p> + +<p>When Jerome knocked at Squire Merritt's door that evening, Mrs. +Merritt opened it. For a minute everything was dark before him; he +had thought that he might see Lucina. His voice sounded strange in +his own ears when he replied to Mrs. Merritt's greeting; he almost +reeled when he followed her into the parlor. It was a cool, spring +night, and there was a fire on the hearth. A silver branch of candles +on the mantel-shelf lit the room.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Merritt looked anxiously at Jerome as she placed a chair. +“I hope you are well,” she said, in her quick way, but +her voice was kind. Jerome thought it sounded like Lucina's. He +stammered that he was quite well.</p> + +<p>“You look pale.”</p> + +<p>When he made no response to that, she added, with a motherly +cadence, that he had been through a great deal lately; that she had +felt very sorry about the loss of his mill.</p> + +<p>Jerome thanked her. He sat opposite, in a great mahogany +arm-chair, holding himself very erect; but his pulses sang in his +ears, and his downcast eyes scanned the roses in the carpet. He did +not understand it, but he was for the moment like a school-boy before +the aroused might of feminity of this little woman.</p> + +<p>“It is partly about your mill that I want to see you,” +said Abigail Merritt. “The Squire has something which he wishes +to propose, but he has begged me to do so for him. He thinks my +chances of success are better. I don't know about that,” she +finished, smiling.</p> + +<p>Jerome looked up then, with quick attention, and she came at once +to the point. Abigail Merritt, her mind once made up, was not a woman +to beat long about a bush. “The Squire has, as you know,” +she said, “a legacy of five thousand dollars from poor Colonel +Lamson. He wishes to invest part of it. He would like to rebuild your +mill.”</p> + +<p>Jerome colored high. “Thank him, and thank you,” he +said; “but—”</p> + +<p>“He does not propose to give it to you,” she +interposed, quickly. “He would not venture to propose that, +however much he might like to do so. His plan is to rebuild the mill, +and for you to work it on shares—you to have your share of the +profits for your labor. You could have the chance to buy him out +later, when you were able.”</p> + +<p>Jerome was about to speak, but Abigail interrupted again. “I +beg you not to make your final decision now,” she said. +“There is no necessity for it. I would rather, too, that you +gave your answer to the Squire instead of me. I have nothing to do +with it. It is simply a proposition of the Squire's for you to +consider at your leisure. You know how much my husband has always +thought of you since you were a child. He would be glad to help you, +and help himself at the same time, if you will allow him to do so; +but that can pass over. I have something else of more importance to +me to say. Jerome Edwards,” said she, suddenly, and there was a +new tone in her voice, “I want you to tell me just how matters +stand between you and my daughter, Lucina. I am her mother, and I +have a right to know.”</p> + +<p>Jerome looked at her. His handsome young face was very white. +“I—have been working hard to earn enough money to +marry,” he said, speaking quick, as if his breath failed him. +“I lost my mill. I will not ask her to wait.”</p> + +<p>“You had a fortune, but you gave it away,” returned +Mrs. Merritt. “Well, we will not discuss that; that is not +between you and me, or any human being, if you did what you thought +right. Lucina has twenty thousand dollars, you know that?”</p> + +<p>Jerome nodded. “Yes,” he replied, hoarsely.</p> + +<p>“What difference will it make whether you have the money or +your wife?”</p> + +<p>“It makes a difference to me,” Jerome cried then, with +that old flash of black eyes which had intimidated the little girl +Lucina in years past.</p> + +<p>“And yet you say you love my daughter,” said Mrs. +Merritt, looking at him steadily.</p> + +<p>“I love her so much that I would lay down my life for +her!” Jerome cried, fiercely, and there was a flare of red over +his pale face.</p> + +<p>“But not so much that you would sacrifice one jot or one +tittle of your pride for her,” responded Abigail Merritt, with +sharp scorn. Suddenly she sprang up from her chair and stood before +the young man, every nerve in her slight body quivering with the fire +of eloquence. “Now listen, Jerome Edwards,” said she. +“I know who and what you are, and I know who and what my +daughter is. I give you your full due. You have traits which are +above the common, and out of the common; some which are noble, and +some which render you dangerous to the peace of any one who loves +you. I give you your full due, and I give my daughter hers. I can say +it without vanity—it is the simple truth—Lucina has had +her pick and choice among many. She could have wedded, had she +chosen, in high stations. She has a face and character which win love +for her wherever she goes. I am not here to offer or force my +daughter upon any unwilling lover. If I had not been sure, from what +she has told me, and from what I have observed, that you were +perfectly honest in your affection for her, I should not have sent +for you to-night. I—”</p> + +<p>She stopped, for Jerome burst out with a passion which startled +her. “Honest! Oh, my God! I love her so that I am nothing +without her. I love her more than the whole world, more than my own +life!”</p> + +<p>“Then give up your pride for her, if you love her,” +said Abigail, sharply.</p> + +<p>“My pride!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, your pride. You have given away everything else, but +how dare you think yourself generous when you have kept the thing +that is dearest of all? You generous—you! Talk of Simon Basset! +You are a miser of a false trait in your own character. You are a +worse miser than he, unless you give it up. What are you, that you +should say, ‘I will go through life, and I will give, and not +take?’ What are you, that you should think yourself better +than all around you—that you should be towards your +fellow-creatures as a god, conferring everything, receiving nothing? +If you love my daughter, prove it. Take what she has to give you, and +give her, what is worth more than money, if you had the riches of +Crœsus, the pride of your heart.”</p> + +<p>Jerome stood before her, looking at her. Then, without a word, he +went across the room to a window, and stood there, his back towards +her, his face towards the moonlight night outside.</p> + +<p>“Is it pride or principle?” he said, hoarsely, without +turning his head.</p> + +<p>“Pride.”</p> + +<p>Jerome stood silently at the window. Abigail watched him, her +brows contracted, her fingers twitching; there were red spots on her +cheeks. This had cost her dearly. She, too, had given up her pride +for love of Lucina.</p> + +<p>Jerome, with a sudden motion of his shoulders, as if he flung off +a burden, left the window and crossed the room. He was very pale, but +his eyes were shining. He towered over Mrs. Merritt with his splendid +height, and she was woman enough, even then, to note how handsome he +was. “Will you give me Lucina for my wife?” said he.</p> + +<p>Tears sprang to Abigail's eyes, her little face quivered. She took +Jerome's hand, pressed it, murmured something, and went out. Jerome +understood that she had gone to call Lucina.</p> + +<p>It was not long before he heard Lucina's step on the stairs, and +the rustle of her skirts. Then there was a suspensive silence, as if +she hesitated at the door; then the latch was lifted and she came +in.</p> + +<p>Lucina, in a straight hanging gown of blue silk, stood still near +the door, looking at Jerome with a wonderful expression of love and +modest shrinking and trust and fear, and a gentle dignity and +graciousness withal, which only a maiden's face can compass. Lucina +did not blush nor tremble, though her steady poise seemed rather due +to the repression of tremors than actual calm of spirit. Though no +color came into Lucina's smooth, pale curves of cheek, and though her +little hands were clasped before her, like hands of marble, her blue +eyes were dilated, and pulses beat hard in her delicate throat and +temples.</p> + +<p>Jerome, on his part, was for a minute unable to speak or approach +her. An awe of her, as of an angel, was over him, now that for the +first time the certainty of possession was in his heart. It often +happens that one receiving for the first time a great and +long-desired blessing, can feel, for the moment, not joy and triumph +so much as awe and fear at its sudden glory of fairness in contact +with his unworthiness.</p> + +<p>But, all at once, as Jerome hesitated a soft red came flaming over +Lucina's face and neck, and tears of distress welled up in her eyes. +Far it was from her to understand how her lover felt, for awe of +herself was beyond her imagination, and a dreadful fear lest her +mother had been mistaken and Jerome did not want her after all, was +in her heart. She gave him a little look, at once proud and piteously +shamed, and put her hand on the door-latch; but with that Jerome was +at her side and his arms were around her.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Lucina,” he said, “I am poor—I am +poorer than when I spoke to you before. You must give all and I +nothing, except myself, which seems to me as nothing when I look at +you. Will you take me so?”</p> + +<p>Then Lucina looked straight up in his face, and her blushes were +gone, and her blue eyes were dark, as if from unknown depths of love +and faithfulness. “Don't you know,” she said, with an +authoritative seriousness, which seemed beyond her years and her +girlish experience—“don't you know that when I give you +all I give to myself, and that if I did not give you all I could +never give to myself, but should be poor all my life?</p> + +<p>“And, and—” continued Lucina, tremulously, for +she was beginning to falter, being nerved to such length of assertive +speech only by her wish to comfort and reassure Jerome, “don't +you know—don't you know, Jerome, that—a woman's giving is +all her taking, and—you wouldn't take the gingerbread, dear, +and the money for the shoes, when we were both children—but, +maybe your—taking from—somebody who loves you is +your—best giving—”</p> + +<p>With that Lucina was sobbing softly on Jerome's shoulder, and he +was leaning his face close to hers, whispering brokenly and kissing +her hair and her cheek.</p> + +<p>“It doesn't matter, after all, because you lost your mill, +dear,” Lucina said, presently, “because we have money +enough for everything, now.”</p> + +<p>“It is your money, for your own needs always,” Jerome +returned, quickly, and with a sudden recoil as from a touch upon a +raw surface, for the sensitiveness of a whole life cannot be hardened +in a moment.</p> + +<p>“No, it is yours, too; he meant it so,” said Lucina, +with a little laugh. “You wait a minute and I will show +you.”</p> + +<p>With that Lucina fumbled in the pocket of her silken gown and +produced a letter.</p> + +<p>“Read this, dear,” said she, “and you will see +what I mean.”</p> + +<p>“What is it?” asked Jerome, wonderingly, staring at +the superscription, which was, “For Mistress Lucina Merritt, to +be opened and read by herself, at her pleasure and discretion, and to +be read by herself and Jerome Edwards jointly on the day of their +betrothal.”</p> + +<p>“Come over to the light and we will read it together,” +said Lucina.</p> + +<p>Jerome and Lucina sat down on the sofa under the branching +candlestick and read the letter with their heads close together. The +letter ran:</p> + +<p>“Dear Mistress Lucina,—When this you read an old +soldier will have fought his last battle, and his heart, which has +held you as kindly as a father's, will have ceased to beat. But he +prays that you will ever, in your own true and loving heart, save a +place for his memory, and he begs you to accept as an earnest of his +affection, with his fond wishes for your happiness, the sum of twenty +thousand dollars, as specified in his last will and testament.</p> + +<p>“And he furthermore begs that the said sum of twenty +thousand dollars be regarded by you, when you wed Jerome Edwards, in +the light of a dowry, to be employed by you both, for your mutual +good and profit, during your married life. And this with my +commendation for the wisdom of your choice, and my fervent blessing +upon my foster son and daughter.</p> + +<p>“I am, dear Mistress Lucina, your obedient servant to +command, your devoted friend, and your affectionate foster +father,</p> + +<p> “John Lamson.”</p> + +<p align="center">THE END</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Jerome, A Poor Man, by Mary E. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Jerome, A Poor Man + A Novel + +Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +Release Date: March 1, 2006 [EBook #17886] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEROME, A POOR MAN *** + + + + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly + + + + + + +Jerome, A Poor Man + +A Novel + +By +Mary E. Wilkins + +Author of +"Prembroke" "Jane Field" "Madelon" +"A Humble Romance" etc. + +Illustrated +by A. I. Keller + +New York and London +Harper & Brothers Publishers +1897 + + + +To My Father + + + + +Chapter I + + +One morning in early May, when the wind was cold and the sun hot, and +Jerome about twelve years old, he was in a favorite lurking-place of +his, which nobody but himself knew. + +Three fields' width to the northward from the Edwardses' house was a +great rock ledge; on the southern side of it was a famous warm +hiding-place for a boy on a windy spring day. There was a hollow in +the rock for a space as tall as Jerome, and the ledge extended itself +beyond it like a sheltering granite wing to the westward. + +The cold northwester blowing from over the lingering Canadian +snow-banks could not touch him, and he had the full benefit of the +sun as it veered imperceptibly south from east. He lay there basking +in it like some little animal which had crawled out from its winter +nest. Before him stretched the fields, all flushed with young green. +On the side of a gentle hill at the left a file of blooming +peach-trees looked as if they were moving down the slope to some +imperious march music of the spring. + +In the distance a man was at work with plough and horse. His shouts +came faintly across, like the ever-present notes of labor in all the +harmonies of life. The only habitation in sight was Squire Eben +Merritt's, and of that only the broad slants of shingled roof and +gray end wall of the barn, with a pink spray of peach-trees against +it. + +Jerome stared out at it all, without a thought concerning it in his +brain. He was actively conscious only of his own existence, which had +just then a wondrously pleasant savor for him. A sweet exhilarating +fire seemed leaping through every vein in his little body. He was +drowsy, and yet more fully awake than he had been all winter. All his +pulses tingled, and his thoughts were overborne by the ecstasy in +them. Jerome had scarcely felt thoroughly warm before, since last +summer. That same little, tight, and threadbare jacket had been his +thickest garment all winter. The wood had been stinted on the hearth, +the coverings on his bed; but now the full privilege of the spring +sun was his, and the blood in this little meagre human plant, chilled +and torpid with the winter's frosts, stirred and flowed like that in +any other. Who could say that the bliss of renewed vitality which the +boy felt, as he rested there in his snug rock, was not identical with +that of the springing grass and the flowering peach-trees? Who could +say that he was more to all intents and purposes, for that minute, +than the rock-honeysuckle opening its red cups on the ledge over his +head? He was conscious of no more memory or forethought. + +Presently he shut his eyes, and the sunlight came in a soft rosy glow +through his closed lids. Then it was that a little girl came across +the fields, clambering cautiously over the stone walls, lest she +should tear her gown, stepping softly over the green grass in her +little morocco shoes, and finally stood still in front of the boy +sitting with his eyes closed in the hollow of the rock. Twice she +opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again. At last she gained +courage. + +"Be you sick, boy?" she inquired, in a sweet, timid voice. + +Jerome opened his eyes with a start, and stared at the little quaint +figure standing before him. Lucina wore a short blue woollen gown; +below it her starched white pantalets hung to the tops of her morocco +shoes. She wore also a white tier, and over that a little coat, and +over that a little green cashmere shawl sprinkled with palm leaves, +which her mother had crossed over her bosom and tied at her back for +extra warmth. Lucina's hood was of quilted blue silk, and her smooth +yellow curls flowed from under it quite down to her waist. Moreover, +her mother had carefully arranged four, two on each side, to escape +from the frill of her hood in front and fall softly over her pink +cheeks. Lucina's face was very fair and sweet--the face of a good and +gentle little girl, who always minded her mother and did her daily +tasks. + +Her dark blue eyes, set deeply under seriously frowning childish +brows, surveyed Jerome with innocent wonder; her pretty mouth drooped +anxiously at the corners. Jerome knew her well enough, although he +had never before exchanged a word with her. She was little Lucina +Merritt, whose father had money and bought her everything she wanted, +and whose mother rigged her up like a puppet, as he had heard his +mother say. + +"No, ain't sick," he said, in a half-intelligible grunt. A cross +little animal poked into wakefulness in the midst of its nap in the +sun might have responded in much the same way. Gallantry had not yet +developed in Jerome. He saw in this pretty little girl only another +child, and, moreover, one finely shod and clothed, while he went +shoeless and threadbare. He looked sulkily at her blue silk hood, +pulled his old cap down with a twitch to his black brows, and +shrugged himself closer to the warm rock. + +The little girl eyed his bare toes. "Be you cold?" she ventured. + +"No, ain't cold," grunted Jerome. Then he caught sight of something +in her hand--a great square of sugar-gingerbread, out of which she +had taken only three dainty bites as she came along, and in spite of +himself there was a hungry flash of his black eyes. + +Lucina held out the gingerbread. "I'd just as lives as not you had +it," said she, timidly. "It's most all there. I've just had three +teenty bites." + +Jerome turned on her fiercely. "Don't want your old gingerbread," he +cried. "Ain't hungry--have all I want to home." + +The little Lucina jumped, and her blue eyes filled with tears. She +turned away without a word, and ran falteringly, as if she could not +see for tears, across the field; and there was a white lamb trotting +after her. It had appeared from somewhere in the fields, and Jerome +had not noticed it. He remembered hearing that Lucina Merritt had a +cosset lamb that followed her everywhere. "Has everything," he +muttered--"lambs an' everything. Don't want your old gingerbread." + +Suddenly he sprang up and began feeling in his pocket; then he ran +like a deer after the little girl. She rolled her frightened, tearful +blue eyes over her shoulder at him, and began to run too, and the +cosset lamb cantered faster at her heels; but Jerome soon gained on +them. + +"Stop, can't ye?" he sang out. "Ain't goin' to hurt ye. What ye +'fraid of?" He laid his hand on her green-shawled shoulders, and she +stood panting, her little face looking up at him, half reassured, +half terrified, from her blue silk hood-frills and her curls. + +"Like sas'fras?" inquired Jerome, with a lordly air. An emperor about +to bestow a largess upon a slave could have had no more of the very +grandeur of beneficence in his mien. + +Lucina nodded meekly. + +Jerome drew out a great handful of strange articles from his pocket, +and they might, from his manner of handling them, have been gold +pieces and jewels. There were old buttons, a bit of chalk, and a stub +of slate-pencil. There were a horse-chestnut and some grains of +parched sweet-corn and a dried apple-core. There were other things +which age and long bondage in the pocket had brought to such passes +that one could scarcely determine their identities. From all this +Jerome selected one undoubted treasure--a great jagged cut of +sassafras root. It had been nicely scraped, too, and looked white and +clean. + +"Here," said Jerome. + +"Don't you want it?" asked Lucina, shyly. + +"No--had a great piece twice as big as that yesterday. Know where +there's lots more in the cedar swamp. Here, take it." + +"Thank you," said Lucina, and took it, and fumbled nervously after +her little pocket. + +"Why don't you eat it?" asked Jerome, and Lucina took an obedient +little nibble. + +"Ain't that good and strong?" + +"It's real good," replied Lucina, smiling gratefully. + +"Mebbe I'll dig you some more some time," said Jerome, as if the +cedar swamp were a treasure-chest. + +"Thank you," said the little girl. Then she timidly extended the +gingerbread again. "I only took three little bites, an' it's real +nice, honest," said she, appealingly. + +But she jumped again at the flash in Jerome's black eyes. + +"Don't want your old gingerbread!" he cried. "Ain't hungry; have +more'n I want to eat to home. Guess my folks have gingerbread. Like +to know what you're tryin' to give me victuals for! Don't want any of +your old gingerbread!" + +"It ain't old, honest," pleaded Lucina, tearfully. "It ain't +old--Hannah, she just baked it this morning." But the boy was gone, +pelting hard across the field, and all there was for the little girl +to do was to go home, with her sassafras in her pocket and her +gingerbread in her hand, with an aromatic savor on her tongue and the +sting of slighted kindness in her heart, with her cosset lamb +trotting at heel, and tell her mother. + +Jerome did not return to his nook in the rock. As he neared it he +heard the hollow note of a horn from the northwest. + +"S'pose mother wants me," he muttered, and went on past the rock +ledge to the west, and climbed the stone wall into the first of the +three fields which separated him from his home. Across the young +springing grass went Jerome--a slender little lad moving with an +awkward rustic lope. It was the gait of the homely toiling men of the +village which his young muscles had caught, as if they had in +themselves powers of observation and assimilation. Jerome at twelve +walked as if he had held plough-shares, bent over potato hills, and +hewn wood in cedar swamps for half a century. Jerome's feet were +bare, and his red rasped ankles showed below his hitching trousers. +His poor winter shoes had quite failed him for many weeks, his blue +stockings had shown at the gaps in their sides which had torn away +from his mother's strong mending. Now the soles had gone, and his +uncle Ozias Lamb, who was a cobbler, could not put in new ones +because there was not strength enough in the uppers to hold them. +"You can't have soles in shoes any more than you can in folks, +without some body," said Ozias Lamb. It seemed as if Ozias might have +made and presented some new shoes, soles and all, to his needy +nephew, but he was very poor, and not young, and worked painfully to +make every cent count. So Jerome went barefoot after the soles parted +from his shoes; but he did not care, because it was spring and the +snow was gone. Jerome had, moreover, a curious disregard of physical +discomfort for a boy who could take such delight in sheer existence +in a sunny hollow of a rock. He had had chilblains all winter from +the snow-water which had soaked in through his broken shoes; his +heels were still red with them, but not a whimper had he made. He had +treated them doggedly himself with wood-ashes, after an old country +prescription, and said nothing, except to reply, "Doctorin' +chilblains," when his mother asked him what he was doing. + +Jerome also often went hungry. He was hungry now as he loped across +the field. A young wolf that had roamed barren snow-fields all winter +might not have felt more eager for a good meal than Jerome, and he +was worse off, because he had no natural prey. But he never made a +complaint. + +Had any one inquired if he were hungry, he would have flown at him as +he had done at little Lucina Merritt when she offered him her +gingerbread. He knew, and all his family knew, that the neighbors +thought they had not enough to eat, and the knowledge so stung their +pride that it made them defy the fact itself. They would not own to +each other that they were hungry; they denied it fiercely to their +own craving stomachs. + +Jerome had had nothing that morning but a scanty spoonful of +corn-meal porridge, but he would have maintained stoutly that he had +eaten a good breakfast. He took another piece of sassafras from his +pocket and chewed it as he went along. After all, now the larder of +Nature was open and the lock of the frost on her cupboards was +broken, a boy would not fare so badly; he could not starve. There was +sassafras root in the swamps--plenty of it for the digging; there +were young winter-green leaves, stinging pleasantly his palate with +green aromatic juice; later there would be raspberries and +blackberries and huckleberries. There were also the mysterious cedar +apples, and the sour-sweet excrescences sometimes found on swamp +bushes. These last were the little rarities of Nature's table which a +boy would come upon by chance when berrying and snatch with delighted +surprise. They appealed to his imagination as well as to his tongue, +since they belonged not to the known fruits in his spelling-book and +dictionary, and possessed a strange sweetness of fancy and mystery +beyond their woodland savor. In a few months, too, the garden would +be grown and there would be corn and beans and potatoes. Then +Jerome's lank outlines would begin to take on curves and the hungry +look would disappear from his face. He was a handsome boy, with a +fearless outlook of black eyes from his lean, delicate face, and a +thick curling crop of fair hair which the sun had bleached like +straw. Always protected from the weather, Jerome's hair would have +been brown; but his hats failed him like his shoes, and often in the +summer season were crownless. However, his mother mended them as long +as she was able. She was a thrifty woman, although she was a +semi-invalid, and sat all day long in a high-backed rocking-chair. +She was not young either; she had been old when she married and her +children were born, but there was a strange element of toughness in +her--a fibre either of body or spirit that kept her in being, like +the fibre of an old tree. + +Before Jerome entered the house his mother's voice saluted him. +"Where have you been, Jerome Edwards?" she demanded. Her voice was +querulous, but strongly shrill. It could penetrate every wall and +door. Ann Edwards, as she sat in her rocking-chair, lifted up her +voice, and it sounded all over her house like a trumpet, and all her +household marched to it. + +"Been over in the pasture," answered Jerome, with quick and yet +rather defiant obedience, as he opened the door. + +His mother's face, curiously triangular in outline, like a cat's, +with great hollow black eyes between thin parted curtains of black +false hair, confronted him when he entered the room. She always sat +face to the door and window, and not a soul who passed or entered +escaped her for a minute. "What have you been doing in the pasture?" +said she. + +"Sittin'." + +"Sittin'?" + +"I've been sitting on the warm side of the big rock a little while," +said Jerome. He looked subdued before his mother's gaze, and yet not +abashed. She always felt sure that there was some hidden reserve of +rebellion in Jerome, coerce him into obedience as she might. She +never really governed him, as she did her daughter Elmira, who stood +washing dishes at the sink. But she loved Jerome better, although she +tried not to, and would not own it to herself. + +"Do you know what time it is?" said she, severely. + +Jerome glanced at the tall clock in the corner. It was nearly ten. He +glanced and made no reply. He sometimes had a dignified masculine +way, beyond his years, of eschewing all unnecessary words. His mother +saw him look at the time; why should he speak? She did not wait for +him. "'Most ten o'clock," said she, "and a great boy twelve years old +lazing round on a rock in a pasture when all his folks are working. +Here's your mother, feeble as she is, workin' her fingers to the +bone, while you're doing nothing a whole forenoon. I should think +you'd be ashamed of yourself. Now you take the spade and go right out +and go to work in the garden. It's time them beans are in, if they're +going to be. Your father has had to go down to the wood-lot and get a +load of wood for Doctor Prescott, and here 'tis May and the garden +not planted. Go right along." All the time Jerome's mother talked, +her little lean strong fingers flew, twirling bright colored rags in +and out. She was braiding a rug for this same Doctor Prescott's wife. +The bright strips spread and twirled over her like snakes, and the +balls wherein the rags were wound rolled about the floor. Most women +kept their rag balls in a basket when they braided, but Ann Edwards +worked always in a sort of untidy fury. + +Jerome went out, little hungry boy with the winter chill again +creeping through his veins, got the spade out of the barn, and set to +work in the garden. The garden lay on the sunny slope of a hill which +rose directly behind the house; when his spade struck a stone Jerome +would send it rolling out of his way to the foot of the hill. He got +considerable amusement from that, and presently the work warmed him. + +The robins were singing all about. Every now and then one flew out of +the sweet spring distance, lit, and silently erected his red breast +among some plough ridges lower down. It was like a veritable +transition from sound to sight. + +Below where Jerome spaded, and upon the left, stretched long waving +plough ridges where the corn was planted. Jerome's father had been at +work there with the old white horse that was drawing wood for him +to-day. Much of the garden had to be spaded instead of ploughed, +because this same old white horse was needed for other work. + +As Jerome spaded, the smell of the fresh earth came up in his face. +Now and then a gust of cold wind, sweet with unseen blossoms, smote +him powerfully, bending his slender body before it like a sapling. A +bird flashed past him with a blue dazzle of wings, and Jerome stopped +and looked after it. It lit on the fence in front of the house, and +shone there in the sunlight like a blue precious stone. The boy gazed +at it, leaning on his spade. Jerome always looked hard out of all his +little open windows of life, and saw every precious thing outside his +daily grind of hard, toilsome childhood which came within his sight. + +The bird flew away, and Jerome spaded again. He knew that he must +finish so much before dinner or his mother would scold. He was not +afraid of his mother's sharp tongue, but he avoided provoking it with +a curious politic and tolerant submission which he had learned from +his father. "Mother ain't well, you know, an' she's high-sperited, +and we've got to humor her all we can," Abel Edwards had said, +confidentially, many a time to his boy, who had listened sagely and +nodded. + +Jerome obeyed his mother with the patient obedience of a superior who +yields because his opponent is weaker than he, and a struggle beneath +his dignity, not because he is actually coerced. Neither he nor his +father ever answered back or contradicted; when her shrill voice +waxed loudest and her vituperation seemed to fairly hiss in their +ears, they sometimes looked at each other and exchanged a solemn wink +of understanding and patience. Neither ever opened mouth in reply. + +Jerome worked fast in his magnanimous concession to his mother's +will, and had accomplished considerable when his sister opened the +kitchen window, thrust out her dark head, and called in a voice +shrill as her mother's, but as yet wholly sweet, with no harsh notes +in it: "Jerome! Jerome! Dinner is ready." + +Jerome whooped in reply, dropped his spade, and went leaping down the +hill. When he entered the kitchen his mother was sitting at the table +and Elmira was taking up the dinner. Elmira was a small, pretty girl, +with little, nervous hands and feet, and eager black eyes, like her +mother's. She stretched on tiptoe over the fire, and ladled out a +steaming mixture from the kettle with an arduous swing of her sharp +elbow. Elmira's sleeves were rolled up and her thin, sharply-jointed, +girlish arms showed. + +"Don't you know enough, without being told, to lift that kettle off +the fire for Elmira?" demanded Mrs. Edwards of Jerome. + +Jerome lifted the kettle off the fire without a word. + +"It seems sometimes as if you might do something without being told," +said his mother. "You could see, if you had eyes to your head, that +your sister wa'n't strong enough to lift that kettle off, and was +dippin' it up so's to make it lighter, an' the stew 'most burnin' +on." + +Jerome made no response. He sniffed hungrily at the savory steam +arising from the kettle. "What is it?" he asked his sister, who +stooped over the kettle sitting on the hearth, and plunged in again +the long-handled tin dipper. + +Mrs. Edwards never allowed any one to answer a question when she +could do it herself. "It's a parsnip stew," said she, sharply. +"Elmira dug some up in the old garden-patch, where we thought they +were dead. I put in a piece of pork, when I'd ought to have saved it. +It's good 'nough for anybody, I don't care who 'tis, if it's Doctor +Prescott, or Squire Merritt, or the minister. You'd better be +thankful for it, both of you." + +"Where's father?" said Jerome. + +"He 'ain't come home yet. I dun'no' where he is. He's been gone long +enough to draw ten cords of wood. I s'pose he's potterin' round +somewheres--stopped to talk to somebody, or something. I ain't going +to wait any longer. He'll have to eat his dinner cold if he can't get +home." + +Elmira put the dish of stew on the table. Jerome drew his chair up. +Mrs. Edwards grasped the long-handled dipper preparatory to +distributing the savory mess, then suddenly stopped and turned to +Elmira. + +"Elmira," said she, "you go into the parlor an' git the china bowl +with pink flowers on it, an' then you go to the chest in the spare +bedroom an' get out one of them fine linen towels." + +"What for?" said Elmira, wonderingly. + +"No matter what for. You do what I tell you to." + +Elmira went out, and after a little reappeared with the china bowl +and the linen towel. Jerome sat waiting, with a kind of fierce +resignation. He was almost starved, and the smell of the stew in his +nostrils made him fairly ravenous. + +"Give it here," said Mrs. Edwards, and Elmira set the bowl before her +mother. It was large, almost large enough for a punch-bowl, and had +probably been used for one. It was a stately old dish from overseas, +a relic from Mrs. Edwards's mother, who had seen her palmy days +before her marriage. Mrs. Edwards had also in her parlor cupboard a +part of a set of blue Indian china which had belonged to her mother. +The children watched while their mother dipped the parsnip stew into +the china bowl. Elmira, while constantly more amenable to her mother, +was at the moment more outspoken against her. + +"There won't be enough left for us," she burst forth, excitedly. + +"I guess you'll get all you need; you needn't worry." + +"There won't be enough for father when he comes home, anyhow." + +"I ain't a mite worried about your father; I guess he won't starve." + +Mrs. Edwards went on dipping the stew into the bowl while the +children watched. She filled it nearly two-thirds full, then stopped, +and eyed the girl and boy critically. "I guess you'd better go, +Elmira," said she. "Jerome can't unless he's all cleaned up. Get my +little red cashmere shawl, and you can wear my green silk pumpkin +hood. Yours don't look nice enough to go there with." + +"Can't I eat dinner first, mother?" pleaded Elmira, pitifully. + +"No, you can't. I guess you won't starve if you wait a little while. +I ain't 'goin' to send stew to folks stone-cold. Hurry right along +and get the shawl and hood. Don't stand there lookin' at me." + +Elmira went out forlornly. + +Mrs. Edwards began pinning the linen towel carefully over the bowl. + +"Let Elmira stay an' eat her dinner. I'd just as lives go. Don't care +if I don't ever have anythin' to eat," spoke up Jerome. + +His mother flashed her black eyes round at him. "Don't you be saucy, +Jerome Edwards," said she, "or you'll go back to your spadin' without +a mouthful! I told your sister she was goin', an' I don't want any +words about it from either of you." + +When Elmira returned with her mother's red cashmere shawl pinned +carefully over her childish shoulders, with her sharply pretty, +hungry-eyed little face peering meekly out of the green gloom of the +great pumpkin hood, Mrs. Edwards gave her orders. "There," said she, +"you take this bowl, an' you be real careful and don't let it fall +and break it, nor slop the stew over my best shawl, an' you carry it +down the road to Doctor Prescott's; an' whoever comes to the door, +whether it's the hired girl, or Lawrence, or the hired man, you ask +to see Mis' Doctor Prescott. Don't you give this bowl to none of the +others, you mind. An' when Mis' Doctor Prescott comes, you courtesy +an' say, 'Good-mornin', Mis' Prescott. Mis' Abel Edwards sends you +her compliments, and hopes you're enjoyin' good health, an' begs +you'll accept this bowl of parsnip stew. She thought perhaps you +hadn't had any this season.'" + +Mrs. Edwards repeated the speech in a little, fine, mincing voice, +presumably the one which Elmira was to use. "Can you remember that?" +she asked, sharply, in her natural tone. + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"Say it over." + +Poor little Elmira Edwards said it over like a parrot, imitating her +mother's fine, stilted tone perfectly. In truth, it was a formula of +presentation which she had often used. + +"Don't you forget the 'compliments,' an' 'I thought she hadn't had +any parsnip stew this season.'" + +"No, ma'am." + +"Take the bowl up, real careful, and carry it stiddy." + +Elmira threw back the ends of the red cashmere shawl, lifted the big +bowl in her two small hands, and went out carrying it before her. +Jerome opened the door, and shut it after her. + +"Now I guess Mis' Doctor Prescott won't think we're starvin' to death +here, if her husband has got a mortgage on our house," said Mrs. +Edwards. "I made up my mind that time she sent over that pitcher of +lamb broth that I'd send her somethin' back, if I lived. I wouldn't +have taken it anyhow, if it hadn't been for the rest of you. I guess +I'll let folks know we ain't quite beggars yet." + +Jerome nodded. A look of entire sympathy with his mother came into +his face. "Guess so too," said he. + +Mrs. Edwards threw back her head with stiff pride, as if it bore a +crown. "So far," said she, "nobody on this earth has ever give me a +thing that I 'ain't been able to pay 'em for in some way. I guess +there's a good many rich folks can't say 's much as that." + +"Guess so too," said Jerome. + +"Pass over your plate; you must be hungry by this time," said his +mother. She heaped his plate with the stew. "There," said she, "don't +you wait any longer. I guess mebbe you'd better set the dish down on +the hearth to keep warm for Elmira and your father first, though." + +"Ain't you goin' to eat any yourself?" asked Jerome. + +"I couldn't touch a mite of that stew if you was to pay me for it. I +never set much by parsnip stew myself, anyway." + +Jerome eyed his mother soberly. "There's enough," said he. "I've got +all I can eat here." + +"I tell you I don't want any. Ain't that enough? There's plenty of +stew if I wanted it, but I don't. I never liked it any too well, an' +to-day seems as if it fairly went against my stomach. Set it down on +the hearth the way I told you to, an' eat your dinner before it gets +any colder." + +Jerome obeyed. He ate his plate of stew; then his mother obliged him +to eat another. When Elmira returned she had her fill, and there was +plenty left for Abel Edwards when he should come home. + +Jerome, well fed, felt like another boy when he returned to his task +in the garden. "Guess I can get this spadin' 'most done this +afternoon," he said to himself. He made the brown earth fly around +him. He whistled as he worked. As the afternoon wore on he began to +wonder if he could not finish the garden before his father got home. +He was sure he had not come as yet, for he had kept an eye on the +road, and besides he would have heard the heavy rattle of the +wood-wagon. "Father 'll be real tickled when he sees the garden all +done," said Jerome, and he stopped whistling and bent all his young +spirit and body to his work. He never thought of feeling anxious +about his father. + +At five o'clock the back door of the Edwards house opened. Elmira +came out with a shawl over her head and hurried up the hill. "Oh, +Jerome," she panted, when she got up to him. "You must stop working, +mother says, and go right straight off to the ten-acre lot. Father +'ain't come home yet, an' we're dreadful worried about him. She says +she's afraid something has happened to him." + +Jerome stuck his spade upright in the ground and stared at her. "What +does she s'pose has happened?" he said, slowly. Jerome had no +imagination for disasters. + +"She thinks maybe he's fell down, or some wood's fell on him, or +Peter's run away." + +"Peter wouldn't ever run away; it's much as ever he'll walk lately, +an' father don't ever fall down." + +Elmira fairly danced up and down in the fresh mould. She caught her +brother's arm and twitched it and pushed him fiercely. "Go along, go +along!" she cried. "Go right along, Jerome Edwards! I tell you +something dreadful has happened to father. Mother says so. Go right +along!" + +Jerome pulled himself away from her nervous clutch, and collected +himself for flight. "He was goin' to carry that wood to Doctor +Prescott's," said he, reflectively. "Ain't any sense goin' to the +ten-acre lot till I see if he's been there." + +"It's on the way," cried Elmira, frantically. "Hurry up! Oh, do hurry +up, Jerome! Poor father! Mother says he's--fell--down--" Elmira +crooked her little arm around her face and broke into a long wail as +she started down the hill. "Poor--father--oh--oh--poor--father!" +floated back like a wake of pitiful sound. + + + + +Chapter II + + +Jerome started, and once started he raced. Long-legged, +light-flanked, long-winded, and underfed, he had the adaptability for +speed of a little race-horse. Jerome Edwards was quite a famous boy +in the village for his prowess in running. No other boy could equal +him. Marvellous stories were told about it. "Jerome Edwards, he can +run half a mile in five minutes any day, yes he can, sir," the +village boys bragged if perchance a cousin from another town came +a-visiting and endeavored to extol himself and his comrades beyond +theirs. In some curious fashion Jerome, after he had out-speeded all +the other boys, furnished them with his own victories for a boast. +They seemed, in exulting over the glory of this boy of their village, +to forget that the glory came only through their defeat. It was +national pride on a very small and childish scale. + +Jerome, swift little runner that he was, ran that day as he had never +run before. The boys whom he met stood aside hastily, gaped down the +road behind him to see another runner laboring far in the rear, and +then, when none appeared, gaped after his flying heels. + +"Wonder what he's a-runnin' that way fur?" said one boy. + +"Ain't nobody a-tryin' to ketch up with him, fur's I can see," said +another. + + "Mebbe his mother's took worse, an' he's a-runnin' fur the doctor," +said a third, who was Henry Judd, a distant cousin of Jerome's. + +The boys stood staring even when Jerome was quite out of sight. +Jerome had about three-quarters of a mile to run to Doctor Prescott's +house. He was almost there when he caught sight of a team coming. +"There's father, now," he thought, and stood still, breathing hard. +Although Jerome's scanty food made him a swift runner, it did not +make him a strong one. + +The team came rattling slowly on. The old white horse which drew it +planted his great hoofs lumberingly in the tracks, nodding at every +step. + +As it came nearer, Jerome, watching, gave a quick gasp. The wagon +contained wood nicely packed; the reins were wound carefully around +one of the stakes; and there was no driver. Jerome tried to call out, +tried to run forward, but he could not. He could only stand still, +watching, his boyish face deadly white, his eyes dilating. The old +white horse came on, dragging his load faithfully and steadily +towards his home. He never swerved from his tracks except once, when +he turned out carefully for a bad place in the road, where the ground +seemed to be caving in, which Abel Edwards had always avoided with a +loaded team. There was something awful about this old animal, with +patient and laborious stupidity in every line of his plodding body, +obeying still that higher intelligence which was no longer visible at +his guiding-reins, and perhaps had gone out of sight forever. It had +all the uncanny horror of a headless spectre advancing down the road. + +Jerome collected himself when the white horse came alongside. "Whoa! +Whoa, Peter!" he gasped out. The horse stopped and stood still, his +great forefeet flung stiffly forward, his head and ears and neck +hanging as inertly as a broken tree-bough with all its leaves +drooping. + +The boy stumbled weakly to the side of the wagon and stretched +himself up on tiptoe. There was nothing there but the wood. He stood +a minute, thinking. Then he began searching for the hitching-rope in +the front of the wagon, but he could not find it. Finally he led the +horse to the side of the road, unwound the reins from the stake, and +fastened him as well as he could to a tree. + +Then he went on down the road. His knees felt weak under him, but +still he kept up a good pace. When he reached the Prescott place he +paused and looked irresolutely a moment through the trees at the +great square mansion-house, with its green, glancing window-panes. + +Then he ran straight on. The ten-acre wood-lot which belonged to his +father was about a half-mile farther. It was a birch and chestnut +wood, and was full of the green shimmer of new leaves and the silvery +glistening of white boughs as delicate as maidens' arms. There was a +broad cart-path leading through it. Jerome entered this directly when +he reached the wood. Then he began calling. "Father!" he called. +"Father! father!" over and over again, stopping between to listen. +There was no sound in response; there was no sound in the wood except +the soft and elusive rustling of the new foliage, like the rustling +of the silken garments of some one in hiding or some one passing out +of sight. It brought also at this early season a strange sense of a +presence in the wood. Jerome felt it, and called with greater +importunity: "Father! father! father, where be you? Father!" + +Jerome looked very small among the trees--no more than a little pale +child. His voice rang out shrill and piteous. It seemed as much a +natural sound of the wood as a bird's, and was indeed one of the +primitive notes of nature: the call of that most helpless human young +for its parent and its shield. + +Jerome pushed on, calling, until he came to the open space where his +father had toiled felling trees all winter. Cords of wood were there, +all neatly piled and stacked. The stumps between them were sending +out shoots of tender green. "Father! father!" Jerome called, but this +time more cautiously, hushing his voice a little. He thought that his +father might be lying there among the stumps, injured in some way. He +remembered how a log had once fallen on Samuel Lapham's leg and +broken it when he was out alone in the woods, and he had lain there a +whole day before anybody found him. He thought something like that +might have happened to his father. He searched everywhere, peering +with his sharp young eyes among the stumps and between the piles of +wood. "Mebbe father's fainted away," he muttered. + +Finally he became sure that his father was nowhere in the clearing, +and he raised his voice again and shouted, and hallooed, and +listened, and hallooed again, and got no response. + +Suddenly a chill seemed to strike Jerome's heart. He thought of the +pond. Little given as he was to forebodings of evil, when once he was +possessed of one it became a certainty. + +"Father's fell in the pond and got drowned," he burst out with a +great sob. "What will mother do?" + +The boy went forward, stumbling half blindly over the stumps. Once he +fell, bruising his knee severely, and picked himself up, sobbing +piteously. All the child in Jerome had asserted itself. + +Beyond the clearing was a stone wall that bounded Abel Edwards's +property. Beyond that was a little grove of old thick-topped +pine-trees; beyond that the little woodland pond. It was very shallow +in places, but it never dried up, and was said to have deep holes in +it. The boys told darkly braggart stories about this pond. They had +stood on this rock and that rock with poles of fabulous length; they +had probed the still water of the pond, and "never once hit the +bottom, sir." They had flung stones with all their might, and, +listening sharply forward like foxes, had not heard them "strike +bottom, sir." + +One end of this pond, reaching up well among the pine-trees, had the +worst repute, and was called indeed a darkly significant name--the +"Dead Hole." It was confidently believed by all the village children +to have no bottom at all. There was a belief current among them that +once, before they were born, a man had been drowned there, and his +body never found. + +They would stand on the shore and look with horror, which yet gave +somehow a pleasant titillation to their youthful spirits, at this +water which bore such an evil name. Their elders did not need to +caution them; even the most venturesome had an awe of the Dead Hole, +and would not meddle with it unduly. + +Jerome climbed over the stone wall. The land on the other side +belonged to Doctor Prescott. He went through the grove of pine-trees +and reached the pond--the end called the Dead Hole. He stood there +looking and listening. It was a small sheet of water; the other +shore, swampy and skirted with white-flowering bushes and young +trees, looked very near; a cloying, honey sweetness came across, and +a silvery smoke of mist was beginning to curl up from it. The frogs +were clamorous, and every now and then came the bass boom of a +bull-frog. A red light from the westward sun came through the thin +growth opposite, and lay over the pond and the shore. Little swarms +of gnats danced in it. + +A swarm of the little gauzy things, so slight and ephemeral that they +seemed rather a symbolism of life than life itself, whirled before +the boy's wild, tearful eyes, and he moved aside and looked down, and +then cried out and snatched something from the ground at his feet. It +was the hat Abel Edwards had worn when he left home that morning. +Jerome stood holding his father's hat, gazing at it with a look in +his face like an old man's. Indeed, it may have been that a sudden +old age of the spirit came in that instant over the boy. He had not +before conceived of anything but an accident happening to his father; +now all at once he saw plainly that if his father, Abel Edwards, had +come to his death in the pond it must have been through his own +choice. "He couldn't have fell in," muttered Jerome, with stiff lips, +looking at the gently curving shore and looking at the hat. + +Suddenly he straightened himself, and an expression of desperate +resolution came into his face. He set his teeth hard; somehow, +whether through inherited instincts or through impressions he had got +from his mother, he had a firm conviction that suicide was a horrible +disgrace to the dead man himself and to his family. + +"Nobody shall ever know it," the boy thought. He nodded fiercely, as +if to confirm it, and began picking up stones from the shore of the +pond. He filled the crown of the hat with them, got a string out of +his pocket, tied it firmly around the crown, making a strong knot; +then he swung his arm back at the shoulder, brought it forward with a +wide sweep, and flung the hat past the middle of the Dead Hole. + +"There," said Jerome; "guess nobody 'll ever know now. There ain't no +bottom to the Dead Hole." The boy hurried out of the woods and down +the road again. When he reached the Prescott house a man was just +coming out of the yard, following the path from the south door. When +he came up to Jerome he eyed him curiously; then he grasped him by +the shoulder. + +"Sick?" said he. + +"No," said Jerome. + +"What on airth makes you look so?" + +"Father's lost." + +"Lost--where's he lost? What d'ye mean?" + +"Went to get a load of wood for Doctor Prescott this mornin', an' +'ain't got home." + +"Now, I want to know! Didn't I see his team go up the road a few +minutes ago?" + +Jerome nodded. "Met it, an' he wa'n't on," said he. + +"Lord!" cried the man, and stared at him. He was a middle-aged man, +with a small wiry shape and a gait like a boy's. His name was Jake +Noyes, and he was the doctor's hired man. He took care of his horse, +and drove for him, and some said helped him compound his +prescriptions. There was great respect in the village for Jake Noyes. +He had a kind of reflected glory from the doctor, and some of his +own. + +Jerome pulled his shoulder away. "Got to be goin'," said he. + +"Stop," said Jake Noyes. "This has got to be looked into. He must +have got hurt. He must be in the woods where he was workin'." + +"Ain't. I've been there," said Jerome, shortly, and broke away. + +"Where did ye look?" + +"Everywhere," the boy called back. But Jake followed him up. + +"Stop a minute," said he; "I want to know. Did you go as fur 's the +pond?" + +"What should I want to go to the pond for, like to know?" Jerome +looked around at him fiercely. + +"I didn't know but he might have fell in the pond; it's pretty near." + +"I'd like to know what you think my father would jump in the pond +for?" Jerome demanded. + +"Lord, I didn't say he jumped in. I said fell in." + +"You know he couldn't have fell in. You know he would have had to +gone in of his own accord. I'll let you know my father wa'n't the man +to do anything like that, Jake Noyes!" The boy actually shook his +puny fist in the man's face. "Say it again, if ye dare!" he cried. + +"Lord!" said Jake Noyes, with half-comical consternation. He screwed +up one blue eye after a fashion he had--people said he had acquired +it from dropping drugs for the doctor--and looked with the other at +the boy. + +"Say it again an' I'll kill ye, I will!" cried Jerome, his voice +breaking into a hoarse sob, and was off. + +"Be ye crazy?" Jake Noyes called after him. He stood staring at him a +minute, then went into the house on a run. + +Jerome ran to the place where he had left his father's team, untied +the horse, climbed up on the seat, and drove home. He could not go +fast; the old horse could proceed no faster than a walk with a load. +When he came in sight of home he saw a blue flutter at the gate. It +was Elmira's shawl; she was out there watching. When she saw the team +she came running down the road to meet it. "Where's father?" she +cried out. "Jerome, where's father?" + +"Dun'no'," said Jerome. He sat high above her, holding the reins. His +pale, set face looked over her head. + +"Jerome--haven't you--seen--father?" + +"No." + +Elmira burst out with a great wail. "Oh, Jerome, where's father? +Jerome, where is he? Is he killed? Oh, father, father!" + +"Keep still," said Jerome. "Mother 'll hear you." + +"Oh, Jerome, where's father?" + +"I tell you, hold your tongue. Do you want to kill mother, too?" + +Poor little Elmira, running alongside the team, wept convulsively. +"Elmira, I tell you to keep still," said Jerome, in such a voice that +she immediately choked back her sobs. + +Jerome drew up the wood-team at the gate with a great creak. "Stand +here 'side of the horse a minute," he said to Elmira. He swung +himself off the load and went up the path to the house. As he drew +near the door he could hear his mother's chair. Ann Edwards, crippled +as she was, managed, through some strange manipulation of muscles, to +move herself in her rocking-chair all about the house. Now the +jerking scrape of the rockers on the uncarpeted floor sounded loud. +When Jerome opened the door he saw his mother hitching herself +rapidly back and forth in a fashion she had when excited. He had seen +her do so before, a few times. + +When she saw Jerome she stopped short and screwed up her face before +him as if to receive a blow. She did not ask a question. + +"I met the team comin' home," said Jerome. + +Still his mother said nothing, but kept that cringing face before a +coming blow. + +"Father wa'n't on it," said Jerome. + +Still his mother waited. + +"I hitched the horse," said Jerome, "and then I went up to the +ten-acre lot, and I looked everywhere. He ain't there." + +Suddenly Ann Edwards seemed to fall back upon herself before his +eyes. Her head sank helplessly; she slipped low in her chair. + +Jerome ran to the water-pail, dipped out some water, and sprinkled +his mother's face. Then he rubbed her little lean hands with his +hard, boyish palm. He had seen his mother faint before. In fact, he +had been all prepared for it now. + +Presently she began to gasp and struggle feebly, and he knew she was +coming to. "Feel better?" he asked, in a loud voice, as if she were +miles away; indeed, he had a feeling that she was. "Feel better, +mother?" + +Mrs. Edwards raised herself. "Your--father has fell down and died," +she said. "There needn't anybody say anything else. Wipe this water +off my face. Get a towel." Jerome obeyed. + +"There needn't anybody say anything else," repeated his mother. + +"I guess they needn't, either," assented Jerome, coming with the +towel and wiping her face gently. "I'd like to hear anybody," he +added, fiercely. + +"He's fell down--and died," said his mother. She made sounds like +sobs as she spoke, but there were no tears in her eyes. + +"I s'pose I ought to go an' take the horse out," said Jerome. + +"Well." + +"I'll send Elmira in; she's holdin' him." + +"Well." + +Jerome lighted a candle first, for it was growing dark, and went out. +"You go in and stay with mother," he said to Elmira, "an' don't you +go to cryin' an' makin' her worse--she's been faintin' away. Any tea +in the house?" + +"No," said the little girl, trying to control her quivering face. + +"Make her some hot porridge, then--she'd ought to have something. You +can do that, can't you?" + +Elmira nodded; she dared not speak for fear she should cry. + +"Go right in, then," said Jerome; and she obeyed, keeping her face +turned away. Her childish back looked like an old woman's as she +entered the door. + +Jerome unharnessed the horse, led him into the barn, fed him, and +drew some water for him from the well. When he came out of the barn, +after it was all done, he saw Doctor Prescott's chaise turning into +the yard. The doctor and Jake Noyes were in it. When the chaise +stopped, Jerome went up to it, bobbed his head and scraped his foot. +A handsome, keenly scowling face looked out of the chaise at him. +Doctor Seth Prescott was over fifty, with a smooth-shaven face as +finely cut as a woman's, with bright blue eyes under bushy brows, and +a red scratch-wig. Before years and snows and rough winds had +darkened and seamed his face, he had been a delicately fair man. "Has +he come yet?" he demanded, peremptorily. + +Jerome bobbed and scraped again. "No, sir." + +"You didn't see a sign of him in the woods?" + +Jerome hesitated visibly. + +The doctor's eyes shone more sharply. "You didn't, eh?" + +"No, sir," said Jerome. + +"Does your mother know it?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"How is she?" + +"She fainted away, but she's better." + +The doctor got stiffly out of the chaise, took his medicine-chest, +and went into the house. "Stay here till I come out," he ordered +Jerome, without looking back. + +"The doctor's goin' to send a posse out lookin' with lanterns," Jake +Noyes told Jerome. + +Jerome made a grunt, both surly and despairing, in response. He was +leaning against the wheel of the chaise; he felt strangely weak. + +"Mebbe we'll find him 'live an' well," said Jake, consolingly. + +"No, ye won't." + +"Mebbe 'twon't be nothin' wuss than a broken bone noway, an' the +doctor, he can fix that." + +Jerome shook his head. + +"The doctor, he's goin' to do everything that can be done," said +Jake. "He's sent Lawrence over to East Corners for some ropes an' +grapplin'-hooks." + +Then Jerome roused himself. "What for?" he demanded, in a furious +voice. + +Jake hesitated and colored. "Mebbe I hadn't ought to have said that," +he stammered. "Course there ain't no need of havin' 'em. It's just +because the doctor wants to do everything he can." + +"What for?" + +"Well--you know there's the pond--an'--" + +"Didn't I tell you my father didn't go near the pond?" + +"Well, I don't s'pose he did," said Jake, shrewdly; "but it won't do +no harm to drag it, an' then everybody will know for sure he didn't." + +"Can't drag it anyhow," said Jerome, and there was an odd accent of +triumph in his voice. "The Dead Hole 'ain't got any bottom." + +Jake laughed. "That's a darned lie," said he. "I helped drag it +myself once, forty year ago; a girl by the name of 'Lizy Ann Gooch +used to live 'bout a mile below here on the river road, was missin'. +She wa'n't there; found her bones an' her straw bonnet in the swamp +two years afterwards, but, Lord, we dragged the Dead hole--scraped +bottom every time." + +Jerome stared at him, his chin dropping. + +"Of course it ain't nothin' but a form, an' we sha'n't find him there +any more than we did 'Lizy Ann," said Jake Noyes, consolingly. + +Doctor Prescott came out of the house, and as he opened the door a +shrill cry of "There needn't anybody say anything else" came from +within. + +"Now you'd better go in and stay with your mother," ordered Doctor +Prescott. "I have given her a composing powder. Keep her as quiet as +possible, and don't talk to her about your father." + +Doctor Prescott got into his chaise and drove away up the road, and +Jerome went in to his mother. For a while she kept her rocking-chair +in constant motion; she swung back and forth or hitched fiercely +across the floor; she repeated her wild cry that her husband had +fallen down and died, and nobody need say anything different; she +prayed and repeated Scripture texts. Then she succumbed to the +Dover's powder which the doctor had given her, and fell asleep in her +chair. + +Jerome and Elmira dared not awake her that she might go to bed. They +sat, each at a window, staring out into the night, watching for their +father, or some one to come with news that his body was found--they +did not know which. Now and then they heard the report of a gun, but +did not know what it meant. Sometimes Elmira wept a little, but +softly, that she might not waken her mother. + +The moon was full, and it was almost as light as day outside. When a +little after midnight a team came in sight they could tell at once +that it was the doctor's chaise, and Jake Noyes was driving. The boy +and girl left the windows and stole noiselessly out of the house. +Jake drew up at the gate. "You'd better go in an' go to bed, both on +you," he said. "We'll find him safe an' sound somewheres to-morrow. +There's nigh two hundred men an' boys out with lanterns an' torches, +an' firin' guns for signals. We'll find him with nothing wuss than a +broken bone to-morrow. We've dragged the whole pond, an' he ain't +there, sure." + + + + +Chapter III + + +The pond undoubtedly partook somewhat of the nature of an Eastern +myth in this little New England village. Although with the +uncompromising practicality of their natures the people had given it +a name so directly significant as to make it lose all poetical +glamour, and render it the very commonplace of ghastliness, it still +appealed to their imaginations. + +The laws of natural fancy obtained here as everywhere else, although +in small and homely measure. The village children found no nymphs in +the trees of their New England woods. If there were fauns among them, +and the children took their pointed ears for leaves as they lay +sleeping in the undergrowth, they never knew it. They had none of +these, but they had their pond, with its unfathomable depth. They +could not give that up for any testimony of people with ropes and +grappling-hooks. Had they not sounded it in vain with farther-reaching +lines? + +Not a boy in the village believed that the bottom of that famous Dead +Hole had once been touched. Jerome Edwards certainly did not. Then, +too, they had not brought his father's hat to light--or, if they had, +had made no account of it. + +Some of the elders, as well as the boys, believed in their hearts +that the pond had not, after all, been satisfactorily examined, and +that Abel Edwards might still lie there. "Ever since I can remember +anything, I've heard that pond in that place 'ain't got any bottom," +one old man would say, and another add, with triumphant conclusion, +"If he ain't there, where is he?" + +That indeed was the question. All solutions of mysteries have their +possibilities in the absence of proof. No trace of Abel Edwards had +been found in the woodland where he had been working, and no trace of +him for miles around. The search had been thorough. Other ponds of +less evil repute had also been dragged, and the little river which +ran through the village, and two brooks of considerable importance in +the spring. If Able Edwards had taken his own life, the conclusion +was inevitable that his body must lie in the pond, which had always +been reported unfathomable, and might be, after all. + +"The way I look at it is this," said Simon Basset one night in the +village store. He raised the index-finger of his right hand, pointed +it at the company, shook it authoritatively as he spoke, as if to +call ocular attention also to his words. "Ef Abel Edwards did make +'way with himself any other way than by jumping into the Dead Hole, +_what_ did he do with his remains? He couldn't bury himself nohow." +Simon Basset chuckled dryly and looked at the others with conclusive +triumph. His face was full of converging lines of nose and chin and +brows, which seemed to bring it to a general point of craft and +astuteness. Even his grizzled hair slanted forward in a stiff cowlick +over his forehead, and his face bristled sharply with his gray beard. +Simon Basset was the largest land-owner in the village, and the dust +and loam of his own acres seemed to have formed a gray grime over all +his awkward homespun garb. Never a woman he met but looked +apprehensively at his great, clomping, mud-clogged boots. + +It was believed by many that Simon Basset never removed a suit of +clothes, after he had once put it on, until it literally dropped from +him in rags. He was also said to have argued, when taken to task for +this most untidy custom, that birds and animals never shifted their +coats until they were worn out, and it behooved men to follow their +innocent and natural habits as closely as possible. + +Simon Basset, sitting in an old leather-cushioned arm-chair in the +midst of the lounging throng, waited for applause after his +conclusive opinion upon Abel Edwards's disappearance; but there were +only affirmative grunts from a few. Many had their own views. + +"I ain't noways clear in my mind that Abel did kill himself," said a +tall man, with a great length of thin, pale whiskers falling over his +breast. He had a vaguely elongated effect, like a shadow, and had, +moreover, a way of standing behind people like one. When he spoke +everybody started and looked around at him. + +"I'd like to know what you think did happen to him, Adoniram Judd," +cried Simon Basset. + +"I don't think Abel Edwards ever killed himself," repeated the tall +man, solemnly. His words had weight, for he was a distant relative of +the missing man. + +"Do you know of anybody that had anything agin him?" demanded Simon +Basset. + +"No, I dun'no' 's I do," admitted the tall man. + +"Then what in creation would anybody want to kill him for? Guess they +wouldn't be apt to do it for anything they would get out of Abel +Edwards." Simon Basset chuckled triumphantly; and in response there +was a loud and exceedingly bitter laugh from a man sitting on an old +stool next to him. Everybody started, for the man was Ozias Lamb, +Abel Edwards's brother-in-law. + +"What ye laughin' at?" inquired Simon Basset, defiantly; but he edged +his chair away a little at the same time. Ozias Lamb had the +reputation of a very high temper. + +"Mebbe," said Ozias Lamb, "somebody killed poor Abel for his +mortgage. I dun'no' of anything else he had." Ozias laughed again. +He was a stout, squat man, leaning forward upon his knees as he sat, +with a complete subsidence of all his muscles, which showed that it +was his accustomed attitude. Just in that way had Ozias Lamb sat and +cobbled shoes on his lapboard for nearly forty years. He was almost +resolved into a statue illustrative of his own toil. He never stood +if he could help it; indeed, his knees felt weak under him if he +tried to do so. He sank into the first seat and settled heavily +forward into his one pose of life. + +All the other men looked rather apprehensively at him. His face was +all broadened with sardonic laughter, but his blue eyes were fierce +under his great bushy head of fair hair. "Abel Edwards has been +lugging of that mortgage 'round for the last ten years," said he, +"an' it's been about all he had to lug. It's been the meat in his +stomach an' the hope in his heart. He 'ain't been a-lookin' forward +to eatin', but to payin' up the interest money when it came due; he +'ain't been a-lookin' forward to heaven, but to clearin' off the +mortgage. It's been all he's had; it's bore down on his body and his +soul, an' it's braced him up to keep on workin'. He's been a-livin' +in this Christian town for ten years a-carryin' of this fine mortgage +right out in plain sight, an' I shouldn't be a mite surprised if +somebody see it an' hankered arter it. Folks are so darned anxious in +this 'ere Christian town to get holt of each other's burdens!" + +Simon Basset edged his chair away still farther; then he spoke. +"Don't s'pose you expected folks to up an' pay Abel Edwards's +mortgage for him," he said. + +"No, I didn't," returned Ozias Lamb, and the sardonic curves around +his mouth deepened. + +"An' I don't s'pose you'd expect Doctor Prescott to make him a +present of it," said Jake Noyes, suddenly, from the outskirts of the +group. He had come in for the doctor's mail, and was lounging with +one great red-sealed missive and a religious newspaper in his hand. + +"No," said Ozias Lamb, "I shouldn't never expect the doctor to make a +present to anybody but himself or the Lord or the meetin'-house." + +A general chuckle ran over the group at that. Doctor Prescott was +regarded in the village as rather parsimonious except in those three +directions. + +Jake Noyes colored angrily and stepped forward. "I ain't goin' to +hear no nonsense about Doctor Prescott," he exclaimed. "I won't stan' +it from none of ye. I give ye fair warnin'. I don't eat no man's +flapjacks an' hear him talked agin within swing of my fists if I can +help it." + +The storekeeper and postmaster, Cyrus Robinson, had been leaning over +his counter between the scales and a pile of yellow soap bars, +smiling and shrewdly observant. Now he spoke, and the savor of honey +for all was in his words. + +"It's fust-rate of you, Jake, to stand up for the doctor," said he. +"We all of us feel all wrought up about poor Abel. I understand the +doctor's goin' to be easy with the widder about the mortgage. I +thought likely he would be. Sometimes folks do considerable more good +than they get credit for. I shouldn't be surprised if Doctor +Prescott's left hand an' his neighbors didn't know all he did." + +Ozias Lamb turned slowly around and looked at the storekeeper. +"Doctor Prescott's a pretty good customer of yours, ain't he?" he +inquired. + +There was a subdued titter. Cyrus Robinson colored, but kept his +pleasant smile. "Everybody in town is a good customer," said he. "I +haven't any bad customers." + +"P'r'aps 'cause you won't trust 'em," said Ozias Lamb. This time the +titter was audible. Cyrus Robinson's business caution was well known. + +The storekeeper said no more, turned abruptly, took a key from his +pocket, went to the little post-office in the corner, and locked the +door. Then he began putting up the window-shutters. + +There was a stir among the company, a scraping of chairs and stools, +and a shuffling of heavy feet, and they went lingeringly out of the +store. Cyrus Robinson usually put up his shutters too early for them. +His store was more than a store--it was the nursery of the town, the +place where her little commonweal was evolved and nurtured, and it +was also her judgment-seat. There her simple citizens formed their +simple opinions upon town government and town officials, upon which +they afterwards acted in town meeting. There they sat in judgment +upon all men who were not within reach of their voices, and upon all +crying evils of the times which were too mighty for them to struggle +against. This great country store of Cyrus Robinson's--with its rank +odors of molasses and spices, whale oil, and West India rum; with its +counters, its floor, its very ceiling heaped and hung with all the +paraphernalia of a New England village; its clothes, its food, and +its working-utensils--was also in a sense the nucleus of this village +of Upham Corners. There was no tavern. Although this was the largest +of the little cluster of Uphams, the tavern was in the West Corners, +and the stages met there. However, all the industries had centred in +Upham Corners on account of its superior water privileges: the +grist-mill was there, and the saw-mill. People from the West and East +Corners came to trade at Robinson's store, which was also a factory +in a limited sense. Cyrus Robinson purchased leather in considerable +quantities, and employed several workmen in a great room above the +store to cut out the rude shoes worn in the country-side. These he +let out in lots to the towns-folk to bind and close and finish, +paying them for their work in store goods, seldom in cash, then +selling the shoes himself at a finely calculated profit. + +Robinson had, moreover, several spare rooms in his house adjoining +the store, and there, if he were so disposed, he could entertain +strangers who wished to remain in Upham overnight, and neither he nor +his wife was averse to increasing their income in that way. Cyrus +Robinson was believed by many to be as rich as Doctor Prescott and +Simon Basset. + +When the men left the store that night, Simon Basset's, Jake Noyes's, +and Adoniram Judd's way lay in the same direction. They still +discussed poor Abel Edwards's disappearance as they went along. Their +voices were rising high, when suddenly Jake Noyes gave Simon Basset a +sharp nudge. "Shut up," he whispered; "the Edwards boy's behind us." + +And indeed, as he spoke, Jerome's little light figure came running +past them. He was evidently anxious to get by without notice, but +Simon Basset grasped his arm and brought him to a standstill. + +"Hullo!" said he. "You're Abel Edwards's boy, ain't you?" + +"I can't stop," said Jerome, pulling away. "I've got to go home. +Mother's waiting for me." + +"I don't s'pose you've heard anything yet from your father?" + +"No, I 'ain't. I've got to go home." + +"Where've you been, Jerome?" asked Adoniram Judd. + +"Up to Uncle Ozias's to get Elmira's shoes." Jerome had the stout +little shoes, one in each hand. + +"I don't s'pose you've formed any idee of what's become of your +father," said Simon Basset. + +Jerome, who had been pulling away from his hold, suddenly stood +still, and turned a stern little white face upon him. + +"He's dead," said he. + +"Yes, of course he's dead. That is, we're all afraid he is, though we +all hope for the best; but that ain't the question," said Simon +Basset. "The question is, how did he die?" + +Jerome looked up in Simon Basset's face. "He died the same way you +will, some time," said he. And with that Simon Basset let go his arm +suddenly, and he was gone. + +"Lord!" said Jake Noyes, under his breath. Simon Basset said not +another word; his grandfather, his uncle, and a brother had all taken +their own lives, and he knew that the others were thinking of it. +They all wondered if the boy had been keen-witted enough to give this +hard hit at Simon intentionally, but he had not. Poor little Jerome +had never speculated on the laws of heredity; he had only meant to +deny that his father had come to any more disgraceful end than the +common one of all mankind. He did not dream, as he raced along home +with his sister's shoes, of the different construction which they had +put upon his words, but he felt angry and injured. + +"That Sim' Basset pickin' on me that way," he thought. A wild sense +of the helplessness of his youth came over him. "Wish I was a man," +he muttered--"wish I was a man; I'd show 'em! All them men +talkin'--sayin' anything--'cause I'm a boy." + +Just before he reached home Jerome met two more men, and he heard his +father's name distinctly. One of them stretched out a detaining hand +as he passed, and called out, "Hullo! you're the Edwards boy?" + +"Let me go, I tell you," shouted Jerome, in a fury, and was past them +with a wild flourish of heels, like a rebellious colt. + +"What in creation ails the boy?" said the man, with a start aside; +and he and the other stood staring after Jerome. + +When Jerome got home and opened the kitchen door he stood still with +surprise. It was almost ten o'clock, and his mother and Elmira had +begun to make pies. His mother had pushed herself up to the table and +was mixing the pastry, while Elmira was beating eggs. + +Mrs. Edwards looked around at Jerome. "What you standin' there +lookin' for?" said she, with her sharp, nervous voice. "Put them +shoes down, an' bring that quart pail of milk out of the pantry. Be +careful you don't spill it." + +Jerome obeyed. When he set the milk-pail on the table, Elmira gave +him a quick, piteously confidential glance from under her tearful +lids. Elmira, with her blue checked pinafore tied under her chin, sat +in a high wooden chair, with her little bare feet curling over a +round, and beat eggs with a wooden spoon in a great bowl. + +"What you doin'?" asked Jerome. + +Her mother answered for her. "She's mixin' up some custard for pies," +said she. "I dun'no' as there's any need of you standin' lookin' as +if you never saw any before." + +"Never saw you makin' custard-pies at ten o'clock at night before," +returned Jerome, with blunt defiance. + +"Do you s'pose," said his mother, "that I'm goin' to let your father +go off an' die all alone an' take no notice of it?" + +"Dun'no' what you mean?" + +"Don't you know it's three days since he went off to get that wood +an' never come back?" + +Jerome nodded. + +"Do you s'pose I'm goin' to let it pass an' die away, an' folks +forget him, an' not have any funeral or anything? I made up my mind +I'd wait until nine o'clock to-night, an' then, if he wa'n't found, I +wouldn't wait any longer. I'd get ready for the funeral. I've sent +over for Paulina Maria and your aunt B'lindy to come in an' help. +Henry come over here to see if I'd heard anything, and I told him to +go right home an' tell his mother to come, an' stop on the way an' +tell Paulina Maria. There's a good deal to do before two o'clock +to-morrow afternoon, an' I can't do much myself; somebody's got to +help. In the mornin' you'll have to take the horse an' go over to the +West Corners, an' tell Amelia an' her mother an' Lyddy Stokes's +folks. There won't be any time to send word to the Greens over in +Westbrook. They're only second-cousins anyway, an' they 'ain't got +any horse, an' I dun'no' as they'd think they could afford to hire +one. Now you take that fork an' go an' lift the cover off that +kettle, an' stick it into the dried apples, an' see if they've begun +to get soft." + +Ann Edwards's little triangular face had grown plainly thinner and +older in three days, but the fire in her black eyes still sparkled. +Her voice was strained and hoarse on the high notes, from much +lamentation, but she still raised it imperiously. She held the wooden +mixing-bowl in her lap, and stirred with as desperate resolution, +compressing her lips painfully, as if she were stirring the dregs of +her own cup of sorrow. + +Pretty soon there were voices outside and steps on the path. The door +opened, and two women came in. One was Paulina Maria, Adoniram Judd's +wife; the other was Belinda, the wife of Ozias Lamb. + +Belinda Lamb spoke first. She was a middle-aged woman, with a pretty +faded face. She wore her light hair in curls, which fell over her +delicate, thin cheeks, and her blue eyes had no more experience in +them than a child's, although they were reddened now with gentle +tears. She had the look of a young girl who had been out like a +flower in too strong a light, and faded out her pretty tints, but was +a young girl still. Belinda always smiled an innocent girlish simper, +which sometimes so irritated the austere New England village women +that they scowled involuntarily back at her. Paulina Maria Judd and +Ann Edwards both scowled without knowing it now as she spoke, her +words never seeming to disturb that mildly ingratiating upward curve +of her lips. + +"I've come right over," said she, in a soft voice; "but it ain't true +what Henry said, is it?" + +"What ain't true?" asked Ann, grimly. + +"It ain't true you're goin' to have a funeral?" Tears welled up +afresh in Belinda's blue eyes, and flowed slowly down her delicate +cheeks, but not a muscle of her face changed, and she smiled still. + +"Why can't I have a funeral?" + +"Why, Ann, how can you have a funeral, when there ain't--when they +'ain't found him?" + +"I'd like to know why I can't!" + +Belinda's blue, weeping eyes surveyed her with the helpless +bewilderment of a baby. "Why, Ann," she gasped, "there won't be +any--remains!" + +"What of that? I guess I know it." + +"There won't be nothin' for anybody to go round an' look at; there +won't be any coffin--Ann, you ain't goin' to have any coffin when he +ain't found, be you?" + +"Be you a fool, Belindy Lamb?" said Ann. A hard sniff came from +Paulina Maria. + +"Well, I didn't s'pose you was," said Belinda, with meek abashedness. +"Of course I knew you wasn't--I only asked; but I don't see how you +can have a funeral no way, Ann. There won't be any coffin, nor any +hearse, nor any procession, nor--" + +"There'll be mourners," broke in Ann. + +"They're what makes a funeral," said Paulina Maria, putting on an +apron she had brought. "Folks that's had funerals knows." + +She cast an austere glance at Belinda Lamb, who colored to the roots +of her fair curls, and was conscious of a guilty lack of funeral +experience, while Paulina Maria had lost seven children, who all died +in infancy. Poor Belinda seemed to see the other woman's sternly +melancholy face in a halo of little coffins and funeral wreaths. + +"I know you've had a good deal more to contend with than I have," she +faltered. "I 'ain't never lost anybody till poor--Abel." She broke +into gentle weeping, but Paulina Maria thrust a broom relentlessly +into her hand. + +"Here," said she, "take this broom an' sweep, an' it might as well be +done to-night as any time. Of course you 'ain't got your spring +cleanin' done, none of it, Ann?" + +"No," replied Mrs. Edwards; "I was goin' to begin next week." + +"Well," said Paulina Maria, "if this house has got to be all cleaned, +an' cookin' done, in time for the funeral, somebody's got to work. I +s'pose you expect some out-of-town folks, Ann?" + +"I dare say some 'll come from the West Corners. I thought I wouldn't +try to get word to Westbrook, it's so far; but mebbe I'd send to +Granby--there's some there that might come." + +"Well," said Paulina Maria, "I shouldn't be surprised if as many as a +dozen came, an' supper 'll have to be got for 'em. What are you goin' +to do about black, Ann?" + +"I thought mebbe I could borrow a black bonnet an' a veil. I guess my +black bombazine dress will do to wear." + +"Mis' Whitby had a new one when her mother died, an' didn't use her +mother's old one. I don't believe but what you can borrow that," said +Paulina Maria. She was moving about the kitchen, doing this and that, +waiting for no commands or requests. Jerome and Elmira kept well back +out of her way, although she had not half the fierce impetus that +their mother sometimes had when hitching about in her chair. Paulina +Maria, in her limited field of action, had the quick and unswerving +decision of a general, and people marshalled themselves at her nod, +whether they would or no. She was an example of the insistence of a +type. The prevailing traits of the village women were all intensified +and fairly dominant in her. They kept their houses clean, but she +kept hers like a temple for the footsteps of divinity. Marvellous +tales were told of Paulina Maria's exceeding neatness. It was known +for a fact that the boards of her floors were so arranged that they +could be lifted from their places and cleaned on their under as well +as upper sides. Could Paulina Maria have cleaned the inner as well as +the outer surface of her own skin she would doubtless have been +better satisfied. As it was, the colorless texture of her thin face +and hands, through which the working of her delicate jaws and muscles +could be plainly seen, gave an impression of extreme purity and +cleanliness. "Paulina Maria looks as ef she'd been put to soak in +rain-water overnight," Simon Basset said once, after she had gone out +of the store. Everybody called her Paulina Maria--never Mrs. Judd, +nor Mrs. Adoniram Judd. + +The village women were, as a rule, full of piety. Paulina Maria was +austere. She had the spirit to have scourged herself had she once +convicted herself of wrong; but that she had never done. The power of +self-blame was not in her. Paulina Maria had never labored under +conviction of sin; she had had no orthodox conversion; but she set +her slim unswerving feet in the paths of righteousness, and walked +there with her head up. In her the uncompromising spirit of +Puritanism was so strong that it defeated its own ends. The other +women were at times inflexible; Paulina Maria was always rigid. The +others could be severe; Paulina Maria might have conducted an +inquisition. She had in her possibilities of almost mechanical +relentlessness which had never been tested in her simple village +life. Paulina Maria never shirked her duty, but it could not be said +that she performed it in any gentle and Christ-like sense. She rather +attacked it and slew it, as if it were a dragon in her path. That +night she was very weary. She had toiled hard all day at her own +vigorous cleaning. Her bones and muscles ached. The spring languor +also was upon her. She was not a strong woman, but she never dreamed +of refusing to go to Ann Edwards's and assist her in her sad +preparations. + +She and Belinda Lamb remained and worked until midnight; then they +went home. Jerome had to escort them through the silent village +street--he had remained up for that purpose. Elmira had been sent to +bed. When the boy came home alone along the familiar road, between +the houses with their windows gleaming with blank darkness in his +eyes, with no sound in his ears save the hoarse bark of a dog when +his footsteps echoed past, a great strangeness of himself in his own +thoughts was upon him. + +He had not the feminine ability to ease descent into the depths of +sorrow by catching at all its minor details on the way. He plunged +straight down; no questions of funeral preparations or mourning +bonnets arrested him for a second. "My father is dead," Jerome told +himself; "he jumped into the pond and drowned himself, and here's +mother, and Elmira, and the mortgage, and me." + +This poor little _me_ of the village boy seemed suddenly to have +grown in stature, to have bent, as it grew, under a grievous burden, +and to have lost all its childish carelessness and childish ambition. +Jerome saw himself in the likeness of his father, bearing the +mortgage upon his shoulders, and his boyish self never came fully +back to him afterwards. The mantle of the departed, that, whether +they will or not, covers those that stand nearest, was over him, and +he had henceforth to walk under it. + + + + +Chapter IV + + +The next morning Paulina Maria and Belinda Lamb returned to finish +preparations, and Jerome was sent over to the West Corners to notify +some relatives there of the funeral service. Just as he was starting, +it was decided that he had better ride some six miles farther to +Granby, and see some others who might think they had a claim to an +invitation. + +"Imogen Lawson an' Sarah were always dreadful touchy," said Mrs. +Edwards. "They'll never get over it if they ain't asked. I guess +you'd better go there, Jerome." + +"Yes, he had," said Paulina Maria. + +"It's a real pleasant day, an' I guess they'll enjoy comin'," said +Belinda. Paulina Maria gave her a poke with a hard elbow, that hurt +her soft side, and she looked at her wonderingly. + +"Enjoy!" repeated Ann Edwards, bitterly. + +"I dun'no' what you mean," half whimpered Belinda. + +"No, I don't s'pose you do," returned Ann. "There's one thing about +it--folks can always tell what _you_ mean. You don't mean nothin', +an' never did. You couldn't be put in a dictionary. Noah Webster +couldn't find any meanin' fer you if he was to set up all night." A +nervous sob shook Mrs. Edwards's little frame. She was almost +hysterical that morning. Her black eyes were brightly dilated, her +mouth tremulous, and her throat swollen. + +Paulina Maria grasped Belinda by the shoulder. "You'd better get the +broom an' sweep out the wood-shed," said she, and Belinda went out +with a limp flutter of her cotton skirts and her curls. + +Jerome rode the old white horse, that could only travel at a heavy +jog, and he did not get home until noon--not much in advance of the +funeral guests he had bidden. They had directly left all else, got +out what mourning-weeds they could muster, and made ready. + +When Jerome reached home, he was immediately seized by Paulina Maria. +"Go right out and wash your face and hands real clean," said she, +"and then go up-stairs and change your clothes. I've laid them out on +the bed. When you get to the neckerchief, you come down here, and +I'll tie it for you; it's your father's. You've got to wear somethin' +black, to be decent." + +Jerome obeyed. All the incipient masculine authority in him was +overwhelmed by this excess of feminine strength. He washed his face +and hands faithfully, and donned his little clean, coarse shirt and +his poor best garments. Then he came down with the black silk +neckerchief, and Paulina Maria tied it around his boyish neck. + +"His father thought so much of that neckerchief," said Mrs. Edwards, +catching her breath. "It was 'most the only thing he bought for +himself for ten year that he didn't actually need." + +"Jerome is the one to have it," said Paulina Maria, and she made the +black silk knot tight and firm. + +An hour before the time set for the funeral Ann Edwards was all +dressed and ready. They had drawn her chair into the front parlor, +and there she sat in state. She wore the borrowed black bonnet and +veil. The decent black shawl and gown were her own. The doctor's wife +had sent over some black silk gloves, and she wore them. They were +much too large. Ann crossed her tiny hands, wrinkled over with the +black silk, with long, empty black silk fingers dangling in her lap, +over a fine white linen handkerchief. She had laid her gloved hands +over the handkerchief with a gesture full of resolution. "I sha'n't +give way," she said to Paulina Maria. That meant that, although she +took the handkerchief in obedience to custom, it would not be used to +dry the tears of affliction. + +Ann's face, through the black gloom of her crape veil, revealed only +the hard lines of resolution about her mouth and the red stain of +tears about her eyes. She held now her emotions in check like a vise. + +Jerome and poor little Elmira, whom Paulina Maria had dressed in a +little black Canton-crape shawl of her own, sat on either side. +Elmira wept now and then, trying to stifle her sobs, but Jerome sat +as immovable as his mother. + +The funeral guests arrived, and seated themselves solemnly in the +rows of chairs which had been borrowed from the neighbors. Adoniram +Judd and Ozias Lamb had carried chairs for a good part of the +forenoon. Nearly all the village people came; the strange +circumstances of this funeral, wherein there was no dead man to carry +solemnly in the midst of a long black procession to his grave, had +attracted many. Then, too, Abel Edwards had been known to them all +since his childhood, and well liked in the main, although the hard +grind of his daily life had of late years isolated him from his old +mates. + +Men sat there with stiff bowed heads, and glances of solemn +furtiveness at new-comers, who had played with Abel in his boyhood, +and to whom those old memories were more real than those of the last +ten years. Abel Edwards, in the absence both of his living soul and +his dead body, was present in the minds of many as a sturdy, +light-hearted boy. + +The people of Upham Corners assembled there together, dressed in +their best, displaying their most staid and decorous demeanor, showed +their fortunes in life plainly enough. Generally speaking, they were +a poor and hard-working folk--poorer and harder working than the +average people in villages. Upham Corners, from its hilly site, +freely intersected with rock ledges, was not well calculated for +profitable farming. The farms therein were mortgaged, and scarcely +fed their tillers. The water privileges were good and mills might +have flourished, but the greater markets were too far away, and few +workmen could be employed. + +Most of the women at poor Abel Edwards's funeral were worn and old +before their prime, their mouths sunken, wearing old women's caps +over their locks at thirty. Their decent best gowns showed that +piteous conservation of poverty more painful almost than squalor. + +The men were bent and gray with the unseen, but no less tangible, +burdens of life. Scarcely one there but bore, as poor Abel Edwards +had borne, a mortgage among them. It was a strange thing that +although all of the customary mournful accessories of a funeral were +wanting, although no black coffin with its silent occupant stood in +their midst, and no hearse waited at the door, yet that mortgage of +Abel Edwards's--that burden, like poor Christian's, although not of +sin, but misfortune, which had doubled him to the dust--seemed still +to be present. + +The people had the thought of it ever in their minds. They looked at +Ann Edwards and her children, and seemed to see in truth the mortgage +bearing down upon them, like a very shadow of death. + +They looked across at Doctor Seth Prescott furtively, as if he might +perchance read their thoughts, and wondered if he would foreclose. + +Doctor Prescott, in his broadcloth surtout, with his black satin +stock muffling richly his stately neck, sat in the room with the +mourners, directly opposite the Edwards family. His wife was beside +him. She was a handsome woman, taller and larger than her husband, +with a face of gentlest serenity set in shining bands of auburn hair. +Mrs. Doctor Prescott looked like an empress among the other women, +with her purple velvet pelisse sweeping around her in massive folds, +and her purple velvet bonnet with a long ostrich plume curling over +the side--the purple being considered a sort of complimentary +half-mourning. Squire Eben Merritt's wife, Abigail, could not +approach her, although she was finely dressed in black satin, and a +grand cashmere shawl from overseas. Mrs. Eben Merritt was a small and +plain-visaged little woman; people had always wondered why Squire +Eben Merritt had married her. Eben Merritt had not come to the +funeral. It was afterwards reported that he had gone fishing instead, +and people were scandalized, and indignantly triumphant, because it +was what they had expected of him. Little Lucina had come with her +mother, and sat in the high chair where they had placed her, with her +little morocco-shod feet dangling, her little hands crossed in her +lap, and her blue eyes looking out soberly and anxiously from her +best silk hood. Once in a while she glanced timidly at Jerome, and +reflected how he had given her sassafras, and how he hadn't any +father. + +When the singing began, the tears came into her eyes and her lip +quivered; but she tried not to cry, although there were smothered +sobs all around her. There was that about the sweet, melancholy drone +of the funeral hymn which stirred something more than sympathy in the +hearts of the listeners. Imagination of like bereavements for +themselves awoke within them, and they wept for their own sorrows in +advance. + +The minister offered a prayer, in which he made mention of all the +members of poor Abel's family, and even distant relatives. In fact, +Paulina Maria had furnished him with a list, which he had studied +furtively during the singing. "Don't forget any of 'em, or they won't +like it," she had charged. So the minister, Solomon Wells, bespoke +the comfort and support of the Lord in this affliction for all the +second and third cousins upon his list, who bowed their heads with a +sort of mournful importance as they listened. + +Solomon Wells was an elderly man, tall, and bending limberly under +his age like an old willow, his spare long body in nicely kept +broadcloth sitting and rising with wide flaps of black coat-tails, +his eyes peering forth mildly through spectacles. He was a widower of +long standing. His daughter Eliza, who kept his house, sat beside +him. She resembled her father closely, and herself looked like an old +person anywhere but beside him. There the juvenility of comparison +was hers. + +Solomon Wells, during the singing, before he offered prayer, had cast +sundry perplexed glances at a group of strangers on his right, and +then at his list. He was quite sure that they were not mentioned +thereon. Once he looked perplexedly at Paulina Maria, but she was +singing hard, in a true strong voice, and did not heed him. The +strangers sat behind her. There was a large man, lumbering and +uncomfortable in his best clothes, a small woman, and three little +girls, all dressed in blue delaine gowns and black silk mantillas and +blue bonnets. + +The minister had a strong conviction that these people should be +mentioned in his prayer. He gave his daughter Eliza a little nudge, +and looked inquiringly at them and at her, but she shook her head +slightly--she did not know who they were. Her father had to content +himself with vaguely alluding in his petition to all other relatives +of this afflicted family. + +During the eulogy upon the departed, which followed, he made also +casual mention of the respect in which he was held by strangers as +well as by his own towns-people. The minister gave poor Abel a very +good character. He spoke at length of his honesty, industry, and +sobriety. He touched lightly upon the unusual sadness of the +circumstances of his death. He expressed no doubt; he gave no hints +of any dark tragedy. "Don't speak as if you thought he killed +himself; if you do, it'll make her about crazy," Paulina Maria had +charged him. Ann, listening jealously to every word, could take no +exception to one. Solomon Wells was very mindful of the feelings of +others. He seemed at times to move with a sidewise motion of his very +spirit to avoid hurting theirs. + +After dwelling upon Abel Edwards's simple virtues, fairly dinning +them like sweet notes into the memories of his neighbors, Solomon +Wells, with a sweep of his black coat-skirts around him, sat down. +Then there was a solemn and somewhat awkward pause. The people looked +at each other; they did not know what to do next. All the customary +routine of a funeral was disturbed. The next step in the regular +order of funeral exercises was to pass decorously around a coffin, +pause a minute, bend over it with a long last look at the white face +therein; the next, to move out of the room and take places in the +funeral procession. Now that was out of the question; they were +puzzled as to further proceedings. + +Doctor Seth Prescott made the first move. He arose, and his wife +after him, with a soft rustle of her silken skirts. They both went up +to Ann Edwards, shook hands, and went out of the room. After them +Mrs. Squire Merritt, with Lucina in hand, did likewise; then +everybody else, except the relatives and the minister and his +daughter. + +After the decorous exit of the others, the relatives sat stiffly +around the room and waited. They knew there was to be a funeral +supper, for the fragrance of sweet cake and tea was strong over all +the house. There had been some little doubt concerning it among the +out-of-town relatives: some had opined that there would be none, on +account of the other irregularities of the exercises; some had opined +that the usual supper would be provided. The latter now sniffed and +nodded triumphantly at the others--particularly Amelia Stokes's +childish old mother. She, half hidden in the frills of a great +mourning-bonnet and the folds of a great black shawl, kept repeating, +in a sharp little gabble, like a child's: "I smell the tea, 'Melia--I +do, I smell it. Yes, I do--I told ye so. I tell ye, I smell the tea." + +Poor Amelia Stokes, who was a pretty, gentle-faced spinster, could +not hush her mother, whisper as pleadingly as she might into the +sharp old ear in the bonnet-frills. The old woman was full of the +desire for tea, and could scarcely be restrained from following up +its fragrant scent at once. + +The two Lawson sisters sat side by side, their sharp faces under +their black bonnets full of veiled alertness. Nothing escaped them; +they even suspected the truth about Ann's bonnet and gloves. Ann +still sat with her gloved hands crossed in her lap and her black veil +over her strained little face. She did not move a muscle; but in the +midst of all her restrained grief the sight of the large man, the +woman, and the three girls in the blue thibets, the black silk +mantillas, and the blue bonnets filled her with a practical dismay. +They were the relatives from Westbrook, who had not been bidden to +the funeral. They must have gotten word in some irregular manner, and +the woman held her blue-bonneted head with a cant of war, which Ann +knew well of old. + +For a little while there was silence, except for Paulina Maria's +heavy tramp and the soft shuffle of Belinda Lamb's cloth shoes out in +the kitchen. They were hurrying to get the supper in readiness. +Another appetizing odor was now stealing over the house, the odor of +baking cream-of-tartar biscuits. + +Suddenly, with one accord, as if actuated by one mental impulse, the +little woman, the large man, and the three girls arose and advanced +upon Ann Edwards. She grasped the arm of her chair hard, as if +bracing herself to meet a shock. + +The little woman spoke. Her eyes seemed full of black sparks, her +voice shook, red spots flamed out in her cheeks. "We'll bid you +good-bye now, Cousin Ann," said she. + +"Ain't you going to stay and have some supper?" asked Ann. Her manner +was at once defiant and conciliatory. + +Then the little woman made her speech. All the way from her distant +village, in the rear gloom of the covered wagon, she had been +composing it. She delivered it with an assumption of calm dignity, in +spite of her angry red cheeks and her shaking voice. "Cousin Ann," +said the little woman, "me and mine go nowhere where we are not +invited. We came to the funeral--though you didn't see fit to even +tell us when it was, and we only heard of it by accident from the +butcher--out of respect to poor Abel. He was my own second-cousin, +and our folks used to visit back and forth a good deal before he was +married. I felt as if I must come to his funeral, whether I was +wanted or not, because I know if he'd been alive he'd said to come; +but staying to supper is another thing. I am sorry for you, Cousin +Ann; we are all sorry for you in your affliction. We all hope it may +be sanctified to you; but I don't feel, and 'Lisha and the girls +don't feel, as if we could stay and eat victuals in a house where +we've been shown very plainly we ain't wanted." + +Then Ann spoke, and her voice was unexpectedly loud. "You haven't any +call to think you wasn't all welcome," said she. "You live ten miles +off, and I hadn't a soul to send but Jerome, with a horse that can't +get out of a walk. I didn't know myself there'd be a funeral for +certain till yesterday. There wasn't time to send for you. I thought +of it, but I knew there wouldn't be time to get word to you in season +for you to start. You might, as long as you're a professing +Christian, Eloise Green, have a little mercy in a time like this." +Ann's voice quavered a little, but she set her mouth harder. + +The large man nudged his wife and whispered something. He drew the +back of his rough hand across his eyes. The three little blue-clad +girls stood toeing in, dangling their cotton-gloved hands. + +"I thought you might have sent word by the butcher," said the little +woman. Her manner was softer, but she wanted to cover her defeat +well. + +"I couldn't think of butchers and all the wherewithals," said Ann, +with stern dignity. "I didn't think Abel's relations would lay it up +against me if I didn't." + +The large man's face worked; tears rolled down his great cheeks. He +pulled out a red handkerchief and wiped his eyes. + +"You'd ought to had a white handkerchief, father," whispered the +little woman; then she turned to Ann. "I'm sure I don't want to lay +up anything," said she. + +"I don't think you have any call to," responded Ann. "I haven't +anything more to say. If you feel like staying to supper I shall be +glad to have you, but I don't feel as if I had strength to urge +anybody." + +The large man sobbed audibly in his red handkerchief. His wife cast +an impatient glance at him. "Well, if that is the way it was, of +course we shall all be happy to stay and have a cup of tea," said +she. "We've got a long ride before us, and I don't feel quite as well +as common this spring. Of course I didn't understand how it happened, +and I felt kind of hurt; it was only natural. I see how it was, now. +'Lisha, hadn't you better slip out and see how the horse is +standing?" The little woman thrust her own white handkerchief into +her husband's hand as he started. "You put that red one under the +wagon seat," she whispered loud in his ear. Then she and the little +girls in blue returned to their chairs. The rest of the company had +been listening with furtive attention. Jerome had been trembling with +indignation at his mother's side. He looked at the large man, and +wondered impatiently why he did not shake that small woman, since he +was able. There was as yet no leniency on the score of sex in the +boy. He would have well liked to fly at that little wrathful body who +was attacking his mother, and also blaming him for not riding those +ten miles to notify her of the funeral. He scowled hard at her and +the three little girls after they had returned to their seats. One of +the girls, a pretty child with red curls, caught his frown, and +stared at him with scared but fascinated blue eyes. + +Supper was announced shortly. Belinda Lamb, instigated by Paulina +Maria, stood in the door and said, with melancholy formality, "Will +you come out now and have a little refreshment before you go home?" + +Ann did not stir. The others went out lingeringly, holding back for +politeness' sake; she sat still with her black veil over her face and +her black gloved hands crossed in her lap. Paulina Maria came to her +and tried to induce her to remove her bonnet and have some tea with +the rest, but she shook her head. "I want to just sit here and keep +still till they're gone," said she. + +She sat there. Some of the others came and added their persuasions to +Paulina Maria's, but she was firm. Jerome remained beside his mother; +Elmira had been bidden to go into the other room and help wait upon +the company. + +"There's room for Jerome at the table, if you ain't coming," said +Paulina Maria to Ann; but Jerome answered for himself. + +"I'll wait till that crowd are gone," said he, with a fierce gesture. + +"You wouldn't speak that way if you were my boy," said Paulina Maria. + +Jerome muttered under his breath that he wasn't her boy. Paulina +Maria cast a stern glance at him as she went out. + +"Don't you be saucy, Jerome Edwards," Ann said, in a sharp whisper +through her black veil. "She's done a good deal for us." + +"I'd like to kill the whole lot!" said the boy, clinching his little +fist. + +"Hold your tongue! You're a wicked, ungrateful boy!" said his mother; +but all the time she had a curious sympathy with him. Poor Ann was +seized with a strange unreasoning rancor against all that decorously +feeding company in the other room. There are despairing moments, when +the happy seem natural enemies of the miserable, and Ann was passing +through them. As she sat there in her gloomy isolation of widowhood, +her black veil and her dark thoughts coloring her whole outlook on +life, she felt a sudden fury of blindness against all who could see. +Had she been younger, she would have given vent to her emotion like +Jerome. Her son seemed the very expression of her own soul, although +she rebuked him. + +The people were a long time at supper. The funeral cake was sweet to +their tongues, and the tea mildly exhilarating. When they came at +last to bid farewell to Ann there was in their faces a pleasant +unctuousness which they could not wholly veil with sympathetic +sorrow. The childish old lady was openly hilarious. "That was the +best cup o' tea I ever drinked," she whispered loud in Ann's ear. +Jerome gave a scowl of utter contempt at her. When they were all +gone, and the last covered wagon had rolled out of the yard, Ann +allowed Paulina Maria to divest her of her bonnet and gloves and +bring her a cup of tea. Jerome and Elmira ate their supper at one end +of the disordered table; then they both worked hard, under the orders +of Paulina Maria, to set the house in order. It was quite late that +night before Jerome was at liberty to creep off to his own bed up in +the slanting back chamber. Paulina Maria and Belinda Lamb had gone +home, and the bereaved family were all alone in the house. Jerome's +boyish heart ached hard, but he was worn out physically, and he soon +fell asleep. + +About midnight he awoke with a startling sound in his ears. He sat up +in bed and listened, straining ears and eyes in the darkness. Out of +the night gloom and stillness below came his mother's voice, raised +loud and hoarse in half-accusatory prayer, not caring who heard, save +the Lord. + +"What hast thou done, O Lord?" demanded this daring and pitiful +voice. "Why hast thou taken away from me the husband of my youth? +What have I done to deserve it? Haven't I borne patiently the yoke +Thou laidst upon me before? Why didst Thou try so hard one already +broken on the wheel of Thy wrath? Why didst Thou drive a good man to +destruction? O Lord, give me back my husband, if Thou art the Lord! +If Thou art indeed the Almighty, prove it unto me by working this +miracle which I ask of Thee! Give me back Abel! give him back!" + +Ann's voice arose with a shriek; then there was silence for a little +space. Presently she spoke again, but no longer in prayer--only in +bitter, helpless lament. She used no longer the formal style of +address to a Divine Sovereign; she dropped into her own common +vernacular of pain. + +"It ain't any use! it ain't any use!" she wailed out. "If there is a +God He won't hear me, He won't help me, He won't bring him back. He +only does His own will forever. Oh, Abel, Abel, Abel! Oh, my husband! +Where are you? where are you? Where is the head that I've held on my +breast? Where are the lips I have kissed? I couldn't even see him +laid safe in his grave--not even that comfort! Oh, Abel, Abel, my +husband, my husband! my own flesh and my own soul, torn away from me, +and I left to draw the breath of life! Abel, Abel, come back, come +back, come back!" + +Ann Edwards's voice broke into inarticulate sobs and moans; then she +did not speak audibly again. Jerome lay back in his bed, cold and +trembling. Elmira, in the next chamber, was sound asleep, but he +slept no more that night. A revelation of the love and sorrow of this +world had come to him through his mother's voice. He was shamed and +awed and overwhelmed by this glimpse of the nakedness of nature and +that mighty current which swept him on with all mankind. The taste of +knowledge was all at once upon the boy's soul. + + + + +Chapter V + + +The next morning Jerome arose at dawn, and crept down-stairs +noiselessly on his bare feet, that he might not awake his mother. +However, still as he was, he had hardly crossed the threshold of the +kitchen before his mother called to him from her bedroom, the door of +which stood open. + +"Who's that?" called Ann Edwards, in a strained voice; and Jerome +knew that she had a wild hope that it was his father's step she heard +instead of his. The boy caught his breath, hesitating a second, and +his mother called again: "Who's that? Who's that out in the kitchen?" + +"It's only me," answered Jerome, with that most pitiful of apologies +in his tone--the apology for presence and very existence in the stead +of one more beloved. + +His mother drew a great shuddering sigh. "Come in here," she called +out, harshly, and Jerome went into the bedroom and stood beside her +bed. The curtain was not drawn over the one window, and the little +homely interior was full of the pale dusk of dawn. This had been Ann +Edwards's bridal chamber, and her children had been born there. The +face of that little poor room was as familiar to Jerome as the face +of his mother. From his earliest memory the high bureau had stood +against the west wall, near the window, and a little round table, +with a white towel and a rosewood box on it, in the corner at the +head of the great high-posted bedstead, which filled the rest of the +room, with scant passageway at the foot and one side. Ann's little +body scarcely raised the patchwork quilt on the bed; her face, sunken +in the feather pillows, looked small and weazened as a sick child's +in the dim light. She reached out one little bony hand, clutched +Jerome's poor jacket, and pulled him close. "What's goin' to be +done?" she demanded, querulously. "What's goin' to be done? Do you +know what's goin' to be done, Jerome Edwards?" + +The boy stared at her, and her sharply questioning eyes struck him +dumb. + +Ann Edwards had always been the dominant spirit in her own household. +The fact that she was so, largely on masculine sufferance, had never +been fully recognized by herself or others. Now, for the first time, +the stratum of feminine dependence and helplessness, which had +underlain all her energetic assertion, was made manifest, and poor +little Jerome was spurred out of his boyhood into manhood to meet +this new demand. + +"What's goin' to be done?" his mother cried again. "Why don't you +speak, Jerome Edwards?" + +Then Jerome drew himself up, and a new look came into his face. "I've +been thinkin' of it over," he said, soberly, "an'--I've got a plan." + +"What's goin' to be done?" Ann raised herself in bed by her clutch +at her son's arm. Then she let go, and rocked herself to and fro, +hugging herself with her little lean arms, and wailing weakly. +"What's goin' to be done? Oh, oh! what's goin' to be done? Abel's +dead, he's dead, and Doctor Prescott, he holds the mortgage. We +'ain't got any money, or any home. What's goin' to be done? What's +goin' to be done? Oh, oh, oh, oh!" + +Jerome grasped his mother by the shoulder and tried to force her back +upon her pillows. "Come, mother, lay down," said he. + +"I won't! I won't! I never will. What's goin' to be done? What's +goin' to be done?" + +"Mother, you lay right down and stop your cryin'," said Jerome; and +his mother started, and hushed, and stared at him, for his voice +sounded like his father's. The boy's wiry little hands upon her +shoulders, and his voice like his father's, constrained her strongly, +and she sank back; and her face appeared again, like a thin wedge of +piteous intelligence, in the great feather pillow. + +"Now you lay still, mother," said Jerome, and to his mother's excited +eyes he looked taller and taller, as if in very truth this sudden +leap of his boyish spirit into the stature of a man had forced his +body with it. He straightened the quilt over his mother's meagre +shoulders. "I'm goin' to start the fire," said he, "and put on the +hasty-pudding, and when it's all ready I'll call Elmira, and we'll +help you up." + +"What's goin' to be done?" his mother quavered again; but this time +feebly, as if her fierce struggles were almost hushed by contact with +authority. + +"I've got a plan," said Jerome. "You just lay still, mother, and I'll +see what's best." + +Ann Edwards's eyes rolled after the boy as he went out of the room, +but she lay still, obediently, and said not another word. An +unreasoning confidence in this child seized upon her. She leaned +strongly upon what, until now, she had held the veriest reed--to her +own stupefaction and with doubtful content, but no resistance. Jerome +seemed suddenly no longer her son; the memory of the time when she +had cradled and swaddled him failed her. The spirit of his father +awakened in him filled her at once with strangeness and awed +recognition. + +She heard the boy pattering about in the kitchen, and, in spite of +herself, the conviction that his father was out there, doing the +morning task which had been his for so many years, was strong upon +her. + +When at length Jerome and Elmira came and told her breakfast was +ready, and assisted her to rise and dress, she was as unquestioningly +docile as if the relationship between them were reversed. When she +was seated in her chair she even forbore, as was her wont, to start +immediately with sharp sidewise jerks of her rocker, but waited until +her children pushed and drew her out into the next room, up to the +breakfast-table. There were, moreover, no sharp commands and chidings +as to the household tasks that morning. Jerome and Elmira did as they +would, and their mother sat quietly and ate her breakfast. + +Elmira kept staring at her mother, and then glancing uneasily at +Jerome. Her pretty face was quite pale that morning, and her eyes +looked big. She moved hesitatingly, or with sharp little runs of +decision. She went often to the window and stared down the +road--still looking for her father; for hope dies hard in youth, and +she had words of triumph at the sight of him all ready upon her +tongue. Her mother's strange demeanor frightened her, and made her +almost angry. She was too young to grasp any but the more familiar +phases of grief, and revelations of character were to her +revolutions. + +She beckoned her brother out of the room the first chance she got, +and questioned him. + +"What ails mother?" she whispered, out in the woodshed, holding to +the edge of his jacket and looking at him with piteous, scared eyes. + +Jerome stood with his shoulders back, and seemed to look down at her +from his superior height of courageous spirit, though she was as tall +as he. + +"She's come to herself," said Jerome. + +"She wasn't ever like this before." + +"Yes, she was--inside. She ain't anything but a woman. She's come to +herself." + +Elmira began to sob nervously, still holding to her brother's jacket, +not trying to hide her convulsed little face. "I don't care, she +scares me," she gasped, under her breath, lest her mother hear. "She +ain't any way I've ever seen her. I'm 'fraid she's goin' to be crazy. +I'm dreadful 'fraid mother's goin' to be crazy, Jerome." + +"No, she ain't," said Jerome. "She's just come to herself, I tell +you." + +"Father's dead and mother's crazy, and Doctor Prescott has got the +mortgage," wailed Elmira, in an utter rebellion of grief. + +Jerome caught her by the arm and pulled her after him at a run, out +of the shed, into the cool spring morning air. So early in the day, +with no stir of life except the birds in sight or sound, the new +grass and flowering branches and blooming distances seemed like the +unreal heaven of a dream; and, indeed, nothing save their own dire +strait of life was wholly tangible and met them but with shocks of +unfamiliar things. + +Jerome, out in the yard, took his sister by both arms, piteously +slender and cold through their thin gingham sleeves, and shook her +hard, and shook her again. + +"Jerome Edwards, what--you doin'--so--for?" she gasped. + +"'Ain't you got anything to you? 'Ain't you got anything to you at +all?" said Jerome, fiercely. + +"I--don't know what you mean! Don't, Jerome--don't! Oh, Jerome, I'm +'fraid you're crazy, like mother?" + +"'Ain't you got enough to you," said Jerome, still shaking her as if +she had not spoken, "to control your feelin's and do up the housework +nice, and not kill mother?" + +"Yes, I will--I'll be just as good as I can. You know I will. Don't, +Jerome! I 'ain't cried before mother this mornin'. You know I +'ain't." + +"You cried loud enough, just now in the shed, so she could hear you." + +"I won't again. Don't, Jerome!" + +"You're 'most a grown-up woman," said Jerome, ceasing to shake his +sister, but holding her firm, and looking at her with sternly +admonishing eyes. "You're 'most as old as I be, and I've got to take +care of you all. It's time you showed it if there's anything to you." + +"Oh, Jerome, you look just like father," whispered Elmira, suddenly, +with awed, fascinated eyes on his face. + +"Now you go in and wash up the dishes, and sweep the kitchen, and +make up the beds, and don't you cry before mother or say anything to +pester her," said Jerome. + +"What you goin' to do, Jerome?" Elmira asked, timidly. + +"I'm goin' to take care of the horse and finish plantin' them beans +first." + +"What you goin' to do then?" + +"Somethin'--you wait and see." Jerome spoke with his first betrayal +of boyish weakness, for a certain importance crept into his tone. + +Elmira instinctively recognized it, and took advantage of it. "Ain't +you goin' to ask mother, Jerome Edwards?" she said. + +"I'm goin' to do what's best," answered Jerome; and again that +uncanny gravity of authority which so awed her was in his face. + +When he again bade her go into the house and do as he said, she +obeyed with a longing, incredulous look at him. + +Jerome had not eaten much breakfast; indeed, he had not finished when +Elmira had beckoned him out. But he said to himself that he did not +want any more--he would go straight about his tasks. + +Jerome, striking out through the dewy wind of foot-path towards the +old barn, heard suddenly a voice calling him by name. It was a voice +as low and heavy as a man's, but had a nervous feminine impulse in +it. "Jerome!" it called. "Jerome Edwards!" + +Jerome turned, and saw Paulina Maria coming up the road, walking with +a firm, swaying motion of her whole body from her feet, her cotton +draperies blowing around her like sheathing-leaves. + +Jerome stood still a minute, watching her; then he went back to the +house, to the door, and stationed himself before it. He stood there +like a sentinel when Paulina Maria drew near. The meaning of war was +in his shoulder, his expanded boyish chest, his knitted brows, set +chin and mouth, and unflinching eyes; he needed only a sword or gun +to complete the picture. + +Paulina Maria stopped, and looked at him with haughty wonder. She was +not yet intimidated, but she was surprised, and stirred with rising +indignation. + +"How's your mother this morning, Jerome?" said she. + +"Well 's she can be," replied Jerome, gruffly, with a wary eye upon +her skirts when they swung out over her advancing knee; for Paulina +Maria was minded to enter the house with no further words of parley. +He gathered himself up, in all his new armor of courage and defiance, +and stood firm in her path. + +"I'm going in to see your mother," said Paulina Maria, looking at him +as if she suspected she did not understand aright. + +"No, you ain't," returned Jerome. + +"What do you mean?" + +"You ain't goin' in to see my mother this mornin'." + +"Why not, I'd like to know?" + +"She's got to be kept still and not see anybody but us, or she'll be +sick." + +"I guess it won't hurt her any to see me." Paulina Maria turned +herself sidewise, thrust out a sharp elbow, and prepared to force +herself betwixt Jerome and the door-post like a wedge. + +"You stand back!" said Jerome, and fixed his eyes upon her face. + +Paulina Maria turned pale. "What do you mean, actin' so?" she said, +again. "Did your mother tell you not to let me in?" + +"Mother's got to be kept still and not see anybody but us, or she'll +be sick. I ain't goin' to have anybody come talkin' to her to-day," +said Jerome, with his eyes still fixed upon Paulina Maria's face. + +Paulina Maria was like a soldier whose courage is invincible in all +tried directions. Up to all the familiar and registered batteries of +life she could walk without flinching, and yield to none; but here +was something new, which savored perchance of the uncanny, and a +power not of the legitimate order of things. There was something +frightful and abnormal to her in Jerome's pale face, which did not +seem his own, his young eyes full of authority of age, and the +intimation of repelling force in his slight, childish form. + +Paulina Maria might have driven a fierce watch-dog from her path with +her intrepid will; she might have pushed aside a stouter arm in her +way; but this defence, whose persistence in the face of apparent +feebleness seemed to indicate some supernatural power, made her +quail. From her spare diet and hard labor, from her cleanliness and +rigid holding to one line of thought and life, the veil of flesh and +grown thin and transparent, like any ascetic's of old, and she was +liable to a ready conception of the abnormal and supernatural. + +With one half-stern, half-fearful glance at the forbidding child in +her path, she turned about and went away, pausing, however, in the +vantage-point of the road and calling back in an indignant voice, +which trembled slightly, "You needn't think you're goin' to send +folks home this way many times, Jerome Edwards!" Then, with one last +baffled glance at the pale, strange little figure in the Edwards +door, she went home, debating grimly with herself over her weakness +and her groundless fear. + +Jerome waited until she was out of sight, gave one last look down the +road to be sure no other invaders were approaching his fortress, and +then went on to the barn. When he rolled back the door and entered, +the old white horse stirred in his stall and turned to look at him. +There was something in the glance over the shoulder of that long +white face which caused the heart of the boy to melt within him. He +pressed into the stall, flung up his little arms around the great +neck, and sobbed and sobbed, his face hid against the heaving side. + +The old horse had looked about, expecting to see Jerome's father +coming to feed and harness him into the wood-wagon, and Jerome knew +it, and there was something about the consciousness of loss and +sorrow of this faithful dumb thing which smote him in a weaker place +than all human intelligence of it. + +Abel Edwards had loved this poor animal well, and had set great store +by his faithful service; and the horse had loved him, after the dumb +fashion of his kind, and, indeed, not sensing that he was dead, loved +him still, with a love as for the living, which no human being could +compass. Jerome, clinging to this dumb beast, to which alone the love +of his father had not commenced, by those cruel and insensible +gradations, to become the memory which is the fate, as inevitable as +death itself, of all love when life is past, felt for the minute all +his new strength desert him, and relapsed into childhood and clinging +grief. "You loved him, didn't you?" he whispered between his sobs. +"You loved poor father, didn't you, Peter?" And when the horse +turned his white face and looked at him, with that grave +contemplation seemingly indicative of a higher rather than a lower +intelligence, with which an animal will often watch human emotion, he +sobbed and sobbed again, and felt his heart fail him at the +realization of his father's death, and of himself, a poor child, with +the burden of a man upon his shoulders. But it was only for a few +minutes that he yielded thus, for the stature of the mind of the boy +had in reality advanced, and soon he drew himself up to it, stopped +weeping, led the horse out to the well, drew bucket after bucket of +water, and held them patiently to his plashing lips. Then a neighbor +in the next house, a half-acre away, looking across the field, called +her mother to see how much Jerome Edwards looked like his father. "It +gave me quite a turn when I see him come out, he looked so much like +his father, for all he's so small," said she. "He walked out just +like him; I declare, I didn't know but he'd come back." + +Jerome, leading the horse, walked back to the barn in his father's +old tracks, with his father's old gait, reproducing the dead with the +unconscious mimicry of the living, while the two women across the +field watched him from their window. "It ain't a good sign--he's got +a hard life before him," said the older of the two, who had wild blue +eyes under a tousle of gray hair, and was held in somewhat dubious +repute because of spiritualistic tendencies. + +"Guess he'll have a hard life enough, without any signs--most of us +do. He won't have to make shirts, anyhow," rejoined her daughter, who +had worn out her youth with fine stitching of linen shirts for a Jew +peddler. Then she settled back over her needle-work with a heavy +sigh, indicative of a return from the troubles of others to her own. + +Jerome fed the old horse, and rubbed him down carefully. "Sha'n't be +sold whilst I'm alive," he assured him, with a stern nod, as he +combed out his forelock, and the animal looked at him again, with +that strange attention which is so much like the attention of +understanding. + +After his tasks in the barn were done Jerome went out to the sloping +garden and finished planting the beans. He could see Elmira's smooth +dark head passing to and fro before the house windows, and knew that +she was fulfilling his instructions. + +He kept a sharp watch upon the road for other female friends of his +mother's, who, he was resolved, should not enter. + +"Them women will only get her all stirred up again. She's got to get +used to it, and they'll just hinder her," he said, quite aloud to +himself, having in some strange fashion discovered the truth that the +human mind must adjust itself to its true balance after the upheaval +of sorrow. + +After the beans were planted it was only nine o'clock. Jerome went +soberly down the garden-slope, stepping carefully between the planted +ridges, then into the house, with a noiseless lift of the latch and +glide over the threshold; for Elmira signalled him from the window to +be still. + +His mother sat in her high-backed rocker, fast asleep, her sharp eyes +closed, her thin mouth gaping, an expression of vacuous peace over +her whole face, and all her wiry little body relaxed. Jerome motioned +to Elmira, and the two tiptoed out across the little front entry to +the parlor. + +"How long has she been asleep?" whispered Jerome. + +"'Most an hour. You don't s'pose mother's goin' to die too, do you, +Jerome?" + +"Course she ain't." + +"I never saw her go to sleep in the daytime before. Mother don't act +a mite like herself. She 'ain't spoke out to me once this mornin'," +poor little Elmira whimpered; but her brother hushed her, angrily. + +"Don't you know enough to keep still--a great big girl like you?" he +said. + +"Jerome, I have. I 'ain't cried a mite before her, and she couldn't +hear that," whispered Elmira, chokingly. + +"Mother's got awful sharp ears, you know she has," insisted Jerome. +"Now I'm goin' away, and don't you let anybody come in here while I'm +gone and bother mother." + +"I'll have to let Cousin Paulina Maria and Aunt Belinda in, if they +come," said Elmira, staring at him wonderingly. Neither she nor her +mother knew that Paulina Maria had already been there and been turned +away. + +"You just lock the house up, and not go to the door," said Jerome, +decisively. + +Elmira kept staring at him, as if she doubted her eyes and ears. She +felt a certain awe of her brother. "Where you goin'?" she inquired, +half timidly. + +"I'll tell you when I get back," replied Jerome. He went out with +dignity, and Elmira heard him on the stairs. "He's goin' to dress +up," she thought. + +She sat down by the window, well behind the curtain, that any one +approaching might not see her, and waited. She had wakened that +morning as into a new birth of sense, and greeted the world with +helpless childish weeping, but now she was beginning to settle +comfortably into this strange order of things. Her face, as she sat +thus, wore the ready curves of smiles instead of tears. Elmira was +one whose strength would always be in dependence. Now her young +brother showed himself, as if by a miracle, a leader and a strong +prop, and she could assume again her natural attitude of life and +growth. She was no longer strange to herself in these strange ways, +and that was wherein all the bitterness of strangeness lay. + +When Jerome came down-stairs, in his little poor best jacket and +trousers and his clean Sunday shirt, she stood in the door and looked +at him curiously, but with a perfect rest of confidence. + +Jerome looked at her with dignity, and yet with a certain childish +importance, without which he would have ceased to be himself at all. +"Look out for mother," he whispered, admonishingly, and went out, +holding his head up and his shoulders back, and feeling his sister's +wondering and admiring eyes upon him, with a weakness of pride, and +yet with no abatement of his strength of purpose, which was great +enough to withstand self-recognition. + +The boy that morning had a new gait when he had once started down the +road. The habit of his whole life--and, more than that, an inherited +habit--ceased to influence him. This new exaltation of spirit +controlled even bones and muscles. + +Jerome, now he had fairly struck out in life with a purpose of his +own, walked no longer like his poor father, with that bent shuffling +lope of worn-out middle age. His soul informed his whole body, and +raised it above that of any simple animal that seeks a journey's end. +His head was up and steady, as if he bore a treasure-jar on it, his +back flat as a soldier's; he swung his little arms at his sides and +advanced with proud and even pace. + +Jerome's old gaping shoes were nicely greased, and he himself had +made a last endeavor to close the worst apertures with a bit of +shoemaker's thread. He had had quite a struggle with himself, before +starting, regarding these forlorn old shoes and another pair, spick +and span and black, and heavily clamping with thick new soles, which +Uncle Ozias Lamb had sent over for him to wear to the funeral. + +"He sent 'em over, an' says you may wear 'em to the funeral, if +you're real careful," his aunt Belinda had said, and then added, with +her gentle sniff of deprecation and apology: "He says you'll have to +give 'em back again--they ain't to keep. He says he's got so +behindhand lately he 'ain't got any tithes to give to the Lord. He +says he 'ain't got nothing that will divide up into ten parts, 'cause +he 'ain't got more'n half one whole part himself." Belinda Lamb +repeated her husband's bitter saying out of his heart of poverty with +a scared look, and yet with a certain relish and soft aping of his +defiant manner. + +"I don't want anybody to give when I can't give back again," Ann had +returned. "Ozias has always done full as much for us as we've done +for him." Then she had charged Jerome to be careful of the shoes, +and not stub the toes, so his uncle would have difficulty in selling +them. + +"I'll wear my old shoes," Jerome had replied, sullenly, but then had +been borne down by the chorus of feminine rebuke and misunderstanding +of his position. They thought, one and all, that he was wroth because +the shoes were not given to him, and the very pride which forbade him +to wear them constrained him to do so. + +However, this morning he had looked at them long, lifted them and +weighed them, turning them this way and that, put them on his feet +and stood contemplating them. He was ashamed to wear his old broken +shoes to call on grand folks, but he was too proud and too honest, +after all, to wear these borrowed ones. + +So he stepped along now with an occasional uneasy glance at his feet, +but with independence in his heart. Jerome walked straight down the +road to Squire Eben Merritt's. The cut across the fields would have +been much shorter, for the road made a great curve for nearly half a +mile, but the boy felt that the dignified highway was the only route +for him, bent on such errands, in his best clothes. + + + + +Chapter VI + + +Squire Eben Merritt's house stood behind a file of dark pointed +evergreen trees, which had grown and thickened until the sunlight +never reached the house-front, which showed, in consequence, green +patches of moss and mildew. One entering had, moreover, to turn out, +as it were, for the trees, and take a circuitous route around them to +the right to the front-door path, which was quite slippery with a +film of green moss. + +There had been, years ago, a gap betwixt the trees--a gate's +width--but now none could enter unless the branches were lopped, and +Eben Merritt would not allow that. His respect for that silent file +of sylvan giants, keeping guard before his house against winds and +rains and fierce snows, was greater than his hospitality and concern +for the ease of guests. "Let 'em go round--it won't hurt 'em," he +would say, with his great merry laugh, when his wife sometimes +suggested that the old gateway should be repaired. However, it was +only a few times during the year that the matter disturbed her, for +she was not one to falter long at the small stumbling-blocks of life; +a cheerful skip had she over them, or a placid glide aside. When she +had the minister's daughter and other notable ladies to tea, who held +it due to themselves to enter the front door, she was somewhat uneasy +lest they draggle their fine petticoats skirting the trees, +especially if the grass was dewy or there was snow; otherwise, she +cared not. The Squire's friends, who often came in muddy boots, +preferred the east-side door, which was in reality good enough for +all but ladies coming to tea, having three stone steps, a goodly +protecting hood painted green, with sides of lattice-work, and +opening into a fine square hall, with landscape-paper on the walls, +whence led the sitting-room and the great middle room, where the +meals were served. + +Jerome went straight round to this side door and raised the knocker. +He had to wait a little while before any one came, and looked about +him. He had been in Squire Eben Merritt's east yard before, but now +he had a sense of invasion which gave it new meanings for him. A +great straggling rose-vine grew over the hood of the door, and its +young leaves were pricking through the lattice-work; it was old and +needed trimming; there were many long barren shoots of last year. +However, Squire Merritt guarded jealously the freedom of the rose, +and would not have it meddled with, arguing that it had thriven thus +since the time of his grandfather, who had planted it; that this was +its natural condition of growth, and it would die if pruned. + +Jerome looked out of this door-arbor, garlanded with the old +rose-vine, into a great yard, skirted beyond the driveway with four +great flowering cherry-trees, so old that many of the boughs would +never bud again, and thrust themselves like skeleton arms of death +through the soft masses of bloom out into the blue. One tree there +was which had scarcely any boughs left, for the winds had taken them, +and was the very torso of a tree; but Squire Eben Merritt would not +have even that cut, for he loved a tree past its usefulness as +faithfully as he loved an animal. "Well do I remember the cherries I +used to eat off that tree, when I was so high," Eben Merritt would +say. "Many a man has done less to earn a good turn from me than this +old tree, which has fed me with its best fruit. Do you think I'll +turn and kill it now?" + +He had the roots of the old trees carefully dug about and tended, +though not a dead limb lopped. Nurture, and not surgery, was the +doctrine of Squire Merritt. "Let the earth take what it gave," he +said; "I'll not interfere." + +Jerome had heard these sayings of Squire Merritt's about the trees. +They had been repeated, because people thought such ideas queer and +showing lack of common-sense. He had heard them unthinkingly, but +now, standing on Squire Merritt's door-step, looking at his old tree +pensioners, whom he would not desert in their infirmity, he +remembered, and the great man's love for his trees gave him reason, +with a sudden leap of faith, to believe in his kindness towards him. +"I'm better than an old tree," reasoned Jerome, and raised the +knocker again boldly and let it fall with a great brazen clang. Then +he jumped and almost fell backward when the door was flung open +suddenly, and there stood Squire Merritt himself. + +"What the devil--" began Squire Merritt; then he stopped and chuckled +behind his great beard when he saw Jerome's alarmed eyes. "Hullo," +said he, "who have we got here?" Eben Merritt had a soft place in +his heart for all small young creatures of his kind, and always +returned their timid obeisances, when he met them, with a friendly +smile twinkling like light through his bushy beard. Still, like many +a man of such general kindly bearings, he could not easily compass +details, and oftener than not could not have told which child he +greeted. + +Eben Merritt, outside his own family, was utterly impartial in +magnanimity, and dealt with broad principles rather than individuals. +Now he looked hard at Jerome, and could not for the life of him tell +what particular boy he was, yet recognized him fully in the broader +sense of young helplessness and timid need. "Speak up," said he; +"don't be scared. I know all the children, and I don't know one of +'em. Speak up like a man." + +Then Jerome, stung to the resolution to show this great Squire, Eben +Merritt, that he was not to be classed among the children, but was a +man indeed, and equivalent to those duties of one which had suddenly +been thrust upon him, looked his questioner boldly in the face and +answered. "I'm Jerome Edwards," said he; "and Abel Edwards was my +father." + +Eben Merritt's face changed in a minute. He looked gravely at the +boy, and nodded with understanding. "Yes, I know now," said he; "I +remember. You look like your father." Then he added, kindly, but +with a scowl of perplexity as to what the boy was standing there for, +and what he wanted: "Well, my boy, what is it? Did your mother send +you on some errand to Mrs. Merritt?" + +Jerome scraped his foot, his manners at his command by this time, and +his old hat was in his hand. "No, sir," said he; "I came to see you, +sir, if you please, sir, and mother didn't send me. I came myself." + +"You came to see me?" + +"Yes, sir," Jerome scraped again, but his black eyes on the Squire's +face were quite fearless and steady. + +Squire Eben Merritt stared at him wonderingly; then he cast an uneasy +glance at his fishing-pole, for he had come to the door with his +tackle in his hands, and he gave a wistful thought to the brooks +running through the young shadows of the spring woods, and the +greening fields, and the still trout-pools he had meant to invade +with no delay, and from which this childish visitor, bound probably +upon some foolish errand, would keep him. Then he found his own +manners, which were those of his good old family, courteous alike to +young and old, and rich and poor. + +"Well, if you've come to see me, walk in, sir," cried Squire Merritt, +with a great access of heartiness, and he laid his fishing-tackle +carefully on the long mahogany table in the entry, and motioned +Jerome to follow him into the room on the left. + +Jerome had never been inside the house before, but this room had a +strangeness of its own which made him feel, when he entered, as if he +had crossed the border of a foreign land. It was typically unlike any +other room in the village. Jerome, whose tastes were as yet only +imitative and departed not from the lines to which they had been born +and trained, surveyed it with astonishment and some contempt. "No +carpet," he thought, "and no haircloth sofa, and no rocking-chair!" + +He stared at the skins of bear and deer which covered the floor, at +the black settle with a high carven back, at a carved chest of black +oak, at the smaller pelts of wolf and fox which decorated walls and +chairs, at a great pair of antlers, and even a noble eagle sitting in +state upon the top of a secretary. Squire Merritt had filled this +room and others with his trophies of the chase, for he had been a +mighty hunter from his youth. + +"Sit down, sir," he told Jerome, a little impatiently, for he longed +to be away for his fishing, and the stupid abstraction from purpose +which unwonted spectacles always cause in childhood are perplexing +and annoying to their elders, who cannot leave their concentration +for any sight of the eyes, if they wish. + +He indicated a chair, at which Jerome, suddenly brought to himself, +looked dubiously, for it had a fine fox-skin over the back, and he +wondered if he might sit on it or should remove it. + +The Squire laughed. "Sit down," he ordered; "you won't hurt the +pelt." And then he asked, to put him at his ease, "Did you ever +shoot a fox, sir?" + +"No, sir." + +"Ever fire a gun?" + +"No, sir." + +"Want to?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Jerome did not respond with the ready eagerness which the Squire had +expected. He had suddenly resolved, in his kindness and pity towards +his fatherless state, knowing well the longings of a boy, to take him +out in the field and let him fire his gun, and change, if he could, +that sad old look he wore, even if he fished none that day; but +Jerome disappointed him in his purpose. "He hasn't much spirit," he +thought, and stood upon the hearth, before the open fireplace, and +said no more, but waited to hear what Jerome had come for. + +The Squire was far from an old man, though he seemed so to the boy. +He was scarcely middle-aged, and indeed many still called him the +"young Squire," as they had done when his father died, some fifteen +years before. He was a massively built man, standing a good six feet +tall in his boots; and in his boots, thick-soled, and rusty with old +mud splashes, reaching high above his knees over his buckskin +breeches, Squire Eben Merritt almost always stood. He was scarcely +ever seen without them, except in the meeting-house on a Sunday--when +he went, which was not often. There was a tradition that he in his +boots, just home from a quail sortie in the swamp, had once invaded +the best parlor, where his wife had her lady friends to tea, and +which boasted a real Turkey carpet--the only one in town. + +Eben Merritt in these great hunting-boots, clad as to the rest of him +in stout old buckskin and rough coat and leather waistcoat, with his +fair and ruddy face well covered by his golden furze of beard, which +hung over his breast, lounged heavily on the hearth, and waited with +a noble patience, eschewing all desire of fishing, until this pale, +grave little lad should declare his errand. + +But Jerome, with the great Squire standing waiting before him, felt +suddenly tongue-tied. He was not scared, though his heart beat fast; +it was only that the words would not come. + +The Squire watched him kindly with his bright, twinkling blue eyes +under his brush of yellow hair. "Take your time," said he, and threw +one arm up over the mantel-shelf, and stood as if it were easier for +him than to sit, and indeed it might have been so, for from his +stalking of woods and long motionless watches at the lair of game, he +had had good opportunities to accustom himself to rest at ease upon +his feet. + +Jerome might have spoken sooner had the Squire moved away from before +him and taken his eyes from his face, for sometimes too ardent +attention becomes a citadel for storming to a young and modest soul. +However, at last he turned his own head aside, and his black eyes +from the Squire's keen blue eyes, and would then have spoken had not +the door opened suddenly and little Lucina come in on a run and +stopped short a minute with timid finger to her mouth, and eyes as +innocently surprised as a little rabbit's. + +Lucina, being unhooded to-day, showed all her shower of shining +yellow curls, which covered her little shoulders and fell to her +childish waist. Her fat white neck and dimpled arms were bare and +gleaming through the curls, and she wore a lace-trimmed pinafore, and +a frock of soft blue wool scalloped with silk around the hem, +revealing below the finest starched pantalets, and little morocco +shoes. + +Squire Eben laughed fondly, to see her start and hesitate, as a man +will laugh at the pretty tricks of one he loves. "Come here, Pretty," +he cried. "There's nothing for you to be afraid of. This is only poor +little Jerome Edwards. Come and shake hands with him," and bade her +thus, thinking another child might encourage the boy. + +With that Lucina hesitated no longer, but advanced, smiling softly, +with the little lady-ways her mother had taught her, and held out her +white morsel of a hand to the boy. "How do you do?" she said, +prettily, though still a little shyly, for she was mindful how her +gingerbread had been refused, and might not this strange poor boy +also thrust the hand away with scorn? She said that, and looking +down, lest that black angry flash of his eyes startle her again, she +saw his poor broken shoes, and gave a soft little cry, then made a +pitiful lip, and stared hard at them with wide eyes full of +astonished compassion, for the shoes seemed to her much more forlorn +than bare feet. + +Jerome's eyes followed hers, and he sprang up suddenly, his face +blazing, and made out that he did not see the proffered little hand. +"Pretty well," he returned, gruffly. Then he said to the Squire, with +no lack of daring now, "Can I see you alone, sir?" + +The Squire stared at him a second, then his great chest heaved with +silent laughter and his yellow beard stirred as with a breeze of +mirth. + +"You don't object to my daughter's presence?" he queried, his eyes +twinkling still, but with the formality with which he might have +addressed the minister. + +Jerome scowled with important indignation. Nothing escaped him; he +saw that Squire Merritt was laughing at him. Again the pitiful +rebellion at his state of boyhood seized him. He would have torn out +of the room had it not been for his dire need. He looked straight at +the Squire, and nodded stubbornly. + +Squire Merritt turned to his little daughter and laid a tenderly +heavy hand on her smooth curled head. "You'd better run away now and +see mother, Pretty," he said. "Father has some business to talk over +with this gentleman." + +Little Lucina gave a bewildered look up in her father's face, then +another at Jerome, as if she fancied she had not heard aright, then +she went out obediently, like the good and gentle little girl that +she was. + +When the door closed behind her, Jerome began at once. Somehow, that +other child's compassion in the midst of her comfort and security had +brought his courage up to the point of attack on fate. + +"I want to ask you about the mortgage," said Jerome. + +The Squire looked at him with quick interest. "The mortgage on your +father's place?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Doctor Prescott holds it?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"How much is it?" + +"A thousand dollars." Jerome said that with a gasp of horror and +admiration at the vastness of it. Sometimes to him that thousand +dollars almost represented infinity, and seemed more than the stars +of heaven. His childish brain, which had scarcely contemplated in +verity more than a shilling at a time of the coin of the realm, +reeled at a thousand dollars. + +"Well?" observed Squire Merritt, kindly but perplexedly. He wondered +vaguely if the boy had come to ask him to pay the mortgage, and +reflected how little ready money he had in pocket, for Eben Merritt +was not thrifty with his income, which was indeed none too large, and +was always in debt himself, though always sure to pay in time. +Chances were, if Squire Merritt had had the thousand dollars to hand +that morning, he might have thrust it upon the boy, with no further +parley, taken his rod and line, and gone forth to his fishing. As it +was, he waited for Jerome to proceed, merely adding that he was sorry +that his mother did not own the place clear. + +The plan that the boy unfolded, clumsily but sturdily to the end, he +had thought out for himself in the darkness of the night before. The +Squire listened. "Who planned this out?" he asked, when Jerome had +finished. + +"I did." + +"Who helped you?" + +"Nobody did." + +"Nobody?" + +"No, sir." + +Suddenly Squire Eben Merritt seated himself in the chair which Jerome +had vacated, seized the boy, and set him upon his knee. Jerome +struggled half in wrath, half in fear, but he could not free himself +from that strong grasp. "Sit still," ordered Squire Eben. "How old +are you, my boy?" + +"Goin' on twelve, sir," gasped Jerome. + +"Only four years older than Lucina. Good Lord!" + +The Squire's grasp tightened tenderly. The boy did not struggle +longer, but looked up with a wonder of comprehensiveness in the +bearded face bent kindly over his. "He looks at me the way father use +to," thought Jerome. + +"What made you come to me, my boy?" asked the Squire, presently. "Did +you think I could pay the mortgage for you?" + +Then Jerome colored furiously and threw up his head. "No, _sir_," +said he, proudly. + +"Why, then?" + +"I came because you are a justice of the peace, and know what law is, +and--" + +"And what?" + +"I've always heard you were pleasanter-spoken than he was." + +The Squire laughed. "Pleasant words are cheap coin," said he. "I wish +I had something better for your sake, child. Now let me see what it +is you propose. That wood-lot of your father's, you say, Doctor +Prescott has offered three hundred dollars for." + +"Yes, sir." + +The Squire whistled. "Didn't your father think it was worth more than +that?" + +"Yes, sir, but he didn't think he could get any more. He said--" + +"What did he say?" + +"He said that a poor seller was the slave of a rich buyer; but I +think--" Jerome hesitated. He was not used yet to expressing his +independent thought. + +"Go on," said the Squire. + +"I think it works both ways, and the poor man is the slave either +way, whether he buys or sells," said the boy, half defiantly, half +timidly. + +"I guess you're about right," said the Squire, looking at him +curiously. "Ever hear your uncle Ozias Lamb say anything like that?" + +"No, sir." + +"Thought it yourself, eh?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Well, let's get to business now," said the Squire. "What you want is +this, if I understand it. You want Doctor Prescott to buy that +wood-lot of your father's for three hundred dollars, or whatever over +that sum he will agree to, and you don't want him to pay you money +down, but give you his note for it, with interest at six per cent., +for as long a term as he will. You did not say give you a note, +because you did not know about it, but that is what you want." + +Jerome nodded soberly. "I know father paid interest at six per cent., +and it was sixty dollars a year, and I know it would be eighteen +dollars if it was three hundred dollars instead of a thousand. I +figured it out on my slate," he said. + +"You are right," said the Squire, gravely. "Now you think that will +bring your interest down to forty-two dollars a year, and maybe you +can manage that; and if you cannot, you think that Doctor Prescott +will pay you cash down for the wood-lot?" + +The boy seemed to be engaged in an arithmetical calculation. He bent +his brows, and his lips moved. "That would be over seven years' +interest money, at forty-two dollars a year, anyway," he said at +length, looking at the Squire with shrewdly innocent eyes. + +Suddenly Eben Merritt burst into a great roar of laughter, and struck +the boy a kindly slap upon his small back. + +"By the Lord Harry!" cried he, "you've struck a scheme worthy of the +Jews. But you need good Christians to deal with!" + +Jerome started and stared at him, half anxiously, half resentfully. +"Ain't it right, sir?" he stammered. + +"Oh, your scheme is right enough; no trouble about that. The question +is whether Doctor Prescott is right." + +Eben Merritt burst into another roar of laughter as he arose and set +the boy on his feet. "I am not laughing at you, my boy," he said, +though Jerome's wondering, indignant eyes upon his face were, to his +thinking, past humorous. + +Then he laid a hand upon each of the boy's little homespun shoulders. +"Go and see Doctor Prescott, and tell him your plan, and--if he does +not approve of it, come here and let me know," he said, and seriously +enough to suit even Jerome's jealous self-respect. + +"Yes, sir," said Jerome. + +"And," added the Squire, "you had better go a little after noon--you +will be more likely to find him at home." + +"Yes, sir." + +"Are you afraid to go out alone after dark?" asked the Squire. + +"No, sir," replied Jerome, proudly. + +"Well, then," said the Squire, "come and see me this evening, and +tell me what Doctor Prescott says." + +"Yes, sir," replied Jerome, and bobbed his head, and turned to go. +The Squire moved before him with his lounging gait, and opened the +door for him with ceremony, as for an honored guest. + +Out in the south entry, with her back against the opposite wall, well +removed from the south-room door, that she might not hear one word +not intended for her ears, stood Lucina waiting, with one little +white hand clinched tight, as over a treasure. When her father came +out, following Jerome, she ran forward to him, pulled his head down +by a gentle tug at his long beard, and whispered. Squire Eben laughed +and smoothed her hair, but looked at her doubtfully. "I don't know +about it, Pretty," he whispered back. + +"Please, father," she whispered again, and rubbed her soft cheek +against his great arm, and he laughed again, and looked at her as a +man looks at the apple of his eye. + +"Well," said he, "do as you like, Pretty." With that the little +Lucina sprang eagerly forward before Jerome, who, hardly certain +whether he were dismissed or not, yet eager to be gone, was edging +towards the outer door, and held out to him her little hand curved +into a sweet hollow like a cup of pearl, all full of silver coins. + +Jerome looked at her, gave a quick, shamed glance at the little +outstretched hand, colored red, and began backing away. + +But Lucina pressed forward, thrusting in his very face her little +precious cup of treasure. "Please take this, boy," said she, and her +voice rang soft and sweet as a silver flute. "It is money I've been +saving up to buy a parrot. But a parrot is a noisy bird, mother says, +and maybe I could not love it as well as I love my lamb, and so its +feelings would be hurt. I don't want a parrot, after all, and I want +you to take this and buy some shoes." So said little Lucina Merritt, +making her sweet assumption of selfishness to cover her +unselfishness, for the noisy parrot was the desire of her heart, and +to her father's eyes she bore the aspect of an angel, and he +swallowed a great sob of mingled admiration and awe and intensest +love. And indeed the child's face as she stood there had about it +something celestial, for every line and every curve therein were as +the written words of purest compassion; and in her innocent blue eyes +stood self-forgetful tears. + +Even the boy Jerome, with the pride of poverty to which he had been +born and bred, like a bitter savor in his heart, stared at her a +moment, his eyes dilated, his mouth quivering, and half advanced his +hand to take the gift so sweetly offered. Then all at once the full +tide of self rushed over him with all its hard memories and +resolutions. His eyes gave out that black flash of wrath, which the +poor little Lucina had feared, yet braved and forgot through her fond +pity, he dashed out the back of his hand so roughly against that +small tender one that all the silver pieces were jostled out to the +floor, and rushed out of the door. + +Squire Eben Merritt made an indignant exclamation and one threatening +stride after him, then stopped, and caught up the weeping little +Lucina, and sought to soothe her as best he might. + +"Never mind, Pretty; never mind, Pretty," he said, rubbing his rough +face against her soft one, in a way which was used to make her laugh. +"Father 'll buy you a parrot that will talk the roof off." + +"I don't--want a parrot, father," sobbed the little girl. "I want the +boy to have shoes." + +"Summer is coming, Pretty," said Squire Eben, laughingly and +caressingly, "and a boy is better off without shoes than with them." + +"He won't--have any--for next winter." + +"Oh yes, he shall. I'll fix it so he shall earn some for himself +before then--that's the way, Pretty. Father was to blame. He ought to +have known better than to let you offer money to him. He's a proud +child." The Squire laughed. "Now, don't cry any more, Pretty. Run +away and play. Father's going fishing, and he'll bring you home some +pretty pink fishes for your supper. Don't cry any more, because poor +father can't go while you cry, and he has been delayed a long time, +and the fishes will have eaten their dinner and won't bite if he +doesn't hurry." + +Lucina, who was docile even in grief, tried to laugh, and when her +father set her down with a great kiss, which seemed to include her +whole rosy face pressed betwixt his two hands, picked up her rejected +silver from the floor, put it away in the little box in which she +kept it, and sat down in a window of the south room to nurse her +doll. She nodded and laughed dutifully when her father, going forth +at last to the still pools and the brook courses, with his tackle in +hand, looked back and nodded whimsically at her. + +However, her childish heart was sore beyond immediate healing, for +the wounds received from kindness spurned and turned back as a weapon +against one's self are deep. + + + + +Chapter VII + + +In every household which includes a beloved child there is apt to be +one above another, who acts as an intercessor towards furthering its +little plans and ends. Little Lucina's was her father. Her mother was +no less indulgent in effect, but she was anxiously solicitous lest +too much concession spoil the child, and had often to reconcile a +permission to her own conscience before giving it, even in trivial +matters. + +Therefore little Lucina, having in mind some walk abroad or childish +treasure, would often seek her father, and, lifting up her face like +a flower against his rough-coated breast, beg him, in that small, +wheedling voice which he so loved, to ask her mother that she might +go or have; for well she knew, being astute, though so small and +innocent and gentle, that such a measure was calculated to serve her +ends, and allay her mother's scruples through a shift of +responsibility. + +However, to-day, since her father was away fishing, Lucina was driven +to seek other aid in the carrying out of a small plan which she had +formed for her delectation. + +Right anxiously the child watched for her father to come home to the +noonday dinner; but he did not come, and she and her mother ate +alone. Then she stole away up-stairs to her little dimity-hung +chamber, opening out of her parents' and facing towards the sun, and +all twinkling and swaying with little white tassels on curtains and +covers and counterpane, in the draught, as she opened the door. Then +she went down on her knees beside her bed and prayed, in the +simplicity of her heart, which would seek a Heavenly Father in lieu +of an earthly one, for all her small desires, and think no +irreverence: "Our Father, who art in heaven, please make mother let +me go to Aunt Camilla's this afternoon. Amen." + +Then she rose, with no delay for lack of faith, and went straight +down to her mother, and proffered her request timidly, and yet with a +confidence as of one who has a larger voice of authority at her back. + +"Please, mother, may I go over to Aunt Camilla's this afternoon?" +asked little Lucina. + +And her mother, not knowing what principle of childish faith was +involved, hesitated, knitting her small, dark face, which had no look +like Lucina's, perplexedly. + +"I don't know, child," said she. + +"Please, mother!" + +"I am afraid you'll trouble your aunt, Lucina." + +"No, I won't, mother! I'll take my doll, and I'll play with her real +quiet." + +"I am afraid your aunt Camilla will have something else to do." + +"She can do it, mother. I won't trouble her--I won't speak to +her--honest! Please, mother." + +"You ought to sit down at home this afternoon and do some work, +Lucina." + +"I'll take over my garter-knitting, mother, and I'll knit ten times +across." + +It happened at length, whether through effectual prayer, or such +skilful fencing against weak maternal odds, that the little Lucina, +all fresh frilled and curled, with her silk knitting-bag dangling at +her side, and her doll nestled to her small mother-shoulder, stepping +with dainty primness in her jostling starched pantalets, lifting each +foot carefully lest she hit her nice morocco toes against the stones, +went up the road to her aunt Camilla's. + +Miss Camilla Merritt lived in the house which had belonged to her +grandfather, called the "old Merritt house" to distinguish it from +the one which her father had built, in which her brother Eben lived. +Both, indeed, were old, but hers was venerable, and claimed that +respect which extreme age, even in inanimate things, deserves. And in +a way, indeed, this old house might have been considered raised above +the mere properties of wood and brick and plaster by such an +accumulation of old memories and associations, which were inseparable +from its walls, to something nearly sentient and human, and to have +established in itself a link 'twixt matter and mind. + +Never had any paint touched its outer walls, overlapped with +silver-gray shingles like scales of a fossil fish. The door and the +great pillared portico over it were painted white, as they had been +from the first, and that was all. A brick walk, sunken in mossy +hollows, led up to the front door, which was only a few feet from +the road, the front yard being merely a narrow strip with great +poplars set therein. Lucina had always had a suspicion, which she +confided to no one, being sensitive as to ridicule for her childish +theories, that these poplars were not real trees. Even the changing +of the leaves did not disarm her suspicion. Sometimes she dug +surreptitiously around the roots with a pointed stick to see what +she could discover for or against it, and always with a fearful +excitement of daring, lest she topple the tree over, perchance, +and destroy herself and Aunt Camilla and the house. + +To-day Lucina went up the walk between the poplars, recognizing them +as one recognizes friends oftentimes, not as their true selves, but +as our conception of them, and knocked one little ladylike knock with +the brass knocker. She never entered her aunt Camilla's house without +due ceremony. + +Aunt Camilla's old woman, who lived with her, and performed her +household work as well as any young one, answered the knock and bade +her enter. Lucina followed this portly old-woman figure, moving with +a stiff wabble of black bombazined hips, like some old domestic fowl, +into the east room, which was the sitting-room. + +The old woman's name was lost to memory, inasmuch as she had been +known simply as 'Liza ever since her early childhood, and had then +hailed from the town farm, with her parentage a doubtful matter. + +There was about this woman, who had no kith nor kin, nor equal +friends, nor money, nor treasures, nor name, and scarce her own +individuality in the minds of others, a strange atmosphere of +silence, broken seldom by uncouth, stammering speech, which always +intimidated the little Lucina. She had, however, a way of expanding, +after long stares at her, into sudden broad smiles which relieved the +little girl's apprehension; and, too, her rusty black bombazine +smelled always of rich cake--a reassuring perfume to one who knew the +taste of it. + +Lucina's aunt Camilla was a nervous soul, and liked not the rattle of +starched cotton about the house. Her old serving-woman must go always +clad in woollen, which held the odors of cooking long. + +Lucina sat down in a little rocking-chair, hollowed out like a nest +in back and seat, which was her especial resting-place, and 'Liza +went out, leaving the rich, fruity odor of cake behind her, saying no +word, but evidently to tell her mistress of her guest. There were no +blinds on this ancient house, but there were inside shutters in fine +panel-work at all the windows. These were all closed except at the +east windows. There between the upper panels were left small square +apertures which framed little pictures of the blue spring sky, +slanted across with blooming peach boughs; for there was a large +peach orchard on the east side of the house. Lucina watched these +little pictures, athwart which occasionally a bird flew and raised +them to life. She held her doll primly, and her little work-bag still +dangled from her arm. She would not begin her task of knitting until +her aunt appeared and her visit was fairly in progress. + +Over against the south wall stood a clock as tall as a giant man, and +giving in the half-light a strong impression of the presence of one, +to an eye which did not front it. Lucina often turned her head with a +start and looked, to be sure it was only the clock which sent that +long, dark streak athwart her vision. The clock ticked with slow and +solemn majesty. She was sure that sixty of those ticks would make a +minute, and sixty times the sixty an hour, if she could count up to +that and not get lost in such a sea of numbers; but she could not +tell the time of day by the clock hands. + +Lucina was a quick-witted child, but seemed in some particulars to +have a strange lack of curiosity, or else an instinct to preserve for +herself an imagination instead of acquiring knowledge. She was either +obstinately or involuntarily ignorant as yet of the method of telling +time, and the hands of the clock were held before its face of mystery +for concealment rather than revelation to her. But she loved to sit +and watch the clock, and she never told her mother what she thought +about it. Directly in front of Lucina, as she sat waiting, hanging +over the mantel-shelf between the east windows, was a great steel +engraving of the Declaration of Independence. Lucina looked at the +cluster of grave men, and was innocently proud and sure that her +father was much finer-looking than any one of them, and, moreover, +doubted irreverently if any one of them could shoot rabbits or catch +fish, or do anything but sign his name with that stiff pen. Lucina +was capable of an agony of faithfulness to her own, but of loyalty in +a broad sense she knew nothing, and never would, having in that +respect the typical capacity only of women. + +The east-room door had been left ajar. Presently a soft whisper of +silk could be heard afar off; but before that even a delicate breath +of lavender came floating into the room. Many sweet and subtly +individual odors seemed to dwell in this old house, preceding the +mortal inhabitants through the doors, and lingering behind them in +rooms where they had stayed. + +Lucina started when the lavender breath entered the room, and looked +up as if at a ghostly herald. She toed out her two small morocco-shod +feet more particularly upon the floor, she smoothed down her own and +her doll's little petticoats, and she also made herself all ready to +rise and courtesy. + +After the lavender sweetness came the whisper of silk flounces, +growing louder and louder; but there was no sound of footsteps, for +Aunt Camilla moved only with the odor and rustle of a flower. No one +had ever heard her little slippered feet; even her high heels never +tapped the thresholds. She had a way of advancing her toes first and +making the next step with a tilt, so soft that it was scarcely a +break from a glide, and yet clearing the floor as to her slipper +heels. + +Lucina knew her aunt Camilla was coming down the stairs by the +rustling of her silk flounces along the rails of the banisters, like +harp-strings; then there was a cumulative whisper and an entrance. + +Lucina rose, holding her doll like a dignified little mother, and +dropped a courtesy. + +"Good-afternoon," said Aunt Camilla. + +"Good-afternoon," returned Lucina. + +"How do you do?" asked Aunt Camilla. + +"Pretty well, I thank you," replied Lucina. + +"How is your mother?" + +"Pretty well, I thank you." + +"Is your father well?" + +"Yes, ma'am; I thank you." + +During this dialogue Aunt Camilla was moving gently forward upon her +niece. When she reached her she stooped, or rather drooped--for +stooping implies a bend of bone and muscle, and her graceful body +seemed to be held together by integuments like long willow +leaves--and kissed her with a light touch of cool, delicate lips. +Aunt Camilla's slender arms in their pointed lilac sleeves and lace +undersleeves waved forward as with a vague caressing intent. Soft +locks of hair and frilling laces in her cap and bosom hung forward +like leaves on a swaying bough, and tickled Lucina's face, half +smothered in the old lavender fragrance. + +Lucina colored innocently and sweetly when her aunt kissed her, and +afterwards looked up at her with sincerest love and admiration and +delight. + +Camilla Merritt was far from young, being much older than her +brother, Lucina's father; but she was old as a poem or an angel might +be, with the lovely meaning of her still uppermost and most evident. +Camilla in her youth had been of a rare and delicate beauty, which +had given her fame throughout the country-side, and she held the best +of it still, as one holds jewels in a worn casket, and as a poem +written in obsolete language contains still its first grace of +thought. Camilla's soft and slender body had none of those stiff, +distorted lines which come from resistance to the forced attitudes of +life. Her body and her soul had been amenable to all discipline. She +had leaned sweetly against her crosses, instead of straining away +from them with fierce cramps and agonies of resistance. In every +motion she had the freedom of utter yielding, which surpasses the +freedom of action. Camilla's graduated flounces of lilac silk, +slightly faded, having over it a little spraying mist of gray, +trimmed her full skirt to her slender waist, girdled with a narrow +ribbon fastened with a little clasp set with amethysts. A great +amethyst brooch pinned the lace at her throat. She wore a lace cap, +and over that, flung loosely, draping her shoulders and shading her +face with its soft mesh, a great shawl or veil of fine white lace +wrought with sprigs. Camilla's delicately spare cheeks were softly +pink, with that elderly bloom which lacks the warm dazzle of youth, +yet has its own late beauty. Her eyes were blue and clear as a +child's, and as full of innocent dreams--only of the past instead of +the future. Her blond hair, which in turning gray had got a creamy +instead of a silvery lustre, like her old lace, was looped softly and +disposed in half-curls over her ears. When she smiled it was with the +grace and fine dignity of ineffable ladyhood, and yet with the soft +ignorance, though none of the abandon, of childhood. Camilla was like +a child whose formal code and manners of life had been fully +prescribed and learned, but whose vital copy had not been quite set. + +Lucina loved her aunt Camilla with a strange sense of comradeship, +and yet with awe. "If you can ever be as much of a lady as your aunt +Camilla, I shall be glad," her mother often told her. Camilla was to +Lucina the personification of the gentle and the genteel. She was her +ideal, the model upon which she was to form herself. + +Camilla was so unceasingly punctilious in all the finer details of +living that all who infringed upon them felt her mere presence a +reproach. Children were never rough or loud-voiced or naughty when +Miss Camilla was near, though she never admonished otherwise than by +example. As for little Lucina, she would have felt shamed for life +had her aunt Camilla caught her toeing in, or stooping, or leaving +the "ma'am" off from her yes and no. + +Camilla, this afternoon, did what Lucina had fondly hoped she might +do--proposed that they should sit out in the arbor in the garden. "I +think it is warm enough," she said; and Lucina assented with tempered +delight. + +It was a very warm afternoon. Spring had taken, as she will sometimes +do in May, being apparently weary of slow advances, a sudden flight +into summer, with a wild bursting of buds and a great clamor of wings +and songs. + +Miss Camilla got a yellow Canton crepe shawl, that was redolent of +sandalwood, out of a closet, but she did not put it over her +shoulders, the outdoor air was so soft. She needed nothing but her +lace mantle over her head, which made her look like a bride of some +old spring. Lucina followed her through the hall, out of the back +door, which had a trellis and a grape-vine over it, into the garden. +The garden was large, and laid out primly in box-bordered beds. There +were even trees of box on certain corners, and it looked as if the +box would in time quite choke out the flowers. Lucina, who was given +to sweet and secret fancies, would often sit with wide blue eyes of +contemplation upon the garden, and discover in the box a sprawling, +many-armed green monster, bent upon strangling out the lives of the +flowers in their beds. + +"Why don't you have the box trimmed, Aunt Camilla?" she would venture +to inquire at such times; and her aunt Camilla, looking gently +askance at the flush of excitement, which she did not understand, +upon her niece's cheek, would reply: + +"The box has always been there, my dear." + +Long existence proved always the sacredness of a law to Miss Camilla. +She was a conservative to the bone. + +The arbor where the two sat that afternoon was of the kind one sees +in old prints where lovers sit in chaste embrace under a green arch +of eglantine. However, in Miss Camilla's arbor were no lovers, and +instead of eglantine were a honeysuckle and a climbing rose. The rose +was not yet in bloom, and the honeysuckle's red trumpets were not +blown--their parts in the symphony of the spring were farther on; +over the arbor there was only a delicate prickling of new leaves, +which cast a lace-like shadow underneath. A bench ran around the +three closed sides of the arbor, and upon the bench sat Lucina and +her aunt Camilla, in her spread of lilac flounces. Camilla held in +her lap a little portfolio of papier-mache, and wrote with a little +gold pencil on sheets of gilt-edged paper. Camilla always wrote when +she sat in the arbor, but nobody ever knew what. She always carried +the finely written sheets into the house, and nobody knew where she +put them afterwards. Camilla's long, thin fingers, smooth and white +as ivory, sparkled dully with old rings. Some large amethysts in fine +gold settings she wore, one great yellow pearl, a mourning-ring of +hair in a circlet of pearls for tears, and some diamond bands in +silver, which gave out cold white lights only as her hands moved +across the gilt-edged paper. + +As for Lucina, she had set up her doll primly in a corner of the +arbor, and was knitting her stent. It might have seemed difficult to +understand what the child found to enjoy in this quiet entertainment, +but in childhood all situations which appeal to the imagination give +enjoyment, and most situations which break the routine of daily life +do so appeal. Then, too, Camilla's quiet persistence in her own +employment gave a delightful sense of equality and dignity to the +child. She would not have liked it half as well had her aunt stooped +to entertain her and brought out toys and games for her amusement. +However, there was entertainment to come, to which she looked forward +with gratification, as that placed her firmly on the footing of an +honored guest. The minister's daughter or the doctor's wife could not +be treated better or with more courtesy. + +Aunt Camilla wrote with pensive pauses of reflection, and Lucina +knitted until her stent was finished. Then she folded up the garter +neatly, quilted in the needles as she had been taught, and placed it +in her little bag. Then she took up her doll protectingly and +soothingly, and held her in her lap, with the great china head +against her small bosom. Lucina's doll was very large, and finely +attired in stiff book-muslin and pink ribbons. She wore also pink +morocco shoes on her feet, which stood out strangely at sharp right +angles. Lucina sometimes eyed her doll-baby's feet uncomfortably. "I +guess she will outgrow it," she told herself, with innocent maternal +hypocrisy early developed. + +When Lucina laid aside her work and began nursing her doll her aunt +looked up from her writing. "Are you enjoying yourself, dear?" she +inquired. + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"Would you like to run about the garden?" + +"No, thank you, ma'am; I will sit here and hold my doll. It is time +for her nap. I will hold her till she goes to sleep." + +"Then you can run about a little," suggested Miss Camilla, gravely, +without a smile. She respected Lucina's doll, as she might have her +baby, and the child's heart leaped up with gratitude. An older soul +which needs not to make believe to re-enter childhood is a true +comrade for a child. + +"Yes, ma'am," replied Lucina. "I will lay her down on the bench here +when she falls asleep." + +"You can cover her up with my shawl," said Miss Camilla, gravely +still, and naturally. Indeed, to her a child with a doll was as much +a part and parcel of the natural order of things as a mother with an +infant. Outside all of it herself, she comprehended and admitted it +with the impartiality of an observer. "Then you can run in the +garden," she added, "and pick a bouquet if you wish. There is not +much in bloom now but the heart's-ease and the flowering almond and +the daffodils, but you can make a bouquet of them to take home to +your mother." + +"Thank you, ma'am," said Lucina. + +However, she was in no hurry to take advantage of her aunt's +permission. She sat quietly in the warm and pleasant arbor, holding +her doll-baby, with the afternoon sun sifting through the young +leaves, and making over them a shifting dapple like golden water, and +felt no inclination to stir. The spring languor was over even her +young limbs; the sweet twitter of birds, the gathering bird-like +flutter of leaves before a soft swell of air, the rustle of her +aunt's gilt-edged paper, an occasional hiss of her silken flounces, +grew dim and confused. Lucina, as well as her doll, fell asleep, +leaning her pretty head against the arbor trellis-work. Camilla did +not disturb her; she had never in her life disturbed the peace or the +slumber of any soul. She only gazed at her now and then, with gentle, +half-abstracted affection, then wrote again. + +Presently, stepping with that subtlest silence of motion through the +quiet garden, came a great yellow cat. She rubbed against Miss +Camilla's knees with that luxurious purr of love and comfort which is +itself a completest slumber song, then made a noiseless leap to a +sunny corner of the bench, and settled herself there in a yellow coil +of sleep. Presently there came another, and another, and another +still--all great cats, and all yellow, marked in splendid tiger +stripes, with eyes like topaz--until there were four of them, all +asleep on the sunny side of the arbor. Miss Camilla's yellow cats +were of a famous breed, well represented in the village; but she had +these four, which were marvels of beauty. + +Another hour wore on. Miss Camilla still wrote, and Lucina and the +yellow cats slept. Then it was four o'clock, and time for the +entertainment to which Lucina had looked forward. + +There was a heavy footstep on the garden walk and a rustling among +the box borders. Then old 'Liza loomed up in the arbor door, +darkening out the light. Little Lucina stirred and woke, yet did not +know she woke, not knowing she had slept. To her thinking she had sat +all this time with her eyes wide open, and the sight of her aunt +Camilla writing and the leaf shadows on the arbor floor had never +left them. She saw the yellow cats with some surprise, but cats can +steal in quietly when one's eyes are turned. Had Lucina dreamed she +had fallen asleep when an honored guest of her lady aunt, she would +have been ready to sink with shame. Blindness to one's innocent +shortcomings seems sometimes a special mercy of Providence. + +Lucina straightened herself with a flushed smile, gave just one +glance at the great tray which old 'Liza bore before her; then looked +away again, being fully alive to the sense that it is not polite nor +ladylike to act as if you thought much of your eating and drinking. + +Old 'Liza set the tray on a little table in the midst of the arbor, +and immediately odors, at once dainty and delicate, spicy, fruity, +and aromatically soothing, diffused themselves about. The four yellow +cats stirred; they yawned, and stretched luxuriously; then, suddenly +fully awake to the meaning of those savory scents which had disturbed +their slumbers, sat upright with eager jewel eyes upon the tray. + +"Take the cats away, 'Liza," said Miss Camilla. + +Old 'Liza advanced grinning upon the cats, gathered them up, two +under each arm, and bore them away, moving out of sight between the +box borders like some queer monster, with her wide humping flanks of +black bombazine enhanced by four angrily waving yellow cat tails, +which gave an effect of grotesque wrath to the retreat. + +Lucina looked, in spite of her manners, at the tray when it was on +the table before her very face and eyes. It was covered with a napkin +of finest damask, whose flower pattern glistened like frostwork, and +upon it were ranged little cups and saucers of pink china as thin and +transparent as shells, a pink sugar-bowl to match, a small silver +teapot under a satin cozy, a silver cream-jug, a plate of delicate +bread-and-butter, and one of fruit-cake. + +"You will have a cup of tea, will you not, dear?" said Aunt Camilla. + +"If you please; thank you, ma'am," replied Lucina, striving to look +decorously pleased and not too delighted at the prospect of the +fruit-cake. Tea and bread-and-butter presented small attractions to +her, but she did love old 'Liza's fruit-cake, made after a famous +receipt which had been in the Merritt family for generations. + +Miss Camilla removed the cozy and began pouring the tea. Lucina took +a napkin, being so bidden, spread it daintily over her lap, and +tucked a corner in her neck. The feast was about to commence, when a +loud, jovial voice was heard in the direction of the house: + +"Camilla! Camilla! Lucina, where are you all?" + +"That's father!" cried Lucina, brightening, and immediately Squire +Eben Merritt came striding down between the box-ridges, and Jerome +Edwards was at his heels. + +"Well, how are you, sister?" Squire Eben cried, merrily; and in the +same breath, "I have brought another guest to your tea-drinking, +sister." + +Jerome bobbed his head, half with defiant dignity, half in utter +shyness and confusion at the sight of this fine, genteel lady and her +wonderful tea equipage. But Miss Camilla, having welcomed her brother +with gentle warmth, greeted this little poor Jerome with as sweet a +courtesy as if he had been the Governor, and bade Lucina run to the +house and ask 'Liza to fetch two more cups and saucers and two +plates, and motioned both her guests to be seated on the arbor bench. + +Squire Eben laughed, and glanced at his great mud-splashed boots, his +buckskin, his fishing-tackle, and a fine string of spotted trout +which he bore. "A pretty knight for a lady's bower I am!" said he. + +"A lady never judges a knight by his outward guise," returned +Camilla, with soft pleasantry. She adored her brother. + +Eben laughed, deposited his fish and tackle on the bench near the +door, and flung himself down opposite them, at a respectful distance +from his sister's silken flounces, with a sigh of comfort. "I have +had a hard tramp, and would like a cup of your tea," he admitted. +"I've been lucky, though. 'Twas a fine day for trout, though I would +not have thought it. I will leave you some for your breakfast, +sister; have 'Liza fry them brown in Indian meal." + +Then, following Miss Camilla's remonstrating glance, he saw little +Jerome Edwards standing in the arbor door, through which his entrance +was blocked by the Squire's great legs and his fishing-tackle, with +the air of an insulted ambassador who is half minded to return to his +own country. + +The Squire made room for him to pass with a hearty laugh. "Bless you, +my boy!" said he, "I'm barring out the guest I invited myself, am I? +Walk in--walk in and sit down." + +Jerome, half melted by the Squire's genial humor, half disposed still +to be stiffly resentful, hesitated a second; but Miss Camilla also, +for the second time, invited him to enter, with her gentle ceremony, +which was the subtlest flattery he had ever known, inasmuch as it +seemed to set him firmly in his own esteem above his poor estate of +boyhood; and he entered, and seated himself in the place indicated, +at his hostess's right hand, near the little tea-table. + +Jerome, hungry boy as he was, having the spicy richness of that +wonderful fruit-cake in his nostrils, noted even before that the +lavender scent of Miss Camilla's garments, which seemed, like a +subtle fragrance of individuality and life itself, to enter his +thoughts rather than his senses. The boy, drawn within this +atmosphere of virgin superiority and gentleness, felt all his +defiance and antagonism towards his newly discovered pride of life +shame him. + +The great and just bitterness of wrath against all selfish holders of +riches that was beginning to tincture his whole soul was sweetened +for the time by the proximity of this sweet woman in her silks and +laces and jewels. Not reasoning it out in the least, nor recognizing +his own mental attitude, it was to him as if this graceful creature +had been so endowed by God with her rich apparel and fair +surroundings that she was as much beyond question and envy as a lily +of the field. He did not even raise his eyes to her face, but sat at +her side, at once elevated and subdued by her gentle politeness and +condescension. When Lucina returned, and 'Liza followed with the +extra cups and plates, and the tea began, he accepted what was +proffered him, and ate and drank with manners as mild and grateful as +Lucina's. She could scarcely taste the full savor of her fruit-cake, +after all, so occupied she was in furtively watching this strange +boy. Her blue eyes were big with surprise. Why should he take Aunt +Camilla's cake, and even her bread-and-butter, when he would not +touch the gingerbread she had offered him, nor the money to buy +shoes? This young Lucina had yet to learn that the proud soul accepts +from courtesy what it will not take from love or pity. + + + + +Chapter VIII + + +That day had been one of those surprises of life which ever dwell +with one. Jerome in it had discovered not only a new self, but new +ways. He had struck paths at right angles to all he had followed +before. They might finally verge into the old again, but for that day +he saw strange prospects. Not the least strange of them was this +tea-drinking with the Squire and the Squire's sister and the Squire's +daughter in the arbor. He found it harder to reconcile that with his +past and himself than anything else. So bewildered was he, drinking +tea and eating cake, with the spread of Miss Camilla's lilac flounces +brushing his knee, and her soft voice now and then in his ear, that +he strove to remember how he happened to be there at all, and that +shock of strangeness which obliterates the past wellnigh paralyzed +his memory. + +Yet it had been simple enough, as paths to strange conclusions always +are. He had returned home from Squire Eben's that morning, changed +his clothes, and resumed his work in the garden. + +Elmira had questioned him, but he gave her no information. He had an +instinct, which had been born in him, of secrecy towards womankind. +Nobody had ever told him that women were not trustworthy with respect +to confidences; he had never found it so from observation; he simply +agreed within himself that he had better not confide any but fully +matured plans, and no plans which should be kept secret, to a woman. +He had, however, besides this caution, a generous resolution not to +worry Elmira or his mother about it until he knew. "Wait till I find +out; I don't know myself," he told Elmira. + +"Don't you know where you've been? You can tell us that," she +persisted, in her sweet, querulous treble. She pulled at his jacket +sleeve with her little thin, coaxing hand, but Jerome was obdurate. +He twitched his jacket sleeve away. + +"I sha'n't tell you one thing, and there is no use in your teasin'," +he said, peremptorily, and she yielded. + +Elmira reported that their mother was sitting still in her +rocking-chair, with her head leaning back and her eyes shut. "She +seems all beat out," she said, pitifully; "she don't tell me to do a +thing." + +The two tiptoed across the entry and stood in the kitchen door, +looking at poor Ann. She sat quite still, as Elmira had said, her +head tipped back, her eyes closed, and her mouth slightly parted. Her +little bony hands lay in her lap, with the fingers limp in utter +nerveless relaxation, but she was not asleep. She opened her eyes +when her children came to the door, but she did not speak nor turn +her head. Presently her eyes closed again. + +Jerome pulled Elmira back into the parlor. "You must go ahead and get +the dinner, and make her some gruel, and not ask her a question, and +not bother her about anything," he whispered, sternly. "She's +resting; she'll die if she don't. It's awful for her. It's bad 'nough +for us, but we don't know what 'tis for her." + +Elmira assented, with wide, scared, piteous eyes on her brother. + +"Go now and get the dinner," said Jerome. + +"There's lots left over from yesterday," said Elmira, forlornly. +"Shall we have anything after that's gone?" + +"Have enough while I've got two hands," returned Jerome, gruffly. +"Get some potatoes and boil 'em, and have some of that cold meat, and +make mother the gruel." + +Elmira obeyed, finding a certain comfort in that. Indeed, she +belonged assuredly to that purely feminine order of things which +gains perhaps its best strength through obedience. Give Elmira a +power over her, and she would never quite fall. + +Elmira went about getting dinner, tiptoeing around her mother, who +still sat sunken in her strange apathy of melancholy or exhaustion, +it was difficult to tell which, while Jerome spaded and dug in the +garden, in the fury of zeal which he had inherited from her. + +Elmira had dinner ready early, and called Jerome. When he went in he +found her trying to induce her mother to swallow a bowl of gruel. +"Won't you take it, mother?" she was pleading, with tears in her +eyes; but her mother only lifted one hand feebly and motioned it +away; she would not raise her head or open her eyes. + +"Give me that bowl," said Jerome. He held it before his mother, and +slipped one hand behind her neck, constraining her gently to raise +her head. "Here, mother," said he, "here's your gruel." + +She resisted faintly, and shook her weak, repelling hand again. "Sit +up, mother, and drink your gruel," said Jerome, and his mother's eyes +flew wide open at that, and stared up in his face with eager inquiry; +for again she had that wild surmise that her lost husband spoke to +her. + +"Drink it, mother," said Jerome, again meeting her half-delirious +gaze fully; and Ann seemed to see his father looking at her from his +son's eyes, through his immortality after the flesh. She raised +herself at once, held out her trembling hands for the bowl, and drank +the gruel to the last drop. Then she gave the empty bowl to Jerome, +leaned her head back, and closed her eyes again. + +After dinner Jerome changed his clothes for his poor best for the +second time, and set forth to Doctor Prescott's. Elmira's wistful +eyes followed him as he went out, but he said not a word. He threw +back his shoulders and stepped out with as much boldness of carriage +as ever. + +"How smart he is!" Elmira thought, watching him from the window. + +However, it was true that his heart quaked within him, supported as +he was by the advice and encouragement of Squire Merritt. Doctor +Prescott had been the awe and the terror of all his childhood. Nobody +knew how in his childish illnesses--luckily not many--he had dreaded +and resented the advent of this great man, who represented to him +absolute monarchy, if not despotism. He never demurred at his noxious +doses, but swallowed them at a gulp, with no sweet after-morsel as an +inducement, yet, strangely enough, never from actual submissiveness, +but rather from that fierce scorn and pride of utter helplessness +which can maintain a certain defiance to authority by depriving it of +that victory which comes only from opposition. + +Jerome swallowed castor-oil, rhubarb, and the rest with a glare of +fierce eyes over spoon and a triumphant understanding with himself +that he took it because he chose, and not because the doctor made +him. It was odd, but Doctor Prescott seemed to have some intuition of +the boy's mental attitude, for, in spite of his ready obedience, he +had always a singular aversion to him. He was much more amenable to +pretty little Elmira, who cried pitifully whenever he entered the +house, and had always to be coaxed and threatened to make her take +medicine at all. No one would have said, and Doctor Prescott himself +would not have believed, that he, in his superior estate of age and +life, would have stooped to dislike a child like that, thus putting +him upon a certain equality of antagonism; but in truth he did. +Doctor Prescott scarcely ever knew one boy from another when he met +him upon the street, but Jerome Edwards he never mistook, though he +never stirred his stately head in response to the boy's humble bob of +courtesy. Once, after so meeting and passing the boy, he heard an +audacious note of defiance at his back, with a preliminary sniff of +scorn: "Hm! wonder if he thinks he was born grown up, with money in +his pockets; wonder if he thinks he owns this whole town?" The +doctor never turned to resent this sarcastic soliloquy whereby the +boy's suppressed democracy asserted itself, but the next time he saw +Jerome's father he told him he had better look to his son's manners, +and Jerome had been called to account. + +However, when he had repeated his speech which had given offence, he +had only been charged to keep his thoughts to himself in future. +"I'll think 'em, anyhow," said Jerome, with unabated defiance. + +"You'll pay proper respect to your elders," said his father. + +"You'll think what we tell you to," said his mother, but the eyes of +the two met. Doctor Prescott might hold the mortgage and exact his +pound of flesh, these poor backs might bend to the yoke, but there +was no cringing in the hearts of Abel Edwards and his wife. It was +easy to see where Jerome got his spirit. + +However, spirit needs long experience and great strength to assert +itself fully at all times before long-recognized power. Jerome, going +up the road to Doctor Prescott's, felt rather a fierce submission and +obligatory humility than defiance. He felt as if this great man held +not only himself, but his mother and sister, their lives and +fortunes, at his disposal. Awe of the reigning sovereign was upon +him, but it was the surly awe of the peasant whose mouth is stopped +by force from questions. + +It was not long before Jerome, going along the country road, came to +the beginning of Doctor Prescott's estate. He owned long stretches of +fields along the main street of the village, comprising many fine +house-lots, which, however, people were too poor to buy. Doctor +Prescott fixed such high prices to his house-lots that no one could +pay them. However, people thought he did not care to sell. He liked +being a large land-owner, like an English lord, and feeling that he +owned half the village, they said. + +Moreover, his acres brought him a fair income. They were sowed to +clover and timothy, and barley and corn, and gave such hay and such +crops as no others in town. + +As Jerome passed these fair fields, either golden-green with the +young grass, or ploughed in even ridges for the new seeds, set with +dandelions like stars, or pierced as to the brown mould with emerald +spears of grain, he scowled at them, and his mouth puckered grimly +and piteously. He thought of all this land which Doctor Prescott +owned; he thought of the one poor little bit of soil which he was +going to offer him, to keep a roof over his head. Why should this man +have all this, and he and his so little? Was it because he was +better? Jerome shook his head vehemently. Was it because the Lord +loved him better? Jerome looked up in the blue spring sky. The +problem of the rights of the soil of the old earth was upon the boy, +but he could not solve it--only scowl and grieve over it. + +Past the length of the shining fields, well back from the road, with +a fine curve of avenue between lofty pine-trees leading up to it, +stood Doctor Prescott's house. It was much the finest one in the +village, massively built of gray stone in large irregular blocks, +veined at the junctions with white stucco; a great white pillared +piazza stretched across the front, and three flights of stone steps +led over smooth terraces to it; for it was raised on an artificial +elevation above the road-level. Jerome, having passed the last field, +reached the avenue leading to the doctor's house, and stopped a +moment. His hands and feet were cold; there was a nervous trembling +all over his little body. He remembered how once, when he was much +younger, his mother had sent him to the doctor's to have a tooth +pulled, how he stood there trembling and hesitating as now, and how +he finally took matters into his own hands. A thrill of triumph shot +over him even then, as he recalled that mad race of his away up the +road, on and on until he came to the woods, and the tying of the +offending tooth to an oak-tree by a stout cord, and the agonized but +undaunted pulling thereat until his object was gained. + +"I'd 'nough sight rather go to an oak-tree to have my tooth out than +to Doctor Prescott," he had said, stoutly, being questioned on his +return; and his father and mother, being rather taken at a loss by +such defiance and disobedience, scarcely knew whether to praise or +blame. + +But there was no oak-tree for this strait. Jerome, after a minute of +that blind groping and feeling, as of the whole body and soul, with +which one strives to find some other way to an end than a hard and +repugnant one, gave it up. He went up the avenue, holding his head +up, digging his toes into the pine-needles, with an air of stubborn +boyish bravado, yet all the time the nervous trembling never ceased. +However, half-way up the avenue he came into one of those warmer +currents which sometimes linger so mysteriously among trees, seeming +like a pool of air submerging one as visibly as water. This warm-air +bath was, moreover, sweetened with the utmost breath of the pine +woods. Jerome, plunging into it, felt all at once a certain sense of +courage and relief, as if he had a bidding and a welcome from old +friends. + +There are times when a quick conviction, from something like a +special favor or caress of the great motherhood of nature, which +makes us all as child to child, comes over one. "His pine-trees ain't +any different from other folks' pine-trees," flashed through Jerome's +mind. + + + + +Chapter IX + + +He went on straight round the house to the south-side door, whither +everybody went to consult the doctor. He knocked, and in a moment the +door opened, and a young girl with weak blue eyes, with a helpless +droop of the chin, and mouth half opened in a silly smile, looked out +at him. She was a girl whom Doctor Prescott had taken from the +almshouse to assist in the lighter household duties. She was +considered rather weak in her intellect, though she did her work well +enough when she had once learned how. + +Jerome bent his head with a sudden stiff duck to this girl. "Is +Doctor Prescott at home?" he inquired. + +"Yes, sir," replied the girl, with the same respectful courtesy and +ceremony with which she might have greeted the Squire or any town +magnate, instead of this poor little boy. Her mind was utterly +incapable of the faculties of selection and discrimination. She +applied one formula, unmodified, to all mankind. + +"Can I see him a minute?" asked Jerome, gruffly. + +"Yes, sir. Will you walk in?" + +The girl, moving with a weak, shuffling toddle, like a child, led +Jerome through the length of the entry to a great room on the north +side of the house, which was the doctor's study and office. Two large +cupboards, whose doors were set with glass in diamond panes in the +upper panels, held his drugs and nostrums. Books, mostly ponderous +volumes in rusty leather, lined the rest of the wall space. When +Jerome entered the room the combined odor of those leather-bound +folios and the doctor's drugs smote his nostrils, as from a curious +brewing of theoretical and applied wisdom in one pot. + +"Take a seat," said the girl, "and I will speak to the doctor." Then +she went out, with the vain, pleased simper of a child who has said +her lesson well. + +Jerome sat down and looked about him. He had been in the room several +times before, but his awe of it preserved its first strangeness for +him. He eyed the books on the walls, then the great bottles visible +through the glass doors on the cupboard shelves. Those bottles were +mostly of a cloudy green or brown, but one among them caught the +light and shone as if filled with liquid rubies. That was valerian, +but Jerome did not know it; he only thought it must be a very strong +medicine to have such a bright color. He also thought that the doctor +must have mixed all those medicines from rules in those great books, +and a sudden feverish desire to look into them seized him. However, +neither his pride nor his timidity would have allowed him to touch +one of those books, even if he had not expected the doctor to enter +every moment. + +He waited quite a little time, however. He could hear the far-off +tinkle of silver and clink of china, and knew the family were at +dinner. "Won't leave his dinner for me," thought Jerome, with an +unrighteous bitterness of humility, recognizing the fact that he +could not expect him to. "Might have planted an hour longer." + +Then came a clang of the knocker, and this time the girl ushered into +the study a clamping, red-faced man in a shabby coat. Jerome +recognized him as a young farmer who lived three miles or so out of +the village. He blushed and stumbled, with a kind of grim +awkwardness, even before the simple girl delivering herself of her +formula of welcome. He would not sit down; he stood by the corner of +a medicine-cupboard, settling heavily into his boots, waiting. + +When the girl had gone he looked at Jerome, and gave a vague and +furtive "Hullo!" in simple recognition of his presence, as it were. +He did not know who the boy was, never being easily certain as to +identities of any but old acquaintances--not from high indifference +and dislike, like the doctor, but from dulness of observation. + +Jerome nodded in response to the man's salutation. "I can't ask the +doctor before him," he thought, anxiously. + +The man rested heavily, first on one leg, then on the other. "Been +waitin' long?" he grunted, finally. + +"Quite a while." + +"Hope my horse 'll stan'," said the man; "headed towards home, an' +load off." + +"The doctor can tend to you first," Jerome said, eagerly. + +The man gave a nod of assent. Thanks, as elegancies of social +intercourse, were alarming, and savored of affectation, to him. He +had thanked the Lord, from his heart, for all his known and unknown +gifts, but his gratitude towards his fellow-men had never overcome +his bashful self-consciousness and found voice. + +Often in prayer-meeting Jerome had heard this man's fervent +outpouring of the religious faith which seemed the only intelligence +of his soul, and, like all single and concentrated powers, had a +certain force of persuasion. Jerome eyed him now with a kind of pious +admiration and respect, and yet with recollections. + +"If I were a man, I'd stop colorin' up and actin' scared," thought +the boy; and then they both heard a door open and shut, and knew the +doctor was coming. + +Jerome's heart beat hard, yet he looked quite boldly at the door. +Somehow the young farmer's clumsy embarrassment had roused his own +pride and courage. When the doctor entered, he stood up with alacrity +and made his manners, and the young farmer settled to another foot, +with a hoarse note of greeting. + +The doctor said good-day, with formal courtesy, with his fine, keen +face turned seemingly upon both of them impartially; then he +addressed the young man. + +"How is your wife to-day?" he inquired. + +The young man turned purple, where he had been red, at this direct +address. "She's pretty--comfortable," he stammered. + +"Is she out of medicine?" + +"Yes, sir. That's what I come for." With that the young man pulled, +with distressed fumblings and jerks, a bottle from his pocket, which +he handed to the doctor, who had in the meantime opened the door of +one of the cupboards. + +The doctor took a large bottle from the cupboard, and filled from +that the one which the young man had brought. Jerome stood trembling, +watching the careful gurgling of a speckled green liquid from one +bottle to another. A strange new odor filled the room, overpowering +all the others. + +When the doctor gave the bottle to the young man, he shoved it +carefully away in his pocket again, and then stood coloring more +deeply and hesitating. + +"Can ye take your pay in wood for this and the last two lots?" he +murmured at length, so low that Jerome scarcely heard him. + +But the doctor never lowered nor raised his incisive, high-bred voice +for any man. His reply left no doubt of the question. "No, Mr. +Upham," said Doctor Prescott. "You must pay me in money for medicine. +I have enough wood of my own." + +"I know ye have--consider'ble," responded the young man, in an agony, +"but--" + +"I would like the money as soon as convenient," said the doctor. + +"I'm--havin'--dreadful--hard work to get--any money myself--lately," +persisted the young man. "Folks--they promise, but--they don't pay, +an'--" + +"Never give or take promises long enough to calculate interest," +interposed Doctor Prescott, with stern pleasantry; "that's my rule, +young man, and it's the one I expect others to follow in their +business dealings with me. Don't give and don't take; then you'll +make your way in life." + +Ozias Lamb had said once, in Jerome's hearing, that all the medicine +that Doctor Prescott ever gave to folks for nothing was good advice, +and he didn't know but then he sent the bill in to the Almighty. +Jerome, who had taken this in, with a sharp wink of appreciation, in +spite of his mother's promptly sending him out of the room, thinking +that such talk savored of irreverence, and was not fit for youthful +ears, remembered it now, as he heard Doctor Prescott admonishing poor +John Upham. + +"Know ye've got consider'ble," mumbled John Upham, who had rough +lands enough for a village, but scarce two shillings in pocket, and a +delicate young wife and three babies; "but--thought ye hadn't--no old +apple-tree wood--old apple-tree wood--well seasoned--jest the thing +for the parlor hearth--didn't know but--" + +"I should like the money next week," said the doctor, as if he had +not heard a word of poor John's entreaty. + +The young man shook his head miserably. "Dun'no' as I can--nohow." + +"Well," said the doctor, looking at him calmly, "I'm willing to take +a little land for the medicine and that last winter's bill, when +Johnny had the measles." + +Then this poor John Upham, uncouth, and scarcely quicker-witted than +one of his own oxen, but as faithful, and living up wholly to his +humble lights, turned pale through his blushes, and stared at the +doctor as if he could not have heard aright. "Take--my land?" he +faltered. + +Doctor Prescott never smiled with his eyes, but only with a +symmetrical curving and lengthening of his finely cut, thin lips. He +smiled so then. "Yes, I am willing to take some land for the debt, +since you have not the money," said he. + +"But--that was--father's land." + +"Yes, and your father was a good, thrifty man. He did not waste his +substance." + +"It was grandfather's, too." + +"Yes, it was, I believe." + +"It has always been in our--family. It's the Upham--land. I can't +part with it nohow." + +"I will take the money, then," said Doctor Prescott. + +"I'll raise it just as soon as I can, doctor," cried John Upham, +eagerly. "I've got a man's note for twenty dollars comin' due in +three months; he's sure to pay. An'--there's some cedar ordered, +an'--" + +"I must have it next week," said the doctor, "or--" He paused. "I +shall dislike to proceed to extreme measures," he added. + +Then John Upham, aroused to boldness by desperation, as the very oxen +will sometimes run in madness if the goad be sharp enough, told +Doctor Prescott to his face, with scarce a stumble in his speech, +that he owned half the town now; that his land was much more valuable +than his, which was mostly swampy woodland and pasture-lands, +bringing in scarcely enough income to feed and clothe his family. + +"Sha'n't have 'nough to live on if I let any on't go," said John +Upham, "an' you've got more land as 'tis than any other man in town." + +Doctor Prescott did not raise or quicken his clear voice; his eyes +did not flash, but they gave out a hard light. John Upham was like a +giant before this little, neat, wiry figure, which had such a majesty +of port that it seemed to throw its own shadow over him. + +"We are not discussing the extent of my possessions," said Doctor +Prescott, "but the extent of your debts." He moved aside, as if to +clear the passage to the door, turning slightly at the same time +towards his other caller, who was cold with indignation upon John +Upham's account and terror upon his own. + +Half minded he was, when John Upham went out, with his clamping, +clumsy tread, with his honest head cast down, and no more words in +his mouth for the doctor's last smoothly scathing remark, to follow +him at a bound and ask nothing for himself; but he stood still and +watched him go. + +When John Upham had opened the door and was passing through, the +doctor pursued him with yet one more bit of late advice. "It is poor +judgment," said Doctor Prescott, "for a young man to marry and bring +children into the world until he has property enough to support them +without running into debt. You would have done better had you waited, +Mr. Upham. It is what I always tell young men." + +Then John Upham turned with the last turn of the trodden worm. "My +wife and my children are my own!" he cried out, with a great roar. +"It's between me and my Maker, my having 'em, and I'll answer to no +man for it!" With that he was gone, and the door shut hard after +him. + +Then Doctor Prescott, no whit disturbed, turned to Jerome and looked +at him. Jerome made his manners again. "You are the Edwards boy, +aren't you?" said the doctor. + +Jerome humbly acknowledged his identity. + +"What do you want? Has your mother sent you on an errand?" + +"No, sir." + +"Well, what is it, then?" + +"Please, sir, may I speak to you a minute?" + +"Speak to me?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Doctor Prescott wore a massive gold watch-chain festooned across his +fine black satin vest. He pulled out before the boy's wondering and +perplexed eyes the great gold timepiece attached to it and looked at +it. "You must be quick," said he. "I have to go in five minutes. I +will give you five minutes by my watch. Begin." + +But poor little Jerome, thus driven with such a hard check-rein of +time, paled and reddened and trembled, and could find no words. + +"One minute is gone," said the doctor, looking over the open face of +his watch at Jerome. Something in his glance spurred on the +frightened boy by arousing a flash of resentment. + +Jerome, standing straight before the doctor, with a little twitching +hand hanging at each side, with his color coming and going, and +pulses which could be seen beating hard in his temples and throat, +spoke and delivered himself of that innocently overreaching scheme +which he had propounded to Squire Eben Merritt. + +It seems probable that mental states have their own reflective +powers, which sometimes enable one to suddenly see himself in the +conception of another, to the complete modification of all his own +ideas and opinions. So little Jerome Edwards, even while speaking, +began to see his plan as it looked to Doctor Prescott, and not as it +had hitherto looked to himself. He began to understand and to realize +the flaws in it--that he had asked more of Doctor Prescott than he +would grant. Still, he went on, and the doctor heard him through +without a word. + +"Who put you up to this?" the doctor asked, when he had finished. + +"Nobody, sir." + +"Your mother?" + +"No, sir." + +"Did you ever hear your father propose anything like this?" + +"No, sir." + +"Who did? Speak the truth." + +"I did." + +"You thought out this plan yourself?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Look at me." + +Jerome, flushing with angry shame at his own simplicity as revealed +to him by this other, older, superior intellect, yet defiant still at +this attack upon his truth, looked the doctor straight in his keen +eyes. + +"Are you speaking the truth?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Still the doctor looked at him, and Jerome would not cast his eyes +down, nor, indeed, could. He felt as if his very soul were being +stretched up on tiptoe to the doctor's inspection. + +"Children had better follow the wisdom of their elders," said the +doctor. He would not even deign to explain to this boy the absurdity +of his scheme. + +He replaced the great gold watch in his pocket. "I will be in soon, +and talk over matters with your mother," he said, turning away. + +Jerome gave a gasp. He stumbled forward, as if to fall on his knees +at the doctor's feet. + +"Oh, sir, don't, don't!" he cried out. + +"Don't what?" + +"Don't foreclose the mortgage. It will kill mother." + +"You don't know what you are talking about," said the doctor, calmly. +"Children should not meddle in matters beyond them. I will settle it +with your mother." + +"Mother's sick!" gasped Jerome. The doctor was moving with his +stately strut to the door. Suddenly the boy, in a great outburst of +boldness, flung himself before this great man of his childhood and +arrested his progress. "Oh, sir, tell me," he begged--"tell me what +you're going to do!" + +The doctor never knew why he stopped to explain and parley. He was +conscious of no softening towards this boy, who had so repelled him +with his covert rebellion, and had now been guilty of a much greater +offence. An appeal to a goodness which is not in him is to a +sensitive and vain soul a stinging insult. Doctor Prescott could have +administered corporal punishment to this boy, who seemed to him to be +actually poking fun at his dignity, and yet he stopped and answered: + +"I am going to take your house into my hands," said Doctor Prescott, +"and your mother can live in it and pay me rent." + +"We can't pay rent any better than interest money." + +"If you can't pay the rent, I shall be willing to take that wood-lot +of your father's," said Doctor Prescott. "I will talk that over with +your mother." + +Jerome looked at him. There was a dreadful expression on his little +boyish face. His very lips were white. "You are goin' to take our +woodland for rents?" + +"If you can't pay them, of course. Your mother ought to be glad she +has it to pay with." + +"Then we sha'n't have anything." + +Doctor Prescott endeavored to move on, but Jerome fairly crowded +himself between him and the door, and stood there, his pale face +almost touching his breast, and his black eyes glaring up at him with +a startling nearness as of fire. + +"You are a wicked man," said the boy, "and some day God will punish +you for it." + +Then there came a grasp of nervous hands upon his shoulders, like the +clamp of steel, the door was opened before him, and he was pushed +out, and along the entry at arm's-length, and finally made to descend +the south door-steps at a dizzy run. "Go home to your mother," +ordered Doctor Prescott. Still, he did not raise his voice, his color +had not changed, and he breathed no quicker. Births and deaths, all +natural stresses of life, its occasional tragedies, and even his own +bitter wrath could this small, equally poised man meet with calm +superiority over them and command over himself. Doctor Seth Prescott +never lost his personal dignity--he could not, since it was so +inseparable from his personality. If he chastised his son, it was +with the judicial majesty of a king, and never with a self-demeaning +show of anger. He ate and drank in his own house like a guest of +state at a feast; he drove his fine sorrel in his sulky like a +war-horse in a chariot. Once, when walking to meeting on an icy day, +his feet went from under him, and he sat down suddenly; but even his +fall seemed to have something majestic and solemn and Scriptural +about it. Nobody laughed. + +Doctor Prescott expelling this little boy from his south door had the +impressiveness of a priest of Bible times expelling an interloper +from the door of the Temple. Jerome almost fell when he reached the +ground, but collected himself after a staggering step or two as the +door shut behind him. + +The doctor's sulky was drawn up before the door, and Jake Noyes stood +by the horse's head. The horse sprang aside--he was a nervous +sorrel--when Jerome flew down the steps, and Jake Noyes reined him up +quickly with a sharp "Whoa!" + +As soon as he recovered his firm footing, Jerome started to run out +of the yard; but Jake, holding the sorrel's bridle with one hand, +reached out the other to his collar and brought him to a stand. + +"Hullo!" said he, hushing his voice somewhat and glancing at the +door. "What's to pay?" + +"I told him he was a wicked man, and he didn't like it because it's +true," replied Jerome, in a loud voice, trying to pull away. + +"Hush up," whispered Jake, with a half-whimsical, half-uneasy nod of +his head towards the door; "look out how you talk. He'll be out and +crammin' blue-pills and assafoetidy into your mouth first thing you +know. Don't you go to sassin' of your betters." + +"He is a wicked man! I don't care, he is a wicked man!" cried Jerome, +loudly. He glanced defiantly at the house, then into Jake's face, +with a white flash of fury. + +"Hush up, I tell ye," said Jake. "He'll be a-pourin' of castor-ile +down your throat out of a quart measure, arter the blue-pills and the +assafoetidy." + +"I'd like to see him! He is a wicked man. Let me go!" + +"Don't you go to callin' names that nobody but the Almighty has any +right to fasten on to folks." + +"Let me go!" Jerome wriggled under the man's detaining grasp, as +wirily instinct with nerves as a cat; he kicked out viciously at his +shins. + +"Lord! I'd as lief try to hold a catamount," cried Jake Noyes, +laughing, and released him, and Jerome raced out of the yard. + +It was then about two o'clock. He should have gone home to his +planting, but his childish patience was all gone. Poor little Jack +had been worsted by the giant, and his bean-garden might as well be +neglected. Human strength may endure heavy disappointments and +calamities with heroism, but it requires superhuman power to hold +one's hand to the grindstone of petty duties and details of life in +the midst of them. Jerome had faced his rebuff without a whimper, and +with a great stand of spirit, but now he could not go home and work +in the garden, and tie his fiery revolt to the earth with spade and +hoe. He ran on up the road, until he passed the village and came to +his woodland. He followed the cart path through it, until he was near +the boundary wall; then he threw himself down in the midst of some +young brakes and little wild green things, and presently fell to +weeping, with loud sobs, like a baby. + +All day he had been strained up to an artificial height of manhood; +now he had come down again to his helpless estate of boyhood. In the +solitude of the woods there is no mocking, and no despite for +helplessness and grief. The trees raising their heads in a great host +athwart the sky, the tender plants beneath gathering into their old +places with tumultuous silence, put to shame no outcry of any +suffering heart of bird or beast or man. To these unpruned and +mother-fastnesses of the earth belonged at first the wailing infancy +of all life, and even now a vague memory of it is left, like the +organ of a lost sense, in the heart oppressed by the grief of the +grown world. + +The boy unknowingly had fled to his first mother, who had soothed his +old sorrow in his heart before he had come into the consciousness of +it. Had Doctor Prescott at any minute surprised him, he would have +faced him again, with no sign of weakening; but he lay there, curled +up among the brakes as in a green nest, with his face against the +earth, and her breath of aromatic moisture in his nostrils, and +sobbed and wept until he fell asleep. + +He had slept an hour and a half, when he wakened suddenly, with a +clear "Hello!" in his ears. He opened his eyes and looked up, dazed, +into Squire Eben Merritt's great blond face. + +"Hullo!" said Squire Eben again. "I thought it was a woodchuck, and +instead of that it's a boy. What are you doing here, sir?" + +Jerome raised himself falteringly. He felt weak, and the confused +misery of readjusting the load of grief under which one has fallen +asleep was upon him. "Guess I fell asleep," he stammered. + +"Guess you'd better not fall asleep in such a damp hole as this," +said the Squire, "or the rheumatism will catch your young bones. Why +aren't you home planting, sir? I thought you were a smart boy." + +"He'll get it all; there ain't any use!" said Jerome, with pitiful +doggedness, standing ankle-deep in brakes before the Squire. He +rubbed his eyes, heavy with sleep and tears, and raised them, dull +still, into the Squire's face. + +"Who do you mean by he? Dr. Prescott?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Then he didn't approve of your plan?" + +"He's going to take our house, and let us live in it and pay rent, +and if we can't pay he's going to take our wood-lot here--" Suddenly +Jerome gave a great sob; he flung himself down wildly. "He sha'n't +have it; he sha'n't--he never shall!" he sobbed, and clutched at the +brakes and held them to his bosom, as if he were indeed holding some +dear thing against an enemy who would wrest it from him. + +Squire Eben Merritt, towering over him, with a long string of trout +at his side, looked at him with a puzzled frown; then he reached down +and pulled him to his feet with a mighty and gentle jerk. "How old +are you, sir?" he demanded. "Thought you were a man; thought you were +going to learn to fire my gun. Guess you haven't been out of +petticoats long enough, after all!" + +Jerome drew his sleeve fiercely across his eyes, and then looked up +at the Squire proudly. "Didn't cry before him," said he. + +Squire Eben laughed, and gave his back a hard pat. "I guess you'll +do, after all," said he. "So you didn't have much luck with the +doctor?" + +"No, sir." + +"Well, don't you fret. I'll see what can be done. I'll see him +to-night myself." + +Jerome looked up in his face, like one who scarcely dares to believe +in offered comfort. + +The Squire nodded kindly at him. "You leave it all to me," said he; +"don't you worry." + +Jerome belonged to a family in which there had been little +demonstration of devotion and affection. His parents never caressed +their children; he and his sister had scarcely kissed each other +since their infancy. No matter how fervid their hearts might be, they +had also a rigidity, as of paralyzed muscles, which forbade much +expression as a shame and an affectation. Jerome had this tendency of +the New England character from inheritance and training; but now, in +spite of it, he fell down before Squire Eben Merritt, embraced his +knees, and kissed his very feet in their great boots, and then his +hand. + +Squire Eben laughed, pulled the boy to his feet again, and bade him +again to cheer up and not to fret. The same impulse of kindly +protection which led him to spare the lives and limbs of old trees +was over him now towards this weak human plant. + +"Come along with me," said Squire Eben, and forthwith Jerome had +followed him out of the woods into the road, and down it until they +reached his sister's, Miss Camilla Merritt's, house, not far from +Doctor Prescott's. There Squire Eben was about to part with Jerome, +with more words of reassurance, when suddenly he remembered that his +sister needed such a boy to weed her flower-beds, and had spoken to +him about procuring one for her. So he had bidden Jerome follow him; +and the boy, who would at that moment have gone over a precipice +after him, went to Miss Camilla's tea-drinking in her arbor. + +When he went home, in an hour's time, he was engaged to weed Miss +Camilla's flower-garden all summer, at two shillings per week, and it +was understood that his sister could weed as well as he when his +home-work prevented his coming. + +In early youth exaltation of spirit requires but slight causes; only +a soft puff of a favoring wind will send up one like a kite into the +ether. Jerome, with the prospect of two shillings per week, and that +great, kindly strength of the Squire's underlying his weakness, went +home as if he had wings on his feet. + +"See that boy of poor Abel Edwards's dancin' along, when his father +ain't been dead a week!" one woman at her window said to another. + + + + +Chapter X + + +Squire Eben Merritt had three boon companions--the village lawyer, +Eliphalet Means; a certain John Jennings, the last of one of the +village old families, a bachelor of some fifty odd, who had wasted +his health and patrimony in riotous living, and had now settled down +to prudence and moderation, if not repentance, in the home of his +ancestors; and one Colonel Jack Lamson, also considered somewhat of a +rake, who had possibly tendered his resignation rather than his +reformation, and that perforce. Colonel Lamson also hailed originally +from a good old stock of this village and county. He had gone to the +wars for his country, and retired at fifty-eight with a limp in his +right leg and a cane. Colonel Lamson, being a much-removed cousin of +the lawyer's, kept bachelors' hall with him in a comfortable and +untidy old mansion at the other end of the town, across the brook. + +Many nights of a week these four met for an evening of whist or +bezique, to the scandal of the steady-going folk of the town, who +approved not of cards, and opined that the Squire's poor wife must +feel bad enough to have such carousings at her house. But the +Squire's wife, who had in herself a rare understanding among women of +masculine good-fellowship, had sometimes, if the truth had been told, +taken an ailing member's hand at cards when their orgies convened at +the Squire's. John Jennings, being somewhat afflicted with rheumatic +gout, was occasionally missing. Then did Abigail Merritt take his +place, and play with the sober concentration of a man and the quick +wit of a woman. Colonel Jack Lamson, whose partner she was, privately +preferred her to John Jennings, whose overtaxed mental powers +sometimes failed him in the memory of the cards; but being as +intensely loyal to his friends as to his country, he never spoke to +that effect. He only, when the little, trim, black-haired woman made +a brilliant stroke of _finesse_, with a quick flash of her bright +eyes and wise compression of lips, smiled privately, as if to +himself, with face bent upon his hand. + +Whether Abigail Merritt played cards or not, she always brewed a +great bowl of punch, as no one but she knew how to do, and set it out +for the delectation of her husband and his friends. The receipt for +this punch--one which had been long stored in the culinary archives +of the Merritt family, with the poundcake and other rich and +toothsome compounds--had often, upon entreaty, been confided to other +ambitious matrons, but to no purpose. Let them spice and flavor and +add measures of fine strong liquors as they would, their punch had +not that perfect harmony of results, which effaces detail, of Abigail +Merritt's. + +"By George!" Colonel Jack Lamson was wont to say, when his first +jorum had trickled down his experienced throat--"By George! I thought +I had drunk punch. There was a time when I thought I could mix a bowl +of punch myself, but this is _punch_." + +Then John Jennings, holding his empty glass, would speak: "All we +could taste in that last punch that Belinda Armstrong made at my +house was lemon; and the time before that, allspice; and the time +before that, raw rum." John Jennings's voice, somewhat hoarse, was +yet full of sweet melancholy cadences; there was sentiment and pathos +in his "lemon" and "allspice," which waxed almost tearful in his "raw +rum." His worn, high-bred face was as instinct with gentle +melancholy as his voice, yet his sunken black eyes sparkled with the +light of youth as the fine aromatic fire of the punch penetrated his +veins. + +As for the lawyer, who was the eldest of the four, long, brown, +toughly and dryly pliant as an old blade of marsh-grass, he showed in +speech, look, nor manner no sign of enthusiasm, but he drank the +punch. + +That evening, after Jerome Edwards had run home with his prospects of +two shillings a week and Squire Eben Merritt's assistance, the +friends met at the Squire's house. At eight o'clock they came +marching down the road, the three of them--John Jennings in fine old +broadcloth and a silk hat, with a weak stoop in his shoulders, and a +languid shakiness in his long limbs; the lawyer striding nimbly as a +grasshopper, with the utter unconsciousness of one who pursues only +the ultimate ends of life; and the colonel, halting on his right +knee, and recovering himself stiffly with his cane, holding his +shoulders back, breathing a little heavily, his neck puffing over his +high stock, his face a purplish-red about his white mustache and +close-cropped beard. + +The Squire's wife had the punch-bowl all ready in the south room, +where the parties were held. Some pipes were laid out there too, and +a great jar of fine tobacco, and the cards were on the mahogany +card-table--four packs for bezique. Abigail herself opened the door, +admitted the guests, and ushered them into the south room. Colonel +Lamson said something about the aroma of the punch; and John +Jennings, in his sweet, melancholy voice, something gallant about the +fair hands that mixed it; but Eliphalet Means moved unobtrusively +across the room and dipped out for himself a glass of the beverage, +and wasted not his approval in empty words. + +The Squire came in shortly and greeted his guests, but he had his hat +in his hand. + +"I have to go out on business," he announced. "I shall not be long. +Mrs. Merritt will have to take my place." + +Abigail looked at him in surprise. But she was a most discreet wife. +She never asked a question, though she wondered why her husband had +not spoken of this before. The truth was he had forgotten his +card-party when he had made his promise to Jerome, and then he had +forgotten his promise to Jerome in thinking of his card-party, and +little Lucina on her way to bed had just brought it to mind by asking +when he was going. She had heard the promise, and had not forgotten. + +"By the Lord Harry!" said the Squire, for he heard his friends +down-stairs. Then, when Lucina looked at him with innocent wonder, he +said, hurriedly, "Now, Pretty--I am going now," and went down to +excuse himself to his guests. + +Eliphalet Means, whose partner Abigail had become by this deflection, +nodded, and seated himself at once in his place at table, the +pleasant titillation of the punch in his veins and approval in his +heart. He considered Abigail a better player than her husband, and +began to meditate proposing a small stake that evening. + +The Squire, setting forth on his errand to Doctor Prescott, striding +heavily through the sweet dampness of the spring night, experienced a +curious combination of amusement, satisfaction, and indignation with +himself. "I'm a fool!" he declared, with more vehemence than he would +have declared four aces in bezique; and then he cursed his folly, and +told himself that if he kept on he would leave Abigail and the child +without a penny. But then, after all, he realized that singularly +warm glow of self-approval for a good deed which at once comforts and +irradiates the heart in spite of all worldly prudence and wisdom. + +That night the air was very heavy with moisture, which seemed to hold +all the spring odors of newly turned earth, young grass, and blossoms +in solution. Squire Eben moved through it as through a scented flood +in which respiration was possible. Over all the fields was a pale +mist, waving and eddying in such impalpable air currents that it +seemed to have a sentient life of its own. These soft rises and +lapses of the mist on the fields might seemingly have been due to the +efforts of prostrate shadows to gather themselves into form. Beyond +the fields, against the hills and woods and clear horizon, pale fogs +arose with motions as of arms and garments and streaming locks. The +blossoming trees stood out suddenly beside one with a white surprise +rather felt than seen. The young moon and the stars shone dimly with +scattering rays, and the lights in the house windows were veiled. The +earth and sky and all the familiar features of the village had that +effect of mystery and unreality which some conditions of the +atmosphere bring to pass. + +A strangely keen sense of the unstability of all earthly things, of +the shadows of the tomb, of the dreamy half-light of the world, came +over Eben Merritt, and his generous impulse seemed suddenly the only +lantern to light his wavering feet. "I'll do what I can for the poor +little chap, come what will," he muttered, and strode on to Doctor +Prescott's house. + +Just before he reached it a horse and sulky turned into the yard, +driven rapidly from the other direction. Squire Eben hastened his +steps, and reached the south house door before the doctor entered. He +was just ascending the steps, his medicine-case in hand, when he +heard his name called, and turned around. + +"I want a word with you before you go in, doctor," called the Squire, +as he came up. + +"Good-evening, Squire Merritt," returned the doctor, bowing formally +on his vantage-ground of steps, but his voice bespoke a spiritual as +well as material elevation. + +"I would like a word with you," the Squire said again. + +"Walk into the house." + +"No, I won't come in, as long as I've met you. I have company at +home. I haven't much to say--" The Squire stopped. Jake Noyes was +coming from the barn, swinging a lantern; he waited until he had led +the horse away, then continued. "It is just as well to have no +witnesses," he said, laughing. "It is about that affair of the +Edwards mortgage." + +"Ah!" said the doctor, with a fencing wariness of intonation. + +"I would like to inquire what you're going to do about it, if you +have no objection. I have reasons." + +The doctor gave a keen look at him. His face, as he stood on the +steps, was on a level with the Squire's. "I am going to take the +house, of course," he said, calmly. + +"It will be a blow to Mrs. Edwards and the boy." + +"It will be the best thing that could happen to him," said the +doctor, with the same clear evenness. "That sick woman and boy are +not fit to have the care of a place. I shall own it, and rent it to +them." + +Heat in controversy is sometimes needful to convince one's self as +well as one's adversary. Doctor Prescott needed no increase of warmth +to further his own arguments, so conclusive they were to his own +mind. + +"For how much, if I may ask? I am interested for certain reasons." + +"Seventy dollars. That will amount to the interest money they pay now +and ten dollars over. The extra ten will be much less than repairs +and taxes. They will be gainers." + +"What will you take for that mortgage?" + +"Take for the mortgage?" + +The Squire nodded. + +The doctor gave another of his keen glances at him. "I don't know +that I want to take anything for it," he said. + +"Suppose it were made worth your while?" + +"Nobody would be willing to make it enough worth my while to +influence me," said the doctor. "My price for the transfer of a good +investment is what it is worth to me." + +"Well, doctor, what is it worth to you?" Squire Eben said, smiling. + +"Fifteen hundred dollars," said the doctor. + +The Squire whistled. + +"I am quite aware that the mortgage is for a thousand only," the +doctor said, and yet without the slightest meaning of apology, "but I +consider when it comes to relinquishing it that it is worth the +additional five hundred. I must be just to myself. Then, too, Mr. +Edwards owed me a half-year's interest. The fifteen hundred would +cover that, of course." + +"You won't take any less?" + +"Not a dollar." + +Squire Eben hesitated a second. "You know, I own that strip of land +on the Dale road, on the other side of the brook," he said. + +The doctor nodded, still with his eyes keenly intent. + +"There are three good house-lots; that house of the Edwardses is old +and out of repair. You'll have to spend considerable on it to rent +it. My three lots are equal to that one house, and suppose we +exchange. You take that land, and I take the mortgage on the Edwards +place." + +"Do you know what you are talking about?" Doctor Prescott said, +sharply; for this plain proposition that he overreach the other +aroused him to a show of fairness. + +Squire Merritt laughed. "Oh, I know you'll get the best of the +bargain," he returned. + +Then the doctor waxed suspicious. This readiness to take the worst of +a bargain while perfectly cognizant of it puzzled him. He wondered if +perchance this easy-going, card-playing, fishing Squire had, after +all, some axe of policy to grind. "What do you expect to make out of +it?" he asked, bluntly. + +"Nothing. I am not even sure that I have any active hope of a higher +rate of interest in the other world for it. I am not as sound in the +doctrines as you, doctor." Squire Eben laughed, but the other turned +on him sternly. + +"If you are doing this for the sake of Abel Edwards's widow and her +children, you are acting from a mistaken sense of charity, and +showing poor judgment," said he. + +Squire Eben laughed again. "You made no reply to my proposition, +doctor," he said. + +"You are in earnest?" + +"I am." + +"You understand what you are doing?" + +"I certainly do. I am giving you between fifteen and sixteen hundred +dollars' worth of land for a thousand." + +"There is no merit nor charity in such foolish measures as this," +said the doctor, half suspicious that there was more behind this, and +not put to shame but aroused to a sense of superiority by such +drivelling idiocy of benevolence. + +"Dare say you're right, doctor," returned Squire Eben. "I won't even +cheat you out of the approval of Heaven. Will you meet me at Means's +office to-morrow, with the necessary documents for the transfer? We +had better go around to Mrs. Edwards's afterwards and inform her, I +suppose." + +"I will meet you at Means's office at ten o'clock to-morrow morning," +said the doctor, shortly. "Good-evening," and with that turned on his +heel. However, when he had opened the door he turned again and called +curtly and magisterially after Squire Eben: "I advise you to +cultivate a little more business foresight for the sake of your wife +and child," and Squire Eben answered back: + +"Thank you--thank you, doctor; guess you're right," and then began to +whistle like a boy as he went down the avenue of pines. + +Through lack of remunerative industry, and easy-going habits, his +share of the old Merritt property had dwindled considerably; he had +none too much money to spend at the best, and now he had bartered +away a goodly slice of his paternal acres for no adequate worldly +return. He knew it all, he felt a half-whimsical dismay as he went +home, and yet the meaning which underlies the letter of a good action +was keeping his heart warm. + +When he reached home his wife, who had just finished her game, slid +out gently, and the usual festivities began. Colonel Lamson, warmed +with punch and good-fellowship and tobacco, grew brilliant at cards, +and humorously reminiscent of old jokes between the games; John +Jennings lagged at cards, but flashed out now and then with fine wit, +while his fervently working brain lit up his worn face with the light +of youth. The lawyer, who drank more than the rest, played better and +better, and waxed caustic in speech if crossed. As for the Squire, +his frankness increased even to the risk of self-praise. Before the +evening was over he had told the whole story of little Jerome, of +Doctor Prescott and himself and the Edwards mortgage. The three +friends stared at him with unsorted cards in their hands. + +"You are a damned fool!" cried Eliphalet Means, taking his pipe from +his mouth. + +"No," cried Jennings, "not a damned fool, but a rare fool," and his +great black eyes, in their mournful hollows, flashed affectionately +at Squire Eben. + +"And I say he's a damned fool. Men live in this world," maintained +the lawyer, fiercely. + +"Men's hearts ought to be out of the world if their heads are in it," +affirmed John Jennings, with a beautiful smile. "I say he's a rare +fool, and I would that all the wise men could go to school to such a +fool and learn wisdom of his folly." + +Colonel Jack Lamson, who sat at the Squire's left, removed his pipe, +cleared his throat, and strove to speak in vain. Now he began with a +queer stiffness of his lips, while his purplish-red flush spread to +the roots of his thin bristle of gray hair. + +"It reminds me of a story I heard. No, that is another. It reminds +me--" And then the colonel broke down with a great sob, and a dash +of his sleeve across his eyes, and recovered himself, and cried out, +chokingly, "No, I'll be damned if it reminds me of anything I've ever +seen or heard of, for I've never seen a man like you, Eben!" + +And with that he slapped his cards to the table, and shook the +Squire's hand, with such a fury of affectionate enthusiasm that some +of his cards fluttered about him to the floor, like a shower of +leaves. + +As for Eliphalet Means, he declared again, with vicious emphasis, +"He's a damned fool!" then rose up, laid his cards on top of the +colonel's scattered hand, went to the punch-bowl and helped himself +to another glass; then, pipe in mouth, went up to Squire Merritt and +gave him a great slap on his back. "You are a damned fool, my boy!" +he cried out, holding his pipe from his lips and breathing out a +great cloud of smoke with the words; "but the wife and the young one +and you shall never want a bite or a sup, nor a bed nor a board, on +account of it, while old 'Liph Means has a penny in pocket." + +And with that Eliphalet Means, who was old enough to be the Squire's +father, and loved him as he would have loved a son, went back to his +seat and dealt the cards over. + + + + +Chapter XI + + +Innocence and ignorance can be as easily hood-winked by kindness as +by contumely. + +This little Jerome, who had leaped, under the spur of necessity, to +an independence of understanding beyond his years, allowed himself to +be quite misled by the Squire as to his attitude in the matter of the +mortgage. In spite of the momentary light reflected from the doctor's +shrewder intelligence which had flashed upon his scheme, the Squire +was able to delude him with a renewed belief in it, after he had +informed him of the transfer of the mortgage-deed, which took place +the next morning. + +"I decided to buy that wood-lot of your father's, as your mother was +willing," said the Squire; "and as I had not the money in hand to pay +down, I gave my note to your mother for it, as you proposed the +doctor should do, and allowed six per cent. interest." + +Jerome looked at him in a bewildered way. + +"Well, what is the matter? Aren't you as willing to take my note as +the doctor's?" asked the Squire. + +"Is it fair?" asked Jerome, hesitatingly. + +"Fair to you?" + +"No; to you." + +"Of course it is fair enough to me. Why not?" + +"The doctor didn't think it was," said the boy, getting more and more +bewildered. + +"Why didn't he?" + +"I don't--know--" faltered Jerome; and he did not, for the glimmer of +light which he had got from the doctor's worldly wisdom had quite +failed him. He had seen quite clearly that it was not fair, but now +he could not. + +"Oh, well, I dare say it is fairer for me than for him," said the +Squire, easily. "Probably he had the ready money; I haven't the ready +money; that makes all the difference. Don't you see it does?" + +"Yes--sir," replied Jerome, hesitatingly, and tried to think he saw; +but he did not. A mind so young and immature as his is not unlike the +gaseous age of planets, overlaid with great shifting masses of vapor, +which part to disclose dazzling flame-points and incomparable gleams, +then close again. Only time can accomplish a nearer balance of light +in minds and planets. + +Then, too, as the first strain of unwonted demands relaxed a little +through use, Jerome's mental speed, which seemed to have taken him +into manhood at a bound, slackened, and he even fell back somewhat in +his tracks. He was still beyond what he had ever been before, for one +cannot return from growth. He would never be as much of a child +again, but he was more of a child than he had been yesterday. + +His mother also had been instrumental towards replacing him in his +old ways. Ann, after her day of crushed apathy, aroused herself +somewhat. When the Squire, the lawyer, and Doctor Prescott came the +next morning, she kept them waiting outside while she put on her best +cap. She had a view of the road from her rocking-chair, and when she +saw the three gentlemen advancing with a slow curve of progress +towards her gate, which betokened an entrance, she called sharply to +Elmira, who was washing dishes, "Go into the bedroom and get my best +cap, quick," at the same time twitching off the one upon her head. + +When poor little Elmira turned and stared, her pretty face quite +pale, thinking her mother beside herself, she made a fierce, menacing +gesture with her nervous elbow, and spoke again, in a whisper, lest +the approaching guests hear: "Why don't you start? Take this old cap +and get my best one, quick!" And the little girl scuttled into the +bedroom just as the first knock came on the door. Ann kept the three +dignitaries waiting until she adjusted her cap to her liking, and the +knocks had been several times repeated before she sent the trembling +Elmira to admit them and usher them into the best parlor, whither she +followed, hitching herself through the entry in her chair, and +disdainfully refusing all offers of assistance. She even thrust out +an elbow repellingly at the Squire, who had sprung forward to her +aid. + +"No, thank you, sir," said she; "I don't need any help; I always go +around the house so. I ain't helpless." + +Ann, when she had brought her chair to a stand, sat facing the three +callers, each of whose salutations she returned with a curtly polite +bow. She had a desperate sense of being at bay, and that the hands of +all these great men, whose supremacy she acknowledged with the futile +uprearing of any angry woman, were against her. She eyed the lawyer, +Eliphalet Means, with particular distrust. She had always held all +legal proceedings as a species of quagmire to entrap the innocent and +unwary. She watched while the lawyer took some documents from his bag +and laid them on the table. "I won't sign a thing, nohow," she avowed +to herself, and shut her mouth tight. + +Squire Merritt discovered that besides dealing with his own scruples +he had to overcome his beneficiary's. + +It took a long time to convince Ann that she was not being +overreached and cheated. She seemed absolutely incapable of +understanding the transfer of the mortgage note from Doctor Prescott +to Squire Merritt. + +"I've signed one mortgage," said she, firmly; "I put my name under my +husband's. I ain't goin' to sign another." + +"But nobody wants you to sign anything, Mrs. Edwards. The mortgage +note is simply transferred to Squire Merritt here. We only want you +to understand it," said Lawyer Means. He had a curiously impersonal +manner of dealing with women, being wont to say that only a man who +expected good sense in womenkind was surprised when he did not find +it. + +"I ain't goin' to put two mortgages on this place," said Ann, +fronting him with the utter stupidity of obstinacy. + +"Let me explain it to you, Mrs. Edwards," said Eliphalet Means, with +no impatience. He regarded a woman as so incontrovertibly a +patience-tryer, from the laws of creation, that he would as soon have +waxed impatient with the structural order of things. He endeavored to +explain matters with imperturbable persistency, but Ann was still +unconvinced. + +"I ain't goin' to sign my name to any other mortgage," said she. + +Jerome, who had stood listening in the door, slid up to his mother +and touched her arm. "Oh, mother," he whispered, "I know all about +it--it's all right!" + +Ann gave him a thrust with a little sharp elbow. "What do you know +about it?" she cried. "I'm here to look out for you and your sister, +and take care of what little we've got, an' I'm goin' to. Go out an' +tend to your work." + +"Oh, mother, do let me stay!" + +"Go right along, I tell you." And Jerome, who was the originator of +all this, went out helplessly, slighted and indignant. He did think +the Squire might have interceded for him to stay, knowing what he +knew. Even youth has its disadvantages. + +But Squire Eben stood somewhat aloof, looking at the small, frail, +pugnacious woman in the rocking-chair with perplexity and growing +impatience. He wanted to go fishing that morning, and the vision of +the darting trout in their still, clear pool was before him, like a +vision of his own earthly paradise. He gave a despairing glance at +Doctor Prescott, who had hitherto said little. "Can't you convince +her it is all right? She knows you better than the rest of us," he +whispered. + +Doctor Prescott nodded, arose--he had been sitting apart--went to +Mrs. Edwards, and touched her shoulder. "Mrs. Edwards," said he--Ann +gave a terrified yet wholly unyielding flash of her black eyes at +him--"Mrs. Edwards, will you please attend to what we have come to +tell you. I have transferred the mortgage note given me by your late +husband to Squire Eben Merritt; there is nothing for you to sign. You +will simply pay the interest money to him, instead of to me." + +"You can tear me to pieces, if you want to," said Ann, "but I won't +sign away what little my poor husband left to me and my children, for +you or any other man." + +"Look at me," said the doctor. + +Ann never stirred her head. + +"Look at me." + +Ann looked. + +"Now," said the doctor, "you listen and you understand. I can't waste +any more time here. Squire Merritt has bought that mortgage which +your husband gave me, and paid me for it in land. You have simply +nothing to do with it, except to understand. Nobody wants you to sign +anything." + +Ann looked at him with some faint light of comprehension through her +wild impetus of resistance. "I'd ruther it would stay the way it was +before," said she. "My husband gave you the mortgage. He thought you +were trustworthy. I'd jest as soon pay you interest money as Squire +Merritt." + +Then Eliphalet Means spoke dryly, still with that utter patience of +preparation and expectation: "If Doctor Prescott retains this +mortgage he intends to foreclose." + +Ann looked at him, and then at Doctor Prescott. She gasped, +"Foreclose!" + +Doctor Prescott nodded. + +"You mean to foreclose? You mean to take this place away from us?" +Ann cried, shrilly. "You with all you've got, and we a widow and +orphans! And you callin' yourself a good man an' a pillar of the +sanctuary!" + +Doctor Prescott's face hardened. "Your husband owed me for a +half-year's interest," he began, calmly. + +"My husband didn't owe you any interest money. He paid you in work +and wood." + +"That was for medical attendance," proceeded the doctor, +imperturbably. "He owed me half a year's interest. I considered it +best for your interests, as well as mine, to foreclose, and should +have done so had not Squire Merritt taken the matter out of my hands. +I should advise him to a like measure, but he is his own best judge." + +"Squire Merritt will not foreclose," said Eliphalet Means; "and he +will be easy about the payments." + +"Well," said Ann, with a strange, stony look, "I guess I understand. +I'm satisfied." + +Doctor Prescott gathered up his medicine-chest, bade the others a +gruff, ceremonious good-morning, and went out. His sulky had been +drawn up before the gate for some time, and Jake Noyes had been +lounging about the yard. + +The lawyer and the Squire lingered, as they had yet the business +regarding the sale of the woodland to arrange. + +Curiously enough, Ann was docile as one could wish about that. +Whether her previous struggle had exhausted her or whether she began +to feel some confidence in her advisers, they could not tell. She +made no difficulty, but after all was adjusted she looked at the +lawyer with a shrewd, sharp gleam in her eyes. + +"Doctor Prescott can't get his claws on it now, anyhow," she said; +"and he always wanted it, 'cause it joined his." + +The Squire and the lawyer looked at each other. The Squire with +humorous amazement, the lawyer with a wink and glance of wise +reminder, as much as to say: "You know what I have always said about +women. Here is a woman." + +Jerome was digging out in his garden-patch, and Elmira, in her blue +sunbonnet, was standing, full of scared questioning, before him, when +the Squire came lounging up the slope and reported as before said, to +the convincing of the boy in innocent credulity. + +When he had finished, he laid hold on Elmira's little cotton sleeve +and pulled her up to her brother, and stood before them with a kindly +hand on a shoulder of each, smiling down at them with infinite +good-humor and protection. + +"Don't you worry now, children," he said. "Be good and mind your +mother, and you'll get along all right. We'll manage about the +interest money, and there'll be meal in the barrel and a roof over +your heads as long as you want it, according to the Scriptures, I'll +guarantee." + +With that Squire Eben gave each a shake, to conceal, maybe, the +tenderness of pity in him, which he might, in his hearty and merry +manhood, have accounted somewhat of a shame to reveal, as well as +tears in his blue eyes, and was gone down the hill with a great +laugh. + +Elmira looked after him. "Ain't he good?" she whispered. But as for +Jerome, he stood trembling and quivering and looking down at a print +the Squire's great boot had made in the soft mould. When Elmira had +gone, he went down on his knees and kissed it passionately. + + + + +Chapter XII + + +Now the warfare of life had fairly begun for little Jerome Edwards. +Up to this time, although in sorry plight enough as far as material +needs went--scantily clad, scantily fed, and worked hard--he had as +yet only followed at an easy pace, or skirted with merry play the +march of the toilers of the world. Now he was in the rank and file, +enlisted thereto by a stern Providence, and must lose his life for +the sake of living, like the rest. No more idle hours in the snug +hollow of the rock, where he seemed to pause like a bee on the sweets +of existence itself that he might taste them fully, were there for +Jerome. Very few chances he had for outspeeding his comrades in any +but the stern and sober race of life, for this little Mercury had to +shear the wings from his heels of youthful sport and take to the gait +of labor. Very seldom he could have one of his old treasure hunts in +swamps and woods, unless, indeed, he could perchance make a labor and +a gain of it. Jerome found that sassafras, and snakeroot, and various +other aromatic roots and herbs of the wilds about his house had their +money value. There was an apothecary in the neighboring village of +Dale who would purchase them of him; at the cheapest of rates, it is +true--a penny or so for a whole peck measure, or a sheaf, of the +largess of summer--but every penny counted. Poor Jerome did not care +so much about his woodland sorties after they were made a matter of +pence and shillings, sorely as he needed, and much as he wished for, +the pence and shillings. The sense was upon him, a shamed and +helpless one, of selling his birthright. Jerome had in the natural +beauty of the earth a budding delight, which was a mystery and a +holiness in itself. It was the first love of his boyish heart; he had +taken the green woods and fields for his sweetheart, and must now put +her to only sordid uses, to her degradation and his. + +Sometimes, in a curious rebellion against what he scarcely knew, he +would return home without a salable thing in hand, nothing but a +pretty and useless collection of wild flowers and sedges, little +swamp-apples, and perhaps a cast bird-feather or two, and meet his +mother's stern reproof with righteously undaunted front. + +"I don't care," he said once, looking at her with a meaning she could +not grasp; nor, indeed, could he fathom it himself. "I ain't goin' to +sell everything; if I do I'll have to sell myself." + +"I'd like to know what you mean," said his mother, sharply. + +"I mean I'm goin' to keep some things myself," said Jerome, and +pattered up to his chamber to stow away his treasures, with his +mother's shrill tirade about useless truck following him. Ann was a +good taskmistress; there were, indeed, great powers of administration +in the keen, alert mind in that little frail body. Given a poor house +encumbered by a mortgage, a few acres of stony land, and two +children, the elder only fourteen, she worked miracles almost. Jerome +had shown uncommon, almost improbable, ability in his difficulties +when Abel had disappeared and her strength had failed her, but +afterwards her little nervous feminine clutch on the petty details +went far towards saving the ship. + +Had it not been for his mother, Jerome could not have carried out his +own plans. Work as manfully as he might, he could not have paid +Squire Merritt his first instalment of interest money, which was +promptly done. + +It was due the 1st of November, and, a day or two before, Squire +Merritt, tramping across lots, over the fields, through the old +plough ridges and corn stubble, with some plump partridges in his bag +and his gun over shoulder, made it in his way to stop at the Edwards +house and tell Ann that she must not concern herself if the interest +money were not ready at the minute it was due. + +But Ann laid down her work--she was binding shoes--straightened +herself as if her rocking-chair were a throne and she an empress, and +looked at him with an inscrutable look of pride and suspicion. The +truth was that she immediately conceived the idea that this great +fair-haired Squire, with his loud, sweet voice, and his loud, frank +laugh and pleasant blue eyes, concealed beneath a smooth exterior +depths of guile. She exchanged, as it were, nods of bitter confidence +with herself to the effect that Squire Merritt was trying to make her +put off paying the interest money, and pretending to be very kind and +obliging, in order that he might the sooner get his clutches on the +whole property. + +All the horizon of this poor little feminine Ishmael seemed to her +bitter fancy to be darkened with hands against her, and she sat on a +constant watch-tower of suspicion. + +"Elmira," said she, "bring me that stockin'." + +Elmira, who also was binding shoes, sitting on a stool before the +scanty fire, rose quickly at her mother's command, went into the +bedroom, and emerged with an old white yarn stocking hanging heavily +from her hand. + +"Empty it on the table and show Squire Merritt," ordered her mother, +in a tone as if she commanded the resources of the royal treasury to +be displayed. + +Elmira obeyed. She inverted the stocking, and from it jingled a +shower of coin into a pitiful little heap on the table. + +"There!" said Ann, pointing at it with a little bony finger. The +smallest coins of the realm went to make up the little pile, and the +Lord only knew how she and her children had grubbed them together. +Every penny there represented more than the sweat of the brow: the +sweat of the heart. + +Squire Eben Merritt, with some dim perception of the true magnitude +and meaning of that little hoard, gained partly through Ann's manner, +partly through his own quickness of sympathy, fairly started as he +looked at it and her. + +"There's twenty-one dollars, all but two shillin's, there," said Ann, +with hard triumph. "The two shillin's Jerome is goin' to have +to-night. He's been splittin' of kindlin'-wood, after school, for +your sister, this week, and she's goin' to pay him the same as she +did for weedin'. You can take this now, if you want to, or wait and +have it all together." + +"I'll wait, thank you," replied Eben Merritt. For the moment he felt +actually dismayed and ashamed at the sight of his ready interest +money. It was almost like having a good deed thrust back in his face +and made of no account. He had scarcely expected any payment, +certainly none so full and prompt as this. + +"I thought I'd let you see you hadn't any cause to feel afraid you +wouldn't get it," said Ann, with dignity. "Elmira, you can put the +money back in the stockin' now, and put the stockin' back under the +feather-bed." + +Squire Merritt felt like a great school-boy before this small, +majestic woman. "I did not feel afraid, Mrs. Edwards," he said, +awkwardly. + +"I didn't know but you might," said she, scornfully; "people didn't +seem to think we could do anything." + +"All I wonder at is," said the Squire, rallying a little, "how you +managed to get so much money together." + +"Do you want to know? Well, I'll tell you. We've bound shoes, Elmira +an' me, for one thing. We've took all they would give us. That wa'n't +many, for the regular customers had to come first, and I didn't do +any in Abel's lifetime--that is, not after I was sick. I used to a +while before that. Abel wouldn't let me when we were first married, +but he had to come to it. Men can't do all they're willin' to. I +shouldn't have done anything but dress in silk, set an' rock, an' +work scallops an' eyelets in cambric pocket-handkerchiefs, if Abel +had had his say. After I was sick I quit workin' on boots, because +the doctor he said it might hurt the muscles of my back to pull the +needle through the leather; but there's somethin' besides muscles in +backs to be thought of when it comes to keepin' body an' soul +together. Two days after the funeral I sent Jerome up to Cyrus +Robinson, and told him to ask him if he'd got some extra shoes to +bind and close, and he come home with some. Elmira and me bound, and +Jerome closed, and we took our pay in groceries. The shoes have fed +us, with what we got out of the garden. Then Elmira and me have +braided mats and pieced quilts and sewed three rag carpets, and +Elmira picked huckleberries and blackberries in season, and sold them +to your wife and Miss Camilla and the doctor's wife; and Lawyer Means +bought lots of her, and the woman that keeps house for John Jennings +bought a lot. Elmira picked bayberries, too, and sold 'em to the +shoemaker for tallow; she sold a lot in Dale. Elmira did a good deal +of the weeding in your sister's garden, so's to leave Jerome's time +clear. Then once when the doctor's wife had company she went over to +help wash dishes, and she give her three an' sixpence for that. +Elmira said she give it dreadful kind of private, and looked round to +be sure the doctor wa'n't within gunshot. She give her a red merino +dress of hers, too, but she kept her till after nightfall, and +smuggled her out of the back door, with it all done up under her arm, +lest the doctor should see. They say she's got dresses she won't +never put on her back again--silks an' satins an' woollens--because +she's outgrown 'em, an' they're all hangin' up in closets gettin' +mothy, an' the doctor won't let her give 'em away. But this dress she +give Elmira wa'n't give away, for I sent her back next day to do some +extra work to pay for it. I ain't beholden to nobody. Elmira swept +and dusted the settin'-room and the spare chamber, and washed the +breakfast an' dinner dishes, and I guess she paid for that old dress +ample. It had been laid up with camphor in a cedar chest, but it had +some moth holes in it. It wa'n't worth such a great sight, after all. + +"Jerome he's worked smart, if I have had to drive him to it +sometimes. He's wed and dug potatoes everywhere he could git a +chance; he's helped 'bout hayin', an' he's split wood. He's sold some +herbs and roots, too, over to Dale. Jake Noyes he put him up to that. +He come in here one night an' talked to him real sensible. 'There's +money 'nough layin' round loose right under your face an' eyes,' says +he; 'all the trouble is you're apt to walk right past, with your nose +up in the air. The scent for work an' wages ain't up in the air,' +says he; 'it's on the ground.' Jerome he listened real sharp, an' +the next day he went off an' got a good passel of boneset an' +thoroughwort an' hardback, an' carried it over to Dale, an' sold it +for a shilling. + +"Elmira has done some spinnin', too; I can't spin much, but she's +done well enough. Your wife wants some linen pillow-shifts. Elmira +can do the weavin', I guess, an' we can make 'em up together. I've +got a job to make some fine shirts for you, too. Your wife come over +to see about it this week. I dun'no' but she was gettin' kind of +afraid you wouldn't git your interest money no other way; but she +needn't have been exercised about it, if she was. We got this +interest together without your shirts, an' I guess we can the next. +It's been harder work than many folks in this town know anything +about, but we've done it." Ann tossed her head with indescribable +pride and bitterness. There was scorn of fate itself in the toss of +that little head, with its black lace cap and false front, and her +speech also was an harangue, reproachful and defiant, against fate, +not against her earthly creditor; that she would have disdained. + +Squire Eben, however, fully appreciating that, and taking the +pictures of pitiful feminine and childish toil which she brought +before his fancy as a shame to his great stalwart manhood, spending +its strength in hunting and fishing and card-playing, looked at the +woman binding shoes with painful jerks of little knotted hands--for +she ceased not her work one minute for her words--and took the bitter +reproach and triumphant scorn in her tone and gesture for himself +alone. + +He felt ashamed of himself, in his great hunting-boots splashed with +swamp mud, his buckskins marred with woodland thorn and thicket, but +not a mark of honest toil about him. Had he been in fine broadcloth +he would not have felt so humiliated; for the useless labor of play +cuts a sorrier figure in the face of genuine work for the great ends +of life than idleness itself. He would not have been half so +disgraced by nothing at all in hand as by that bag of game; and as +for the money in that old stocking under the feather-bed, it seemed +to him like the fruits of his own dishonesty. + +The impulse was strong upon him, then and there, to declare that he +would take none of that hoard. + +"Now look here, Mrs. Edwards," said he, fairly coloring like a girl +as he spoke, and smiling uneasily, "I don't want that money." + +Ann looked at him with the look of one who is stung, and yet +incredulous. Elmira gave a little gasp of delight. "Oh, mother!" she +cried. + +"Keep still!" ordered her mother. "I dun'no' what you mean," she said +to Squire Merritt. + +The Squire's smile deepened, but he looked frightened; his eyes fell +before hers. "Why, what I say--I don't want this money, this time. I +have all I need. Keep it over till the next half." + +Squire Eben Merritt had a feeling as if something actually tangible, +winged and clawed and beaked, and flaming with eyes, pounced upon +him. He fairly shrank back, so fierce was Ann's burst of indignation; +it produced a sense of actual contact. + +"Keep it till next half?" repeated Ann. "Keep it till next half? What +should we keep it till next half for, I'd like to know? It's your +money, ain't it? We don't want it; we ain't beggars; we don't need +it. I see through you, Squire Eben Merritt; you think I don't, but I +do." + +"I fear I don't know what you mean," the Squire said, helplessly. + +"I see through you," repeated Ann. She had reverted to her first +suspicion that his design was to gain possession of the whole +property by letting the unpaid interest accumulate, but that poor +Squire Eben did not know. He gave up all attempts to understand this +woman's mysterious innuendoes, and took the true masculine method of +departure from an uncomfortable subject at right angles, with no +further ado. + +He opened his game-bag and held up a brace of fat partridges. "Well," +he said, laughing, "I want you to see what luck I've had shooting, +Mrs. Edwards. I've bagged eight of these fellows to-day." + +But Ann could not make a mental revolution so easily. She gave a +half-indifferent, half-scornful squint at the partridges. "I dun'no' +much about shootin'," said she, shortly. Ann had always been, in her +own family, a passionate woman, but among outsiders she had borne +herself with dignified politeness and formal gentility, clothing, as +it were, her intensity of spirit with a company garb. Now, since her +terrible trouble had come upon her, this garb had often slipped +aside, and revealed, with the indecency of affliction, the struggling +naked spirit of the woman to those from whom she had so carefully +hidden it. + +Once Ann would not have believed that she would have so borne herself +towards Squire Merritt. The Squire laid the partridges on the table. +"I am going to leave these for your supper, Mrs. Edwards," he said, +easily; but he quaked a little, for this woman seemed to repel gifts +like blows. + +"Thank ye," said Ann, dryly, "but I guess you'd better take 'em home +to your wife. I've got a good deal cooked up." + +Elmira made a little expressive sound; she could not help it. She +gave one horrified, wondering look at her mother. Not a morsel of +cooked food was there on the bare pantry shelves. By-and-by a little +Indian meal and water would be boiled for supper. There were some +vegetables in the cellar, otherwise no food in the house. Ann lied. + +Squire Eben Merritt then displayed what would have been tact in a +keenly calculating and analytic nature. "Oh, throw them out for the +dogs, if you don't want them, Mrs. Edwards," he returned, gayly. +"I've got more than my wife can use here. We are getting rather tired +of partridges, we have had so many. I stopped at Lawyer Means's on my +way here and left a pair for him." + +A sudden change came over Ann's face. She beamed with a return of her +fine company manners. She even smiled. "Thank ye," said she; "then I +will take them, if you are sure you ain't robbing yourself." + +"Not at all," said the Squire--"not at all, Mrs. Edwards. You'd +better baste them well when you cook them." Then he took his leave, +with many exchanges of courtesies, and went his way, wondering what +had worked this change; for a simple, benevolent soul can seldom +gauge its own wisdom of diplomacy. + +Squire Eben did not dream that his gift to one who was not needy had +enabled him to give to one who was, by establishing a sort of +equality among the recipients, which had overcome her proud scruples. +On the way home he met Jerome, scudding along in the early dusk, +having finished his task early. "Hurry home, boy," he called out, in +that great kind voice which Jerome so loved--"hurry home; you've got +something good for supper!" and he gave the boy, ducking low before +him with the love and gratitude which had overcome largely the fierce +and callous pride in his young heart, a hearty slap on the shoulder +as he went past. + + + + +Chapter XIII + + +There was a good district school in the village, and Jerome, before +his father's disappearance, had attended it all the year round; now +he went only in winter. Jerome rose at four o'clock in the dark +winter mornings, and went to bed at ten, getting six hours' sleep. It +was fortunate that he was a hardy boy, with a wirily pliant frame, +adapting itself, with no lesions, to extremes of temperature and +toil, even to extremes of mental states. In spite of all his +hardships, in spite of scanty food, Jerome thrived; he grew; he began +to fill out better his father's clothes, to which he had succeeded. +The first time Jerome wore his poor father's best coat to school--Ann +had set in the buttons so it folded about him in ludicrous fashion, +bringing the sleeves forward and his arms apparently into the middle +of his chest--one of the big boys and two big girls at his side +laughed at him, the boy with open jeers, the girls with covert +giggles behind their hands. They were standing in front of the +school-house at the top of the long hill when Jerome was ascending it +with Elmira. It was late and cold, and only these three scholars were +outside. The girls, who were pretty and coquettish, had detained this +great boy, who was a man grown. + +Jerome went up the long hill under this fire of covert ridicule. +Elmira, behind him, began to cry, holding up one little shawled arm +like a wing before her face. Jerome never lowered his proud head; his +unwinking black eyes stared straight ahead at the three; his face was +deadly white; his hands twitched at his sides. + +The great boy was 'Lisha Robinson; the girls were the pretty twin +daughters of a farmer living three miles away, who had just brought +them to school on his ox-sled. Their two sweet, rosy faces, full of +pitiless childish merriment for him, and half-unconscious maiden +wiles towards the young man at their side, towards whom they leaned +involuntarily as they tittered, aroused Jerome to a worse frenzy than +'Lisha's face with its coarse leer. + +All three started back a little as he drew near; there was something +in his unwinking eyes which was intimidating. However, 'Lisha had his +courage to manifest before these girls. "Say, Jerome," he +shouted--"say, Jerome, got any room to spare in that coat? 'cause +Abigail Mack is freezin'." + +"Go 'long, 'Lisha," cried Abigail, sputtering with giggles, and +giving the young man a caressing push with her elbow. + +'Lisha, thus encouraged, essayed further wit. "Say, Jerome, s'pose +you can fill out that coat of yours any quicker if I give ye half my +dinner? Here's a half a pie I can spare. Reckon you don't have much +to eat down to your house, 'cept chicken-fodder, and that ain't very +fat'nin'." + +Jerome came up. All at once through the glow of his black eyes +flashed that spiritual lightning, evident when purpose is changed to +action. The girls screamed and fled. 'Lisha swung about in a panic, +but Jerome launched himself upon his averted shoulder. The girls, +glancing back with terrified eyes from the school-house door, seemed +to see the boy lift the grown man from the ground, and the two whirl +a second in the air before they crashed down, and so declared +afterwards. Jerome clung to his opponent like a wild-cat, a small but +terrific body all made up of nerves and muscles and electric fire. He +wound his arms with a violent jerk as of steel around 'Lisha's neck; +he bunted him with a head like a cannon-ball; he twisted little wiry +legs under the hollows of 'Lisha's knees. The two came down together +with a great thud. The teacher and the scholars came rushing to the +door. Elmira wailed and sobbed in the background. The slight boy was +holding great 'Lisha on the ground with a strength that seemed +uncanny. + +'Lisha's nose was bleeding; he breathed hard; his eyes, upturned to +Jerome, had a ghastly roll. "Let me--up, will ye?" he choked, +faintly. + +"Will you ever say anything like that again?" + +"Let me up, will ye?" 'Lisha gave a convulsive gasp that was almost +a sob. + +"Jerome!" called the teacher. She was a young woman from another +village, mildly and assentingly good, virtue having, like the moon, +only its simply illuminated side turned towards her vision. Weakly +blue-eyed and spectacled, hooked up primly in chaste drab woollen and +capped with white muslin, though scarcely thirty, she stood among her +flock and eyed the fierce combatants with an utter lack of command of +the situation. She was a country minister's daughter, and had never +taught until her father's death. This was her first school, and to +its turbulent elements she brought only the precisely limited lore of +a young woman's seminary of that day, and the experiences of early +piety. + +Looking at the struggling boys, she thought vaguely of that hymn of +Isaac Watts's which treats of barking and biting dogs and the +desirability of amity and concord between children, as if it could in +some way be applied to heal the breach. She called again fruitlessly +in her thin treble, which had been raised in public only in +neighborhood prayer-meetings: "Jerome! Jerome Edwards!" + +"Will you say it again?" demanded Jerome of his prostrate adversary, +with a sharp prod of a knee. + +After a moment of astonished staring there was a burst of mirth among +the pupils, especially the older boys. 'Lisha was not a special +favorite among them--he was too good-looking, had too much money to +spend, and was too much favored by the girls. In spite of the +teacher's half-pleading commands, they made a rush and formed a ring +around the fighters. + +"Go it, J'rome!" they shouted. "Give it to him! You're a fighter, you +be. Look at J'rome Edwards lickin' a feller twice his size. Hi! Go +it, J'rome!" + +"Boys!" called the teacher. "Boys!" + +Some of the smaller girls began to cry and clung to her skirts; the +elder girls watched with dilated eyes, or laughed with rustic +hardihood for such sights. Elmira still waited on the outskirts. +Jerome paid no attention to the teacher or the shouting boys. "Will +you say it again?" he kept demanding of 'Lisha, until finally he got +a sulky response. + +"No, I won't. Now lemme up, will ye?" + +"Say you're sorry." + +"I'm sorry. Lemme up!" + +Jerome, without appearing to move, collected himself for a spring. +Suddenly he was off 'Lisha and far to one side, with one complete +bound of his whole body, like a cat. + +'Lisha got up stiffly, muttering under his breath, and went round to +the well to wash off the blood. He did not attempt to renew the +combat, as the other boys had hoped he might. He preferred to undergo +the ignominy of being worsted in fight by a little boy rather than +take the risk of being pounced upon again with such preternatural +fury. When he entered school, having washed his face, he was quite +pale, and walked with shaking knees. Rather physical than moral +courage had 'Lisha Robinson, and it was his moral courage, after all, +which had been tested, as it is in all such unequal combats. + +As for Jerome, he had to stand in the middle of the floor, a +spectacle unto the school, folded in his father's coat, which had, +alas! two buttons torn off, and a three-cornered rag hanging from one +tail, which fluttered comically in the draught from the door; but +nobody dared laugh. There was infinite respect, if not approbation, +for Jerome in the school that day. Some of the big boys scowled, and +one girl said out loud, "It's a shame!" when the teacher ordered him +to stand in the floor. Had he rebelled, the teacher would have had no +support, but Jerome took his place in the spot indicated, with a +grave and scornful patience. The greatness of his triumph made him +magnanimous. It was clearly evident to his mind that 'Lisha Robinson +and not he should stand in the floor, and that he gained a glory of +martyrdom in addition to the other. + +Jerome had never felt so proud in his life as when he stood there, in +his father's old coat, having established his right to wear it +without remark by beating the biggest boy in school. He stood erect, +equally poised on his two feet, looking straight ahead with a grave, +unsmiling air. He looked especially at no one, except once at his +sister Elmira. She had just raised her head from the curve of her +arm, in which she had been weeping, and her tear-stained eyes met her +brother's. He looked steadily at her, frowning significantly. Elmira +knew what it meant. She began to study her geography, and did not cry +again. + +At recess the teacher went up to Jerome, and spoke to him almost +timidly. "I am very sorry about this, Jerome," she said. "I am sorry +you fought, and sorry I had to punish you in this way." + +Jerome looked at her. "She's a good deal like mother," he thought. +"You had to punish somebody," said he, "an'--_I'd_ licked _him_." + +The teacher started; this reasoning confused her a little, the more +so that she had an uneasy conviction that she had punished the lesser +offender. She looked at the proud little figure in the torn coat, and +her mild heart went out to him. She glanced round; there were not +many scholars in the room. Elmira sat in her place, busy with her +slate; a few of the older ones were in a knot near the window at the +back of the room. The teacher slipped her hand into her pocket and +drew out a lemon-drop, which she thrust softly into Jerome's hand. +"Here," said she. + +Jerome, who treated usually a giver like a thief, took the +lemon-drop, thanked her, and stood sucking it the rest of the recess. +It was his first gallantry towards womankind. + +This teacher remained in the school only a half-term. Some said that +she left because she was not strong enough to teach such a large +school. Some said because she had not enough government. This had +always been considered a man's school during the winter months, but a +departure had been made in this case because the female teacher was +needy and a minister's daughter. + +The place was filled by a man who never tempered injustice with +lemon-drops, and ruled generally with fair and equal measure. He was +better for the school, and Jerome liked him; but he felt sad, though +he kept it to himself, when the woman teacher went away. She gave him +for a parting gift a little volume, a treasure of her own childhood, +purporting to be the true tale of an ungodly youth who robbed an +orchard on the Sabbath day, thereby combining two deadly sins, and +was drowned in crossing a brook on his way home. The weight of his +bag of stolen fruit prevented him from rising, but he would not let +go, and thereby added to his other crimes that of greediness. There +was a frontispiece representing this froward hero, in a tall hat and +little frilled trousers, with a bag the size of a slack balloon +dragging on the ground behind him, proceeding towards the neighbor's +apple-tree, which bore fruit as large as the thief's head upon its +unbending boughs. + +"There's a pretty picture in it," the teacher said, when she +presented the book; she had kept Jerome after school for that +purpose. "I used to like to look at it when I was a little girl." +Then she added that she had crossed out the inscription, "Martha +Maria Whittaker, from her father, Rev. Enos Whittaker," on the +fly-leaf, and written underneath, "Jerome Edwards, from his teacher, +Martha Maria Whittaker," and displayed her little delicate scratch. + +Then the teacher had hesitated a little, and colored faintly, and +looked at the boy. He seemed to this woman--meekly resigned to +old-age and maidenhood at thirty--a mere child, and like the son +which another woman might have had, but the missing of whom was a +shame to her to contemplate. Then she had said good-bye to him, and +bade him be always a good boy, and had leaned over and kissed him. It +was the kiss of a mother spiritualized by the innocent mystery and +imagination of virginity. + +Jerome kept the little book always, and he never forgot the kiss nor +the teacher, who returned to her native village and taught the school +there during the summer months, and starved on the proceeds during +the winter, until she died, some ten years later, being of a delicate +habit, and finding no place of comfort in the world. + +Jerome walked ten miles and back to her funeral one freezing day. + + + + +Chapter XIV + + +Jerome's mother never knew about the rent in his father's best coat, +nor the fight. To do the boy justice, he kept it from her, neither +because of cowardice nor deceit, but because of magnanimity. "It will +just work her all up if she knew 'Lisha Robinson made fun of father's +best coat, and it's tore," Jerome told Elmira, who nodded in entire +assent. + +Elmira sat up in her cold chamber until long after midnight, and +darned the rent painfully by the light of a tallow candle. Then it +was a comparatively simple matter, when one had to deal with a woman +confined to a rocking-chair, to never give her a full view of the +mended coat-tail. Jerome cultivated a habit of backing out of the +room, as from an audience with a queen. The sting from his wounded +pride having been salved with victory, he was unduly important in his +own estimation, until an unforeseen result came from the affair. + +There are many surprising complications from war, even war between +two school-boys. One night, after school, Jerome went to Cyrus +Robinson's for a lot of shoes which had been promised him two days +before, and was told there were none to spare. Cyrus Robinson leaned +over the counter and glanced around cautiously. It was not a busy +time of day. Two old farmers were standing by the stove, talking to +each other in a drone of extreme dialect, almost as unintelligible, +except to one who understood its subject-matter, as the notes of +their own cattle. The clerk, Samson Loud, was at the other end of the +store, cleaning a molasses-barrel from its accumulated sugar. +"Look-a-here," said Cyrus Robinson, beckoning Jerome with a hard +crook of a seamed forefinger. The boy stood close to the counter, and +uplifted to him his small, undaunted, yet piteously wistful face. + +"Look-a-here," said Cyrus Robinson, in a whisper of furtive malice, +leaning nearer, the point of his shelving beard almost touching +Jerome's forehead; "I've got something to say to you. I 'ain't got +any shoes to spare to-night; an', what's more, I ain't going to have +any to spare in future. Boys that fight 'ain't got time enough to +close shoes." + +Jerome looked at him a moment, as if scarcely comprehending; then a +sudden quiver as of light came over him, and Cyrus Robinson shrank +back before his eyes as if his counter were a bulwark. + +"I s'pose if your big boy had licked me 'cause he made fun of my +father's coat, instead of me lickin' him, you'd have given me some +more shoes!" cried the boy, with the dauntlessness of utter scorn, +and turned and walked out of the store. + +"You'd better take care, young man!" called Cyrus Robinson, in open +rage, for the boy's clear note of wrath had been heard over the whole +store. The two old farmers looked up in dull astonishment as the door +slammed after Jerome, stared questioningly at the storekeeper and +each other, then the thick stream of their ideas returned to its +course of their own affairs, and their husky gabble recommenced. + +Samson Laud raised his head, covered with close curls of light red +hair, and his rasped red face out of the molasses-barrel, gave one +quick glance full of acutest sarcasm of humor at Cyrus Robinson, then +disappeared again into sugary depths, and resumed his scraping. + +Jerome, on his homeward road, did not feel his spirit of defiance +abate. "Wonder how we're going to pay that interest money now? Wonder +how mother 'll take it?" he said; yet he would have fought 'Lisha +Robinson over again, knowing the same result. He had not yet grown +servile to his daily needs. + +However, speeding along through the clear night, treading the snow +flashing back the full moonlight in his eyes like a silver mirror, he +dreaded more and more the meeting his mother and telling her the +news. He slackened his pace. Now and then he stood still and looked +up at the sky, where the great white moon rode through the hosts of +the stars. Without analyzing his thoughts, the boy felt the utter +irresponsiveness of all glory and all heights. Mocking shafts of +moonlight and starlight and frostlight seemed glancing off this one +little soul in the freezing solitude of creation, wherein each is +largely to himself alone. What was it to the moon and all those +shining swarms of stars, and that far star-dust in the Milky Way, +whether he, Jerome Edwards, had shoes to close or not? Whether he and +his mother starved or not, they would shine just the same. The +triviality--even ludicrousness--of the sorrow of man, as compared +with eternal things, was over the boy. He was maddened at the sting +and despite of his own littleness in the face of that greatness. +Suddenly a wild impulse of rebellion that was almost blasphemy seized +him. He clinched a puny fist at a great star. "Wish I could make you +stop shinin'," he cried out, in a loud, fierce voice; "wish I could +do somethin'!" + +Suddenly Jerome was hemmed in by a cloud of witnesses. Eliphalet +Means, John Jennings, and Colonel Lamson had overtaken him as he +stood star-gazing. They were on their way to punch and cards at +Squire Merritt's. Jerome felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up +into John Jennings's long, melancholy countenance, instead of the +shining face of the star. He saw the eyes of the others surveying +him, half in astonishment, half in amusement, over the folds of their +camlet cloaks. + +"Want to make the star stop shining?" queried John Jennings, in his +sweet drawl. + +Jerome made no reply. His shoulder twitched under Mr. Jennings's +hand. He meditated pushing between these interlopers and running for +home. The New England constraint, to which he had been born, was to +him as a shell of defence and decency, and these men had had a +glimpse of him outside it. He was horribly ashamed. "S'pose they +think I'm crazy," he reflected. + +"Want to stop the star shining?" repeated John Jennings. "Well, you +can." + +Jerome, in astonishment, forgot his shame, and looked up into the +man's beautiful, cavernous eyes. + +"I'll tell you how. Don't look at it. I've stopped nearly all the +stars I've ever seen that way." John Jennings's voice seemed to melt +into infinite sadness and sweetness, like a song. The other men +chuckled but feebly, as if scarcely knowing whether it were a jest or +not. John Jennings took his hand from Jerome's shoulder, tossed the +wing of his cloak higher over his face, and went on with his friends. +However, when fairly on his way, he turned and called back, with a +soft laugh, "I would let the star shine, though, if I were you, boy." + +"Who was the boy?" Colonel Lamson asked the lawyer, as the three men +proceeded. + +"The Edwards boy." + +"Well," said John Jennings, "'tis an unlucky devil he is, call him +what you will, for he's born to feel the hammer of Thor on his soul +as well as his flesh, and it is double pain for all such." + +Jerome stood staring after John Jennings and his friends a moment; he +had not the least conception what it all meant; then he proceeded at +a good pace, arguing that the sooner he got home and told his mother +and had it over, the better. + +But he had not gone far before he saw some one else coming, a +strange, nondescript figure, with outlines paled and blurred in the +moonlight, looking as if it bore its own gigantic and heavy head +before it in outstretched arms. Soon he saw it was his uncle Ozias +Lamb, laden with bundles of shoes about his shoulders, bending +forward under their weight. + +Ozias halted when he reached Jerome. "Hullo!" said he; "that you?" + +"Yes, sir," Jerome replied, deferentially. He had respect for his +uncle Ozias. + +"Where you goin'?" + +"Home." + +"'Ain't you been to Robinson's for shoes?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Where be they, then?" + +Jerome told him. + +"I ain't surprised. I knew what 'twould be when I heard you'd fit +'Lisha," said Ozias. "You hit my calf, you hit me. It's natur'." +Ozias gave a cynical chuckle; he shifted his load of shoes to ease +his right shoulder. "'Lisha's big as two of you," he said. "How'd ye +work it to fling him? Twist your leg under his, eh?" + +Jerome nodded. + +"That's a good trick. I larnt that when I was a boy. Well, I ain't +surprised Robinson has shet down on the shoes. What ye goin' to do?" + +"Dun'no'," replied Jerome; then he gave a weak, childish gesture, and +caught his breath in a sob. He was scarcely more than a child, after +all, and his uncle Ozias was the only remaining natural tower to his +helplessness. + +"O Lord, don't ye go to whimperin', big man like you!" responded +Ozias Lamb, quickly. "Look at here--" Ozias paused a moment, +pondering. Jerome waited, trying to keep the sobs back. + +"Tell you what 'tis," said Ozias. "It's one of the cases where the +sarpents and the doves come in. We've got to do a little manoeuvrin'. +Don't you fret, J'rome, an' don't you go to frettin' of your mother. +I'll take an extra lot of shoes from Cy Robinson; he can think +Belinda's goin' to bind--she never has--or he can think what he wants +to; I ain't goin' to regulate his thinkin'; an' you come to me for +shoes in future. Only you keep dark about it. Don't you let on to +nobody, except your mother, an' she needn't know the whys an' +wherefores. I've let out shoes before now. I'll pay a leetle more +than Robinson. Tell her your uncle Ozias has taken all the shoes +Robinson has got, and you're to come to him for 'em, an' to keep dark +about it, an' let her think what she's a mind to. Women folks can't +know everything." + +"Yes, sir," said Jerome. + +"You can come fer the shoes and bring 'em home after dark, so's +nobody will see you," said Ozias Lamb, further. + +So it befell that Jerome went for the work that brought him daily +bread, like a thief, by night, oftentimes slipping his package of +shoes under the wayside bushes at the sound of approaching footsteps. +He was deceitfully reticent also with his mother, whom he let follow +her own conclusion, that Cyrus Robinson had been dissatisfied with +their work. "Guess he won't see as much difference with this work as +he think he does," she would often say, with a bitter laugh. Jerome +was silent, but the inborn straightforwardness of the boy made him +secretly rebellious at such a course. + +"It's lyin', anyhow," he said, sulkily, once, when he loaded the +shoes on his shoulder, like a mason's hod, and was starting forth +from his uncle's shop. + +Ozias Lamb laughed the laugh of one who perverts humor, and makes a +jest of the bitter instead of the merry things of life. + +"It's got so that lies are the only salvation of the righteous," said +Ozias Lamb, with that hard laugh of his. Then, with the pitilessness +of any dissenting spirit of reform, who will pour out truths, whether +of good or evil, to the benefit or injury of mankind, who will force +strong meat as well as milk on babies and sucklings, he kept on, +while the boy stood staring, shrinking a little, yet with young eyes +kindling, from the bitter frenzy of the other. + +"It's so," said Ozias Lamb. "You'll find it out for yourself, in +the hard run you've got to hoe, without any help, but it's just +as well for you to know it beforehand. You won't get bit so +hard--forewarned's forearmed. Snakes have their poison-bags, an' bees +have their stings; there ain't an animal that don't have horns or +claws or teeth to use if they get in a hard place. Them that don't +have weapons have wings, like birds. If they can't fight, they can +fly away from the battle. But human beings that are good, and meek, +and poor, and hard pushed, they hain't got any claws or any wings; +though if they had 'twouldn't be right to use 'em to fight or get +away, so the parsons say. They 'ain't got any natural weapons. +Providence 'ain't looked out for them. All they can do, as far as I +can see, is to steal some of the devil's own weapons to fight him +with." + +It was well that Jerome could not understand the half of his uncle's +harangue, and got, indeed, only a general impression of the unjust +helplessness of a meek and righteous man in the hands of adverse +fate, compared with horned and clawed animals, and Ozias's system of +defence did not commend itself to his understanding. He did not for a +moment imagine that his uncle advised him to lie and steal to better +his fortunes, and, indeed, nothing was further from the case. Ozias +Lamb's own precepts never went into practice. He was scrupulously +honest, and his word was as good as a bond. However, although Ozias +had never told a lie in his life, he had perpetrated many subtleties +of the truth. He was wily and secretive. "A man ain't a liar because +he don't tell all he knows," he said. + +When asking for more shoes from Cyrus Robinson, he had said nothing +about his wife's working upon them, but he knew that was the +inference, and he did not contradict it. He forbade Belinda to +mention the matter in one way or another. "The sarpent has got to +feed the widows an' the orphans," he said, "an' that's a good reason +for bein' a sarpent." + +As Ann and Elmira did most of their work on the shoes during the day, +Jerome fell into the habit of doing his part, the closing, in his +uncle's shop at night. Every evening he would load himself with the +sheaf of bound shoes and hasten down the road. He liked to work in +company with a man, rather than with his mother and Elmira; it gave +him a sense of independence and maturity. He did not mind so much +delving away on those hard leather seams while his mates were out +coasting and skating, for he had the sensation of responsibility--of +being the head of a family. Here he felt like a man supporting his +mother and sister; at home he was only a boy, held to his task under +the thumb of a woman. + +Then, too, his uncle Ozias's conversation was a kind of pungent +stimulant--not pleasant to the taste, not even recognizable in all +its savors, yet with a growing power of fascination. + +Ozias Lamb's shoemaker's shop was simply a little one-room building +in the centre of the field south of his cottage house. He had in it a +tiny box-stove, red-hot from fall to spring. When Jerome, coming on a +cold night, opened the door, a hot breath scented with dried leather +rushed in his face. Within sat his uncle on his shoemaker's bench, +short and squat like an Eastern idol on his throne. His body was +settled into itself with long habit of labor, his mind with +contemplation. His high, bald forehead overshadowed his lower face +like a promontory of thought; his eyes, even when he was alone, were +full of a wise, condemning observation; his mouth was inclined always +in a set smile at the bitter humor of things. The face of this +elderly New England shoemaker looked not unlike some Asiatic +conception of a deity. + +Jerome always closed the door immediately when he entered, for Ozias +dreaded a draught, having an inclination to rheumatism, and being +also chilly, like most who sit at their labor. Then he would seat +himself on a stool, and close shoes, and listen when his uncle +talked, as he did constantly when once warmed to it. The little room +was lighted by a whale-oil lamp on the wall. On some nights the full +moonlight streamed in the three windows athwart the lamp-light. The +room got hotter and closer. Ozias now and then, as he talked, +motioned Jerome, who put another stick of wood in the stove. The +whole atmosphere, spiritual and physical, seemed to grow combustible, +and as if at any moment a word or a thought might cause a leap into +flame. A spirit of anarchy and revolution was caged in that little +close room, bound to a shoemaker's bench by the chain of labor for +bread. The spirit was harmless enough, for its cage and its chain +were not to be escaped or forced, strengthened as they were by the +usage of a whole life. Ozias Lamb would deliver himself of riotous +sentiments, but on that bench he would sit and peg shoes till his +dying day. He would have pegged there through a revolution. + +Jerome's eyes would gleam with responsive fire when his uncle, his +splendid forehead flushing and swelling with turbid veins, said, in +that dry voice of his, which seemed to gain in force without being +raised into clamor: "What right has one man with the whole purse, +while another has not a penny in his pocket? What right has one with +the whole loaf, while another has a crumb? What right has one man +with half the land in the village, while another can hardly make +shift to earn his grave?" + +Ozias would pause a second, then launch out with new ardor, as if +Jerome had advanced an opposite argument. "Born with property, are +they--inherited property? One man comes into the world with the gold +all earned, or stolen--don't matter which--waiting for him. Shoes all +made for him, no peggin' for other folks; carpets to walk on, sofas +to lay on, china dishes to eat off of. Everything is all complete; +don't make no odds if he's a fool, don't make no odds if he 'ain't no +more sense of duty to his fellow-beings than a pig, it's all just as +it should be. Everybody is cringin' an' bowin' an' offerin' a little +more to the one that's got more than anybody else. It's 'Take a seat +here, sir--do; this is more comfortable,' when he's set on feather +cushions all day. There'll be a poor man standin' alongside that +'ain't had a chance to set down since he got out of bed before +daylight, every bone in him achin'--stiff. There ain't no extra +comfortable chairs pointed out to him. Lord, no! If there happens to +be the soft side of a rock or a plank handy, he's welcome to take it; +if there ain't, why let him keep his standin'; he's used to it. I +tell ye, it's them that need to whom it should be given, and not them +that's got it already. I tell ye, the need should always regulate the +supply. + +"I tell ye, J'rome, balance-wheels an' seesaws an' pendulums wa'n't +give us for nothin' besides runnin' machinery and clocks. Everything +on this earth means somethin' more'n itself, if we could only see it. +They're symbols, that's what they be, an' we've got to work up from a +symbol that we see to the higher thing that we don't see. Most folks +think it's the other way, but it ain't. + +"Now, J'rome, you look at that old clock there; it was one that +b'longed to old Peter Thomas. I bought it when he broke up an' went +to the poorhouse. Doctor Prescott he foreclosed on him 'bout ten +years ago--you don't remember. He had his old house torn down, an' +sowed the land down to grass. I s'pose I paid more'n the clock was +worth, but I guess it kept the old man in snuff an' terbaccer a +while. Now you look at that clock; watch that pendulum swingin'. Now +s'pose we say the left is poverty--the left is the place for the +goats an' the poor folks that poverty has made goats; an' the right +is riches. See it swing, do ye? It don't no more'n touch poverty +before it's rich; it don't get time to starve an' suffer. It don't no +more'n touch riches before it's poor; it don't have time to forget, +an' git proud an' hard. I tell ye, J'rome, it ain't even division +we're aimin' at; we can't keep that if we get it till we're dead; +it's--balance. We want to keep the time of eternity, jest the way +that clock keeps the time of day." + +Jerome looked at the clock and the pendulum swinging dimly behind a +painted landscape on the glass door, and never after saw one without +his uncle's imagery recurring to his mind. Always for him the +pendulum swung into the midst of a cowering throng of beggars on the +left, and into a band of purple-clad revellers on the right. Somehow, +too, Doctor Seth Prescott's face always stood out for him plainly +among them in purple. + +Always, sooner or later, Ozias Lamb would seize Doctor Prescott and +Simon Basset as living illustrations and pointed examples of the +social wrongs. "Look at them two men," he would say, "to come down to +this town; look at them. You've heard about cuttle-fishes, J'rome, +'ain't ye?" + +Jerome shook his head, as he drew his waxed thread through. + +"Well, I'll tell ye what they be. They're an awful kind of fish. I +never see one, but Belinda's brother that was a sailor, I've heard +him tell enough to make your blood run cold. They're all head an' +eyes an' arms. Their eyes are big as saucers, an' they're made just +to see things the cuttle-fishes want to kill; an' they've got a +hundred arms, with suckin' claws on the ends, an' they jest search +an' seek, search an' seek, with them dreadful eyes that ain't got no +life but hate an' appetite, an' they stretch out an' feel, stretch +out an' feel, with them hundred arms, till they git what they want, +an' then they lay hold with all the suckers on them hundred arms, an' +clutch an' wind, an' twist an' overlay, till, whether it's a drownin' +sailor or a ship, you can't see nothin' but cuttle-fish, an'--" + +Jerome stopped working, staring at him. He was quite pale. His +imagination leaped to a glimpse of that frightful fish. "An'--what +comes--then?" he gasped. + +"The cuttle-fish--has got a beak," said Ozias. "By-an'-by there ain't +nothin' but cuttle-fish." + +Jerome saw quite plainly the monster writhing and coiling over a +waste of water, and nothing else. + +"Look at this town, an' look at Doctor Prescott, an' look at Simon +Basset," Ozias went on, coming abruptly from illustration to object, +with a vigor of personal spite. "Look at 'em. You can't see much of +anything here but them two men. Much as ever you can see the +meetin'-house steeple. There are a few left, so you can see who they +be, like Squire Merritt an' Lawyer Means; but, Lord, they'd better +not get too careless huntin' and fishin' and card-playin', or they'll +git hauled in, partridges, cards, an' all. But I'll tell you what +'tis--about all that anybody can see in this town is the eyes an' the +arms of them two men, a-suckin' and graspin'. + +"Doctor Prescott, he's a church member, too, an' he gives tithes of +his widders an' orphans to the Lord. That meetin'-house couldn't be +run nohow without him. If they didn't have him to speak in the +prayer-meetin's, an' give the Lord some information about the +spiritooal state of this town on foreign missions, an' encourage Him +by admittin' He'd done pretty well, as far as He's gone, why, we +couldn't have no prayer-meetin's at all." + +Most of us have our personal grievances, as a vantage-point for +eloquence in behalf of the mass. Simon Basset had deprived Ozias +Lamb, by shrewd management, of the old Lamb homestead; Doctor +Prescott had been instrumental in hushing his voice in prayer and +exhortation in prayer-meeting. + +The village people were not slow to recognize a certain natural +eloquence in Ozias Lamb's remarks; oftentimes they appealed to their +own secret convictions; yet they always trembled when he arose and +looked about with that strange smile of his. Ozias said once they +were half scared on account of the Lord, and half on account of +Doctor Prescott. Ozias was often clearly unorthodox in his +premises--no one could conscientiously demur when Doctor Prescott, a +church meeting having been called, presented for approval, the +minister being acquiescent, a resolution that Brother Lamb be +requested to remain quiet in the sanctuary, and not lift up his voice +unto the Lord in public unless he could do so in accordance with the +tenets of the faith, and to the spiritual edification of his +fellow-Christians. The resolution was passed, and Ozias Lamb never +entered the door of the meeting-house again, though his name was not +withdrawn from the church books. + +Therefore the cuttle-fish was a sort of Circean revenge upon Doctor +Prescott and Simon Basset for his own private wrongs. It takes a god +to champion wrongs which have not touched him in his farthest +imaginings. + + + + +Chapter XV + + +Jerome Edwards, young as he was, had within him the noblest instinct +of a reformer--that of deducting from all evils a first lesson for +himself. He said to himself: "It is true, what Uncle Ozias says. It +is wrong, the way things are. The rich have everything--all the land, +all the good food, all the money; the poor have nothing. It is +wrong." Then he said, "If ever I am rich I will give to the poor." +This pride of good intentions, in comparison with others' deeds, gave +the boy a certain sense of superiority. Sometimes he felt as if he +could see the top of Doctor Prescott's head when he met him on the +street. + +Poor Jerome had few of the natural joys and amusements of boyhood; he +was obliged to resort to his fertile and ardent imagination, or the +fibre of his spirit would have been relaxed with the melancholy of +age. While the other boys played in the present, whooping and +frisking, as free of thought as young animals, Jerome worked and +played in the future. Some air-castles he built so often that he +seemed to fairly dwell in them; some dreams he dreamed so often that +he went about always with them in his eyes. One fancy which specially +commended itself to him was the one that he was rich, that he owned +half the town, that in some manner Doctor Prescott's and Simon +Basset's acres had passed into his possession, and he could give them +away. He established all the town paupers in the doctor's clover. He +recalled old Peter Thomas from the poorhouse, and set him at Doctor +Prescott's front window in a broadcloth coat. An imbecile pauper by +the name of Mindy Toggs he established in undisturbed possession of +Simon Basset's house and lands. + +Doctor Seth Prescott little dreamed when he met this small, shabby +lad, and passed him as he might have passed some way-side weed, what +was in his mind. If people, when they meet, could know half the +workings of one another's minds, the recoils from the shocks might +overbalance creation. But Doctor Prescott never saw the phantom +paupers slouching through his clover-fields, and Simon Basset never +jostled Mindy Toggs on his threshold. However, Mindy Toggs had once +lived in Simon Basset's house. + +As Jerome advanced through boyhood it seemed as if everything +combined to strengthen, by outside example, the fancies and beliefs +derived from Ozias Lamb's precepts and his own constantly hard and +toilsome life. Jerome, on his very way to the district school, +learned tasks of bitter realism more impressive to his peculiar order +of mind than the tables and columns in the text-books. + +There was a short cut across the fields between the school-house and +the Edwards house. Jerome and Elmira usually took it, unless the snow +was deep, as by doing so they lessened the distance considerably. + +The Edwards house was situated upon a road crossing the main highway +of the village where the school-house stood. In the triangle of +fields between the path which the Edwards children followed on their +way to school and the two roads was the poorhouse. It was a low, +stone-basemented structure, with tiny windows, a few of them barred +with iron, retreating ignominiously within thick walls; the very +grovelling of mendicancy seemed symbolized in its architecture by +some unpremeditatedness of art. It stood in a hollow, amid slopes of +stony plough ridges, over which the old male paupers swarmed +painfully with spades and shovels when spring advanced. When spring +came, too, old pauper women and wretched, half-witted girls and +children squatted like toads in the green fields outside the ploughed +ones, digging greens in company with grazing cows, and looked up with +unexpected flashes of human life when footsteps drew near. There was +a thrifty Overseer in the poorhouse, and the village paupers, unless +they were actually crippled and past labor, found small repose in the +bosom of the town. They grubbed as hard for their lodging and daily +bread of charity, with its bitterest of sauces, as if they worked for +hire. + +Old Peter Thomas, for one, had never toiled harder to keep the roof +of independence over his head than he toiled tilling the town fields. +Old Peter, even in his age and indigence, had an active mind. Only +one panacea was there for its workings, and that was tobacco. When +the old man had--which was seldom--a comfortable quid with which to +busy his jaws, his mind was at rest; otherwise it gnawed constantly +one bitter cud of questioning, which never reached digestion. "Why," +asked old Peter Thomas, toiling tobaccoless in the town fields--"why +couldn't the town have give me work, an' paid me what I airned, an' +let me keep my house, instead of sendin' of me here?" + +Sometimes he propounded the question, his sharp old eyes twinkling +out of a pitiful gloom of bewilderment, to the Overseer: "Say, Mr. +Simms, what ye s'pose the object of it is? Here I be, workin' jest as +hard for what's give as for what I used to airn." But he never got +any satisfaction, and his mind never relaxed to ease, until in some +way he got a bit of tobacco. Old Peter Thomas, none of whose +forebears had ever been on the town, who had had in his youth one of +the prettiest and sweetest girls in the village to wife, toiling hard +with his stiff old muscles for no gain of independence, his mind +burdened with his unanswered question, would almost at times have +sold his soul for tobacco. Nearly all he had was given him by Ozias +Lamb, who sometimes crammed a wedge of tobacco into his hand, with a +hard and furtive thrust and surly glance aloof, when he jostled him +on the road or at the village store. Old Peter used to loaf about the +store, whenever he could steal away from the poorhouse, on the chance +of Ozias and tobacco. Ozias was dearly fond of tobacco himself, but +little enough he got, with this hungry old pensioner lying in wait. +He always yielded up his little newly bought morsel of luxury to +Peter, and went home to his shoes without it; however, nobody knew. +"Don't ye speak on't," he charged Peter, and he eschewed fiercely to +himself all kindly motives in his giving, considering rather that he +was himself robbed by the great wrong of the existing order of +things. + +Jerome, who had seen his uncle cram tobacco into old Peter's hand, +used sometimes to leave the path on his way to school, when he saw +the delving old figure in the ploughed field, and discovered, even at +a distance, that his jaws were still and his brow knotted, run up to +him, and proffer as a substitute for the beloved weed a generous +piece of spruce-gum. The old man always took it, and spat it out when +the boy's back was turned. + +Jerome used to be fond of storing up checker-berries and sassafras +root, and doling them out to a strange small creature with wild, +askant eyes and vaguely smiling mouth, with white locks blowing as +straightly and coarsely as dry swamp grass, who was wont to sit, +huddling sharp little elbows and knees together, even in severe +weather, on a stone by the path. She had come into the world and the +poorhouse by the shunned byway of creation. She had no name. The +younger school-children said, gravely, and believed it, that she had +never had a father; as for her mother, she was only a barely admitted +and shameful necessity, who had come from unknown depths, and died of +a decline, at the town's expense, before the child could walk. She +had nothing save this disgraceful shadow of maternity, her feeble +little body, and her little soul, and a certain half-scared delight +in watching for Jerome and his doles of berries and sassafras. One of +Jerome's dearest dreams was the buying this child a doll like Lucina +Merritt's, with a muslin frock and gay sash and morocco shoes. So +much he thought about it that it fairly seemed to him sometimes, as +he drew near the little thing, that she nursed the doll in her arms. +He wanted to tell her what a beautiful doll she was to have when he +was rich, but he was too awkward and embarrassed before his own kind +impulses. He only bade her, in a rough voice, to hold her hands, and +then dropped into the little pink cup so formed his small votive +offering to childhood and poverty, and was off. + +Occasionally Elmira had cookies given her by kind women for whom she +did extra work, and then she saved one for the little creature, +emulating her brother's example. There was one point on the way to +school where Elmira liked to have her brother with her, and used +often to wait for him at the risk of being late. Even when she was +one of the oldest girls in school, almost a young woman, she scurried +fast by this point when alone, and even when Jerome was with her did +not linger. As for Jerome, he had no fear; but during his winters at +the district school the peculiar bent of his mind was strengthened by +the influence of this place. + +The poorhouse in the hollow had its barn and out-buildings attached +at right angles, with a cart-path leading thereto from the street; +but at the top of the slope, on the other side of the schoolward +path, stood a large, half-ruinous old barn, used only for storing +surplus hay. The door of this great, gray, swaying structure usually +stood open, and in it, on an old wreck of a wheelbarrow, sat Mindy +Toggs, in fair or foul weather. + +Mindy Toggs's head, with its thick thatch of light hair reaching to +his shoulders, had the pent effect of some monstrous mushroom cap +over his meagre body, with its loosely hung limbs, which moved +constantly with uncouth sprawls and flings, as if by some terrible +machinery of diseased nerves. Poor Mindy Toggs's great thatched head +also nodded and lopped unceasingly, and his slobbering chin dipped +into his calico shirt-bosom, and he said over and over, in his +strange voice like a parrot's, the only two words he was ever known +to speak, "Simon Basset, Simon Basset." + +Mindy Toggs was sixty years old, it was said. His past was as dim as +his intellect. Nobody seemed to know exactly when Mindy Toggs was +born, or just when he had come to the poorhouse. Nobody knew who +either of his parents had been. Nobody knew how he got his name, but +there was a belief that it had a folk-lore-like origin; that +generations of Overseers ago an enterprising wife of one had striven +to set his feeble wits to account in minding the pauper babies, and +gradually, through transmission by weak and childish minds, his task +had become his name. Toggs was held to be merely a reminiscence of +some particularly ludicrous stage of his poorhouse costume. + +Mindy Toggs had dwelt in the poorhouse ever since people could +remember, with the exception of one year, when he was boarded out by +the town with Simon Basset, and learned to speak his two words. Simon +Basset had always had an opinion that work could be gotten out of +Mindy Toggs. Nobody ever knew by what means he set himself to prove +it; there had been dark stories; but one day Simon brought Mindy back +to the poorhouse, declaring with a strange emphasis that he never +wanted to set eyes on the blasted fool again, and Mindy had learned +his two words. + +It was said that the sight of Simon Basset roused the idiot to +terrific paroxysms of rage and fear, and that Basset never +encountered him if he could help it. However, poor Mindy was harmless +enough to ordinary folk, sitting day after day in the barn door, +looking out through the dusty shafts of sunlight, through spraying +mists of rain, and often through the white weave of snow, repeating +his two words, which had been dinned into his feeble brain, the Lord +only knew by what cruelty and terror--"Simon Basset, Simon Basset." + +Mindy Toggs was a terrifying object to nervous little Elmira Edwards, +but Jerome used often to bid her run along, and stop himself and look +at him soberly, with nothing of curiosity, but with indignant and +sorrowful reflection. At these times poor Mindy, if he had only known +it, drove his old master, who had illumined his darkness of mind with +one cruel flash of fear, out of house and home, and sat in his stead +by his fireside in warmth and comfort. + +Jerome left school finally when he was seventeen; up to that time he +attended all the winter sessions. During the winter, when Jerome was +seventeen, a man came to the neighboring town of Dale, bought out the +old shoe-factory and store there, and set up business on a more +extensive scale, sending out work in large quantities. Many of the +older boys left school on that account, Jerome among them; he had +special inducements to do so, through his uncle Ozias Lamb. + +"That man that bought out Bill Dickey, over in Dale, has been talkin' +to me," Lamb told Jerome one evening. "Seems he's goin' to increase +the business; he's laid in an extra lot of stock, and hired two more +cutters, and he says he don't want to fool with so many small +accounts, and he'd rather let some of it out in big lots. Says, if +I'm willin', I can take as much as I can manage, and let it out +myself for bindin' and closin', and he'll pay me considerable more on +a lot than Robinson has, cash down. Now you see, J'rome, I'm gettin' +older, and I can't do much more finishin' than I've been doin' right +along. What I'm comin' at is this: s'pose I set another bench in +here, and take the extra work, and you quit school and go into +business. I can learn you all I know fast enough. You can nigh about +make a shoe now--dun'no' but you can quite." + +"I'd have to leave school," Jerome said, soberly. + +"How much more book-learnin' do you think you need?" returned Ozias, +with his hard laugh. "Don't you forget that all you came into this +world for was to try not to get out of it through lack of +nourishment, and to labor for life with the sweat of your brow. You +don't need much eddication for that. It ain't with you as it was with +Lawrence Prescott, who was too good to go to the district school, and +had to be sent to Boston to have a minister fit him for college. You +don't come of a liberal eddicated race. You've got to work for the +breath of your nostrils, and not for the breath of your mind or your +soul. You'll find you can't fight your lot in life, J'rome Edwards; +you ain't got standin' room enough outside it." + +"I don't want to fight my lot in life," Jerome replied, defiantly, +"but I thought I'd go to school this winter." + +"You won't grub a bit better for one more winter of schoolin'," said +his uncle, "and there's another reason--your mother, she's gettin' +older, an' Elmira, she's a good-lookin' girl, but she's gettin' wore +to skin an' bones. They're both on 'em workin' too hard. You'd ought +to try to have 'em let up a little more." + +"I wouldn't have either of 'em lift a finger, if I could help it, the +Lord knows!" Jerome cried, bitterly. + +Ozias nodded, grimly. "Women wa'n't calculated to work as hard as +men, nohow," he said. "Seems as if a man that's got hands, an' is +willin', might be let to keep the worst of it off 'em, but he ain't. +Seems as if I might have been able to do somethin' for Ann when Abel +quit, but I wa'n't. + +"There's one thing I've got to be thankful for, an' that is--a hard +Providence ain't been able to hurt Belindy any more than it would a +feather piller. She dints a little, and cries out when she's hurt, +an' then she settles back again, smooth and comfortable as ever. + +"I don't s'pose you'll understand it, J'rome, because you ain't come +to thinking of such things yet, an' showed your sense that you ain't, +but I took that very thing into account when I picked out my wife. +There was another girl that I used to see home some, but, Lord, she +was a high stepper! Handsome as a picture she was; there ain't a girl +in this town to-day that can compare with her; but her head was up, +an' her nose quiverin', an' her eyes shinin'. I knew she liked me +pretty well, but, Lord, it was no use! Might as well have set a +blooded mare to ploughin'. She was one of the sort that wouldn't have +bent under hardship; she'd have broke. I knew well enough what a +dog-life a wife of mine would have to lead--jest enough to keep body +and soul together, an' no extras--an' I wa'n't goin' to drag her into +it, an' I didn't. I knew just how she'd strain, an' work her pretty +fingers to the bone to try to keep up. I made up my mind that if I +married at all I'd marry somebody that wouldn't work more'n she could +possibly help--not if we were poor as Job's off ox. + +"So I looked 'round an' got Belindy. I spelled her out right the +first time I see her. She 'ain't had nothin', but I dun'no' but she's +been jest as happy as if she had. I 'ain't let her work hard; she +'ain't never bound shoes nor done anythin' to earn a dollar since I +married her. Couldn't have kept the other one from doin' it." + +"What became of her?" asked Jerome. + +"Dead," replied Ozias. + +Jerome asked nothing further. It ended in his leaving school and +going to work. This course met with some opposition from his mother, +who had madly ambitious plans for him. She had influenced Elmira to +leave school the year before, that she might earn more, and thereby +enable her brother to study longer, but he knew nothing of that. + +However, a plan which Jerome formed for some evening lessons with the +school-master appeased her. It savored of a private tutor like +Lawrence Prescott's. Nobody knew how Ann Edwards had resented Doctor +Prescott's sending his son to Boston to be fitted for college, while +hers could have nothing better than a few terms at the district +school. Her jealous bitterness was enhanced twofold because her poor +husband was gone, and the memory of his ambition for his son stung +her to sharper effort. Often the imagined disappointments of the +dead, when they are still loved and unforgotten, weigh more heavily +upon the living than their own. "I dun'no' what your father would +have said if he'd thought Jerome had got to leave school so young," +she told Elmira; and her lost husband's grievance in the matter was +nearer her heart than her own. + +Jerome's plan for evening lessons did not work long. The +school-master to whom he applied professed his entire readiness, even +enthusiasm, to further such a laudable pursuit of knowledge under +difficulties; but he was young himself, scarcely out of college, and +the pretty girls in his school swayed his impressionable nature into +many side issues, even when his mind was set upon the main track. +Soon Jerome found himself of an evening in the midst of a class of +tittering girls, who also had been fired with zeal for improvement +and classical learning, who conjugated _amo_ with foolish blushes and +glances of sugared sweetness at himself and the teacher. Then he +left. + +Jerome at that time felt absolutely no need of the feminine element +in creation, holding himself aloof from it with a patient, because +measureless, superiority. Sometimes in growth the mental strides into +life ahead of the physical; sometimes it is the other way. At +seventeen Jerome's mind took the lead of his body, and the +imaginations thereof, though he was well grown and well favored, and +young girls placed themselves innocently in his way and looked back +for him to follow. + +Jerome's cold, bright glances met theirs, full of the artless appeal +of love and passion, shameless because as yet unrecognized, and then +he turned away with disdain. + +"I came here to learn Latin and higher algebra, not to fool with a +pack of girls," he told the school-master, bluntly. The young man +laughed and colored. He was honest and good; passion played over him +like wildfire, not with any heat for injury, but with a dazzle to +blind and charm. + +He did not intend to marry until he had well established himself in +life, and would not; but in the meantime he gave his resolution as +loose a rein as possible, and conjugated _amo_ with shades of meaning +with every girl in the class. + +"I don't see what I can do, Edwards," he said. "I cannot turn the +girls out, and I could not refuse them an equal privilege with you, +when they asked it." + +Jerome gave the school-master a look of such entire comprehension and +consequent scorn that he fairly cast down his eyes before him; then +he went out with his books under his arm. + +He paid for his few lessons with the first money he could save, in +spite of the school-master's remonstrances. + +After that Jerome went on doggedly with his studies by himself, and +asked assistance from nobody. In the silent night, after his mother +and sister were in bed, he wrestled all alone with the angel of +knowledge, and half the time knew not whether he was smitten hip and +thigh or was himself the victor. Many a problem in his higher algebra +Jerome was never sure of having solved rightly; renderings of many +lines in his battered old Virgil, bought for a sixpence of a past +collegian in Dale, might, and might not, have been correct. + +However, if he got nothing else from his studies, he got the +discipline of mental toil, and did not spend his whole strength in +the labor of his hands. + +Jerome pegged and closed shoes with an open book on the bench beside +him; he measured his steps with conjugations of Latin verbs when he +walked to Dale with his finished work over shoulder; he studied every +spare moment, when his daily task was done, and kept this up, from a +youthful and unreasoning thirst for knowledge and defiance of +obstacles, until he was twenty-one. Then one day he packed away all +his old school-books, and never studied them again regularly; for +something happened which gave his energy the force of reason, and set +him firmly in a new track with a definite end in view. + + + + +Chapter XVI + + +One evening, not long after his twenty-first birthday, Jerome Edwards +went to Cyrus Robinson's store on an errand. + +When he entered he found a large company assembled, swinging booted +legs over the counters, perched upon barrels and kegs, or tilting +back in the old scooping arm-chairs around the red-hot stove. These +last were the seats devoted to honor and age, when present, and they +were worthily filled that night. Men who seldom joined the lounging, +gossiping circle in the village store were there: Lawyer Means, John +Jennings, Colonel Lamson, Squire Merritt, even Doctor Seth Prescott, +and the minister, Solomon Wells. + +The recent town-meeting, the elections and appropriations, accounted +in some measure for this unusual company, though the bitter weather +might have had something to do with it. Hard it was for any man that +night to pass windows glowing with firelight, and the inward swing of +hospitable doors; harder it was, when once within the radius of +warmth and human cheer, to leave it and plunge again into that +darkness of winter and death, which seemed like the very outer +desolation of souls. + +The Squire's three cronies had been on their way to cards and punch +with him, but the winking radiance of the store windows had lured +them inside to warm themselves a bit before another half-mile down +the frozen road; and once there, sunken into the battered hollows of +the arm-chairs, within the swimming warmth from the stove, they had +remained. Their prospective host, Squire Eben Merritt, also had +shortly arrived, in quest of lemons for the brewing of his famous +punch, and had been nothing loath to await the pleasure of his +guests. + +The minister had come in giddy, as if with strong drink, being +unable, even with the steady gravity of his mind, to control the +chilly trembling of his thin old shanks in their worn black +broadcloth. His cloak was thin; his daughter had tied a little black +silk shawl of her own around his neck for further protection; his +mildly ascetic old face peered over it, fairly mouthing and +chattering with the cold. He could scarcely salute the company in his +customary reverend and dignified manner. + +Squire Eben sprang up and place his own chair in a warmer corner for +him, and the minister was not averse to settling therein and +postponing for a season the purchase of a quarter pound of tea, and +his shivering homeward pilgrimage. + +Doctor Seth Prescott, who lived nearly across the way, had come over +after supper to prescribe for the storekeeper's wife, who had +lumbago, and joined the circle around the stove, seeing within it +such worthy companions as the lawyer and the Squire, and having room +made promptly and deferentially for him. + +The discussion had been running high upon the subject of town +appropriations for the poor, until Doctor Prescott entered and the +grating arm-chairs made place for him, when there was a hush for a +moment. Ozias Lamb, hunched upon a keg on the outskirts, smiled +sardonically around at Adoniram Judd standing behind him. + +"Cat's come," he said; "now the mice stop squeakin'." The men near +him chuckled. + +Simon Basset, who, having arrived first, had the choice of seats, and +was stationed in the least rickety arm-chair the farthest from +draughts, ceased for a moment the rotatory motion of lantern jaws and +freed his mind upon the subject of the undue appropriations for the +poor. + +"Ain't a town of this size in the State begins to lay out the money +we do to keep them good-for-nothin' paupers," said he, and chewed +again conclusively. + +Doctor Prescott, not as yet condescending to speak, had made a slight +motion and frown of dissent, which the minister at his elbow saw. +Doctor Prescott was his pillar of the sanctuary, upholding himself +and his pulpit from financial and doctrinal downfall--his pillar even +of ideas and individual movements. Poor old Solomon Wells fairly +walked his road of life attached with invisible leading-strings to +Doctor Seth Prescott. He spoke when Simon Basset paused, and more +from his mentor's volition than his own. "The poor ye have always +with ye," said the minister, with pious and weighty dissent. Doctor +Prescott nodded. + +Ozias Lamb squinted slowly around with ineffable sarcasm of +expression. He took in deliberately every detail of the two +men--Doctor Seth Prescott, the smallest in physical stature of +anybody there, yet as marked among them all as some local Napoleon, +and the one whom a stranger would first have noted, and the old +clergyman leaning towards him with a subtle inclination of mind as +well as body; then he spoke as Jerome entered. + +Jerome laid the empty sack, which he had brought for meal, on the +counter, and stood about to listen with the rest. Squire Eben +Merritt, having given his chair to the minister and squared up his +great shoulders against a pile of boxes on the counter, was near him, +and saluted him with a friendly nod, which Jerome returned with a +more ardent flash of his black eyes than ever a girl had called forth +yet. Jerome adored this kindly Squire, against whom he was always +fiercely on his guard lest he tender him gratuitous favors, and his +indebtedness to whom was his great burden of life. + +His Uncle Ozias did not notice him or pause in his harangue. "The +poor ye have always with ye, the poor ye have always with ye," he was +repeating, with a very snarl of sarcasm. "I reckon ye do; an' why? +Why is it that folks had the Man that give that sayin' to the world +with 'em, and made Him suffer and die? It was the same reason for +both. D'ye want to know what 'twas? Well, I'll tell ye--it don't take +a very sharp mind to ferret that out. It don't even take college +larnin'. It is because from the very foundation of this green airth +the rich and the wicked and the proud have had the mastery over it, +an' their horns have been exalted. The Lord knows they've got horns +to their own elevation an' the hurt of others, as much as any horned +animals, though none of us can see 'em sproutin', no matter how hard +we squint." + +With that Ozias Lamb gave a quick glance, pointed with driest humor, +from under his bent brows at Simon Basset's great jumble of gray hair +and Doctor Prescott's spidery sprawl of red wig. A subdued and +half-alarmed chuckle ran through the company. Simon Basset chewed +imperturbably, but Doctor Seth Prescott's handsome face was pale with +controlled wrath. + +Ozias continued: "I tell ye that is the reason for all the sufferin', +an' the wrongs, an' the crucifixion, on this earth. The rich are the +reason for it all; the rich are the reason for the poor. If the money +wa'n't in one pocket it would be in many; if the bread wa'n't all in +one cupboard there wouldn't be so many empty; if all the garments +wa'n't packed away in one chest there wouldn't so many go bare. +There's money enough, an' food enough, an' clothes enough in this +very town for the whole lot, an' it's the few that holds 'em that +makes the paupers." + +Doctor Seth Prescott's mouth was a white line of suppression. Some of +the men exchanged glances of consternation. Cyrus Robinson's clerk, +Samson Loud, leaning over the counter beside his employer, said, "I +swan!" under his breath. As for Cyrus Robinson, he was doubtful +whether or not to order this turbulent spirit out of his domain, +especially since he was no longer a good customer of his, but worked +for and traded with the storekeeper in Dale. + +He looked around at his son Elisha, who was married now these three +years to Abigail Mack, had two children, and a share in the business; +but he got no suggestion from him. Elisha, who had grown very stout, +sat comfortably on a half-barrel of sugar inside the counter, sucking +a stick of peppermint candy, unmoved by anything, even the entrance +of his old enemy, Jerome. As Cyrus Robinson was making up his mind to +say something, Doctor Seth Prescott spoke, coldly and magisterially, +without moving a muscle in his face, which was like a fine pale mask. + +"May I ask Mr. Lamb," he said, "how long, in his judgment, when the +money shall have been divided and poured from one purse into many +others, when the loaves shall have been distributed among all the +empty cupboards, and when all the surplus garments have been +portioned out to the naked, this happy state of equal possessions +will last?" + +"Well," replied Ozias Lamb, slowly, "I should say, takin' all things +into consideration--the graspin' qualities of them that had been +rich, and the spillin' qualities of them that had been poor, about +fourteen hours an' three-quarters. I might make it twenty-four--I +s'pose some might hang on to it overnight--but I guess on the whole +it's safer to call it fourteen an' three-quarters." + +"Well," returned Doctor Prescott, "what then, Mr. Lamb?" + +"Give it back again," said Ozias, shortly. + +Squire Eben Merritt gave a great shout of mirth. "By the Lord Harry," +he cried, "that's an idea!" + +"It is an entirely erroneous system of charity which you propose, Mr. +Lamb," said Doctor Prescott; "such a constant disturbance and +shifting of the property balance would shake the financial basis of +the whole country. Our present system of one public charity, to +include all the poor of the town, is the only available one, in the +judgment of the ablest philanthropists in the country." + +Ozias Lamb got off his keg, straightened his bowed shoulders as well +as he was able, and raised his right hand. "You call the poorhouse +righteous charity, do ye, Doctor Seth Prescott?" he demanded. "You +call it givin' in the name of the Lord?" + +Doctor Prescott made no response; indeed, Ozias did not wait for one. +He plunged on in a very fury of crude oratory. + +"It ain't charity!" he cried. "I tell ye what it is--it's a pushin' +an' hustlin' of the poor off the steps of the temple, an' your own +door-steps an' door-paths, to get 'em out of your sight an' sound, +where your purple an' fine linen won't sweep against their rags, an' +your delicate ears won't hear their groans, an' your delicate eyes +an' nose won't see nor scent their sores; where you yourselves, with +your own hands, won't have to nurse an' tend 'em. I tell ye, that +rich man in Scriptur' was a damned fool not to start a poorhouse, an' +not have Lazaruses layin' round his gate. He'd have been more +comfortable, an' _mebbe_ he'd have cheated hell so. + +"You call it givin'--_givin'!_ You call livin' in that house over +there in the holler, workin' with rheumatic old joints, an' wearin' +stiff old fingers to the bone, not for honest hire, but for the bread +of charity, a gift, do ye? I tell ye, every pauper in that there +house that's got his senses after what he's been through, knows that +he pays for every cent he costs the town, either by the sweat of his +brow an' the labor of his feeble hands, or by the independence of his +soul." + +Then Simon Basset spat, and shifted his quid and spoke. "Tell ye what +'tis, all of ye," said he--"it's mighty easy talkin' an' givin' away +gab instead of dollars. I'll bet ye anything ye'll put up that there +ain't one of ye out of the whole damned lot that 'ain't got any money +that would give it away if he had it." + +"I would," declared a clear young voice from the outskirts of the +crowd. Everybody turned and looked, and saw Jerome beside Squire +Merritt, his handsome face all eager and challenging. Jerome was +nearly as tall as the Squire, though more slender, and there was not +a handsomer young fellow in the village. He had, in spite of his +shoemaking, a carriage like a prince, having overcome by some +erectness of his spirit his hereditary stoop. + +Simon Basset looked at him. "If ye had a big fortune left ye, s'pose +ye'd give it all away, would ye?" + +"Yes, sir, I would." Jerome blushed a little with a brave modesty +before the concentrated fire of eyes, but he never unbent his proud +young neck as he faced Simon Basset. + +"S'pose ye'd give away every dollar?" + +"Yes, sir, I would--every dollar." + +"Lord!" ejaculated Simon Basset, and his bristling, grimy jaws worked +again. + +Squire Eben Merritt looked at Jerome almost as he might have done at +his pretty Lucina. "By the Lord Harry, I believe you would, boy!" he +said, under his breath. + +"Such idle talk is not to the purpose," Doctor Seth Prescott said, +with a stately aside to the minister, who nodded with the utter +accordance of motion of any satellite. + +But Simon Basset spoke again, and as he spoke he hit the doctor, who +sat next him, a hard nudge in his broadcloth side with a sharp elbow. +"Stan' ye any amount ye want to put up that that young bob-squirt +won't give away a damned dollar, if he ever gits it to give," he +said, with a wink of curious confidential scorn. + +"I do not bet," replied the doctor, shortly. + +"Lord! ye needn't be pertickler, doctor; it's safe 'nough," returned +Simon Basset, with a sly roll of facetious eyes towards the company. + +The doctor deigned no further reply. + +"I'll stan' any man in this company anything he'll put up," cried +Simon Basset, who was getting aroused to a singular energy. + +Nobody responded. Squire Eben Merritt, indeed, opened his mouth to +speak, then turned it off with a laugh. "I'd make the bet, boy," he +whispered to Jerome, "if it were anybody else that proposed it, but +that old--" + +Simon Basset stood up; the men looked at him with wonder. His eyes +glowed with strange fire. The lawyer eyed him keenly. "I should think +from his face that the man was defending himself in the dock," he +whispered to Colonel Lamson. + +"I'll tell ye what I'll do, then," shouted Simon Basset, "if ye won't +none of ye take me up. I'll be damned if I believe that any rich man +on the face of this earth is capable of givin' away every dollar he's +got, for the fear of the Lord or the love of his fellow-men. I'll be +damned if I believe, if the Lord Almighty spoke to him from on high, +and told him to, he'd do it, an' I'm goin' to prove that I don't +believe it. I'll tell ye all what I'll do. Lawyer Means is here, an' +he can take it down in black an' white, if he wants to, an' I'll sign +it reg'lar an' have it witnessed. If that young man there," he +pointed at Jerome, "ever comes into any property, an' gives away +every dollar of it, I'll give away one quarter of all I've got in the +world to the poor of this town, an' I'll take my oath on it. + +"But there's more than that," continued Simon Basset. "I'll get a +condition before I do it. I call on my fellow-townsman here--I won't +say my fellow-Christian, 'cause he wouldn't think that much of a +compliment--to do the same thing. If he'll do it, I will; if he +won't, I won't." Simon Basset looked down at Doctor Prescott with +malicious triumph. Everybody stared at the two men. + +"Why don't ye speak up, doctor--hey?" asked Simon Basset, finally. + +"Because I do not consider such an outrageous proposition worthy of +consideration, Mr. Basset," returned the doctor, with a calm aside +elevation of his clear profile, and not the slightest quickening of +his even voice. + +"Then ye don't believe there's a man livin' capable of givin' away +his all for the Lord an' His poor any more'n I do, an' I calculate +you jedge so from the workin's of your own heart an' knowin' what +you'd do in like case, jest like me," said Simon Basset. + +Doctor Prescott made a quick motion, and the color flashed over his +thin face. "I made no such assertion," he said, hotly, for his temper +at last was up over his icy bonds of will. + +"Looks so," said Simon Basset. + +"You have no right to make such a statement, sir," returned the +doctor, and his lips seemed to cut the air like scissors. + +"What is it, then?" returned the other. "Are you afraid the young +fellow will come into property, an' then you'll have to give up too +much to the Lord?" + +The veins on Doctor Prescott's forehead swelled visibly as he looked +at Simon Basset's hateful, bantering face. + +"There's another thing I'm willin' to promise," continued Simon +Basset. "If that young feller comes into money, an' gives it away, +I'll do more than give away a quarter of my property--I'll believe +anything after that. I'll get religion. But--I won't agree to do that +unless you back me up, doctor. That ought to induce you--the prospect +of savin' a brand from the burnin'; an' if I ain't a brand, I dun'no' +who is." + +"I tell you, sir, I'll have nothing to do with it!" shouted Doctor +Prescott. The minister at his side looked pale and scared as a woman. + +"Then," said Simon Basset, "it's settled. You an' me won't agree to +no sech damn foolishness, because we both on us know that there's no +sech Christian charity an' love as that in the world; an' if there +should turn out to be, we're afraid we'd have to do likewise. I +thought I was safe enough proposin' sech a plan, doctor." + +There was a great shout of laughter, in spite of the respect for +Doctor Prescott. In the midst of it the doctor sprang to his feet, +looking as none of them had ever seen him look before. "Get a paper +and pen and ink," he cried, turning to Lawyer Means; "draw up the +document that this man proposes, and I will sign it!" + + + + +Chapter XVII + + +The paper which Lawyer Eliphalet Means, standing at the battered and +hacked old desk whereon Cyrus Robinson made out his accounts, drew up +with a sputtering quill pen--at which he swore under his breath--was +as fully elaborated and as formal in every detail as his legal +knowledge could make it. Apostrophizing it openly, before he began, +as damned nonsense, he was yet not without a certain delight in the +task. It was quite easy to see that Simon Basset, whatever motive he +might have had in his proposition, was beyond measure terrified at +its acceptance. With his bristling chin dropping nervously, and his +forehead contracted with anxious wrinkles, he questioned Jerome. + +"Look at here," he said, with a tight clutch on Jerome's sleeve, "I +want to know, young man. There ain't no property anywheres in your +family, is there? There ain't no second nor third nor fourth cousins +out West anywheres that's got property?" + +"No, there are not," said Jerome, impatiently shaking off his hand. + +"Your father didn't have no uncle that had money?" + +"I tell you there isn't a dollar in the family that I know of," cried +Jerome. "I have nothing to do with all this, and I want you to +understand it. All I said was, and I say it now, if in any way any +money should ever fall to me, I would give it away; and I will, +whether anybody else does or not." + +"You don't mean money you earn; you mean money that falls to you--" + +"I mean if ever I get enough money in a lump to make me rich," +replied Jerome, doggedly. + +"I want to know how much money you are goin' to call rich," demanded +Simon Basset. + +"Ten thousand dollars," replied Jerome, whose estimate of wealth was +not large. + +Simon Basset cried out with sharp protest at that, and Doctor +Prescott evidently agreed with him. + +"Any man might scrape together ten thousand dollars," said Basset. +"Lord! he might steal that much." + +The amount of wealth which the document should specify was finally +fixed at twenty-five thousand dollars, which was, moreover, to come +into Jerome's possession in full bulk and during the next ten years, +or the obligation would be null and void. + +Basset also insisted upon the stipulation that Jerome, in his giving, +should not include his immediate family. "I've seen men shift their +purses into women folks' pockets, an' take 'em out again, when they +got ready, before now," he said. "I ain't goin' to have no such +gum-game as that played." + +That proposition met with some little demur, though not from Jerome. + +"Might just as well say I wouldn't agree not to give mother and +Elmira the moon, if it fell to me," he said to Squire Merritt. + +The Squire nodded. "Let 'em put it any way they want to," he said; +"it can't hurt you any. Means knows what he's about. I tell you that +old fox of a Basset feels as if the dogs were after him." The Squire +was highly amused, but Jerome did not regard it as quite a laughing +matter. He wondered angrily if they were making fun of him, and would +have flown out at the whole of them, with all his young impetuosity, +had not Squire Eben restrained him. + +"Easy, boy, easy," he whispered. "It won't do you any harm." + +The instrument, as drawn up by Lawyer Means, also stipulated, at +Simon Basset's insistence, that the said twenty-five thousand dollars +should come into Jerome's possession within ten years from date, and +be given away by him within one month's time after his acquisition of +the same. Lawyer Means, without objection, filed carefully all +Basset's precautionary conditions; then he proceeded to make it +clearly evident, with no danger of quibble, that "in case the said +Jerome Edwards should comply with all the said conditions, the said +Doctor Seth Prescott and Simon Basset, Esquire, of Upham Corners, do +covenant and engage by these presents to remise, release, give, and +forever quitclaim, each of the aforesaid, one-quarter of the property +of which he may at the time of the acquisition by the said Jerome +Edwards of the said twenty-five thousand dollars, stand possessed, to +all those persons of adult age residing within the boundaries of the +town of Upham Corners who shall not own at the time of said +acquisition homesteads free of encumbrance and the sum of twelve +thousand dollars in bank, to be divided among the aforesaid in equal +measure. + +"In witness whereof we, the said Doctor Seth Prescott and Simon +Basset, have hereunto set our hands and seals," etc. + +This document, being duly signed, sealed, and delivered in the +presence of the witnesses John Jennings, Eben Merritt, Esquire, and +Cyrus Robinson, was stored away in the pocket of Lawyer Eliphalet +Means's surtout, to be later locked safely in his iron box of +valuables. + +Simon Basset's writing lore was limited, being, many claimed, +confined to the ability to sign his name, and even that seemed likely +in this case to fail him. Simon Basset faltered as if he had +forgotten either his name or his spelling, and it was truly a strange +signature when done, full of sharp slants of rebellion and curves of +indecision. As for Doctor Seth Prescott, who had sat aloof, with a +fine withdrawn majesty, all through the discussion, when it was +signified to him that everything was in readiness for his signature +he arose, went to the desk amid a hush of attention, and signed his +name in characters like the finest copper-plate. Then he went out of +the store without a word, and the minister, forgetting his quarter of +tea, slid after him as noiselessly as his shadow. + +Lawyer Means, when once out in the frosty night with his three mates, +bound at last for cards and punch, shook his long sides with husky +merriment. "I tell you," he said, "if I were worth enough, I'd give +every dollar of the twenty-five thousand to that boy before morning, +just for the sake of seeing Prescott and Basset." + +"Of course, when it comes to a question of legality, that document +isn't worth the paper it's written on," the Colonel said, chuckling. + +"Of course," replied the lawyer, dryly. "Basset didn't know it, +though, nor Jerome, nor scarcely a soul in the store beside." + +"Doctor Prescott did." + +"I suppose so, or he wouldn't have signed." + +"Do you think the boy would live up to his part of the bargain?" +asked the Colonel, who, being somewhat gouty of late years, limped +slightly on the frozen ground. + +"I'd stake every cent I've got in the world on it," cried Squire Eben +Merritt, striding ahead--"every cent, sir!" + +"Well, there's no chance of his being put to the test," said Lamson. + +"Chance!" exclaimed the lawyer. "Good heavens! You might as well talk +of his chance of inheriting the throne of the Caesars. I know the +Edwards family, and I know Jerome's mother's family, root and branch, +and there isn't five thousand dollars among them down to the sixth +cousins; and as for the boy's accumulating it himself--where are the +twenty-five thousand dollars in these parts for him to accumulate in +ten years? You might as well talk of his discovering a gold-mine in +that famous wood-lot. But I'll be damned if Basset wasn't as much +scared as if the poor fellow had been jingling the gold in his +pocket. If Jerome Edwards _does_, through the Lord or the devil, get +twenty-five thousand dollars, I hope I shall be alive to see the +fun." + +"Hush," whispered John Jennings; "he is behind us, and I would not +have such a generous young heart as that think itself spoken of +lightly." + +"Would he do it?" Colonel Lamson asked, short-winded and reflective. + +"I'll be damned if he wouldn't!" cried the lawyer. + +"By the Lord Harry, he would!" cried Squire Eben, each using his +favorite oath for confirmation of his opinion. + +Jerome, following in their tracks with his uncle Ozias, heard +perfectly their last remarks, and lagged behind to hear no more, +though his heart leaped up to second with fierce affirmation the +lawyer and the Squire. + +"Keep behind them," he whispered to Ozias; "I don't want to listen." + +"Think you'd give it away if you had it, do ye?" his uncle asked, +with his dry chuckle. + +"I don't _think_--I _know_." + +"How d'ye know?" + +"I _know_." + +"Lord!" + +"You think I wouldn't, do you?" asked Jerome, angrily. + +"I'd be more inclined to believe ye if I see ye more generous with +what ye've got to give now." + +Jerome started, and stared at his uncle's face, which, in the +freezing moonlight, looked harder, and more possessed of an +inscrutable bitterness of wisdom. "What d'ye mean?" he asked, +sharply. "What on earth have I got to give, I'd like to know?" + +Ozias Lamb tapped his head. "How about that?" he asked. "How about +the strength you're puttin' into algebry an' Latin? You don't expect +ever to learn enough to teach, do ye?" + +Jerome shook his head. + +"Well, then it's jest to improve your own mind. Improve your +mind--what's that? What good is that goin' to do your fellow-bin's? I +tell ye, Jerome, ye ain't givin' away what you've got to give, an' we +ain't none of us." + +"Maybe you're right," Jerome said, after a little. + +After having left his uncle, he walked more slowly still. Soon the +Squire and his friends were quite out of sight. The moonlight was +very full and brilliant, the trees were crooked in hard lines, and +the snow-drifts crested with white lights of ice; there was no +softening of spring in anything, but the young man felt within him +one of those flooding stirs of the spirit which every spring faintly +symbolizes. A great passion of love and sympathy for the needy and +oppressed of his kind, and an ardent defence of them, came upon +Jerome Edwards, poor young shoemaker, going home with his sack of +meal over his shoulder. Like a bird, which in the spring views every +little straw and twig as towards his nest and purpose of love, Jerome +would henceforth regard all powers and instrumentalities that came in +his way only in their bearing upon his great end of life. + +On reaching home that night he packed away his algebra and his Latin +books on the shelf in his room, and began a new study the next +evening. + + + + +Chapter XVIII + + +Seth Prescott was the only practising physician for some half-dozen +villages. His mud-bespattered sulky and his smart mare, advancing +always with desperate flings of forward hoofs--which caused the +children to scatter--were familiar objects, not only in the cluster +of Uphams, but also in Dale and Granby, and the little outlying +hamlet of Ford's Hill, which was nothing but a scattering group of +farm-houses, with a spire in their midst, and which came under the +jurisdiction of Upham. In all these villages people were wont to run +from the windows to the doors when they saw the doctor's sulky whirl +past, peer after it, up or down the road, to see where it might stop, +and speculate if this old soul were about to leave the world, or that +new soul to come into it. + +One afternoon, not long before he was twenty-one, Jerome Edwards +walked some three miles and a half to Ford's Hill to carry some shoes +to a woman binder who was too lame to come for them herself. Jerome +walked altogether of late years, for the white horse was dead of old +age: but it was well for him, since he was saved thereby from the +permanent crouch of the shoe-bench. + +When, having left his shoes, he was returning down the steep street +of the little settlement, he saw Doctor Prescott's sulky ahead of +him. Then, just before it reached a small weather-beaten house on the +right, he saw a woman rush out as if to stop it, and a man follow +after her and pull her back through the door. + +The sulky was driven past at a rapid pace; for the weather was sharp, +and the doctor's mare stepped out well after standing. When Jerome +reached the house the doctor was scarcely within hailing distance; +but the woman was out again, calling after him frantically: "Doctor! +Doctor! Doctor Prescott! Stop! Stop here! Doctor!" + +Jerome sprang forward to offer his assistance in summoning him, but +at that instant the man reappeared again and clutched the woman by +the arm. "Come back, come back in the house, Laura," he gasped, +faintly, and yet with wild energy. + +Jerome saw then that the man was ghastly, staggering, and +yellow-white, except for blazing red spots on the cheeks, and that +his great eyes were bright with fever. Jerome knew him; he was a +young farmer, Henry Leeds by name, and not long married. Jerome had +gone to school with the wife, and called her familiarly by name. +"What's the matter, Laura?" he asked. + +"Oh, J'rome," she half sobbed, "do help me--do call the doctor. +Henry's awful sick; I know he is. He'd ought to have the doctor, but +he won't because it costs so much. Do call him; I can't make him +hear." + +Jerome opened his mouth to shout, but the sick man flew at him with +an awful, piteous cry. "Don't ye, don't ye," he wailed out; "I tell +ye not to, J'rome Edwards. I 'ain't got any money to pay him with." + +"But you're sick, Henry," said Jerome, putting his hand on the man's +shaking shoulder to steady him. "You'd better let me run after him--I +can make him hear now. It won't cost much." + +"Don't ye do it," almost sobbed the young farmer. "It costs us a +dollar every time he comes so far, an' he'll say right off, the way +he did about mother that last time she was sick--when she broke her +hip--that he'd take up a little piece of land beforehand; it would +jest pay his bill. He'll do that, an' I tell ye I 'ain't got 'nough +land now to support me. I 'ain't got 'nough land now, J'rome." + +The poor young wife was weeping almost like a child. "Do let him call +the doctor, do let him, Henry," she pleaded. + +"There's another thing, J'rome," half whispered the young man, +turning his back on his wife and fastening mysterious bright eyes on +Jerome's--"there's another thing. Laura, she'll have to have the +doctor before long, you can see that, an'--there'll be another mouth +to fill, an' I've been savin' up a little, an' it ain't goin' for +_me_--I tell ye it ain't goin' for _me_, J'rome." + +All the while poor Henry Leeds, in spite of hot red spots on his +cheeks, was shivering violently, but stiffly, like a tree in a +freezing wind. The doctor had whirled quite out of sight over the +hill. "He's gone," wailed the wife--"he's gone, and Henry 'll +die--oh, I know he'll die!" + +Then Jerome, who had been standing bewildered, not knowing whether he +should or should not run and call after the doctor, and listening +first to one, then to the other, collected himself. "No, he isn't +going to die, either," he said to the poor girl, who was very young; +and he said it quite sharply, because he so pitied her in her +innocent helplessness, and would give her courage even in a bitter +dose. He asked her, furthermore, as brusquely as Doctor Prescott +himself could have done, what medicine she had in the house. Then he +bade her hasten, if she wished to help and not hurt her husband, to +the nearest neighbor and beg some sweat-producing herbs--thoroughwort +or sage or catnip--all of which he had heard were good for fever. + +She went away, wrapped in the thick shawl which Jerome had found in a +closet, and himself pinned over the wild fair head, under the +quivering chin, while he quieted her with grave admonitions, as if he +were her father. Then he led poor Henry Leeds--still crying out that +he would not have the doctor--into his house and his bedroom, and got +him to bed, though it was a hard task. + +"I tell you, Henry," pleaded Jerome, struggling with him to loosen +his neck-band, "you shall not have the doctor; I'll doctor you +myself." + +"You don't know how--you don't know how, J'rome! She'll say you don't +know how; she'll send for him, an' then, when he's got all my land, +how am I goin' to get them a livin'?" + +"I tell you, Doctor Prescott sha'n't darken your doors, Henry Leeds, +if you'll behave yourself," said Jerome, stoutly; "and I can break up +a fever as well as he can, if you'll only let me. Mother broke up one +for me, and I never forgot it. You let me get your clothes off and +get you into bed, Henry." + +Jerome had had some little experience through nursing his mother, +but, more than that, had the natural instinct of helpfulness, +balanced with good sense and judgment, which makes a physician. +Moreover, he worked with as fiery zeal as if he were a surgeon in a +battle-field. Soon he had Henry Leeds in his feather bed, with all +the wedding quilts and blankets of poor young Laura piled over him. +The fire was almost out, for the girl was a poor house-keeper, and +not shod by nature for any of the rough emergencies of life. Jerome +had the fire blazing in short space, and some hot water and hot +bricks in readiness. + +Poor young Laura Leeds had to go almost half a mile for her healing +herbs, as the first neighbor was away from home and no one came in +answer to her knocks. By the time she returned, with a stout +neighboring mother at her side--both of them laden with dried +aromatic bouquets, and the visitor, moreover, clasping a bottle or +two of household panaceas, such as camphor and castor-oil--Jerome had +the sick man steaming in a circle of hot bricks, and was rubbing him +under the clothes with saleratus and water. + +Jerome's proceedings might not have commended themselves to a school +of physicians; but he reasoned from the principle that if remedies +were individually valuable, a combination of them would increase in +value in the proportion of the several to one. Sage and thoroughwort, +sarsaparilla, pennyroyal, and burdock--nearly every herb, in fact, in +the neighbor's collection--were infused into one black and eminently +flavored tea, into which he dropped a little camphor, and even a +modicum of castor-oil. Jerome afterwards wondered at his own daring; +but then, with a certainty as absolute as the rush of a stung animal +to a mud bath--as if by some instinct of healing born with him--he +concocted that dark and bitter beverage, and fed it in generous doses +to the sick man. Nobody interfered with him. The neighbor, though +older than Laura and the mother of several children, had never known +enough to bring out their measles and loosen their colds. The herbs +had been gathered and stored by her husband's mother, and for many a +year hung all unvalued in her garret. Luckily Jerome, through his old +gathering for the apothecary, knew them all. + +Jerome set one of the neighbor's boys to Upham Corners to tell his +mother of his whereabouts; then he remained all night with young +Henry Leeds, and by dint of his medley of herbs, or his tireless +bathing and nursing, or because the patient had great elasticity of +habit, or because the fever was not, after all, of a dangerous +nature, his treatment was quite successful. + +Jerome went home the next morning, and returned late in the +afternoon, to stay overnight again. The day after, the fever did not +appear, and Henry Leeds was on the fair way to recovery. A few weeks +later came the affair of the contract in Robinson's store, and Jerome +grasped a new purpose from the two. + +The next day, when he carried some finished shoes to Dale, he bought +a few old medical books, the remnant of a departed doctor's library, +which had been stowed away for years in a dusty corner of the great +country store. This same store included in its stock such +heterogeneous objects, so utterly irrelevant to one another and at +such tangents of connection, that it seemed sometimes like a very +mad-house of trade. + +It was of this store that the story was told for miles around how one +day Lawyer Means, having driven over with Colonel Lamson from Upham +Corners, made a bet with him that he could not ask for anything not +included in its stock of trade; and the Colonel had immediately gone +in and asked for a skeleton; for he thought that he was thereby sure +of winning his bet, and of putting to confusion his friend and the +storekeeper. The latter, however, who was not the Bill Dickey of this +time, but an unkempt and shrewd old man of an earlier date, had +conferred with his own recollection for a minute, and asked, +reflectively, of his clerk, "Lemme see, we've got a skeleton +somewheres about, 'ain't we, Eph?" And had finally unearthed--not +adjacent to the old doctor's medical books, for that would have been +to much method in madness, but in some far-removed nook--a ghastly +box, containing a reasonably complete little skeleton. Then was the +laugh all on Colonel Jack Lamson, who had his bet to pay, and was put +to hard shifts to avoid making his grewsome purchase, the article +being offered exceedingly cheap on account of its unsalable +properties. + +"It's been here a matter of twenty-five year, ever sence the old +doctor died. Them books, an' that, was cleaned out of his office, an' +brought over here," the old storekeeper had said. "Let ye have it +cheap, Colonel; call it a shillin'." + +"Guess I won't take it to-day." + +"Call it a sixpence." + +"What in thunder do you suppose I want a skeleton for?" asked the +Colonel, striding out, while the storekeeper called after him, with +such a relish of his own wit that it set all the loafers to laughing +and made them remember it: + +"Guess ye'd find out if ye didn't have one, Colonel; an' I guess, +sence natur's gin ye all the one she's ever goin' to, ye'll never +have a chance to git another as cheap as this." + +That same little skeleton was yet for sale when Jerome purchased his +medical books at the price of waste-paper, and might possibly have +been thrown into the bargain had he wished to study anatomy. + +Jerome sought only to gain an extension of any old wife's knowledge +of healing roots and herbs and the treatment of simple and common +maladies. Surgery he did not meddle with, until one night, about a +year later, when Jake Noyes, Doctor Prescott's man, came over +secretly with a little whimpering dog in his arms. + +"We run over this little fellar," he said to Jerome, when he had been +summoned to the door, "an' his leg's broke, an' the doctor told me +I'd better finish him up; guess he's astray; but"--Jake's voice +dropped to a whisper--"I've heard what you're up to, an' I've brought +a splint, an', if you say so, I'll show you how to set a bone." + +So up in his little chamber, with his mother and Elmira listening +curiously below, and a little whining, trembling dog for a patient, +Jerome learned to set a bone. His first surgical case was nearly a +complete success, moreover, for the little dog abode with him for +many a year after that, and went nimbly and merrily on his four legs, +with scarcely a limp. + +Later on, Jake Noyes, this time with Jerome himself as illustration, +gave him a lesson in bleeding and cupping, which was considered +indispensable in the ordinary practice of that day. "Dun'no' what the +doctor would say," Jake Noyes told Jerome, "an' I dun'no' as I much +care, but I'd jest as soon ye'd keep it dark. Rows ain't favorable to +the action of the heart, actin' has too powerful stimulants in most +cases, an' I had an uncle on my mother's side that dropped dead. But +I feel as if the doctor had ground the face of the poor about long +enough; it's about time somebody dulled his grindstone a little. He's +just foreclosed that last mortgage on John Upham's place, an' they've +got to move. Mind ye, J'rome, I ain't sayin' this to anybody but you, +an' I wouldn't say it to you if I didn't think mebbe you could do +something to right what he'd done wrong. If he won't do it himself, +somebody ought to for him. Tell ye what 'tis, J'rome, one way an' +another, I think considerable of the doctor. I've lived with him a +good many years now. I've got some books I'll let ye take any time. I +calculate you mean to do your doctorin' cheap." + +"Cheap!" replied Jerome, scornfully. "Do you think I would take any +pay for anything I could do? Do you think _that's_ what I'm after?" + +Jake Noyes nodded. "Didn't s'pose it was, J'rome. Well, there'll be +lots of things you can't meddle with; but there's no reason why you +can't doctor lots of little ails--if folks are willin'--an' save 'em +money. I'll learn ye all I know, on the doctor's account. I want it +to balance as even as he thinks it does." + +The result of it all was that Jerome Edwards became a sort of free +medical adviser to many who were too poor to pay a doctor's fees, and +had enough confidence in him. Some held strenuously to the opinion +that "he knew as much as if he'd studied medicine." He was in +requisition many of the hours when he was free from his shoemaker's +bench; and never in the Uphams was there a sick man needing a watcher +who did not beg for Jerome Edwards. + + + + +Chapter XIX + + +In these latter years Ann Edwards regarded her son Jerome with pride +and admiration, and yet with a measure of disapproval. In spite of +her fierce independence, a lifetime of poverty and struggle against +the material odds of life had given a sordid taint to her character. +She would give to the utmost out of her penury, though more from +pride than benevolence; but when it came to labor without hire, that +she did not understand. + +"I 'ain't got anything to say against your watchin' with sick folks, +an' nursin' of 'em, if you've got the spare time an' strength," she +said to Jerome; "but if you do doctorin' for nothin' nobody 'll think +anything of it. Folks 'll jest ride a free horse to death, an' talk +about him all the time they're doin' of it. You might just as well be +paid for your work as folks that go ridin' round in sulkies chargin' +a dollar a visit. You want to get the mortgage paid up." + +"It is almost paid up now, you know, mother," Jerome replied. + +"How?" cried his mother, sharply. "By nippin' an' tuckin' an' +pinchin', an' Elmira goin' without things that girls of her age ought +to have." + +"I don't complain, mother," said Elmira, with a sweet, bright glance +at her brother, as she gave a nervous jerk of her slender arm and +drew the waxed thread through the shoe she was binding. + +"You'd ought to complain, if you don't," returned her mother. Then +she added, with an air of severe mystery, "It might make a difference +in your whole life if you did have more; sometimes it does with +girls." + +Jerome did not say anything, but he looked in a troubled way from his +sister to his mother and back again. Elmira blushed hotly, and he +could not understand why. + +It was very early in a spring morning, not an hour after dawn, but +they had eaten breakfast and were hurrying to finish closing and +binding a lot of shoes for Jerome to take to his uncle's for +finishing. They all worked smartly, and nothing more was said, but +Ann Edwards had an air of having conclusively established the subject +rather than dropped it. Jerome kept stealing troubled glances at his +sister's pretty face. Elmira was a mystery to him, which was not +strange, since he had not yet learned the letters of the heart of any +girl; but she was somewhat of a mystery to her mother as well. + +Elmira was then twenty-two, but she was very small, and looked no +more than sixteen. She had the dreams and questioning wonder of +extreme youth in her face, and something beyond that even, which was +more like the wide-eye brooding and introspection of babyhood. + +As one looking at an infant will speculate as to what it is thinking +about, so Ann often regarded her daughter Elmira, sitting sewing with +fine nervous energy which was her very own, but with bright eyes +fixed on thoughts beyond her ken. "What you thinkin' about, Elmira?" +she would question sharply; but the girl would only start and color, +and look at her as if she were half awake, and murmur that she did +not know. Very likely she did not; often one cannot remember dreams +when suddenly recalled from them; though Elmira had one dream which +was the reality of her life, and in which she lived most truly, but +which she would always have denied, even to her own mother, to guard +its sacredness. + +When the shoes were done Jerome loaded himself with them, and, +watching his chance, beckoned his sister slyly to follow him as he +went out. Standing in the sweet spring sunlight in the door-yard, he +questioned her. "What did mother mean, Elmira?" he said. + +"Nothing," she replied, blushing shyly. + +"What is it you want, Elmira?" + +"Nothing. I don't want anything, Jerome." + +"Do you want--a new silk dress or anything?" + +"A new silk dress? No." Elmira's manner, when fairly aroused and +speaking, was full of vivacity, in curious contrast to her dreaming +attitude at other times. + +"I tell you what 'tis, Elmira," said Jerome, soberly. "I want you to +have all you need. I don't know what mother meant, but I want you to +have things like other girls. I wish you wouldn't put any more of +your earnings in towards the mortgage. I can manage that alone, with +what I'm earning now. I can pay it up inside of two years now. I told +you in the first of it you needn't do anything towards that." + +"I wasn't going to earn money and not do my part." + +"Well, take your earnings now and buy things for yourself. There's no +reason why you shouldn't. I can earn enough for all the rest. There's +no need of mother's working so hard, either. I can't charge for +mixing up doses of herbs, as she wants me to, for I don't do it for +anybody that isn't too poor to pay the doctor, but I earn enough +besides, so neither of you need to work your fingers to the bone or +go without everything. I'll give you some money. Get yourself a blue +silk with roses on it; seems to me I saw one in meeting last Sunday." + +Elmira laughed out with a sweet ring. Her black hair was tossing in +the spring wind, her whole face showed variations and under-meanings +of youthful bloom and brightness in the spring light. + +"'Twas Lucina Merritt wore the blue silk with roses on it; it rustled +against your knee when she passed our pew," she cried. "She is just +home from her young ladies' school, and she's as pretty as a picture. +I guess you saw more than the silk dress, Jerome Edwards." + +With that Elmira blushed, and dropped her eyes in a curious sensitive +fashion, as if she had spoken to herself instead of her brother, who +looked at her quite gravely and coolly. + +"I saw nothing but the silk," he said, "and I thought it would become +you, Elmira." + +"I am too dark for blue," replied Elmira, fairly blushing for her own +blushes. At that time Elmira was as a shy child to her own emotions, +and Jerome's were all sleeping. He had truly seen nothing but the +sweep of that lovely rose-strewn silk, and never even glanced at the +fair wearer. + +"Why not have a red silk, then?" he asked, soberly. + +"I can't expect to have things like Squire Merritt's daughter," +returned Elmira. "I don't want a new silk dress; I am going to have a +real pretty one made out of mother's wedding silk; she's had it laid +by all these years, and she says I may have it. It's as good as new. +I'm going over to Granby this morning to get it cut. When Imogen and +Sarah Lawson came over last week they told me about a mantua-maker +there who will cut it beautifully for a shilling." + +"Mother don't want to give up her wedding-dress." + +"Women always have their wedding-dresses made over for their +daughters," Elmira said, gravely. + +"What color is it?" + +"A real pretty green, with a little sheeny figure in it; and I am +going to have a new ribbon on my bonnet." + +"It's 'most ten miles to Granby; hadn't I better get a team and take +you over?" said Jerome. + +"No; it's a beautiful morning, and it will do me good to walk. I +shall go to Imogen and Sarah's and rest, and have a bite of something +before I come back too. I may not be home very early. You'd better +run along, Jerome, and I've got to get ready." + +Jerome gave his burden of shoes a hitch of final adjustment. "Well," +said he, "I'd just as lief take you over, if you say so." + +"I don't want to be taken over. I want to take myself over," laughed +Elmira, and ran into the house before a flurry of wind. + +That morning the wind was quite high, and though it was soft and +warm, was hard to breast on a ten-mile stretch. Elmira's strength was +mostly of nerve, and she had little staying power of muscle. Before +she had walked three miles on the road to Granby she felt as if she +were wading deeper and deeper against a mightier current of spring; +the scent of the young blossoms suffocated her with sweet heaviness; +the birds' songs rang wearily in her ears. She sat down on the stone +wall to rest a few moments, panting softly. She laid her parcel of +silk on the wall beside her and folded her hands in her lap. The day +was so warm she had put on, for the first time that spring, her pink +muslin gown, which had served her for a matter of eight seasons, and +showed in stripes of brighter color around the skirt where the tucks +had been let out to accommodate her growth. Her pink skirts fluttered +around her as she sat there, smiling straight ahead out of the pink +scoop of a sunbonnet like her dress, with a curious sweet directness, +as if she saw some one whom she loved--as, indeed, she did. Elmira, +full of the innocent selfishness of youth, saw such a fair vision of +her own self clad in her mother's wedding silk, with loving and +approving eyes upon her, that she could but smile. + +Elmira rested a few minutes, then gathered up her parcel and started +again on her way. She reached the place in the road where the brook +willows border it on either side, and on the east side the brook, +which is a river in earliest spring, flows with broken gurgles over a +stony bed, and slackened her pace, thinking she would walk leisurely +there, for the young willows screened the sun like green veils of +gossamer, and the wind did not press her back so hard, and then she +heard the trot, trot of a horse's feet behind her. + +She did not look around, but walked more closely to the side of the +road and the splendid east file of willows. The trot, trot of the +horse's feet came nearer and nearer, and finally paused alongside of +her; then a man's voice, half timid, half gayly daring, called, +"Good-day, Miss Elmira Edwards!" + +With that Elmira gave a great start, though not wholly of surprise; +for the imagination of a maid can, at the stimulus of a horse's feet, +encompass nearly all realities within her dreams. Then she looked up, +and Doctor Prescott's son Lawrence was bending over from his saddle +and smiling into her pink face in her pink sunbonnet. + +"Good-day," she returned, softly, and courtesied with a dip of her +pink skirts into a white foam of little way-side weedy flowers, and +then held her pink sun-bonnet slanted downward, and would not look +again into the young man's eager face. + +"It is a full year since I have seen you, and not a glimpse of your +face did I get this time, and yet I knew, the minute I came in sight +of you, who it was," said he, gayly; still, there was a loving and +wistful intonation in his voice. + +"Small compliment to me," returned Elmira, with a pretty spirit, +though she kept her pink bonnet slanted, "to know me by a gown and +bonnet I have had eight years." + +"But 'twas _your_ gown and bonnet," said the young man, and Elmira +trembled and took an uneven step, though she strove to walk in a +dignified manner beside Lawrence Prescott on his bay mare. The mare +was a spirited creature, and he had hard work to rein her into a +walk. "Let me take your bundle," he said. + +"It is not heavy," said she, but yielded it to him. + +Lawrence Prescott was small and slight, but held himself in the +saddle with a stately air. He was physically like his father, but his +mother's smile parted his fine-cut lips, and her expression was in +his blue eyes. + +Upham people had not seen much of Lawrence since he was a child, for +he had been away at a preparatory school before entering college, and +many of his vacations had not been spent at home. Now he was come +home to study medicine with his father and prepare to follow in his +footsteps of life. The general opinion was that he would never be as +smart. Many there were, even of those who had come in sore measure +under Doctor Seth Prescott's autocratic thumb, who held in dismay the +prospect of the transference of his sway to his son. + +"Guess you'll see how this town will go down when the old doctor's +gone and the young one's here in his place," they said. It is the +people who make tyranny possible. + +"How far are you going?" asked Lawrence, of Elmira flitting along +beside his dancing mare. + +"Oh, a little way," said she, evasively. + +"How far?" There was something of his father's insistence in +Lawrence's voice. + +"To Granby," replied Elmira then, and tried to speak on +unconcernedly. She was ashamed to let him know how far she had +planned to walk because of her poverty. + +"Granby!" cried Lawrence, with a whistle of astonishment; "why, that +is seven miles farther! You are not going to walk to Granby and back +to day?" + +"I like to walk," said Elmira, timidly. + +"Why, but it is a warm day, and you are breathing short now." +Lawrence pulled the mare up with a sharp whoa. "Now I'll tell you +what I'll do," he said. "You sit down here on that stone and rest, +and I'll ride back home and put the mare into the chaise, and I'll +drive you over there." + +"No, thank you; I'd rather walk," said Elmira, all touched to bliss +by his solicitude, but resolved in her pride of poor maidenhood that +she would not profit by it. + +"Let him go back and get the chaise, and have all the town talking +because Lawrence Prescott caught me walking ten miles to get a dress +cut? I guess I won't!" she told herself. + +"You are just the same as ever; you would never let anybody do +anything for you unless you paid them for it," said Lawrence, half +angrily. Then he added, bending low towards her, "But you would pay +me, measure pressed down and running over, by going with me--you know +that, Elmira." + +Elmira lost her step again, and her voice trembled a little, though +she strove to speak sharply. "I like to walk," said she. + +"And I tell you you're all tired out now," said Lawrence. "I can see +you pant for breath. Don't you know, I am going to be a doctor, like +father? Let me go back, and you wait here." + +Elmira shook her pink bonnet decidedly. + +"Well, then," said Lawrence, "I tell you what you must do." He +slipped off the mare as he spoke. "Now," he said, and there was real +authority in his voice, "you've got to ride. It's a man's saddle, and +you won't sit so very secure, but I'll lead the mare, and you'll be +safe enough." + +Elmira shrank back. "Oh, I can't," said she. + +"Yes, you can. Whoa, Betty. She's gentle enough, for all she's +nervous, and she's used to a lady's riding her. The daughter of the +man who sold her to father used to scour the country on her. Come, +put your foot in my hand and jump up!" + +"What would people say?" + +"There isn't a house for a good mile, and I'll let you get down +before you reach it if you want to; but I don't see what harm it +would be if the whole town saw us. Come." Lawrence smiled with +gentle importunity at her, and held his hand, and Elmira could not +help putting her little foot in it and springing to the bay mare's +back in obedience to his bidding. + +Elmira, fluttering like a pink flower on the back of the bay mare, +who really ambled along gently enough with Lawrence's hand on her +bridle, journeyed for the next mile as one in a happy dream. She was +actually incredulous of the reality of it all. She was half afraid +that the jolt of the bay mare would wake her from slumber; she kept +her eyes closed in the recesses of her sun-bonnet. Here was Lawrence +Prescott, about whom she had dreamed ever since she was a child, come +home, grown up and grand, grander than any young man in town, grand +as a prince, and not forgetting her, knowing her at a glance, even +when her face was hidden, and making her ride lest she get +over-tired. She had scarcely seen him, to speak to him, since she was +sixteen. Doctor Prescott had kept his son very close when he was home +on his vacations, and not allowed him to mingle much with the village +young people. That summer when Elmira was sixteen there had been +company in the doctor's house, and she had been summoned to assist in +the extra work. Somehow time had hung idly on young Lawrence's hands +that summer; the guests in the house were staid elderly folk and no +company for him. There was also much sickness in the village, and his +father was not as watchful as usual. It happened that Lawrence, for +lack of other amusement, would often saunter about the domestic +byways of the house, and had a hand in various tasks which brought +him into working partnership with pretty, young Elmira--such as +stemming currants or shelling pease and beans. On several occasions, +also, he and Elmira had roamed the pastures in search of blackberries +for tea. Once when they were out together, and had been picking a +long time from one fat bush, neither saying a word--for a strange +silence which abashed them both, though they knew not why, had come +between them--the girl, moved thereto by some quick impulse of +maidenly concealment and shame which she did not herself understand, +made some light and trivial remark about the size of the fruit, which +would well have acquit her had not her little voice broken with utter +self-betrayal of innocent love and passion. And then young Lawrence, +with a quick motion, as of fire which leaps to flame after a long +smoulder, flung an arm about her, with a sigh of "Oh, Elmira!" and +kissed her on her mouth. + +Then they had quickly stood apart, as if afraid of each other, and +finished picking their berries and gone home soberly, with scarce a +word. But all the time it was as if invisible cords, which no +stretching could thin or break, bound them together, and when they +entered the house Doctor Prescott's wife, Lydia, looked at them both +with a gentle, yet keen and troubled air. That night, when Elmira +went home, she said to her softly that since the baking was all done +for the week, and the guests were to leave in three days, and the +weather was so warm, and she looked tired, she need not come again. +But she drew her to her gently, as she spoke, with one great +mother-arm, pressed the little dark head of the girl against her +breast, and kissed her. Lydia Prescott was a large woman, shaped like +a queen, but she was softer in her ways than Elmira's own mother. + +When the girl had gone she turned to her son, who had seen her +caress, and blushed and thrilled as if he had given it himself. "You +must remember you are very young, Lawrence," said she; "you must +remember that a man has no right to follow his mind until he has +proved it, and you must remember your father." + +And Lawrence had blushed and paled a little, and said, "Yes, mother," +soberly, and gone away up-stairs to his own chamber, where he had +some wakeful hours, and when he fell asleep often started awake +again, with his heart throbbing in his side with that same joyful +pain as when he kissed pretty Elmira. + +As for Elmira, she did not sleep at all, and came down in the morning +with young eyes like stars of love, which no dawn could dim. For six +years the memory of that kiss, which had never been repeated, for +Elmira had never seen Lawrence alone since, had been to her her +sweetest honey savor of life. Lucky it was for her that young +Lawrence, if the taste had not been in his heart as in hers during +his busy life in other scenes, had still the memory of its sweetness +left. + +When they had passed through the avenue of brook willows, and the +brook itself had wound away through fields spotted as with emeralds +and gold, and then had passed some pasture-lands where red cattle +were grazing, and then came to a little stretch of pines, beyond +which the white walls of a house glimmered, Lawrence held up his arms +to Elmira. "It isn't necessary," said he, "but if you don't want to +ride my horse, with me leading him, past the houses there, why, I'll +take you down, as I said." + +And with that Elmira slipped down, and Lawrence had kissed her again, +and she had not chidden him, and was following after him, trembling +and quite pale, except for the reflection of her pink sunbonnet, +while he rode slowly ahead. + +When the cluster of houses were well passed he stopped and lifted +her again to the mare's saddle, and the old shyness of the +blackberry-field was over both of them again as they went on their +way. In truth, Lawrence was sorely bewildered betwixt his impulse of +young love and innocent conviction that his honor ought to be pledged +with the kiss, since they were boy and girl no longer, and his memory +of his father and what he might decree for him. As for Elmira, she +was much troubled in mind lest she ought to rebuke the young man for +his boldness, but could not bring herself so to do, not being certain +that she had not kissed him back and been as guilty as he. + +The young couple went so all the way to Granby, striving now and +then, with casual talk, each to blind the other as to perturbation of +spirit. Lawrence lifted her from the saddle when Granby village came +in sight, but he did not kiss her again. Indeed, Elmira kept her head +well down that he might not; but he asked if he might call and see +her, and she said yes, and the next Wednesday evening was mentioned, +that day being Thursday. Then she fluttered up the Granby street to +Imogen and Sarah Lawson's with her mother's wedding silk, and +Lawrence Prescott rode back to Upham. Much he would have liked to +linger and take Elmira back as she had come, or else drive over for +her later with a chaise, but she had refused. + +"Imogen and Sarah can have one of their neighbors' horses and wagons +whenever they like," said she, "and they will carry me home if I want +them to." + +A strange maidenly shyness of her own bliss and happiness, which she +longed to repeat, was upon her. She had not told Lawrence what her +errand in Granby was. The truth was that she had planned her new gown +because Lawrence had come home, and she was anxious to wear it to +meeting in the hope that he might admire her in it. Should she betray +this artless preening and trimming of her maiden plumage, which, +though, like a bird's, an open secret of nature, must nevertheless be +kept sacred by an impulse of modest concealment and deceit towards +the one for whose sake it all was? + + + + +Chapter XX + + +They who have sensitive palates for all small, sweet, but secondary +savors of life that come in their way, and no imaginative desires for +others, are contented in spirit. When also small worries and affairs, +even those of their neighbors in lieu of their own, serve them as +well as large ones to keep their minds to a healthy temper of +excitement and zest of life, there is no need to pity them for any +lack of full experience. + +Imogen and Sarah Lawson, the two elderly single sisters whom Elmira +Edwards sought in Granby that day, were in a way happier than she, +all flushed with her hope of young love, for they held in certain +tenure that which they had. They were sitting stitching on fine linen +shirts in the little kitchen of the cottage house in which they had +been born. There was a broad slant of sunlight athwart the floor, a +great cat purred in a rocking-chair, the clock ticked, a pot of +greens boiled over the fire. They seemed to look out of a little +secure home radiance of peace at Elmira when she entered, all glowing +and tremulous with sweet excitement which she strove hard to conceal. + +No romances had there been in the lives of the Lawson sisters, and no +repining over the lack of them. They had, in their youth, speculated +as to what husbands the Lord might provide for them, and looked about +for them with furtive alertness. When He provided none, they stopped +speculating, and went on as sharply askant as hens at any smaller +good pecks life might have for them. + +The Lawson sisters had always been considered dressy. They owned +their house and garden, also several acres which yielded fair crops +of hay, and some good woodland. They earned considerable money making +fine shirts for a little Jew peddler who let out work in several +neighboring villages, and were enabled to devote the greater part of +that to their wardrobes. They were said to always buy everything of +the best--the finest muslins, the stiffest silks, the richest +ribbons. Each of the sisters possessed several silk gowns, a fine +cashmere shawl, and a satin pelisse; each had two beautiful bonnets, +one for winter and one for summer, and each possessed the value of +her fine apparel to the uttermost, and realized from it a petty, +perhaps, but no less comforting, illumination of spirit. Many of the +lights of happiness of this world are feeble and even ignoble, but +one must see to live, and even a penny dip is exalted if it save one +from the darkness of despair. It is not given to every one to light +his way with a sun, or a full moon, or even a star. + +The two Lawson sisters, Imogen and Sarah, greeted Elmira with a +shrill feminine clamor of hospitality, as was their wont, examined +her mother's wedding silk with critical eyes and fingers, and +pronounced it well worth making over. "It's best to buy a good thing +while you're about it, if it does cost a little more," said Imogen. + +"Yes, that's true," assented her sister. "Now I shouldn't be a mite +surprised if Ann paid as much as one an' sixpence for this silk when +'twas new; but look at it now--there ain't a break in it. It's as +good as your blue-and-yellow changeable silk, Imogen." + +"Dun'no' but 'tis," said Imogen, reflectively. + +Sarah went with Elmira to the mantua-maker's, who lived in the next +house, to get the dress cut, while Imogen prepared the dinner. In the +afternoon the two sisters gave Elmira an hour's work on her new gown, +one stitching up the body, the other sewing breadths; then they +borrowed the neighbor's horse and wagon and drove her home to Upham. + +Elmira was glad to ride; she thought that she should die of shame +should she walk home and meet Lawrence Prescott again. + +Imogen drove. She was the older, but the larger and stronger of the +two. Elmira sat in the rear gloom of the covered wagon with Sarah, +holding her silk gown spread carefully over her knees. She thought of +nothing all the way but the possibility of meeting Lawrence. She made +up her mind that if she did she would sit far back in the wagon and +not thrust her head forward at all. "If he acts as if he thought I +might be in here, and looks real hard, then it will be time for me to +do my part," she thought. + +Whenever she saw a man or a team in the distance, her heart beat +violently, but it was never Lawrence. All her sweet panic of +expectation would have been quieted had she known that he was at that +very time seated in Miss Camilla Merritt's arbor, drinking tea and +eating fruit cake with her and pretty Lucina. + +"Didn't you think Elmira seemed dreadful kind of flighty +to-day--still as a mouse one minute and carryin' on the next?" Sarah +asked Imogen, as they were driving home in the evening. They had +waited, staying to tea and letting the horse rest, until the full +moon arose. + +"Yes, I did," said Imogen, "but Ann was just like her at her age. +That silk is well enough, but it ain't no such quality as my blue an' +yellow changeable one." + +"Well, I dun'no' as it is. I dun'no' as it's as good as my figured +brown one." + +It was a beautiful spring night; the moon was one for lovers to light +their fondest thoughts and fancies into reality. The two old sisters +driving home met and passed many young couples on the country road. +"If they don't look out I shall run over some of them fellars an' +girls," said Imogen. "I don't b'lieve Elmira has ever had anybody +waitin' on her, do you, Sarah?" + +"Never heard of anybody," replied Sarah. "Well, anyhow, she's goin' +to have a real handsome dress out of that silk." + +"Yes, she is," said Imogen, and just then from before the great +plunging feet of her horse a pair of young lovers sprang with a +laugh, having seen nothing of team nor the old sisters nor yet of the +little side lamps of happiness they bore, in the great dazzling +circle of their own. + +Elmira finished her dress Saturday. She had sat up nearly two nights +stitching on it, but nobody would have dreamed it when she came down +out of her chamber Sunday morning all ready for meeting. Her mother +was sitting in the parlor beside a window, with her Bible on her +knees. The window was opened wide, and the room was full of the +reverberations of the meeting bell. Always on a pleasant Sunday +morning in summer-time Ann Edwards sat with her Bible at the open +window and listened to the meeting bell. + +As Elmira entered, the bell tolled again, and the long wavering and +dying of its sweet multiple tones commenced afresh. Elmira stood +before her mother, and turned slowly about that she might view her on +all sides in her new attire. + +Elmira whirled slowly, in a whispering, shimmering circle of pale +green silk; a little wrought-lace cape, which also had been part of +her mother's bridal array, covered her bare neck, for the dress was +cut low. She had bought a new ribbon of green and white, like the +striped grass of the gardens, for her bonnet, and tied it in a crisp +and dainty bow under her chin. This same bonnet, of a fine Florence +braid, had served her for best for nearly ten years. She had worn a +bright ribbon on it in the winter season and a delicate-hued one in +summer-time, but it was always the same bonnet. + +Elmira had not had a new summer ribbon for three years, and now, in +addition, she had purchased some rosebuds, and arranged them in +little clusters in a frilling of lace inside the brim. Her pretty +face looked out of this little millinery halo with an indescribably +mild and innocent radiance. One caught one's self looking past her +fixed shining eyes for the brightness which they saw and reflected. + +"Well," said her mother, "I guess you look as well as some other +folks, if you didn't lay out quite so much money. I guess folks will +have to give in you do." + +Ann Edwards's little nervous face wore rather an expression of +antagonistic triumph than a smile of motherly approval; so hostile +had been all her conditions of life that she never laid down her +weapons, and went with spear in rest, as it were, even into her few +by-paths of delight. + +She pulled Elmira's skirts here and there to be sure they hung +evenly; she bade her stand close, and picked out the ribbon bow under +her chin. "Now you'd better run along," said she, "or the bell will +stop tollin'." + +She watched the girl, in her own old bridal array, step down the +front path, with more happiness than she had known since her +husband's disappearance. Elmira had told her mother that Lawrence +Prescott was coming to see her, and she had immediately leaped to +furthest conclusions. Ann Edwards had not a doubt that Lawrence and +Elmira would be married. She had, when it was once awakened, that +highest order of ambition which ignores even the existence of +obstacles. + +As Elmira's green skirts fluttered out of sight behind some +lilac-bushes pluming to the wind with purple blossoms Jerome came in, +and his mother turned to him. "I guess Elmira will do about as well +as any of the girls," said she, with her tone of blissful yet +half-vindictive triumph. + +Jerome looked at her wonderingly. "Why shouldn't she?" said he. + +Immediately Mrs. Edwards put forth her feminine craft like an +involuntary tentacle of protection for her excess of imagination, +against the masculine practicality of her son. Neither she nor Elmira +had said anything about Lawrence Prescott to him; both knew how he +would regard the matter. It seemed to Mrs. Edwards that she had +fairly heard him say: "Marry Doctor Prescott's son! You know better, +mother." Now she, with her Bible on her knees, shunted rapidly the +whole truth behind a half-truth. + +"I guess she'll cut full as good a figure in my old silk and her old +bonnet with a new ribbon on it as any of the girls," said she. Then +she added, with a skilful swerve from whole truths and half-truths +alike: "You'd better hurry, Jerome, or you'll be late to meetin'. +Elmira is out of sight, an' the bell's 'most stopped tollin'." + +"I am not going this morning," said Jerome. + +"Why not, I'd like to know?" + +"John Upham sent his oldest boy over here this morning to tell me the +baby's sick. I am going over there and see if I can do anything." + +"I should think John Upham had better send for Doctor Prescott +instead of taking you away from meeting." + +"You know he won't, mother. I believe he'd let the baby die before he +would. I've got to go there and do the best I can." + +"Well, all I've got to say is, he ought to be ashamed of himself if +he'd let his own baby die before he'd call in the doctor, I don't +care how bad he's treated him. I shouldn't wonder if John Upham was +some to blame about that; there's always two sides to a story." + +Jerome made no reply. He would have been puzzled several times +lately, had he considered it of sufficient moment, by his mother's +change of attitude towards Doctor Prescott. He went to the +china-closet beside the chimney. On the upper shelves was his +mother's best china tea-set; on the lower a little array of cloudy +bottles; some small bunches of herbs, all nicely labelled, were +packed in the wide space at the bottom. + +His mother's antagonistic eyes followed him. "I dun'no' as I can have +them herbs in my china-closet much longer," said she; "they're +scentin' up the dishes too much. If I want to have a little company +to tea, I ain't goin' to have the tea all flavored with spearmint an' +catnip." + +"Well, I'll move them when I come home," said Jerome, with his usual +concession, which always aggravated his mother more than open +rebellion, although she admired him for it. "I only brought those +little bundles down from the barn loft to have them handy. I'll rig +up a cupboard for them in the woodshed." + +Jerome tucked a bottle or two in his pocket, and rolled up a little +bouquet of herbs in paper. + +"I should think it would be time for you to go and see that young one +after meeting," said his mother, varying her point of attack when she +met with no resistance. + +"I'll go to meeting this afternoon," replied Jerome, in the tone with +which he might have pacified a fretful child. There was no +self-justification in it. + +"I s'pose Doctor Prescott will be mad if he hears of your goin' +there, an' I dun'no' but I should be in his place," she said, as +Jerome went out. Then, as he did not answer, she added, calling out +shrilly: + +"I don't see why John Upham can't call in Lawrence, if he wants a +doctor; he's begun to study with his father; he can't have nothin' +against him. I guess he knows as much as you do." + +"Mother's queer," Jerome told himself as he went down the road, and +then dismissed the matter from his mind, for the consideration of the +Upham baby and the probable nature of its ailment, upon which, +however, he did not allow himself to dwell too long. Early in his +amateur practice Jake Noyes had inculcated one precept in his mind, +upon which he always acted. + +"There's one thing I want to tell ye, J'rome, and I want ye to +remember it," Jake Noyes had said, "and that is, a doctor had ought +to be like jurymen--he'd ought to be sworn in to be unprejudiced when +he goes to see a patient, just as a juryman is when he goes to court. +If you don't know what ails 'em, don't ye go to speculatin', as to +what 'tis an' what ye'll do, on the way there. Ten chances to one, if +you're workin' up measles in your mind an' what you'll do for them, +you'll find it's mumps, an' then you've got to cure your own measles +afore you cure their mumps; an' if you're hard-bitted an' can't stop +yourself easy when you're once headed, you may give saffron tea to +bring out the measles whether or no. Think of the prospect, or the +gals, or your soul's salvation, or anythin' but the sick folks, +before you get to 'em the first time and don't know what ails 'em." + +In girls Jerome had, so far, no interest; in his soul's salvation he +had little active concern. The revivals which were occasionally +upstirred in the community by prayer, and the besom of threatened +destruction, passed over him like a hot wind, for which he had no +power of sensation, sometimes to his own wonder. Probably the cause +lay in the fact that he was too thoroughly, without knowing it, +rooted and grounded in his own creed to be emotionally moved by +religious appeals. Jerome had, as most have, consciously or not, and +vitally or not, his own creed. He believed simply in the +unquestionable justice of the intent of God, the thwarting struggles +against it by free man, and that his duty to apply his small strength +towards furthering what he could, if no more than an atom, of the +eternal will lay plain before him. + +Jerome, who had not yet been disturbed by love of woman, who fretted +not over the salvation of his own soul, had therefore, in order to +follow his mentor's advice, to turn his attention to the prospect. +His way led in an opposite direction from the church, and he was +late, so met none of the worshippers bound to meeting. He was rather +glad of that. After he left the village the road lay through the +woods, and now and then between blueberry-fields or open spaces of +meadow, with green water-lines and shadows purple with violets in the +hollows. Red cows in the meadows stared at him as he passed, with +their mysterious abstraction from all reflection, then grazed again, +moving in one direction from the sun. The blueberry-patches spread a +pale green glimmer of blossoms, like a sheen of satin in a high +light; young ferns curled beside the road like a baby's fingers +grasping at life; the trees, which were late in leafing, also reached +out towards the sun little rosy clasping fingers whereby to hold fast +to the motherhood of the spring. The air was full of that odor so +delicate that it is scarcely an odor at all, much less a fragrance, +which certain so-called scentless plants give out, and then only to +wide recognition when they bloom in multitudes--it was only the +simplest evidence of life itself. Through that came now and then +great whiffs of perfume from some unseen flowering bush, calling, as +it were, from its obscurity, with halloos of fragrance, to the +careless passer-by, to search it out. + +Jerome passed along, seeing and comprehending all the sweet pageant +of the spring morning, yet as an observer merely. Nature had as yet +not established her fullest relationship to himself, and he knew not +that her secret glory of meaning was like his own. + + + + +Chapter XXI + + +John Upham's farm, or rather what had been John Upham's farm (Doctor +Prescott owned it now), began at the end of a long stretch of woods, +with some fine fields sloping greenly towards the west. Farther on, +behind a row of feathery elm-trees, stood the old Upham homestead. + +John Upham did not live there now; his mortgage had been foreclosed +nearly a year before, about the time the last baby was born. People +said that the mother had been cruelly hurried out of her own house +into the little shanty, which her husband was forced to rent for a +shelter. Poor John Upham had lost all his ancestral acres to Doctor +Prescott now, and did not fairly know himself how it had happened. +There had been heavy bills for medicines and attendance, and the +doctor had loaned him money oftentimes, with his land as security, +for other debts. A little innocent saying of one of his six children +to another was much repeated to the village, "Father bought you of +Doctor Prescott, and paid for you with all the clover-field he had +left, and you must be very good, for you came very dear." + +It was known positively that John Upham had gone to Doctor Prescott's +the day after he had left his old home, and told him to his face what +he thought of him. "You have planned and manoeuvred to get all my +property into your hands from the very first of it," said John Upham. +"You've drained me dry, an' now I hope you're satisfied." + +"You had full value in return," replied the doctor, calmly. + +"I haven't had time. In nine cases out of ten, if you had given me a +little time, I could have got myself out, and you know it. You've +screwed me down to the very second." + +"I cannot afford to give my debtors longer time than that regulated +by the laws of the commonwealth." + +Then a sudden strange gleam had come into John Upham's blue eyes. +"Thank the Lord," he cried out, in a trembling fervor of +wrath--"thank the Lord, He gives all the time there is to His +debtors, an' no commonwealth on the earth can make laws agin it." He +had actually then raised a great fist and shaken it before the +doctor's face. "Now, don't you ever darse to darken my doors again, +Doctor Seth Prescott!" he had cried out. "If my wife or my children +are sick, I'll let them lay and die before I'll have you in the +house!" So saying, John Upham had stridden forth out of the doctor's +yard, where he had held the conversation with him, with Jake Noyes +and two other men covertly listening. + +After that Jake Noyes had given surreptitious advice, with sly +shoving of medicine-vials into John Upham's or his wife's hands when +the children were ailing, and lately Jerome had taken his place. + +"Guess you had better go there instead of me when the young ones are +out of sorts," Jake Noyes had told Jerome. Then he had added, with a +crafty twist and wink: "When ye can quarrel with your own bread an' +butter with a cat's-paw might as well do it, especially when you're +gettin' along in years. You 'ain't got anything to lose if you do set +the doctor again ye, and I have." + +The house in which the Uphams had taken shelter was in sight of the +old homestead, some rods farther on, on the opposite side of the +road. It stood in a sandy waste of weeds on the border of an old +gravel-pit--an ancient cottage, with a wretched crouch of humility in +its very roof. It had been covered with a feeble coat of red paint +years ago, and cloudy lines of it still survived the wash of old +rains and the beat of old sunbeams. + +Behind it on the north and west rose the sand-hill, dripping with +loose gravel as with water, hollowed out at its base until its crest, +bristling with coarse herbage, magnified against the sky, projected +far out over the cottage roof. The sun was reflected from the sand in +a great hollow of arid light. Jerome, nearing it, felt as if he were +approaching an oven. The cottage door was shut, as were all the +windows. However, he heard plainly the shrill wail of the sick baby. + +John Upham opened the door. "Oh, it's you, Jerome!" said he. +"Good-day." + +"Good-day," returned Jerome. "How is the baby?" + +"Well, he seems kind of ailin'. Laury has been up with him all night. +Thought maybe you might give him something. Come in, won't ye?" + +There were only two rooms on the lower floor of the cottage--one was +the kitchen, the other the bedroom where John Upham and his wife +slept with the three youngest children. + +Jerome followed Upham across the kitchen to the bedroom beyond. The +kitchen was littered with all John Upham's poor household goods, +prostrate and unwashed, degraded even from their one dignity of use. +One of the kitchen windows opened towards the sand-hill; the room was +full of its garish glare of reflected sunlight, and the revelations +were pitiless. Laura Upham, once a model housekeeper, had lost all +ambition and domestic pride, now she had such a poor house to keep +and so many children to tend. + +Upham muttered an apology as Jerome picked his way across the room. + +"Laury has been up all night with the baby, an' she hasn't had any +time to redd up the room," he said. "The children have been in here +all the mornin', too, an' they've stirred things up some. I've just +sent 'em out to pick flowers to keep 'em quiet." + +As he spoke he gathered up awkwardly, with a curious over-motion of +his broad shoulders, as if he would conceal the action, various +articles in his path. When he opened the door into the bedroom he +crammed them behind it with a quick, shifty motion. + +The kitchen had been repulsive, but the bedroom fairly shocked with +the very indelicacy of untidiness. Jerome felt an actual modesty +about entering this room, in which so many disclosures of the closest +secrets of the flesh were made. The very dust and discolorations of +the poor furnishings, the confined air, made one turn one's face +aside as from too coarse a betrayal of personal reserve. The naked +indecency of domestic life seemed to display and vaunt itself, +sparing none of its homely and ungraceful details, to the young man +on the threshold of the room. + +"Laury 'ain't had a chance to redd up this, either," poor John Upham +whispered in his ear, and gathered up with a furtive swoop some linen +from the floor. + +"Oh, that's all right!" Jerome whispered back, and entered boldly, +shutting as it were all the wretched disclosures of the room out of +his consciousness, and all effort to do was needless when he saw Mrs. +Upham's face. + +Laura Upham's great hollow eyes, filled with an utter passiveness of +despair, stared up at him out of a sallow gloom of face. She had been +pretty once, and she was not an old woman now, but her beauty was all +gone. Her slender shoulders rounded themselves over the little +creature swathed in soiled flannel on her lap. Just then it was +quiet; but it began wailing again, distorting all its miserable +little face into a wide mouth of feeble clamor as Jerome drew near. + +Mrs. Upham looked down at it hopelessly. She did not try to hush it. +"It's cried this way all night," she said, in a monotonous tone. +"It's goin' to die." + +"Now, Laury, you know it ain't any sicker than it was before," John +said, with a kind of timid conciliation; but she turned upon him with +a fierce gleam lighting her dull eyes to life. + +"You needn't talk to me," said she--"you needn't talk to me, John +Upham, when you won't have the doctor when it's your own flesh an' +blood that's dyin'. I don't care what he's done. I don't care if he +has taken the roof from over our heads. My child is worth more than +anything else. He'd come if you asked him, he couldn't refuse--you +know he couldn't, John Upham!" + +John Upham's face was white; his forehead and his chin got a curious +hardness of outline. "He won't have a chance," he said, between his +teeth. + +"Let your own flesh and blood die, then!" cried his wife; but the +fierceness was all gone from her voice; she had no power of sustained +wrath, so spent was she. She gave a tearless wail that united with +the child's in her lap in a pitiful chord of woe. + +"Now, Laury, you know J'rome gave Minnie somethin' that helped her, +and she seemed every mite as sick as the baby," her husband said, in +a softer voice. But she turned her hopeless eyes again upon the +little, squalid, quivering thing in her lap, and paid no more heed to +him. She let Jerome examine the child, with a strange apathy. There +was no hope, and consequently no power of effort, left in her. + +When Jerome brought some medicine in a spoon, she assisted him to +feed the child with it, but mechanically, and as if she had no +interest. Her sharp right elbow shone like a knob of ivory through a +great rent in her sleeve; her dress was unfastened, and there was a +gleam of white flesh through the opening; she neither knew nor cared. +There was no consciousness of self, no pride and no shame for self, +in her; she had ceased to live in the fullest sense; she was nothing +but the concentration of one emotion of despairing motherhood. + +She heard Jerome and her husband moving about in the next room, she +heard the crackling of fire in the stove, the clinking din of dishes, +the scrape of a broom, not realizing in the least what the sounds +meant. She heard with her mind no sound of earth but the wail of the +sick baby in her lap. + +Jerome Edwards could tidy a house as well as a woman, and John Upham +followed his directions with clumsy zeal. When the kitchen was set to +rights Mrs. Upham went in there, as she was bidden, with the baby, +and sat down in a rocking-chair by the open window towards the road, +through which came a soft green light from some opposite trees, and a +breath of apple-blossoms. + +"We've got the room all redd up, Laury," John Upham said, pitifully, +stooping over her and looking into her face. She nodded vaguely, +looking at the baby, who had stopped crying. + +Jerome dropped some more medicine, and she took the spoon and fed it +to the baby. "I think it will go to sleep now," said Jerome. Mrs. +Upham looked up at him and almost smiled. Hope was waking within her. +"I think it is nothing but a little cold and feverishness, Mrs. +Upham," Jerome added. He had a great pitiful imagination for this +unknown woe of maternity, which possibly gave him as great a power of +sympathy as actual knowledge. + +"You are a good fellow, Jerome, an' I hope I shall be able to do +somethin' to pay you some day," John Upham said, huskily, when they +were in the bedroom putting that also in order. + +"I don't want any pay for what I give," Jerome returned. + +When Jerome started for home, Mrs. Upham and the baby were both +asleep in the clean bedroom. Retracing his steps along the pleasant +road, he was keenly happy, with perhaps the true happiness of his +life, to which he would always turn at last from all others, and +which would survive the death and loss of all others. + +He pictured John Upham's house as he found it and as he left it with +purest self-gratulation. He had not gone far before he heard a clamor +of childish voices; there were two, but they sounded like a troop. +John Upham's twin girls broke through the wayside bushes like little +wild things. Their hands were full of withering flowers. He called +them, and bade them be very still when they went home, so as not to +waken their mother and the baby, and they hung their heads with +bashful assent. They were pretty children in spite of their soiled +frocks, with their little, pink, moist faces and curling crops of +yellow hair. + +"If you keep still and don't wake them up, I will bring you both some +peppermints when I come to-morrow," said Jerome. He had nearly +reached the village when he met the two eldest Upham children. They +were boys, the elder twelve, the younger eight, sturdy little +fellows, advancing with a swinging trot, one behind the other, both +chewing spruce-gum. They had been in the woods, on their way home, +for a supply. Jerome stopped them, and repeated the charge he had +given to the little girls, then kept on. The bell was ringing for +afternoon meeting--in fact, it was almost done. Jerome walked faster, +for he intended to go. He drew near the little white-steepled +meeting-house standing in its small curve of greensward, with the row +of white posts at the side, to which were tied the farmers' great +plough-horses harnessed to covered wagons and dusty chaises, and then +he caught a glimpse of something bright, like a moving flower-bush, +in the road ahead. Squire Eben Merritt, his wife, his sister Miss +Camilla, and his daughter Lucina, were all on their way to afternoon +meeting. + +The Squire was with them that day, leaving heroically his trout-pools +and his fishing-fields; for was it not his pretty Lucina's second +Sunday only at home, and was he not as eager to be with her as any +lover? Squire Eben had gained perhaps twenty pounds of flesh to his +great frame and a slight overcast of gray to his golden beard; +otherwise he had not changed in Jerome's eyes since he was a boy. The +Squire's wife Abigail, like many a small, dark woman who has never +shown in her looks the true heyday of youth, had apparently not aged +nor altered at all. Little and keenly pleasant, like some +insignificant but brightly flavored fruit, set about with crisp silk +flounced to her trim waist, holding her elbows elegantly aslant under +her embroidered silk shawl, her small head gracefully alert in her +bright-ribboned bonnet, she stepped beside her great husband, and +then came Lucina with Miss Camilla. + +Miss Camilla glided along drooping slenderly in black lace and lilac +silk, with a great wrought-lace veil flowing like a bride's over her +head, and shading with a black tracery of leaves and flowers her fair +faded face; but Jerome saw her no more than he would have seen a +shadow beside Lucina. + +If Lucina's parents had changed little, she had changed much, with +the wonderful change of a human spring, and this time Jerome saw her +as well as her gown. She wore that same silken gown of a pale-blue +color, spangled with roses, and the skirts were so wide and trained +over a hoop and starched petticoats that they swung and tilted like a +great double flower, and hit on this side and that with a quick +musical slur. Over Lucina's shoulders, far below her waist, fell her +wonderful fair hair, in curls, and every curl might well have proved +a twining finger of love. Lucina wore a bonnet of fine straw, trimmed +simply enough with a white ribbon, but over her face hung a white +veil of rich lace, and through it her pink cheeks and lips and great +blue eyes and lines of golden hair shone and bloomed and dazzled like +a rose through a frosted window. + +Lucina Merritt was a rare beauty, and she knew it, from her +looking-glass as well as the eyes of others, and dealt with herself +meekly wherewithal, and prayed innocently that she might consider +more the embellishment of her heart and her mind than her person, and +not to be too well pleased at the admiring looks of those whom she +met. Indeed, it was to this end that she wore the white veil over her +face, though not one of the maiden mates would believe that. She +fancied that it somewhat dimmed her beauty, and that folk were less +given to staring at her, not realizing that it added to her graces +that subtlest one of suggestion, and that folk but stared the harder +to make sure whether they saw or imagined such charms. + +Jerome Edwards saw this beautiful Lucina coming, and it was suddenly +as if he entered a new atmosphere. He did not know why, but he +started as if he had gotten a shock, and his heart beat hard. + +Squire Merritt made as if he would greet him in his usual hearty +fashion, but remembering the day, and hearing, too, the first strains +of the opening hymn from the meeting-house, for the bell had stopped +tolling, he gave him only a friendly nod as he passed on with his +wife. Miss Camilla inclined her head with soft graciousness; but +Jerome looked at none of them except Lucina. She did not remember +him; she glanced slightly at his face, and then her long fair lashes +swept again the soft bloom of her cheeks, and her silken skirts +fairly touched him as she passed. Jerome stood still after they had +all entered the meeting-house; the long drone of the hymn sounded +very loud in his ears. + +He made a motion towards the meeting-house, hesitated, made another, +then turned decidedly to the road. It seemed suddenly to him that his +clothes must be soiled and dusty after his work in John Upham's +house, that his hair could not be smooth, that he did not look well +enough to go to meeting. So he went home, yielding for the first +time, without knowing that he did so, to that decorative impulse +which comes to men and birds alike when they would woo their mates. + + + + +Chapter XXII + + +The next morning Jerome went early to his uncle Ozias Lamb for some +finished shoes, which he was to take to Dale. For the first time in +his life, when he entered the shop, he had an impulse to avert his +eyes and not meet his uncle's fully. Ozias had grown old rapidly of +late. He sat, with his usual stiff crouch, on his bench and hammered +away at a shoe-heel on his lapstone. His hair and beard were white +and shaggy, his blue eyes peered sharply, as from a very ambush of +old age, at Jerome loading himself with the finished shoes. + +After the usual half-grunt of greeting, which was scarcely more than +a dissyllabic note of salutation between two animals, Ozias was +silent until Jerome was going out. + +"Ain't ye well this mornin'?" he asked then. + +"Yes," replied Jerome, "I'm well enough." + +"When a man's smart," said Ozias Lamb, "and has got money in his +pocket, and don't want folks to know it, he don't keep feelin' of it +to see if it's safe. He acts as if he hadn't got any money, or any +pocket, neither. I s'pose that's what you're tryin' to do." + +"Don't know what you mean," returned Jerome, coloring. + +"Oh, nothin'. Go along," said his uncle. + +But he spoke again before Jerome was out of hearing. "There ain't any +music better than a squeak, in the grind you an' me have got to make +out of life," said he, "an' don't you go to thinkin' there is. If you +ever think you hear it, it's only in your own ears, an' you might as +well make up your mind to it." + +"I made up my mind to it as long ago as I can remember," Jerome +answered back, yet scarcely with bitterness, for the very music which +his uncle denied was too loud in his ears for him to disbelieve it. + +When Jerome was returning from Dale, an hour later, his back bent +beneath great sheaves of newly cut shoes, like a harvester's with +wheat, he heard a hollow echo of hoofs in the road ahead, then +presently a cloud of dust arose like smoke, and out of it came two +riders: Lawrence Prescott, on a fine black horse--which his father +used seldom for driving, he was so unsuited for standing patiently at +the doors of affliction, yet kept through a latent fondness for good +horse-flesh--and Lucina Merritt, on his pretty bay mare. Lucina +galloped past at Lawrence's side, with an eddying puff of blue +riding-skirt and a toss of yellow curls and blue plumes. Jerome stood +back a little to give them space, and the dust settled slowly over +him after they were by. Then he went on his way, with his heart +beating hard, yet with no feeling of jealousy against Lawrence +Prescott. He even thought that it would be a good match. Still, he +was curiously disturbed, not by the reflection that he was laden with +sheaves of leather--he would have been more ashamed had he been seen +idling on a work-day--but because he feared he looked so untidy with +the dust of the road on his shoes. She might have noticed his +clothes, although she had galloped by so fast. + +The first thing Jerome did, when he reached home, was to brush and +blacken his shoes, though there was no chance of Lucina's seeing +them. He felt as if he ought not to think of her when he had on dusty +shoes. + +The greater part of the next day Jerome passed, as usual, soling +shoes in Ozias Lamb's shop. When he came home to supper, he noticed +something unusual about his mother and sister. They had the +appearance of being strung tightly with repressed excitement, like +some delicate musical instruments. To look at or to speak to them was +to produce in them sensitive vibrations which seemed out of +proportion to the cause. + +Jerome asked no questions. These disturbances in the feminine current +always produced a corresponding stiffness of calm in his masculine +one, as if by an instinct to maintain the equilibrium of dangerous +forces for the safety of the household. + +Elmira and her mother kept looking at each other and at him, pulses +starting up in their delicate cheeks, flushes coming and going, +motioning each other with furtive gestures to speak, then +countermanding the order with sharp negatory shakes of the head. + +At last Mrs. Edwards called back Jerome as he was going to his +chamber, books under arm and lighted candle in hand. + +"Look here," said she; "I want to show you something." + +Jerome turned. Elmira was extending towards him a nicely folded +letter, with a little green seal on it. + +"What is it?" asked Jerome. + +"Read it," said his mother. Jerome took it, unfolded it, and read, +Elmira and his mother watching him. Elmira was quite pale. Mrs. +Edwards's mouth was set as if against anticipated opposition, her +nervously gleaming eyes were fierce with ready argument. Jerome knit +his brows over the letter, then he folded it nicely and gave it back +to Elmira. + +"You see what it is?" said his mother. + +"Yes, I see," replied Jerome, hesitatingly. He looked confused before +her, for one of the few times of his life. + +"An invitation for you an' Elmira to Squire Merritt's--to a party; +it's Lucina's birthday," said his mother, and she fairly smacked her +lips, as if the words were sweet. + +Elmira looked at her brother breathlessly. Nobody knew how eager she +was to go; it was the first party worthy of a name to which she had +been bidden in her whole life. She and her mother had been +speculating, ever since the invitation had arrived, upon the +possibility of Jerome's refusing to accept it. + +"Nobody can tell what he'll do," Mrs. Edwards had said. "He's just as +likely to take a notion not to go as to go." + +"I can't go if he doesn't," said Elmira. + +"Why can't you, I'd like to know?" + +Elmira shrank timidly. "I never went into Squire Merritt's house in +my life," said she. + +"I guess there ain't anything there to bite you," said her mother. +"I'm goin' to say all I can to have your brother go; but if he won't, +you can put on your new dress an' go without him." However, Mrs. +Edwards privately resolved to use as an argument to Jerome, in case +he refused to attend the party, the fact that his sister would not go +without him. + +She used it now. Mrs. Edwards's military tactics were those of direct +onslaught, and no saving of powder. "Elmira's afraid to go unless you +do," said she. "You'll be keepin' her home, an' she ain't had a +chance to go to many parties, poor child!" + +Jerome met Elmira's beseeching eyes and frowned aside, blushing like +a girl. "Well, I don't know," said he; "I'll see." + +That was the provincial form of masculine concession to feminine +importunity. Mrs. Edwards nodded to Elmira when Jerome had shut the +door. "He'll go," said she. + +Elmira smiled and quivered with half-fearful delight. Lawrence +Prescott was coming to see her the next day, and the day after that +she would be sure to meet him again at Squire Merritt's. She trembled +before her own happiness, as before an angel whose wings cast shadows +of the dread of delight. + +"You'd better go to bed now," said her mother, with a meaning look; +"you want to look bright to-morrow, and you've got a good deal before +you." + +The next day not a word was said to Jerome about Lawrence Prescott's +expected call. He noticed vaguely that something unusual seemed to be +going on in the parlor; then divined, with a careless dismissal of +the subject, that it was house-cleaning. He had a secret of his own +that day which might have rendered him less curious about the secrets +of others. There were scarcely enough shoes finished to take to Dale, +only a half-lot, but Jerome announced his intention of going, to +Ozias Lamb, with assumed carelessness. + +"Why don't ye wait till the lot is finished?" asked Ozias. + +"Guess I'll take a half-lot this time," replied Jerome. + +Ozias eyed him sharply, but said nothing. + +Jerome had in his room a little iron-bound strong-box which had +belonged to his father, though few treasures had poor Abel Edwards +ever had occasion to store in it. After dinner that noon Jerome went +up-stairs, unlocked the strong-box, took out some coins, handling +them carefully lest they jingle, and put them in his leather wallet. +Then he went down-stairs and out the front door as stealthily as if +he had been thieving. Elmira and her mother were at work in the +parlor, and saw him go down the walk and disappear up the road. + +"I'll tell you what 'tis," said Mrs. Edwards, with one of her sharp, +confirmatory nods, "J'rome's been takin' out some of that money, an' +he's goin' to Dale to get him some new clothes." + +"What makes you think so?" + +"Oh, you see if he 'ain't. He 'ain't got a coat nor a vest fit to +wear to that party, an' he knows it. If he's taken some of that money +he's savin' up towards the mortgage I'm glad of it. Folks ought to +have a little somethin' as they go along; if they don't, first thing +they know they'll get past it." + +Jerome did not start for Dale until it was quite late in the +afternoon, working hard meanwhile in the shop. The day was another of +those typical ones of early spring, which had come lately, drooping +as to every leaf and bud with that hot languor which forces bloom. +The door and windows of the little shop were set wide open. The honey +and spice-breaths of flowers mingled with the rank effluvia of +leather like a delicate melody with a harsh bass. Jerome pegged along +in silence with knitted brow, yet with a restraint of smiles on his +lips. + +Ozias Lamb also was silent; his old face bending over his work was a +concentration of moody gloom. Ozias was not as outspoken as formerly +concerning his bitter taste of life, possibly because it had reached +his soul. Jerome sometimes wondered if his uncle had troubles that he +did not know of. He started for Dale so late that it was after sunset +when he returned with a great parcel under his arm. He felt strangely +tired, and just before he reached Upham village he sat down on a +stone wall, laid his parcel carefully at his side, and looked about +him. + +The spring dusk was gathering slowly, though at first through an +enhanced clearness of upper lights. All the gloom seemed to proceed +from the earth in silvery breathings of meadows and gradual stealings +forth of violet shadows from behind forest trees. The sky was so full +of pure yellow light that even the feathery spring foliage was darkly +outlined against it, and one could see far within it the fanning of +the wings of the twilight birds. The air was cooler. The breaths of +new-turned earth, and rank young plants in marshy places and woodland +ponds were in it, overcoming somewhat those of sun-steeped blossoms, +which had prevailed all day. + +The road from Dale to Upham lay through low land, and however dry the +night elsewhere, there was always a damp freshness. The circling +clamor of birds overhead seemed wonderfully near. In the village the +bell had begun to ring for an evening prayer-meeting, and one could +have fancied that the bell hung in one of the neighboring trees. The +clearness of sight seemed to enhance hearing, and possibly also that +imagination which is beyond both senses. Jerome had a vague +impression which he did not express to himself, that he had come to a +door wide open into spaces beyond all needs and desires of the flesh +and the earthly soul, and had a sense of breathing new air. Suddenly, +now that he had gained this clear outlook of spirit, the world, and +all the things thereof, seemed to be at his back, and grown dim, even +to his retrospective thought. The image even of beautiful Lucina, +which had dwelt with him since Sunday, faded, for she was not yet +become of his spirit, and pertained scarcely to his flesh, except +through the simplest and most rudimentary of human instincts. Jerome +glanced at the parcel containing the fine new vest and coat which he +had purchased, and frowned scornfully at this childish vanity, which +would lead him to perk and plume and glitter to the sun, like any +foolish bird which would awake the desire of the eyes in another. + +"What a fool I am!" he muttered, and looked at the great open of sky +again, and was half minded to take his purchases back to Dale. + +However, when the clear gold of the sky began to pale and a great +star shone out over the west, he rose, took up his parcel, and went +home. + +There was a light in the parlor. He thought indifferently that +Paulina Maria Judd or his aunt Belinda might be in there calling on +his mother; but when he went into the kitchen his mother sat there, +and both the other women were with her. + +The supper-table was still standing. "Where have you been, Jerome +Edwards?" cried his mother. She cast a sharp look at his parcel, but +said nothing about it. Jerome laid it on top of the old desk which +had belonged to his father. "I have been over to Dale," he replied; +"I didn't start very early." + +His aunt Belinda looked at him amiably. She had not changed much. Her +face, shaded by her long curls, had that same soft droop as of a +faded flower. Once past her bloom of the flesh, there was, in a woman +so little beset by storms of the spirit as Belinda Lamb, little +further change possible until she dropped entirely from her tree of +life. She looked at Jerome with the amiable light of a smile rather +than a smile itself, and said, with her old, weak, but clinging +pounce upon disturbing trifles, "Why, Jerome, you 'ain't been all +this time gettin' to Dale an' back?" + +"I didn't hurry," replied Jerome, coldly, drawing a chair up to the +supper-table. He had always a sensation of nervous impatience with +this mild, negatively sweet woman which he could not overcome, though +he felt shamed by it. He preferred to see Paulina Maria, though +between her and himself a covert antagonism survived the open one of +his boyhood--at least, he could dislike her without disliking +himself. + +The candle-light fell full upon Paulina Maria's face, which was even +more transparent than formerly; so transfused was her clear profile +by the candle-light that the outlines seemed almost to waver and be +lost. She was knitting a fine white cotton stocking in an intricate +pattern, and did not look at Jerome, or speak to him, beyond her +first nod of recognition when he entered. + +Presently, however, Jerome turned to her. "How is Henry?" he +inquired. + +"About the same," she replied, in her clear voice, which was +unexpectedly loud, and seemed to have a curious after-tone. + +"His eyes are no worse, then?" + +"No worse, and no better." + +"Can't he do any more than he did last year?" asked Mrs. Edwards. + +"No, he can't. He hasn't been able to do a stitch on shoes since last +Thanksgiving. He can't do anything but sit at the window and knit +plain knittin'. I don't know how he would get along, if I hadn't +showed him how to do that. I believe he'd go crazy." + +"Don't you think that last stuff Doctor Prescott put in his eyes did +him any good?" asked Mrs. Edwards. + +"No, I don't. He didn't think it would, himself. He said all there +was to do was to go to Boston and see that great doctor there and +have an operation, an' it's goin' to cost three hundred dollars. +Three hundred dollars!--it's easy enough to talk--three hundred +dollars! Adoniram has been laid up with jaundice half the winter. +I've bound shoes, and I've knit these fine stockin's for Mis' Doctor +Prescott. They go towards the doctor's bill, but they're a drop in +the bucket. She'd allow considerable on them, but it ain't _her_ say. +Three hundred dollars!" + +"It's a sight of money," said Belinda Lamb. "I s'pose you could +mortgage the house, Paulina Maria, and then when Henry got his +eyesight back he could work to pay it off." + +A deep red transfused Paulina Maria's transparent pallor, but before +she could speak Ann Edwards interposed. "Mortgage!" said she, with a +sniff of her nostrils, as if she scented battle. "Mortgage! Load a +poor horse down to the ground till his legs break under him, set a +baby to layin' a stone wall till he drops, but don't talk to me of +mortgages; I guess I know enough about them. My poor husband would +have been alive and well to-day if it hadn't been for a mortgage. It +sounds easy enough--jest a little interest money to pay every year, +an' all this money down; but I tell you 'tis like a leech that sucks +at body and soul. You get so the mortgage looks worse than your sins, +an' you pray to be forgiven that instead of them. I know. Don't you +have a mortgage put on your house, Paulina Maria Judd, or you'll rue +the day. I'd--steal before I'd do it!" + +Paulina Maria made no response; she was quite pale again. + +"I should think you'd be afraid Henry would go entirely blind if you +didn't have something done for him," said Belinda Lamb. + +"I be," replied Paulina Maria, sternly. She rose to go, and Belinda +also, with languid response of motion, as if Paulina Maria were an +upstirring wind. + +When Paulina Maria opened the outer door there was a rush of dank +night air. + +"Don't you want me to walk home with you and Aunt Belinda?" asked +Jerome. "It's pretty dark." + +"No, thank you," replied Paulina Maria, grimly, looking back, a pale, +wavering shape against the parallelogram of night; "the things I'm +afraid of walk in the light as much as the dark, an' you can't keep +'em off." + +"You make me creep, talkin' so," Belinda Lamb said, as she and +Paulina Maria, two women of one race, with their souls at the +antipodes of things, went down the path together. + +"I hope Paulina Maria won't put a mortgage on her house; Henry 'd +better be blind," said Ann Edwards, when they had gone. + +Jerome, finishing his supper, said nothing, but he knew, and Paulina +Maria knew that he knew, there was already a mortgage on her house. +When Jerome rose from the table his mother pointed at the parcel on +the desk. + +"What's that?" she asked. + +"I had to buy a coat and vest if I was going to that party," replied +Jerome, with a kind of dogged embarrassment. He had never felt so +confused before his mother's sharp eyes since he was a child. If she +had blamed him for his purchase, he would have been an easy victim, +but she did not. + +"What did you get?" she asked. + +"I'll show you in the morning--you can see them better." + +"Well, you needed them, if you are goin' to the party. You've got to +look a little like folks. Where you goin'?" for Jerome had started +towards the door. + +"Into the parlor to get a book." He opened the door, but his mother +beckoned him back mysteriously, and he closed it softly. + +"What is it?" he asked, wonderingly. "Who is there? Has Elmira got +company?" + +"Belinda Lamb begun quizzin' as soon as she got in here; said she +thought she heard a man talkin', an' asked if it was you; an' when I +said it wa'n't, wanted to know who it was. I told her right to her +face it was none of her business." + +"Who is it in there, mother?" asked Jerome. + +"It ain't anybody to make any fuss about." + +"Who is it in there with Elmira?" + +"It's Lawrence Prescott, that's who it is," replied his mother, who +was more wary in defence than attack, yet defiant enough when the +struggle came. She looked at Jerome with unflinching eyes. + +"Lawrence Prescott!" + +"Yes, what of it?" + +"Mother, he isn't going to pay attention to Elmira!" + +"Why not, if he wants to? He's as likely a young fellow as there is +in town. She won't be likely to do any better." + +Jerome stared at his mother in utter bewilderment. "Mother, are you +out of your senses?" he gasped. + +"I don't know why I am," said she. + +"Don't you know that Doctor Prescott would turn Lawrence out of house +and home if he thought he was going to marry Elmira?" + +"I guess she's good enough for him. You can run down your own sister +all you want to, Jerome Edwards." + +"I am not running her down. I don't deny she's good enough for any +man on earth, but not with the kind of goodness that counts. Mother, +don't you know that nothing but trouble can come to Elmira from this? +Lawrence Prescott can't marry her." + +"I'd like to know what you mean by trouble comin' to her," demanded +his mother. A hot red of shame and wrath flashed all over her little +face and neck as she spoke, and Jerome, perceiving his mother's +thought, blushed at that, and not at his own. + +"I meant that he would have to leave her, and make her miserable in +the end, and that is all I did mean," he said, indignantly. "He can't +marry her, and you know it as well as I. Then there is something +else," he added, as a sudden recollection flashed over his mind: "he +was out riding horseback with Lucina Merritt Monday." + +"I don't believe a word of it," his mother said, hotly. + +"I saw him." + +"Well, what of it if he did? She's the only girl here that rides +horseback, an' I s'pose he wanted company. Mebbe her father asked him +to go with her in case her horse got scared at anything. I shouldn't +be a mite surprised if he had to go and couldn't help himself. He +wouldn't like to refuse if he was asked." + +"Mother, you know that Lucina Merritt is the only girl in this town +that Doctor Prescott would think was fit to marry his son, and you +know his family have always had to do just as he said." + +"I don't know any such thing," returned his mother; her voice of +dissent had the shrill persistency of a cricket's. "Doctor Prescott +always took a sight of notice of Elmira when she was a little girl +and he used to come here. He never took to you, I know, but he always +did to Elmira." + +Jerome said no more. He lighted a candle, took his parcel of new +clothes, and went up-stairs to his chamber. + +It was twelve o'clock before Lawrence Prescott went home. Jerome had +not gone to bed; he was waiting to speak to his sister. When he heard +her step on the stairs he opened his door. Elmira, candle in hand, +came slowly up the stair, holding her skirt up lest she trip over it. +When she reached the landing her brother confronted her, and she gave +a little startled cry; then stood, her eyes cast down before him, and +the candle-light shining over the sweet redness and radiance of her +face, which was at that moment nothing but a sign and symbol of +maiden love. + +All at once Jerome seemed to grasp the full meaning of it. His own +face deepened and glowed, and looked strangely like his sister's. It +was as if he began to learn involuntarily his own lesson from +another's text-book. Suddenly, instead of his sister's face he seemed +to see Lucina Merritt's. That look of love which levels mankind to +one family was over his memory of her. + +"What did you want?" Elmira asked, at length, timidly, but laughing +before him at the same time like a foolish child who cannot conceal +delight. + +"Nothing," said her brother; "good-night," and went into his chamber +and shut his door. + + + + +Chapter XXIII + + +The most intimate friends in unwonted gala attire are always +something of a revelation to one another. Butterflies, meeting for +the first time after their release from chrysalis, might well have +the same awe and confusion of old memories. + +On the night of the party, when they were dressed and had come +down-stairs, Jerome, who had seen his sister every day of his life, +looked at her as if for the first time, and she looked in the same +way at him. Elmira's Aunt Belinda Lamb had given her, some time +before, a white muslin gown of her girlhood. + +"I 'ain't got any daughter to make it over for," said she, "an' you +might as well have it." Belinda Lamb had looked regretfully at its +voluminous folds, as she passed it over to Elmira. Privately she +could not see why she should not wear it still, but she knew that she +would not dare face Paulina Maria when attired in it. + +Elmira, after much discussion with her mother, had decided upon +refurbishing this old white muslin, and wearing that instead of her +new green silk to the party. + +"It will look more airy for an evenin' company," said Mrs. Edwards, +"an' the skirt is so full you can take out some of the breadths an' +make ruffles." + +Elmira and her mother had toiled hard to make those ruffles and +finish their daily stent on shoes, but the dress was in readiness and +Elmira arrayed in it before eight o'clock on Thursday night. Her +dress had a fan waist cut low, with short puffs for sleeves. Her +neck, displaying, as it did, soft hollows rather than curves, and her +arms, delicately angular at wrists and elbows, were still beautiful. +She was thin, but her bones were so small that little flesh was +required to conceal harsh outlines. + +She wore a black velvet ribbon tied around her throat, and from it +hung a little gold locket--one of the few treasures of her mother's +girlhood. Elmira had tended a little pot of rose-geranium in a south +window all winter. This spring it was full of pale pink bloom. She +had made a little chaplet of the fragrant leaves and flowers to adorn +her smooth dark hair, and also a pretty knot for her breast. Her +skirt was ruffled to her slender waist with tiniest frills of the +diaphanous muslin. Elmira in her party gown looked like a double +white flower herself. + +As for Jerome, he felt awkwardly self-conscious in his new clothes, +but bore himself so proudly as to conceal it. It requires genuine +valor to overcome new clothes, when one seldom has them. They become, +under such circumstances, more than clothes--they are at least +skin-deep. However, Jerome had that valor. He had bought a suit of +fine blue cloth, and a vest of flowered white satin like a +bridegroom's. He wore his best shirt with delicate cambric ruffles on +bosom and wristbands, and his throat was swathed in folds of sheerest +lawn, which he kept his chin clear of, with a splendid and stately +lift. Jerome's hair, which was darker than when he was a boy, was +brushed carefully into a thick crest over his white forehead, which +had, like a child's, a bold and innocent fulness of curve at the +temples. He had not usually much color, but that night his cheeks +were glowing, and his black eyes, commonly somewhat stern from excess +of earnestness, were brilliant with the joy of youth. + +Mrs. Edwards looked at one, then the other, with the delighted +surprise of a mother bird who sees her offspring in their first +gayety of full plumage. She picked a thread from Jerome's coat, she +put back a stray lock of Elmira's hair, she bade them turn this way +and that. + +When they had started she hitched her chair close to the window, +pressed her forehead against the glass, looked out, and watched the +white flutter of Elmira's skirts until they disappeared in the dark +folds of the night. + +There was, that night, a soft commotion of air rather than any +distinct current of wind, like a gentle heaving and subsidence of +veiled breasts of nature. The tree branches spread and gloomed with +deeper shadows; mysterious white things with indeterminate motions +were seen aloof across meadows or in door-yards, and might have been +white-clad women, or flowering bushes, or ghosts. + +Jerome and Elmira, when one of these pale visions seemed floating +from some shadowy gateway ahead, wondered to each other if this or +that girl were just starting for the party, but when they drew near +the whiteness stirred at the gate still, and was only a bush of +bridal-wreath. Jerome and Elmira were really the last on the road to +the party; Upham people went early to festivities. + +"It is very late," Elmira said, nervously; she held up her white +skirts, ruffling softly to the wind, with both hands, lest they trail +the dewy grass, and flew along like a short-winged bird at her +brother's side. "Please walk faster, Jerome," said she. + +"We'll have time enough there," returned Jerome, stepping high and +gingerly, lest he soil his nicely blacked shoes. + +"It will be dreadful to go in late and have them all looking at us, +Jerome." + +"What if they do look at us," Jerome argued, manfully, but he was in +reality himself full of nervous tremors. Sometimes, to a soul with a +broad outlook and large grasp, the great stresses of life are not as +intimidating as its small and deceitful amenities. + +When they reached Squire Merritt's house and saw all the windows, +parallelograms of golden light, shining through the thick growth of +trees, his hands and feet were cold, his heart beat hard. "I'm acting +like a girl," he thought, indignantly, straightened himself, and +marched on to the front door, as if it were the postern of a +fortress. + +But Elmira caught her brother by the long, blue coat-tail, and +brought him to a stand. + +"Oh, Jerome," she whispered, "there are so many there, and we are so +late, I'm afraid to go in." + +"What are you afraid of?" demanded Jerome, with a rustic brusqueness +which was foreign to him. "Come along." He pulled his coat away and +strode on, and Elmira had to follow. + +The front door of Squire Merritt's house stood open into the hall the +night was so warm, some girls in white were coming down the wide +spiral of stair within, pressing softly together like scared white +doves, in silence save for the rustle of their starched skirts. From +the great rooms on either side of the hall, however, came the murmur +of conversation, with now and then a silvery break of laughter, like +a sudden cascade in an even current. + +Flower-decked heads and silken-gleaming shoulders passed between the +windows and the light, outlining vividly every line and angle and +curve--the keen cut of profiles, the scallops of perked-up lace, the +sharp dove-tails of ribbons. Before one window was upreared the great +back and head of a man, still as a statue, yet with the persistency +of stillness, of life. + +That dogged stiffness, which betrays the utter self-abasement of +resticity in fine company, was evident in his pose, even to one +coming up the path. This party at Squire Merritt's was democratic, +including many whose only experiences in social gatherings of their +neighbors had come through daily labor and worship. All the young +people in Upham had been invited; the Squire's three boon companions, +Doctor Prescott and his wife, and the minister and his daughter, were +the only elders bidden, since the party was for Lucina. + +"The door's open," Elmira whispered, nervously. "Is it right to knock +when the door's open, or walk right in, O Jerome?" + +Jerome, for answer, stepped resolutely in, reached the knocker, +raised it, and let it fall with a great imperious clang of brass, +defying, as it were, his own shyness, like a herald at arms. + +The white-clad girls on the stairs turned as with one accord their +innocently abashed faces towards the door, then pushed one another +on, and into the parlor, with soft titters and whispers. + +Squire Eben Merritt's old servant, Hannah, gravely ponderous in +purple delaine, with a wide white apron enhancing her great front, +came forward from the room in the rear and motioned Jerome and Elmira +to the stairs. She stared wonderingly after Jerome; she did not +recognize him in his fine attire, though she had known him since he +was a child. + +When Jerome and Elmira came down-stairs he led the way at once into +the north parlor, where the most of the guests were assembled. There +were the village young women in their best attire, decked as to heads +and bosoms with sweet drooping flowers, displaying all their humble +stores of lace and ribbons and trinkets, jostling one another with +slurring hisses of silk and crisp rattle of muslins, speaking +affectedly with pursed lips, ending often a sibilant with a fine +whistle, or silent, with mouths set in conscious smiles and cheeks +hot with blushes. There were the village young men, in their Sunday +clothes, standing aloof from the girls, now and then exchanging +remarks with one another in a bravado of low bass. In the rear of the +north parlor were Lucina and her parents, Mrs. Doctor Prescott and +Lawrence, Miss Camilla Merritt, and the Squire's friends, Colonel +Lamson, John Jennings, and Lawyer Means. + +Jerome, with Elmira following, made his way slowly through the +outskirts towards this fine nucleus of the party. Lawrence Prescott +was talking gayly with Lucina, but when he saw Jerome and his sister +approaching he stood back, with a slight flush and start, beside his +mother, who with Miss Camilla was seated on the great sofa between +the north windows. Mrs. Prescott fanned herself slowly with a large +feather fan, and beamed abroad with a sweet graciousness. Her +handsome face seemed to fairly shed a mild light of approval upon the +company. She stirred with opulent foldings of velvet, shaking out +vague musky odors; a brooch in the fine lace plaits over her high +maternal bosom gave out a dull white gleam of old brilliants. Mrs. +Prescott was more sumptuously attired than the Squire's wife, in her +crimson and gold shot silk, which became her well, but was many +seasons old, or than Miss Camilla, in her grand purple satin, that +also was old, but so well matched to her own grace of age that it +seemed like the garment of her youth, which had faded like it, in +sweet communion with peaceful thoughts and lavender and rose-leaves. + +Squire Eben Merritt stood between his wife and daughter. Lucina had +fastened a pretty posy in his button-hole, and he wore his fine new +broadcloths, to please her, which he had bought for this occasion. + +The Squire, though scarcely at home in his north parlor, nor in his +grand apparel, which had never figured in haunts of fish or game, was +yet radiant with jovial and hearty hospitality, and not even +impatient for the cards and punch which awaited him and his friends +in the other room, when his social duties should be fulfilled. + +Lucina herself had set out the cards and the tobacco, and made a +garland of myrtle-leaves and violets for the punch-bowl in honor of +the occasion. "I want you to have the best time of anybody at my +party, father," she had said, "and as soon as all the guests have +arrived, you must go and play cards with Colonel Lamson and the +others." + +No other in the whole world, not even her mother, did Lucina love as +well as she loved her father, and the comfort and pleasure of no +other had she so deeply at heart. + +At the Squire's elbow, standing faithfully by him until he should get +his release, were his three friends: John Jennings and Lawyer +Eliphalet Means in their ancient swallow-tails--John Jennings's being +of renowned London make, though nobody in Upham appreciated that--and +Colonel Jack Lamson in his old dress uniform. Colonel Lamson, having +grown stouter of late years, wore with a mighty discomfort of the +flesh but with an unyielding spirit his old clothes of state. + +"I'll be damned if I thought I could get into 'em at first, Eben," he +had told the Squire when he arrived. "Haven't had them on since I was +pall-bearer at poor Jim Pell's funeral. I was bound to do your girl +honor, but I'll be damned if I'll dance in 'em--I tell you it +wouldn't be safe, Eben." + +The Colonel looked with intense seriousness at his friend, then +laughed hoarsely. His laugh was always wheezy of late, and he +breathed hard when he took exercise. + +Sometime in his dim and shady past Colonel Lamson was reported to +have had a wife. She had never been seen in Upham, and was commonly +believed to have died at some Western post during the first years of +their marriage. Probably the beautiful necklace of carved corals, +which the Colonel had brought that night for a present to Lucina, had +belonged to that long-dead young wife; but not even the Squire knew. + +As for John Jennings, he had never had a wife, and the trinkets he +had bestowed upon sweethearts remained still in their keeping; but he +brought a pair of little pearly ear-rings for Lucina, and never wore +his diamond shirt-button again. Lawyer Eliphalet Means brought for +his offering a sandal-wood fan, a veritable lacework of wood, +spreading it himself in his lean brown hand, which matched in hue, +and eying it with a sort of dryly humorous satisfaction before he +gave it into Lucina's keeping. + +Squire Eben, despite his gratification for his daughter's sake, burst +into a great laugh. "By the Lord Harry!" cried he; "you didn't go +into a shop yourself and ask for that folderol?" + +"Got it through a sea-captain, from India, years ago," replied the +lawyer, laconically. + +"Wouldn't she take it?" inquired Colonel Lamson, with sly meaning, +his round, protruding eyes staring hard at his friend and the fan. + +"Never gave her the chance," said Means, with a shrewd twinkle. Then +he turned to Lucina, with a stiff but courtly bow, and presented the +sandal-wood fan, and not one of them knew then, nor ever after, its +true history. + +Lucina had joyfully heard the clang of the knocker when Jerome +arrived, thinking that they were the last guests, and her father +could have his pleasure. Doctor Prescott had been called to Granby +and would not come until late, if at all; the minister, it was +reported, was ill with influenza--she and her mother had agreed that +the Squire need not wait for them. + +When Lucina saw the throng parting for the new-comers, she assumed +involuntarily her pose of sweet and gracious welcome; but when Jerome +and his sister stood before her, she started and lost composure. + +Lucina remembered Elmira well enough, and had thought she remembered +Jerome since last Sunday, when her father, calling to mind their +frequent meetings in years back, had chidden her lightly for not +speaking to him. + +"He has grown and changed so, father," Lucina had said; "I did not +mean to be discourteous, and I will remember him another time." + +Lucina had really considered afterwards, saying nothing to her father +or her mother, that the young man was very handsome. She had sat +quite still that Sunday afternoon in the meeting-house, and, instead +of listening to the sermon, had searched her memory for old pictures +of Jerome. She had recalled distinctly the tea-drinking in her aunt +Camilla's arbor, his refusal of cake, and gift of sassafras-root in +the meadow; also his repulse of her childish generosity when she +would have given him her little savings for the purchase of shoes. +Old stings of the spirit can often be revived with thought, even when +the cause is long passed. Lucina, sitting there in meeting, felt +again the pang of her slighted benevolence. She was sure that she +would remember Jerome at once the next time they met, but for a +minute she did not. She bowed and shook hands prettily with Elmira, +then turned to Jerome and stared at him, all unmindful of her +manners, thinking vaguely that here was some grand young gentleman +who had somehow gotten into her party unbidden. Such a fool do +externals make of the memory, which needs long training to know the +same bird in different feathers. + +Lucina stared at Jerome, at first with grave and innocent wonder, +then suddenly her eyes drooped and a soft blush crept over her face +and neck, and even her arms. Lucina, in her short-sleeved India +muslin gown, flowing softly from its gathering around her white +shoulders to her slender waist, where a blue ribbon bound it, and +thence in lines of transparent lights and blue shadows to her little +pointed satin toe, stood before him with a sort of dumb-maiden +appealing that he should not look at her so, but he was helpless, as +with a grasp of vision which he could not loosen. + +Jerome looked at her as the first man might have looked at the first +woman; the world was empty but for him and her. The voices of the +company were ages distant, their eyes dim across eternal spaces. The +fragrance of sweet lavender and dried rose-leaves from Lucina's +garments, and, moreover, a strange Oriental one, that seemed to +accent the whole, from her sandal-wood fan, was to him, as by a +transposing into a different key of sense, like some old melody of +life which he had always known, and yet so forgotten that it had +become new. + +Jerome never knew how long he stood there, but suddenly he felt the +Squire's kindly hand on his shoulder, and heard his loud, jovial +voice in his ear. "Why, Jerome, my boy, what is the matter? Don't you +remember my daughter? Lucina, where are your manners?" + +And then Lucina curtesied low, with her fair curls drooping forward +over her blushing face and neck, as pink as her corals, and Jerome +bowed and strove to say something, but he knew not what, and never +knew what he said, nor anybody else. + +"'Twas the new clothes, boy," said the Squire in his ear. "By the +Lord Harry, 'twas much as ever I knew you myself at first! I took you +for an earl over from the old country. Lucina meant no harm. Go you +now and have a talk with her." + +Jerome wondered anxiously afterwards if he had spoken properly to the +Squire's wife, to Mrs. Doctor Prescott, to Miss Camilla, and the +others--if he had looked, even, at anybody but Lucina. He remembered +the party as he might have remembered a kaleidoscope, of which only +one combination of form and color abided with him. He realized all +beside, as a broad effect with no detail. The card-playing and +punch-drinking in the other room, the preliminary tuning of fiddles +in the hall, the triumphant strains of a country dance, the weaving +of the figures, the gay voices of the village youths, who lost all +their abashedness as the evening went on, the supper, the table +gleaming with the white lights of silver and the rainbow lustre of +glass, the golden points of candles in the old candelabra, the fruity +and spicy odors of cake and wine, were all as a dimness and vagueness +of brilliance itself. + +He did not know, even, that Lawrence Prescott was at Elmira's side +all the evening, and after his father arrived, and that Elmira danced +every time with him, and set people talking and Doctor Prescott +frowning. He knew only that he had followed Lucina about, and that +she seemed to encourage him with soft, leading smiles. That they sat +on a sofa in a corner, behind a door, and talked, that once they +stepped out on the stoop, and even strolled a little down the path, +under the trees, when she complained of the room being hot and close. +Then, without knowing whether he should do so or not, he bent towards +her, with his arm crooked, and she slipped her hand in it, and they +both trembled and were silent for a moment. He knew every word that +Lucina had spoken, and gave a thousand different meanings to each. +For the first time in his life, he tasted the sweets of praise from +girlish lips. Lucina had heard of his good deeds from her father, how +kind he was to the poor and sick, how hard he had worked, how +faithful he had been to his mother and sister. Jerome listened with +bliss, and shame that he should find it bliss. Then Lucina and he +remembered together, with that perfect time of memory which is as +harmonious as any duet, all the episodes of their childhood. + +"I remember how you gave me sassafras," said Lucina, "and how you +would not take the nice gingerbread that Hannah made, and how sad I +felt about it." + +"I will get some more sassafras for you to-morrow," said Jerome. + +"And I will give you some more gingerbread if you will take it," said +she, with a sweet coquettishness. + +"I will, if you want me to," said Jerome. + +They were out in the front yard then, a gust of wind pressed under +the trees, and seemed to blow them together. Lucina's white muslin +fluttered around Jerome's knees, her curls floated across his breast. + +"Oh," murmured Lucina, confusedly, "this wind has come all of a +sudden," and she stood apart from him. + +"You will take cold; we had better go in," said Jerome. They went +into the house, Jerome being a little hurt that Lucina had shrunk +away from him so quickly, and Lucina disappointed that Jerome was so +solicitous lest she take cold. Then they sat down again in the +corner, and remembered that Jerome ate two pieces of cake at Miss +Camilla's tea-party and she two and a half. + +Somehow, before the party broke up that night, it was understood that +Jerome was to come and see her the next Sunday night. And yet Lucina +had not invited him, nor he asked permission to come. + + + + +Chapter XXIV + + +Jerome's mind, during the two days after the party, was in a sort of +dazzle of efflorescence, and could not precipitate any clear ideas +for his own understanding. Love had been so outside his calculation +of life, that his imagination, even, had scarcely grasped the +possibility of it. + +He worked on stolidly, having all the time before his mental vision, +like one with closed eyes in a bright room, a shifting splendor as of +strange scenes and clouds. + +He could not sleep nor eat, his spirit seemed to inhabit his flesh so +thoroughly as to do away with the material needs of it. Still, all +things that appealed to his senses seemed enhanced in power, becoming +so loud and so magnified that they produced a confusion of hearing +and vision. The calls of the spring birds sounded as if in his very +ear, with an insistence of meaning; the spring flowers bloomed where +he had never seen them, and the fragrance of each was as evident to +him as a voice. + +Jerome wondered vaguely if this strange exaltation of spirit were +illness. Sunday morning, when he could not eat his breakfast, his +mother told him that there were red spots on his cheeks, and she +feared he was feverish. + +He laughed scornfully at the idea, but looked curiously at himself in +his little square of mirror, when he was dressing for meeting. The +red spots were there, burning in his cheeks, and his eyes were +brilliant. For a minute he wondered anxiously if he were feverish, if +he were going to be ill, and, if so, what his mother and sister would +do. He even felt his own pulse as he stood there, and discovered that +it was quick. Then, all at once, his face in the glass looked out at +him with a flash as from some sub-state of consciousness in the +depths of his own being, which he could not as yet quite fathom. + +"I don't know what ails me," he muttered, as he turned away. He felt +as he had when puzzling over the unknown quantity in an algebraic +equation. It was not until he was sitting in meeting, looking forward +at Lucina's fair profile, cut in clear curves like a lily, that the +solution came to him. + +"I'm what they call in love," Jerome said to himself. He turned very +pale, and looked away from Lucina. He felt as if suddenly he had come +to the brink of some dread abyss of nature. + +"That is why I want to go to see her to-night," he thought. "I won't +go; I won't!" + +Just before the bell stopped tolling, Doctor Prescott's family went +up the aisle in stately file, the doctor marching ahead with an +imperious state which seemed to force contributions from followers +and beholders, as if a peacock were to levy new eyes for his plumage +from all admiration along his path. The doctor's wife, in her satins +and Indian cashmeres, followed him, moving with massive gentleness, a +long ostrich plume in her bonnet tossing softly. Last came Lawrence, +slight and elegantly erect, in his city broadcloth and linen, a +figure so like his father as to seem almost his double, and yet with +a difference beyond that of age, so palpable that a child might see +it--a self-spelled word, with a different meaning in two languages. + +The Merritt pew was just behind Doctor Prescott's. Lawrence had not +been seated long before he turned slightly and cast a smiling glance +around at beautiful Lucina, who inclined her head softly in response. +Jerome had thus far never felt on his own account jealousy of any +human being, he had also never been made ignominious by self-pity; +now, both experiences came to him. Seeing that look of Lawrence +Prescott's, he was suddenly filled with that bitterness of grudging +another the sweet which one desires for one's self which is like no +other bitterness on earth; and he who had hitherto pitied only the +deprivations of others pitied his own, and so became the pauper of +his own spirit. "He likes her," he told himself; "of course she'll +like him. He's Doctor Prescott's son. He's got everything without +working for it--I've got nothing." + +Jerome looked at neither of them again. When meeting was over, he +strode rapidly down the aisle, lest he encounter them. + +"What ailed you in meeting, Jerome?" Elmira asked as they were going +home. + +"Nothing." + +"You looked so pale once I thought you were going to faint away." + +"I tell you nothing ailed me." + +"You were dreadfully pale," persisted Elmira. She was so happy that +morning that she had more self-assertion than usual. Lawrence +Prescott had looked around at her three times; he had smiled at her +once, when he turned to leave the pew at the close of meeting. Jerome +had not noticed that, and she had not noticed Lawrence's smile at +Lucina. She had been too fluttered to look up when Lawrence first +entered. + +That afternoon Jerome and Elmira set out for meeting again, but when +they reached the turn of the road Jerome stopped. + +"I guess I won't go this afternoon," said he. + +"Why, what's the matter? Don't you feel well?" Elmira asked. + +"Yes, I feel well enough, but it's warm. I guess I won't go." Elmira +stared at him wonderingly. "Run along; you'll be late," said he, +trying to smile. + +"I'm afraid you are sick, Jerome." + +"I tell you I am not. You'll be late." + +Finally Elmira went on, though with many backward glances. Jerome sat +down on the stone wall, behind a huge growth of lilac. He could see +through a leafy screen the people in the main road wending their way +to meeting. He had suddenly resolved not to go, lest he see Lucina +Merritt again. + +Presently there was out in the main road a graceful swing of light +skirts and a gliding of shoulders and head which made his heart leap. +Lucina was going to meeting with her mother. The moment she stirred +the distance with dim advances of motion, Jerome knew her. It seemed +to him that he would have known her shadow among a nightful, her step +among a thousand. It was as if he had developed ultimate senses for +her recognition. + +Jerome, when he had once glimpsed her, looked away until he was sure +that she had passed. When the bell had stopped ringing, he arose and +climbed over the stone wall, then went across a field to the path +skirting the poor-house which he had used to follow to school. + +When he came opposite the poor-house in the hollow, he looked down at +it. The day was so mild that the paupers were swarming into evidence +like insects. Many of the house windows were wide open, and old heads +with palsied nods, like Chinese toys, appeared in them; some children +were tumbling about before the door. + +Old Peter Thomas--who seemed to have become crystallized, as it were, +in age and decrepitude, and advanced no further in either--was +pottering around the garden, eying askant, like an old robin, the new +plough furrows. Pauper women humped their calico backs over the green +slopes of the fields, searching for dandelion greens, but not +digging, because it was Sunday. + +Their shrill, plaintive voices, calling to one another, came plainly +to Jerome. When he reached the barn, there sat Mindy Toggs, as of +old, chanting his accusatory refrain, "Simon Basset, Simon Basset." + +Hitherto Jerome had viewed all this humiliation of poverty from a +slight but no less real eminence of benefaction; to-day he had a +miserable sense of community with it. "It is not having what we want +that makes us all paupers," he told himself, bitterly; "I'm as much a +pauper as any of them. I'm in a worse poor-house than the town of +Upham's. I'm in the poor-house of life where the paupers are all fed +on stones." + +Then suddenly, as he went on, a brave spirit of revolt seized him. +"It is wanting what we have not that makes us paupers," he said, "and +I will not be one, if I tear my heart out." + +Jerome climbed another stone wall into a shrubby pasture, and went +across that to a pine wood, and thence, by devious windings and +turnings, through field and forest, to his old woodland. It was his +now; he had purchased it back from the Squire. Then he sat himself +down and looked about him out of his silence and self-absorption, and +it was as if he had come into a very workshop of nature. The hummings +of her wheels and wings were loud in his ear, the fanning of them +cool on his cheek. The wood here was very light and young, and the +spring sun struck the roots of the trees. + +Little swarms of gossamer gnats danced in the sunlit spaces; when he +looked down there was the blue surprise of violets, and anemones +nodded dimly out of low shadows. There was a loud shrilling of birds, +and the tremulousness of the young leaves seemed to be as much from +unseen wings as wind. However, the wind blew hard in soft, frequent +gusts, and everything was tilting and bowing and waving. + +Jerome looked at it all, and it had a new meaning for him. The outer +world is always tinctured more or less to the sight by one's mental +states; but who can say, when it comes to outlooks from the keenest +stresses of spirit, how impalpable the boundary-lines between +beholder and object may grow? Who knows if a rose does not really +cease to be, in its own sense, to a soul in an extremity of joy or +grief? + +Whatever it might be for others, the spring wood was not to-day what +it had ever been before to Jerome. All its shining, and sweetening, +and growing were so forced into accord with himself that the whole +wood took, as it were, the motion of his own soul. Jerome looked at a +fine young poplar-tree, and saw not a tree but a maid, revealing with +innocent helplessness her white body through her skirts of +transparent green. The branches flung out towards him like a maiden's +arms, with shy intent of caresses. Every little flower upon which his +idle gaze fell was no flower, but an eye of love--a bird called to +his mate with the call of his own heart. Every sight, and sound, and +sweetness of the wood wooed and tempted him, with the reflex motion +of his own new ardor of love and passion. He had not gone to meeting +lest he see Lucina Merritt again, and wished to drive her image from +his mind, and here he was peopling his solitude with symbols of her +which were bolder than she, and made his hunger worse to bear. + +A childlike wonder was over him at the whole. "Why haven't I ever +felt this way before?" he thought. He recalled all the young men he +knew who had married during the last few years, and thought how they +must have felt as he felt now, and he had no conception of it. He had +been secretly rather proud that he had not encumbered himself with a +wife and children, but had given his best strength to less selfish +loves. He remembered his scorn of the school-master and his adoring +girls, and realized that his scorn had been due, as scorn largely is, +to ignorance. Instead of contempt, a fierce pity seized him for all +who had given way to this great need of love, and yet he felt strange +indignation and shame that he himself had come into the common lot. + +"It is no use; I can't," he said, quite out loud, and set a hard face +against all the soft lights and shadows which moved upon him with the +motion of his own desires. + +When he said "I can't," Jerome meant not so much any ultimate end of +love as love itself. He never for a second had a thought that he +could marry Lucina Merritt, Squire Eben Merritt's daughter, nor +indeed would if he could. He never fancied that that fair lady in her +silk attire could come to love him so unwisely as to wed him, and had +he fancied it the fierce revolt at receiving so much where he could +give so little, which was one of his first instincts, would have +seized him. Never once he thought that he could marry Lucina, and +take her into his penury or profit by her riches. All he resolved +against was the love itself, which would make him weak with the +weakness of all unfed things, and he made a stand of rebellion. + +"I'm going to put her out of my mind," said Jerome, and stood up to +his full height among the sweet spring growths, flinging back his +head, as if he defied Nature herself, and went pushing rudely through +the tremulous outreaching poplar branches, and elbowed a cluster of +white flowering bushes huddling softly together, like maidens who +must put themselves in a man's way, though to their own shaming. + + + + +Chapter XXV + + +Jerome decided that he would not go to see Lucina Merritt that Sunday +night. He knew that she expected him, though there had been no formal +agreement to that effect; he knew that she would wonder at his +non-appearance, and, even though she were not disappointed, that she +would think him untruthful and unmannerly. + +"Let her," he told himself, harshly, fairly scourging himself with +his resolution. "Let her think just as badly of me as she can. I'll +get over it quicker." + +The ineffable selfishness of martyrdom was upon him. He considered +only his own glory and pain of noble renunciation, and not her agony +of disillusion and distrust, even if she did not care for him. That +last possibility he did not admit for a moment. In the first place, +though he had loved her almost at first sight, the counter-reasoning +he did not imagine could apply to her. It had been as simple and +natural in his case as looking up at a new star, but in hers--what +was there in him to arrest her sweet eyes and consideration, at a +moment's notice, if at all? As well expect the star to note a new eye +of admiration upon the earth. + +In all probability, Lucina's heart had turned already to Lawrence +Prescott, as was fitting. She had doubtless seen much of him--he was +handsome and prosperous; both families would be pleased with such a +match. Jerome faced firmly the jealousy in his heart. "You've got to +get used to it," he told himself. + +He did not think much of his sister in this connection, but simply +decided that his mother, and possibly Elmira, had overrated Lawrence +Prescott's attention, and jumped too hastily at conclusions. It was +incredible that any one should fancy his sister in preference to +Lucina. Lawrence had merely called in a friendly way. He did not once +imagine any such feeling on Elmira's part for young Prescott, as on +his for Lucina, and had at the time more impatience than pity. +However, he resolved to remonstrate if Lawrence should stay so late +again with his sister. + +"She may think he means more than he does, girls are so silly," he +said. He did not class Lucina Merritt among girls. + +That Sunday night, after dark, though he was resolved not to visit +Lucina, he strolled up the road, past her house. There was no light +in the parlor. "She doesn't expect me, after all," he thought, but +with a great pang of disappointment rather than relief. He judged +such proceedings from the rustic standpoint. Always in Upham, when a +girl expected a young man to come to spend an evening with her, she +lighted the best parlor and entertained him there in isolation from +the rest of her family. He did not know how different a training in +such respects Lucina had had. She never thought, since he was not her +avowed lover, of sequestering herself with him in the best parlor. +She would have been too proudly and modestly fearful as to what he +might think of her, and she of herself, and her parents of them both. +She expected, as a matter of course, to invite him into the +sitting-room, where were her father and mother and Colonel Jack +Lamson. + +However, she permitted herself a little innocent manoeuvre, whereby +she might gain a few minutes of special converse with him without the +presence of her elders. A little before dusk Lucina seated herself on +the front door-step. Her mother brought presently a little shawl and +feared lest she take cold, but Lucina said she should not remain +there long, and there was no wind and no dampness. + +Lucina felt uneasy lest she be deceiving her mother, but she could +not bring herself to tell her, though she did not fairly know why, +that she expected a caller. + +The dusk gathered softly, like the shadow of brooding wings. She +thought Jerome must come very soon. She could just see a glimmer of +white road through the trees, and she watched that eagerly, never +taking her eyes from it. Now and then she heard an approaching +footstep, and a black shadow slanted athwart the road. Her heart +sank, though she wondered at it, when that happened. + +When Jerome came up the road she made sure at once that it was he. +She even stirred to greet him, but after an indefinable pause he +passed on also; then she thought she had been mistaken. + +He saw the flutter of pale drapery on the door-step, but never +dreamed that Lucina was actually there watching for him. After a +while he went back. Lucina, who was still sitting there, saw him +again, but this time did not stir, since he was going the other way. + +When, at half-past eight, she saw the people from the evening +prayer-meeting passing on the road, she made sure that Jerome would +not come that night. + +She gave a soft sigh, leaned her head back against the fluted +door-post, and tried to recall every word he had said to her, and +every word she had said to him, about his coming. She began to wonder +if she had possibly not been cordial enough, if she could have made +him fear he would not be welcome. She repeated over and over, trying +to imagine him in her place as listener, all she had said to him. She +gave it the furthest inflections of graciousness and coolness of +which she could have been capable, and puzzled sorely as to which she +had used. + +"It makes so much difference as to how you say a thing," thought poor +Lucina, "and I know I was afraid lest he think me too glad to have +him come. I wonder if I did not say enough, or did not say it +pleasantly." + +It did not once occur to Lucina that Jerome might mean to slight her, +and might stay away because he wished to do so. She had been so +petted and held precious and desirable during her whole sweet life, +that she could scarcely imagine any one would flout her, though so +timid and fearful of hurting and being hurt was she by nature, that +without so much love and admiration she would have been a piteous +thing. + +She decided that it must be her fault that Jerome had not come. She +reflected that he was very proud; she remembered, and the memory +stung her with something of the old pain of the happening, how he +would not take the cakes when she was a child, how he would not take +her money to buy shoes. She shrank even then, remembering the flash +with which he had turned upon her. + +"I did not say enough, I was so afraid of saying too much, and that +is why he has not come," she told herself, and sadly troubled her +gentle heart thereby. + +The tears came into her eyes and rolled slowly down her fair cheeks +as she sat there in the dusk. She did not yet feel towards Jerome as +he towards her. She had been too young and childish when she had +known him for love to have taken fast root in her heart; and she was +not one to love fully until she felt her footing firm, and her place +secure in a lover's affections. Still, who can tell what may be in +the heart of the gentlest and most transparent little girl, who +follows obediently at her mother's apron-strings? In those old days +when Abigail had put her little daughter to bed, heard her say her +prayers for forgiveness of her sins of innocence, and blessings upon +those whom she loved best, then kissed the fair baby face sunken in +its white pillow, she never dreamed what happened after she had gone +down-stairs. Every night, for a long time after she had first spoken +to Jerome, did the small Lucina, her heart faintly stirred into +ignorant sweetness with the first bloom of young romance, slip out of +her bed after her mother had gone, kneel down upon her childish +knees, and ask another blessing for Jerome Edwards. + +"Please, God, bless that boy, and give him shoes and gingerbread, +because he won't take them from me," Lucina used to pray, then climb +into bed again with a little wild scramble of hurry. + +Sometimes, when she was a little girl, though her mother never knew +it, Lucina used to be thinking about Jerome, and building artless +air-castles when she bent her grave childish brow over her task of +needle-work. Sometimes, on the heights of these castles reared by her +innocent imagination, she and Jerome put arms around each other's +necks and embraced and kissed, and her mother sat close by and did +not know. + +She also did not know that often, when she had curled Lucina's hair +with special care on the Sabbath day, and dressed her in her best +frock, that her little daughter, demurely docile under her maternal +hands, was eagerly wondering if Jerome would not think her pretty in +her finery. + +Of course, when Lucina was grown up, and went away to school, these +childish love-dreams seemed quite lost and forgotten, in her +awakening under the light of older life. In those latter days Lucina +had never thought about Jerome Edwards. She had even, perhaps, had +her heart touched, at least to a fancy of love, by the admiration of +others. It was whispered in the village that Lucina Merritt had had +chances already. However, if she had, she had waved them back upon +the donors before they had been fairly given, with that gentlest +compassion which would permit no need of itself. Lucina, however her +heart might have been swerved for a season to its natural inclination +of love, had never yet admitted a lover, for, when it came to that +last alternative of open or closed doors, she had immediately been +seized with an impulse of flight into her fastness of childhood and +maidenhood. + +But now, though she scarcely loved Jerome as yet, the power of her +old dreams was over her again. No one can over-estimate the tendency +of the human soul towards old ways of happiness which it has not +fully explored. + +Lucina had begun, almost whether she would or not, to dream again +those old sweet dreams, whose reality she had never yet tasted. Had +life ever broken in upon the dreams, had a word or a caress ever +become a fact, it is probable she would have looked now upon it all +as upon some childish fruit of delight, whose sweetness she had +proved and exhausted to insipidity. And this, with no disparagement +to her, for the most faithful heart is in youth subject to growth and +change, and not free as to the exercise of its own faithfulness. + +Lucina that Sunday evening had put on one of her prettiest muslin +frocks, cross-barred with fine pink flowers set between the bars. She +tied a pink ribbon around her waist, too, and wore her morocco shoes. +She looked down at the crisp flow of muslin over her knees, and +thought if Jerome had known that she had put on that pretty dress, he +would have been sure she wanted him to come. Still, she would not +have liked him to know she had taken as much pains as that, but she +wished so she had invited him more cordially to come. + +The tears rolled down her cheeks and dropped on the fair triangle of +neck between the folds of her lace tucker; she was weeping for +Jerome's hurt, but it seemed strangely like her own. She was +half-minded to go into the house and tell her mother all about it, +repeat that miserable little dialogue between herself and Jerome, +which was troubling her so, and let her decide as to whether she had +been lacking in hospitality or not, and give her advice. But she +could not quite bring herself to do that. + +The moon arose behind the house, she could not see it, but she knew +it was there by the swarming of pale lights under the pine-trees, and +the bristling of their tops as with needles of silver. She heard a +whippoorwill in the distance calling as from some undiscovered +country; there was an undertone of frogs from marshy meadows swelling +and dying in even cadences of sound. + +Lucina's mother came to the door and put her hand on the girl's head. +"You must come in," she said; "your hair feels quite damp. You will +take cold. Your dress is thin, too." + +Lucina rose obediently and followed her mother into the sitting-room, +where sat Squire Eben and Colonel Lamson in swirling clouds of +tobacco smoke. + +Lucina's cheeks had a wonderful clear freshness of red and white from +the damp night air. There were no traces of tears on her sweet blue +eyes. She came into the bright room with a smiling shrinking from the +light, which gave her the expression of an angel. Both men gazed at +her with a sort of passion of tenderest admiration, and also a +certain sadness of yearning--the Squire because of that instinct of +insecurity and possibility of loss to which possession itself gives +rise, the Colonel because of the awakening of old vain longings in +his own heart. + +The Squire reached out a hand towards Lucina, caught her first by her +flowing skirt, then by her fair arm, and drew her close to his side +and pulled down her soft face to his. "Well, Pretty, how goes the +world?" he said, with a laugh, which had almost the catch of a sob, +so anxiously tender he was of her, and so timid before his own +delight in her. + +When she had kissed him and bade him good-night, Lucina went up to +her own chamber and her mother with her. + +"Abigail follows the child, since she came home, like a hen with one +chicken," the Squire said, smiling almost foolishly in his utter +pride of this beautiful daughter. + +The Colonel nodded, frowning gravely over his pipe at the opposite +window. "She makes me think a little of my wife at her age," he said. + +The Squire started. It was the first time he had ever heard the +Colonel mention his wife. He sighed, looked at him, and hesitated +with a delicacy of reticence. "It must have been a hard blow," he +ventured, finally. + +The Colonel nodded. + +"Any children?" asked the Squire, after a little. + +"No," replied Colonel Lamson. He puffed at his pipe, his face was +redder than usual. "Well, Eben," he said, after a pause, during which +the two men smoked energetically, "I hope you'll keep her a while." + +"You don't think she looks delicate?" cried the Squire, turning pale. +"Her mother doesn't think so." + +The Colonel laughed heartily. "When a girl blossoms out like that +there'll be plenty trying the garden-gate," said he. + +The Squire flushed angrily. "Let 'em try it and be damned!" he said. + +"You can't lock the gate, Eben; if you do, she'll open it herself, +and no blame to her." + +"She won't, I tell you. She's too young, and there's not a man I know +fit to tie her little shoes." + +"How's young Prescott?" + +"Young Prescott be damned!" + +The Colonel hesitated. He had seen with an eye, sharpened with long +and thorough experience, Jerome Edwards and Lucina the night of the +party. "How's that young Edwards?" + +Squire Merritt stared. "The smartest young fellow in this town," he +said, with a kind of crusty loyalty, "but when it comes to +Lucina--Lucina!" + +"I've liked that boy, Eben, ever since that night in Robinson's +store," said the Colonel, with a curious gravity. + +"So have I," returned the Squire, defiantly, "and before that--ever +since his father died. He was the bravest little rascal. He's a hero +in his way. I was telling Lucina the other day what he'd done. But +when it comes to his lifting his eyes to her, to her--by the Lord +Harry, Jack, nobody shall have her, rich or poor, good or bad. I +don't care if he's a prince, or an angel from heaven. Don't I know +what men are? I'm going to keep my angel of a child a while myself. +I'll tell you one thing, sir, and that is, Lucina thinks more to-day +of her old father than any man living; I'll bet you a thousand she +does!" Squire Eben's voice fairly broke with loving emotion and +indignation. + +"Can't take you up, Eben," said the Colonel, dryly; "I'd be too +darned sure to lose, and I couldn't pay a dollar; but--to-morrow's +coming." + +Squire Eben Merritt stood looking at his friend, a frown of jealous +reverie on his open face. Suddenly, with no warning, as if from a +sudden uplifting of the spirit, it cleared away. He laughed out his +great hearty laugh. "Well, by the Lord Harry, Jack," said he, "when +the girl does lose her heart, though I hope it won't be for many a +day yet, if it's to a good man that can take care of her and fight +for her when he's gone, her old father won't stand in the way. Lucina +always did have what she wanted, and she always shall." + + + + +Chapter XXVI + + +For three weeks after that Jerome never saw Lucina at all. He avoided +the sight of her in every way in his power. He went to Dale and +returned after dark; he stayed away from meeting. He also strove hard +to drive, even the thought of her, from his mind. He got out his +algebra and Latin books again; every minute during which he was not +at work, and even during his work, he tried to keep his mind so full +that Lucina's image could not enter. But sometimes he had a +despairing feeling, that her image was so incorporated with his very +soul, that he might as well strive to drive away a part of himself. + +He had no longer any jealousy of Lawrence Prescott. One day Lawrence +had come to the shop when he was at work, and asked to speak to him a +moment outside. He told him how matters stood between himself and +Elmira. "I like your sister," Lawrence had said, soberly and +manfully. "I don't see my way clear to marrying her yet, and I told +her so. I want you to understand it and know just what I mean. I've +got my way to make first. I don't suppose--I can count on much +encouragement from father in this. You know it's no disparagement to +Elmira, Jerome. You know father." + +"Does your father know about it?" asked Jerome. + +"I told mother," Lawrence answered, "and she advised me to say +nothing about it to father yet. Mother thought I had better go on and +study medicine, and get ready to practice, and perhaps then father +might think better of it. She says we are both young enough to wait +two or three years." + +Jerome, in his leather apron, with his grimy hands, and face even, +darkened with the tan of the leather, looked half suspiciously and +bitterly at this other young man in his fine cloth and linen, with +his white hands that had never done a day's labor. "You know what you +are about?" he said, almost roughly. "You know what you are, you know +what she is, and what we all are. You know you can't separate her +from anything." + +"I don't want to," cried Lawrence, with a great blush of fervor. +"I'll be honest with you, Jerome. I didn't know what to do at first. +I knew how much I thought of your sister, and I hoped she thought +something of me, but I knew how father would feel, and I was +dependent on him. I knew there was no sense in my marrying Elmira, or +any other girl, against his wishes, and starving her." + +"There are others he would have you marry," said Jerome, a pallor +creeping through the leather grime on his face. + +Lawrence colored. "Yes, I suppose so," he said, simply; "but it's no +use. I could never marry any other girl than Elmira, no matter how +rich and handsome she was, nor how much she pleased father, even if +she cared about me, and she wouldn't." + +"You have been--going a little with some one else, haven't you?" +Jerome asked, hoarsely. + +Lawrence stared. "What do you mean?" + +"I--saw you riding--" + +"Oh," said Lawrence, laughing, "you mean I've been horseback-riding +with Lucina Merritt. That was nothing." + +"It wasn't nothing if she thought it was something," Jerome said, +with a flash of white face and black eyes at the other. + +Lawrence looked wonderingly at him, laughed first, then responded +with some indignation, "Good Lord, Jerome, what are you talking +about?" + +"What I mean. My sister doesn't marry any man over another woman's +heart if I know it." + +"Good Lord!" said Lawrence. "Why, Jerome, do you suppose I'd hurt +little Lucina? She doesn't care for me in that way, she never would. +And as for me--why, look here, Jerome, I never so much as held her +hand. I never looked at her even, in any way--" Lawrence shook his +head in emphatic reiteration of denial. + +"I might as well tell you that Lucina was the one I meant when I said +father would like others better," continued Lawrence, "but Lucina +Merritt would never care anything about me, even if I did about her, +and I never could. Handsome as she is, and I do believe she's the +greatest beauty in the whole county, she hasn't the taking way with +her that Elmira has--you must see that yourself, Jerome." + +Jerome laughed awkwardly. Nobody knew how much joy those words of +Lawrence Prescott's gave him, and how hard he tried to check the joy, +because it should not matter to him except for Elmira's sake. + +"Did you ever see a girl with such sweet ways as your sister?" +persisted Lawrence. + +"Elmira is a good girl," Jerome admitted, confusedly. He loved his +sister, and would have defended her against depreciation with his +life, but he compared inwardly, with scorn, her sweet ways with +Lucina's. + +"There isn't a girl her equal in this world," cried her lover, +enthusiastically. "Don't you say so, Jerome? You're her brother, you +know what she is. Did you ever see anything like that cunning little +face she makes, when she looks up at you?" + +"Elmira's a good girl," Jerome repeated. + +Lawrence had to be contented with that. He went on, to tell Jerome +his plans with regard to the engagement between himself and Elmira. +He was clearly much under the wise influence of his mother. "Mother +says, on Elmira's account as well as my own, I had better not pay +regular attention to her," he said, ruefully, yet with submission. +"She says to go to see her occasionally, in a way that won't make +talk, and wait. She's coming to see Elmira herself. I've talked it +over with her, and she's agreed to it all, as, of course, she would. +Some girls wouldn't, but she--Jerome, I don't believe when we've been +married fifty years that your sister will ever have refused to do one +single thing I thought best for her." + +Jerome nodded with a puzzled and wistful expression, puzzled because +of any man's so exalting his sister when Lucina Merritt was in the +world, wistful at the sight of a joy which he must deny himself. + +When he went home that night he saw by the way his mother and sister +looked up when he entered the room that they were wondering if +Lawrence had told him the news, and what he thought of it. Elmira's +face was so eager that he did not wait. "Yes, I've seen him," he +said. + +Elmira blushed, and quivered, and bent closer over her work. + +"What did I tell you?" said his mother, with a kind of tentative +triumph. + +"You don't know now what Doctor Prescott will say," said Jerome. + +"Lawrence says his mother thinks his father will come round +by-and-by, when he gets started in his profession; he always liked +Elmira." + +"Well, there's one thing," said Jerome, "and that is--of course you +and Elmira are not under my control, but no sister of mine will ever +enter any family where she is not welcome, with my consent." + +"Lawrence says he knows his father will be willing by-and-by," said +Elmira, tremulously. + +"You know Doctor Prescott always liked your sister," said Ann +Edwards. + +"Well, if he likes her well enough to have her marry his son, it's +all right," said Jerome, and went out to wash his hands and face +before supper. + +That night Lawrence stole in for a short call. When Elmira came +up-stairs after he had gone, Jerome, who had been reading in his +room, opened his door and called her in. + +"Look here, Elmira," said he, "I don't want you to think I don't want +you to be happy. I do." + +Elmira held out her arms towards him with an involuntary motion. "Oh, +Jerome!" she whispered. + +The brother and sister had always been chary of caresses, but now +Jerome drew Elmira close, pressed her little head against his +shoulder, and let her cry there. + +"Don't, Elmira," he said, at length, brokenly, smoothing her hair. +"You know brother wants you to be happy. You are the only little +sister he's got." + +"Oh, Jerome, I couldn't help it!" sobbed Elmira. + +"Of course you couldn't," said Jerome. "Don't cry--I'll work hard and +save, and maybe I can get enough money to give you a house and +furniture when you're married, then you won't be quite so beholden." + +"But you'll--get married yourself, Jerome," whispered Elmira, who had +built a romance about her brother and Lucina after the night of the +party. + +"No, I shall never get married myself," said Jerome, "all my money is +for my sister." He laughed, but that night after Elmira was fast +asleep in her chamber across the way, he lay awake tasting to the +fullest his own cup of bitterness from its contrast with another's +sweet. + +The longing to see Lucina, to have only the sight of her dear +beautiful face to comfort him, grew as the weeks went on, but he +would not yield to it. He had, however, to reckon against odds which +he had not anticipated, and they were the innocent schemes of Lucina +herself. She had hoped at first that his call was only deferred, that +he would come to see her of his own accord, but she soon decided that +he would not, and that all the advances must be from herself, since +she was undoubtedly at fault. She had fully resolved to make amends +for any rudeness and lack of cordiality of which she might have been +guilty, at the first opportunity she should have. She planned to +speak to him going home from meeting, or on some week day on the +village street--she had her little speech all ready, but the chance +to deliver it did not come. + +But when she went to meeting Sunday after Sunday, dressed in her +prettiest, looking like something between a rose and an angel, and no +Jerome was there for her soft backward glances, and when she never +met him when she was alone on the village street, she grew impatient. + +About this time Lucina's father bought her a beautiful little white +horse, like the milk-white palfrey of a princess in a fairy tale, and +she rode every day over the county. Usually Squire Eben accompanied +her on a tall sorrel which had been in his possession for years, but +still retained much youthful fire. The sorrel advanced with long +lopes and fretted at being reined to suit the pace of the little +white horse, and Squire Eben had disliked riding from his youth, +unless at a hard gallop with gun on saddle, towards a distant lair of +game. Both he and the tall sorrel rebelled as to their nerves and +muscles at this ladylike canter over smooth roads, but the Squire +would neither permit his tender Lucina to ride fast, lest she get +thrown and hurt, or to ride alone. + +Lawrence Prescott never asked her to ride with him in those days. +Lucina in her blue habit, with a long blue plume wound round her hat +and floating behind in the golden blowing of her curls, on her pretty +white horse, and the great booted Squire on his sorrel, to her side, +reined back with an ugly strain on the bits, were a frequent +spectacle for admiration on the county roads. No other girl in Upham +rode. + +It was one day when she was out riding with her father that Lucina +made her opportunity to speak with Jerome. Now she had her horse, +Jerome was finding it harder to avoid the sight of her. The night +before, returning from Dale by moonlight, he had heard the quick +tramp of horses' feet behind him, and had had a glimpse of Lucina and +her father when they passed. Lucina turned in her saddle, and her +moon-white face looked over her shoulder at Jerome. She nodded; +Jerome made a stiff inclination, holding himself erect under his load +of shoes. Lucina was too shy to ask her father to stop that she might +speak to Jerome. However, before they reached home she said to her +father, in a sweet little contained voice, "Does he go to Dale every +night, father?" + +"Who?" said the Squire. + +"Jerome Edwards." + +"No, I guess not every day; not more than once in three days, when +the shoes are finished. He told me so, if I remember rightly." + +"It is a long walk," said Lucina. + +"It won't hurt a young fellow like him," the Squire said, laughing; +but he gave a curious look at his daughter. "What set you thinking +about that, Pretty?" he asked. + +"We passed him back there, didn't we, father?" + +"Sure enough, guess we did," said the Squire, and they trotted on +over the moonlit road. + +"Looks just like the back of that dapple-gray I had when you were a +little girl, Pretty," said the Squire, pointing with his whip at the +net-work of lights and shadows. + +He never thought of any significance in the fact that for the two +following days Lucina preferred riding in the morning in another +direction, and on the third day preferred riding after sundown on the +road to Dale. He also thought nothing of it that they passed Jerome +Edwards again, and that shortly afterwards Lucina professed herself +tired of riding so fast, though it had not been fast for him, and +reined her little white horse into a walk. The sorrel plunged and +jerked his head obstinately when the Squire tried to reduce his pace +also. + +"Please ride on, father," said Lucina; her voice sounded like a +little silver flute through the Squire's bass whoas. + +"And leave you? I guess not. Whoa, Dick; whoa, can't ye!" + +"Please, father, Dick frightens me when he does so." + +"Can't you ride a little faster, Pretty? Whoa, I tell ye!" + +"In just a minute, father, I'll catch up with you. Oh, father, +please! Suppose Dick should frighten Fanny, and make her run, I could +never hold her. Please, father!" + +The Squire had small choice, for the sorrel gave a fierce plunge +ahead and almost bolted. "Follow as fast as you can, Pretty!" he +shouted back. + +There was a curve in the road just ahead, the Squire was out of sight +around it in a flash. Lucina reined her horse in, and waited as +motionless as a little equestrian statue. She did not look around for +a moment or two--she hoped Jerome would overtake her without that. A +strange terror was over her, but he did not. + +Finally she looked. He was coming very slowly; he scarcely seemed to +move, and was yet quite a distance behind. "I can't wait," Lucina +thought, piteously. She turned her horse and rode back to him. He +stopped when she came alongside. "Good-evening," said she, +tremulously. + +"Good-evening," said Jerome. He made such an effort to speak that his +voice sounded like a harsh trumpet. + +Lucina forgot her pretty little speech. "I wanted to say that I was +sorry if I offended you," she said, faintly. + +Jerome had no idea what she meant; he could, indeed, scarcely take +in, until later, thinking of them, the sense of her words. He tried +to speak, but made only an inarticulate jumble of sounds. + +"I hope you will pardon me," said Lucina. + +Jerome fairly gasped. He bowed again, stiffly. + +Lucina said no more. She rode on to join her father. That night, +after she had gone to bed, she cried a long while. She reflected how +she had never even referred to the matter in question, in her suit +for pardon. + + + + +Chapter XXVII + + +Lucina in those days was occupied with some pieces of embroidery in +gay wools on cloth. There were varied designs of little dogs with +bead eyes, baskets of flowers, wreaths, and birds on sprays. She had +an ambition to embroider a whole set of parlor-chairs, as some young +ladies in her school had done, and there was in her mind a dim and +scarcely admitted fancy that these same chairs might add state to +some future condition of hers. + +Lucina had always innocently taken it for granted that she should +some day be married and have a house of her own, and very near her +father's. When she had begun the embroidery she had furnished a +shadowy little parlor of a shadowy house with the fine chairs, and +admitted at the parlor door a dim and stately presence, so shadowy to +her timid maiden fancy that there was scarcely a suggestion of +substance. + +Now, however, the shadow seemed to deepen and clear in outline. +Lucina fell to wondering if Jerome Edwards thought embroidered chairs +pretty or silly. Often she would pause in her counting and setting +even cross-barred stitches, lean her soft cheek on her slender white +hand, and sit so a long while, with her fair curls drooping over her +gentle, brooding face. Her mother often noticed her sitting so, and +thought, partly from quick maternal intuition, partly from knowledge +gained from her own experience, that if it were possible, she should +judge her to have had her heart turned to some maiden fancy. But she +knew that Lucina had cared for none of her lovers away from home, and +at home there were none feasible, unless, perhaps, Lawrence Prescott. +Lawrence had not been to see her lately; could it be possible the +child was hurt by it? Abigail sounded cautiously the depths of her +daughter's heart, and found to her satisfaction no image of Lawrence +Prescott therein. + +"Lawrence is a good boy," said Lucina; "it is a pity he is no taller, +and looks so like his father; but he is very good. I do think, +though, he might go to ride with me sometimes and save father from +going. I would rather have father, but I know he does not like to +ride. Lawrence had been planning to go to ride with me all through +the summer. It was strange he stopped--was it not, mother?" + +"Perhaps he is busy. I saw him driving with his father the other +day," said Abigail. + +"Well, perhaps he is," assented Lucina, easily. Then she asked advice +as to this or that shade in the ears of the little poodle-dog which +she was embroidering. + +"Lucina is as transparent as glass," her mother thought. "She could +never speak of Lawrence Prescott in that way if she were in love with +him, and there is no one else in town." + +Abigail Merritt, acute and tender mother as she was, settled into the +belief that her daughter was merely given to those sweetly melancholy +and wondering reveries natural to a maiden soul upon the threshold of +discovery of life. "I used to do just so, busy as I always was, +before Eben came," she thought, with a little pang of impatient shame +for herself and her daughter that they must yield to such necessities +of their natures. Abigail Merritt had never been a rebel, indeed, but +there had been unruly possibilities within her. She remembered well +what she had told her mother when her vague dreams had ended and Eben +Merritt had come a-wooing. "I like him, and I suppose, because I like +him I've got to marry him, but it makes me mad, mother." + +Looking now at this daughter of hers, with her exceeding beauty and +delicacy, which a touch would seem to profane and soil as much as +that of a flower or butterfly, she had an impulse to hide her away +and cover her always from the sight and handling of all except +maternal love. She took much comfort in the surety that there was as +yet no definite lover in Lucina's horizon. She did not reflect that +no human soul is too transparent to be clouded to the vision of +others, and its own, by the sacred intimacy with its own desires. Her +daughter, looking up at her with limpid blue eyes, replying to her +interrogation with sweet readiness, like a bird that would pipe to a +call, was as darkly unknown to her as one beyond the grave. She could +not even spell out clearly her hieroglyphics of life with the key in +her own nature. + +The day after Lucina had met Jerome on the Dale road, and had failed +to set the matter right, she took her embroidery-work over to her +Aunt Camilla's. She had resolved upon a plan which was to her quite +desperate, involving, as it did, some duplicity of manoeuvre which +shocked her. + +The afternoon was a warm one, and she easily induced, as she had +hoped, her Aunt Camilla to sit in the summer-house in the garden. +Everything was very little changed from that old summer afternoon of +years ago. If Miss Camilla had altered, it had been with such a fine +conservation of general effect, in spite of varying detail, that the +alteration was scarcely visible. She wore the same softly spreading +lilac gown, she wrote on her portfolio with the same gold pencil +presumably the same thoughts. If her softly drooping curls were faded +and cast lighter shadows over thinner cheeks, one could more easily +attribute the dimness and thinness to the lack of one's own memory +than to change in her. + +The garden was the same, sweetening with the ardor of pinks and +mignonette, the tasted breaths of thyme and lavender, like +under-thoughts of reason, and the pungent evidence of box. + +Lucina looked out of the green gloom of the summer-house at the same +old carnival of flowers, swarming as lightly as if untethered by +stems, upon wings of pink and white and purpling blue, blazing out to +sight as with a very rustle of color from the hearts of green bushes +and the sides of tall green-sheathed stalks, in spikes and plumes, +and soft rosettes of silken bloom. Even the yellow cats of Miss +Camilla's famous breed, inheriting the love of their ancestors for +following the steps of their mistress, came presently between the box +rows with the soft, sly glide of the jungle, and established +themselves for a siesta on the arbor bench. + +Lucina was glad that it was all so like what it had been, even to the +yellow cats, seeming scarcely more than a second rendering of a tune, +and it made it possible for her to open truthfully and easily upon +her plan. She herself, whose mind was so changed from its old +childish habit of simple outlook and waiting into personal effort for +its own ends, and whose body was so advanced in growth of grace, was +perhaps the most altered of all. However, there was much of the child +left in her. + +"Aunt Camilla," said she, in almost the same tone of timid +deprecation which the little Lucina of years before might have used. + +Camilla looked up, with gentle inquiry, from her portfolio. + +"I have been thinking," said Lucina, bending low over her embroidery +that her aunt might not see the pink confusion of her face, which she +could not, after all, control, "how I came here and spent the +afternoon, once, years ago; do you remember?" + +"You came here often--did you not, dear?" + +"Yes," said Lucina, "but that once in particular, Aunt Camilla?" + +"I fear I do not remember, dear," said Camilla, whose past had been +for years a peaceful monotone as to her own emotions, and had so +established a similar monotone of memory. + +"Don't you remember, Aunt Camilla? I came first with a stent to knit +on a garter, and we sat out here. Then the yellow cats came, and +father had been fishing, and he brought some speckled trout, +and--then--the Edwards boy--" + +"Oh, the little boy I had to weed my garden! A good little boy," +Camilla said. + +Lucina winced a little. She did not quite like Jerome to be spoken of +in that mildly reminiscent way. "He's grown up now, you know, Aunt +Camilla," said she. + +"Yes, my dear, and he is as good a young man as he was a boy, I +hear." + +"Father speaks very highly of him," said Lucina, with a soft tremor +and mounting of color, to which her aunt responded sensitively. + +People said that Camilla Merritt had never had a lover, but the same +wind can strike the same face of the heart. + +"I have heard him very highly spoken of," she agreed; and there was a +betraying quiver in her voice also. + +"We had plum-cake, and tea in the pink cups--don't you remember, Aunt +Camilla?" + +"So many times we had them--did we not, dear?" + +"Yes, but that one time?" + +"I fear that I cannot distinguish that time from the others, dear." + +There was a pause. Lucina took a few more stitches on her embroidery. +Miss Camilla poised her gold pencil reflectively over her portfolio. +"Aunt Camilla," said Lucina then. + +"Well, dear?" + +"I have been thinking how pleasant it would be to have another little +tea-party, here in the arbor; would you have any objections?" + +"My dear Lucina!" cried Miss Camilla, and looked at her niece with +gentle delight at the suggestion. + +The early situation was not reversed, for Lucina still admired and +revered her aunt as the realization of her farthest ideal of +ladyhood, but Miss Camilla fully reciprocated. The pride in her heart +for her beautiful niece was stronger than any which she had ever felt +for herself. She pictured Lucina instead of herself to her fancy; she +seemed to almost see Lucina's face instead of her own in her +looking-glass. When it came to giving Lucina a pleasure, she gave +twofold. + +"Thank you, Aunt Camilla," said Lucina, delightedly, and yet with a +little confusion. She felt very guilty--still, how could she tell her +aunt all her reasons for wishing the party? + +"Shall we have your father and mother, or only young people, dear?" +asked Miss Camilla. + +"Only young people, I think, aunt. Mother comes any time, and as for +father, he would rather go fishing." + +"You would like the Edwards boy, since he came so long ago?" + +"Yes, I think so, aunt." + +"He is poor, and works hard, and has not been in fine company much, I +presume, but that is nothing against him. He will enjoy it all the +more, if he is not too shy. You do not think he is too shy to enjoy +it, dear?" + +"I should never have known from his manners at my party that he had +not been in fine company all his life. He is not like the other young +men in Upham," protested Lucina, with a quick rise of spirit. + +"Well, I used to hear your grandfather say that there are those who +can suit their steps to any gait," her aunt said. "I understand that +he is a very good young man. We will have him and--" + +"I think his sister," said Lucina; "she is such a pretty girl--the +prettiest girl in the village, and it will please her so to be +asked." + +"The Edwards boy and his sister, and who else?" + +"No one else, I think, Aunt Camilla, except Lawrence Prescott. There +will not be room for more in the arbor." + +Lucina did not blush when she said Lawrence Prescott, but her aunt +did. She had often romanced about the two. "Well, dear," she said, +"when shall we have the tea-party?" + +"Day after to-morrow, please, Aunt Camilla." + +"That will give 'Liza time to make cake," said Camilla. "I will send +the invitations to-morrow, dear." + +"'Liza will be too busy cake-making to run on errands," said Lucina, +though her heart smote her, for this was where the true gist of her +duplicity came in; "write them now, Aunt Camilla, and give them to +me. I will see that they are delivered." + +The afternoon of the next day Lucina, being out riding, passed Doctor +Prescott's house, and called to Jake Noyes in the yard to take Miss +Camilla's little gilt-edged, lavender-scented note of invitation. +"Please give this to Mr. Lawrence," said she, prettily, and rode on. +The other notes were in her pocket, but she had not delivered them +when she returned home at sunset. + +"I am going to run over to Elmira Edwards and carry them," she told +her mother after supper, and pleaded that she would like the air when +Mrs. Merritt suggested that Hannah be sent. + +Thus it happened that Jerome Edwards, coming home about nine o'clock +that night, noticed, the moment he opened the outer door, the breath +of roses and lavender, and a subtle thrill of excitement and almost +fear passed over him. "Who is it?" he thought. He listened, and heard +voices in the parlor. He wanted to pass the door, but he could not. +He opened it and peered in, white-faced and wide-eyes, and there was +Lucina with his mother and sister. + +Mrs. Edwards and Elmira looked nervously flushed and elated; there +were bright spots on their cheeks, their eyes shone. On the table +were Miss Camilla's little gilt-edged missives. Lucina was somewhat +pale, and her face had been furtively watchful and listening. When +Jerome opened the door, her look changed to one of relief, which had +yet a certain terror and confusion in it. She rose at once, bowed +gracefully, until the hem of her muslin skirt swept the floor, and +bade Jerome good-evening. As for Jerome, he stood still, looking at +her. + +"Why, J'rome, don't you see who 'tis?" cried his mother, in her +sharp, excited voice, yet with an encouraging smile--the smile of a +mother who would put a child upon its best behavior for the sake of +her own pride. + +Jerome murmured, "Good-evening." He made a desperate grasp at his +self-possession, but scarcely succeeded. + +Lucina pulled a little fleecy white wrap over her head, and +immediately took leave. Jerome stood aside to let her pass. Elmira +followed her to the outer door, and his mother called him in a sharp +whisper, "J'rome, come here." + +When he had reached his mother's side she pinched his arm hard. "Go +home with her," she whispered. + +Jerome stared at her. + +"Do ye hear what I say? Go home with her." + +"I can't," he almost groaned then. + +"Can't? Ain't you ashamed of yourself? What ails ye? Lettin' of a +lady like her go home all alone this dark night." + +Elmira ran back into the parlor. "Oh, Jerome, you ought to go with +her, you ought to!" she cried, softly. "It's real dark. She felt it, +I know. She looked real sober. Run after her, quick, Jerome." + +"When she came to invite you to a party, too!" said Mrs. Edwards, but +Jerome did not hear that, he was out of the house and hurrying up the +road after Lucina. + +She had not gone far. Jerome did not know what to say when he +overtook her, so he said nothing--he merely walked along by her side. +A great anger at himself, that he had almost let this tender and +beautiful creature go out alone in the night and the dark, was over +him, but he knew not what to say for excuse. + +He wondered, pitifully, if she were so indignant that she did not +like him to walk home with her now. But in a moment Lucina spoke, and +her voice, though a little tremulous, was full of the utmost +sweetness of kindness. + +"I fear you are too tired to walk home with me," she said, "and I am +not afraid to go by myself." + +"No, it is too dark for you to go alone; I am not tired," replied +Jerome, quickly, and almost roughly, to hide the tumult of his heart. + +But Lucina did not understand that. "I am not afraid," she repeated, +in a little, grieved, and anxious way; "please leave me at the turn +of the road, I am truly not afraid." + +"No, it is too dark for you to go alone," said Jerome, hoarsely, +again. It came to him that he should offer her his arm, but he dared +not trust his voice for that. He reached down, caught her hand, and +thrust it through his arm, thinking, with a thrill of terror as he +did so, that she would draw it away, but she did not. + +She leaned so slightly on his arm that it seemed more the inclination +of spirit than matter, but still she accepted his support and walked +along easily at his side. So far from her resenting his summary +taking of her hand, she was grateful, with the humble gratitude of +the primeval woman for the kindness of a master whom she has made +wroth. + +Lucina had attributed Jerome's stiffness at sight of her, and his +delay in accompanying her home, to her unkind treatment of him. Now +he showed signs of forgiveness, her courage returned. When they had +passed the turn of the road, and were on the main street, she spoke +quite sweetly and calmly. + +"There is something I have been wanting to say to you," said she. "I +tried to say it the other night when I was riding and met you, but I +did not succeed very well. What I wanted to say was--I fear that when +you suggested coming to see me, the Sunday night after my party, I +did not seem cordial enough, and make you understand that I should be +very happy to see you, and that was why you did not come." + +"O--h!" said Jerome, with a long-drawn breath of wonder and despair. +He had been thinking that he had offended her beyond forgiveness and +of his own choice, and she, with her sweet humility, was twice suing +him for pardon. + +"I am very sorry," Lucina said, softly. + +"That was not the reason why I did not," Jerome gasped. + +"Then you were not hurt?" + +"No; I--thought you spoke as if you would like to have me come--" + +"Perhaps you were ill," Lucina said, hesitatingly. + +"No, I was not. I did not--" + +"Oh, it was not because you did not want to come!" Lucina cried out, +quickly, and yet with exceeding gentleness and sad wonder, that he +should force such a suspicion upon her. + +"No, it was not. I--wanted to come more than--I wanted to come, +but--I did not think it--best." Jerome said the last so defiantly +that poor Lucina started. + +"But it was because of nothing I had said, and it was not because you +did not want to?" she said, piteously. + +"No," said Jerome. Then he said, again, as if he found strength in +the repetition. "I did not think it best." + +"I thought you were coming that night," Lucina said, with scarcely +the faintest touch of reproach but with more of wonder. Why should he +not have thought it best? + +"I am sorry," said Jerome. "I wanted to tell you, but I had no reason +but that to give, and I--thought you might not understand." + +Lucina made no reply. The path narrowed just there and gave her an +excuse for quitting Jerome's arm. She did so with a gentle murmur of +explanation, for she could do nothing abruptly, then went on before +him swiftly. Her white shawl hung from her head to her waist in sharp +slants. She moved through the dusk with the evanescent flit of a +white moth. + +"Of course," stammered Jerome, painfully and boyishly, "I--knew--you +would not care if--I did not come. It was not as if--I had thought +you--would." + +Lucina said nothing to that either. Jerome thought miserably that she +did not hear, or, hearing, agreed with what he said. + +Soon, however, Lucina spoke, without turning her head. "I can +understand," said she, with the gentlest and yet the most complete +dignity, for she spoke from her goodness of heart, "that a person has +often to do what he thinks best, and not explain it to any other +person, because it is between him and his own conscience. I am quite +sure that you had some very good reason for not coming to see me that +Sunday night, and you need not tell me what it was. I am very glad +that you did not, as I feared, stay away because I had not treated +you with courtesy. Now, we will say no more about it." With that, +the path being a little wider, she came to his side again, and looked +up in his face with the most innocent friendliness and forgiveness in +hers. + +Jerome could have gone down at her feet and worshipped her. + +"What a beautiful night it is!" said Lucina, tilting her face up +towards the stars. + +"Beautiful!" said Jerome, looking at her, breathlessly. + +"I never saw the stars so thick," said she, musingly. "Everybody has +his own star, you know. I wonder which my star is, and yours. Did you +ever think of it?" + +"I guess my star isn't there," said Jerome. + +"Why, yes," cried Lucina, earnestly, "it must be!" + +"No, it isn't there," repeated Jerome, with a soft emphasis on the +last word. + +Lucina looked up at him, then her eyes fell before his. She laughed +confusedly. "Did you know what I came to your house to-night for?" +said she, trying to speak unconsciously. + +"To see Elmira?" + +"No, to give both of you an invitation to tea at Aunt Camilla's +to-morrow afternoon at five o'clock." + +"I am very much obliged to you," said Jerome, "but--" + +"You cannot come?" + +"No, I am afraid not." + +"The tea is to be in the arbor in the garden, the way it was that +other time, when we were both children; there is to be plum-cake and +the best pink cups. Nobody is asked but you and your sister and +Lawrence Prescott," said Lucina, but with no insistence in her voice. +Her gentle pride was up. + +"I am very much obliged, but I am afraid I can't come," Jerome said, +pleadingly. + +Lucina did not say another word. + +Jerome glanced down at her, and her fair face, between the folds of +her white shawl, had a look which smote his heart, so full it was of +maiden dignity and yet of the surprise of pain. + +A new consideration came to Jerome. "Why should I stay away from her, +refuse all her little invitations, and treat her so?" he thought. +"What if I do get to wanting her more, and get hurt, if it pleases +her? There is no danger for her; she does not care about me, and will +not. The suffering will all be on my side. I guess I can bear it; if +it pleases her to have me come I will do it. I have been thinking +only of myself, and what is a hurt to myself in comparison with a +little pleasure for her? She has asked me to this tea-party, and here +I am hurting her by refusing, because I am so afraid of getting hurt +myself!" + +Suddenly Jerome looked at Lucina, with a patient and tender smile +that her father might have worn for her. "I shall be very happy to +come," said he. + +"Not unless you can make it perfectly convenient," Lucina replied, +with cold sweetness; "I would rather not urge you." + +"It will be perfectly convenient," said Jerome. "I thought at first I +ought not to go, that was all." + +"Of course, Aunt Camilla and I will be very happy to have you come, +if you can," said Lucina. Still, she was not appeased. Jerome's +hesitating acceptance of this last invitation had hurt her more than +all that had gone before. She began to wish, with a great pang of +shame, that she had not gone to his house that night, had not tried +to see him, had not proposed this miserable party. Perhaps he did +mean to slight her, after all, though nobody ever had before, and how +she had followed him up! + +She walked on very fast; they were nearly home. When they reached her +gate, she said good-night, quickly, and would have gone in without +another word, but Jerome stopped her. He had begun to understand her +understanding of it all, and had taken a sudden resolution. "Better +anything than she should think herself shamed and slighted," he told +himself. + +"Will you wait just a minute?" he said; "I've got something I want to +say." + +Lucina waited, her face averted. + +"I've made up my mind to tell you why I thought I ought not to come, +that Sunday night," said Jerome; "I didn't think of telling you, but +I can see now that you may think I meant to slight you, if I don't. I +did not think at first that you could dream I _could_ slight anybody +like you, and not want to go to see you, but I begin to see that you +don't just know how every one looks at you." + +"I thought I ought not to come, because all of a sudden I found out +that I was--what they call in love with you." + +Lucina stood perfectly still, her face turned away. + +"I hope you are not offended," said Jerome; "I knew, of course, that +there is no question of--your liking me. I would not want you to. I +am not telling you for that, but only that you may not feel hurt +because I slighted your invitation the other night, and because I +thought at first I could not accept this. But I was foolish about it, +I guess. If you would like to have me come, that is enough." + +"You have not known me long enough to like me," said Lucina, in a +very small, sweet voice, still keeping her face averted. + +"I guess time don't count much in anything like this," said Jerome. + +"Well," said Lucina, with a soft, long breath, "I cannot see why your +liking me should hinder you from coming." + +"I guess you're right; it shouldn't if you want me to come." + +"Why did you ever think it should?" Lucina flashed her blue eyes +around at him a second, then looked away again. + +"I was afraid if--I saw you too often I should want to marry you so +much that I would want nothing else, not even to help other people," +said Jerome. + +"Why need you think about marrying? Can't you come to see me like a +friend? Can't we be happy so?" asked Lucina, with a kind of wistful +petulance. + +"I needn't think about it, and we can--" + +"I don't want to think about marrying yet," said Lucina; "I don't +know as I shall ever marry. I don't see why you should think so much +about that." + +"I don't," said Jerome; "I shall never marry." + +"You will, some time," Lucina said, softly. + +"No; I never shall." + +Lucina turned. "I must go in," said she. + +Her hand and Jerome's found each other, with seemingly no volition of +their own. "I am glad you didn't come because you didn't like me," +Lucina said, softly; "and we can be friends and no need of thinking +of that other." + +"Yes," Jerome said, all of a tremble under her touch; "and--you won't +feel offended because I told you?" + +"No, only I can't see why you stayed away for that." + + + + +Chapter XXVIII + + +The next afternoon Jerome went to Miss Camilla's tea-party. Sitting +in the arbor, whose interior was all tremulous and vibrant with green +lights and shadows, as with a shifting water-play, sipping tea from +delicate china, eating custards and the delectable plum-cake, he +tasted again one of the few sweet savors of his childhood. + +Jerome, in the arbor with three happy young people, taking for the +first time since his childhood a holiday on a work-day, seemed to +comprehend the first notes of that great harmony of life which proves +by the laws of sequence the last. The premonition of some final +blessedness, to survive all renunciation and sacrifice, was upon him. +He felt raised above the earth with happiness. Jerome seemed like +another person to his companions. The wine of youth and certainty of +joy stirred all the light within him to brilliancy. He had naturally +a quicker, readier tongue than Lawrence Prescott, now he gave it +rein. + +He could command himself, when he chose and did not consider that it +savored of affectation, to a grace of courtesy beyond all provincial +tradition. In his manners he was not one whit behind even Lawrence +Prescott, with his college and city training, and in face and form +and bearing he was much his superior. Lawrence regarded him with +growing respect and admiration, Elmira with wonder. + +As for Miss Camilla, she felt as if tripping over her own inaccuracy +of recollection of him. "I never saw such a change in any one, my +dear," she told Lucina the next day. "I could scarcely believe he was +the little boy who used to weed my garden, and with so few advantages +as he has had it is really remarkable." + +"Father says so, too," remarked Lucina, looking steadily at her +embroidery. + +Miss Camilla gazed at her reflectively. She had a mild but active +imagination, which had never been dispelled by experience, for +romance and hearts transfixed with darts of love. "I hope he will +never be so unfortunate as to place his affections where they cannot +be reciprocated, since he is in such poor circumstances that he +cannot marry," she sighed, so gently that one could scarcely suspect +her of any hidden meaning. + +"I do not think," said Lucina, still with steadfast eyes upon her +embroidery, "that a woman should consider poverty if she loves." +Then her cheeks glowed crimson through her drooping curls, and Miss +Camilla also blushed; still she attributed her niece's tender +agitation to her avowal of general principles. She did not once +consider any danger to Lucina from Jerome; but she had seen, on the +day before, the young man's eyes linger upon the girl's lovely face, +and had immediately, with the craft of a female, however gentle, for +such matters, reached half-pleasant, half-melancholy conclusions. + +It was gratifying and entirely fitting that her beautiful Lucina +should have a heart-broken lover at her feet; still, it was sad, very +sad, for the poor lover. "When the affections are enlisted, one +should not hesitate to share poverty as well as wealth," she +admitted, with a little conscious tremor of delicacy at such +pronounced views. + +"I do not think Jerome himself wants to be married," said Lucina, +quickly. + +Miss Camilla sighed. She remembered again the young man's fervent +eyes. "I hope he does not, my dear," she said. + +"_I_ do not intend to marry either. I am never going to be married at +all," said Lucina, with a seeming irrelevance which caused Camilla to +make mild eyes of surprise and wonder sadly, after her niece had gone +home, if it were possible that the dear child had, thus early, been +crossed in love. + +Lucina, ever since Jerome's confession of love, had experienced a +curious revulsion from her maiden dreams. She had such instinctive +docility of character that she was at times amenable to influences +entirely beyond her own knowledge. Not understanding in the least +Jerome's attitude of renunciation, she accepted it for herself also. +She no longer builded bridal air-castles. She still embroidered her +chair-covers, thinking that they would look very pretty in the north +parlor, and some of the old chairs could be moved to the garret to +make room for them. She gazed at her aunt Camilla with a peaceful eye +of prophecy. Just so would she herself look years hence. Her hair +would part sparsely to the wind, like hers, and show here and there +silver instead of golden lustres. There would be a soft rosetted cap +of lace to hide the thinnest places, and her cheeks, like her aunt's, +would crumple and wrinkle as softly as old rose leaves, and, like her +aunt, in this guise she would walk her path of life alone. + +Lucina seemed to see, as through a long, converging tunnel of years, +her solitary self, miniatured clearly in the distance, gliding on, +like Camilla, with that sweet calm of motion of one who has left the +glow of joy behind, but feels her path trend on peace. + +"I dare say it may be just as well not to marry, after all," reasoned +Lucina, "a great many people are not married. Aunt Camilla seems very +happy, happier than many married women whom I have seen. She has +nothing to disturb her. I shall be happy in the way she is. When I am +such an old maid that my father and mother will have died, because +they were too old to live longer, I will leave this house, because I +could not bear to stay here with them away, and go to Aunt Camilla's. +She will be dead, too, by that time, and her house will be mine. Then +I, in my cap and spectacles, will sit afternoons in the summer-house, +and--perhaps--he--he will be older than I then, and white-haired, and +maybe stooping and walking with a cane--perhaps--he will come often, +and sit with me there, and we will remember everything together." + +In all her forecasts for a single life, Lucina could not quite +eliminate her lover, though she could her husband. She and Jerome +were always to be friends, of course, and he was to come and see her. +Lucina, when once Jerome had begun to visit her, never contemplated +the possibility of his ever ceasing to do so. He did not come +regularly--the wisdom of that was tacitly understood between them; +since there was to be no marriage, there could necessarily be no +courtship. There was never any sitting up together in the north +parlor, after the fashion of village lovers. Jerome merely spent an +hour or two in the sitting-room with the Squire and his wife and +Lucina. Sometimes he and the Squire talked politics and town affairs +while Lucina and her mother sewed. Sometimes the four played whist, +or bezique, for in those days Jerome was learning to take a hand at +cards, but he had always Mrs. Merritt for his partner, and the Squire +Lucina. Indeed, Lucina would have considered herself highly false and +treacherous had she manifested an inclination to be the partner of +any other than her father. Sometimes the Squire sat smoking and +dozing, and sometimes he was away, and in those cases Mrs. Merritt +sewed, and Jerome and Lucina played checkers. + +It tried Jerome sorely to capture Lucina's men and bar her out from +the king-row, and she sometimes chid him for careless playing. + +Sometimes, after Jerome was gone and Lucina in bed, Abigail Merritt, +who had always a kind but furtively keen eye upon the two young +people, talked a little anxiously to the Squire. "I know that he does +not come regularly and he sees us all, but--I don't know that it is +wise for us to let them be thrown so much together," she would say, +with a nervous frown on her little dark face. + +The Squire's forehead wrinkled with laughter, but he was finishing +his pipe before going to bed, and would not remove it. He rolled +humorously inquiring eyes through the cloud of smoke, and his wife +answered as if to a spoken question. "I know Jerome Edwards doesn't +seem like other young men, but he is a young man, after all, and, if +we shouldn't say it, I am afraid somebody will get hurt. We both know +what Lucina is--" + +"You don't mean to say you're afraid Lucina will get hurt," +spluttered the Squire, quickly. + +"It isn't likely that a girl like Lucina could get hurt herself," +cried Abigail, with a fine blush of pride. + +"I suppose you're right," assented the Squire, with a chuckle. "I +suppose there's not a young fool in the country but would think +himself lucky for a chance to tie the jade's shoestring. I guess +there'll be no hanging back of dancers whenever she takes a notion to +pipe, eh?" + +"She has not taken a notion to pipe, and I doubt if she will at +present," said Abigail, with a little bridle of feminine delicacy, +"and--he is a good young man, though, of course, it would scarcely be +advisable if she did fancy him, but she does not. Lucina has never +concealed anything from me since she was born, and I know--" + +"Then it's the boy you're worrying about?" + +Abigail nodded. "He's a good young man, and he has had a hard +struggle. I don't want his peace of mind disturbed through any means +of ours," said she. + +The Squire got up, shook the ashes out of his pipe, and laid it with +tender care on the shelf. Then he put his great hands one upon each +of his wife's little shoulders, and looked down at her. Abigail +Merritt had a habit of mind which corresponded to that of her body. +She could twist and turn, with the fine adroitness of a fox, round +sudden, sharp corners of difficulty, when her husband might go far on +the wrong road through drowsy inertia of motion; but, after all, he +had sometimes a clearer view than she of ultimate ends, past the +petty wayside advantages of these skilful doublings and turnings. + +She could deal with details with little taper-finger touches of +nicety, but she could not judge as well as he of generalities and the +final scope of combinations. It was doubtful if Abigail ever fairly +appreciated her own punch. + +"Abigail," said the Squire, looking down at her, his great bearded +face all slyly quirked with humor--"Abigail, look here. There are a +good many things that you and I can do, and a few that we can't do. I +can fish and shoot and ride with any man in the county, and bluster +folks into doing what I want them to mostly, if I keep my temper; and +as for you--you know what you can do in the way of fine stitching, +and punch-making, and house-keeping, and you and I together have got +the best, and the handsomest, and the most blessed"--the Squire's +voice broke--"daughter in the county, by the Lord Harry we have. I +can shoot any man who looks askance at her, I can lie down in the mud +for her to walk over to keep her little shoes dry, and you can fix +her pretty gowns and keep her curls smooth, and watch her lest she +breathe too fast or too slow of a night, but there we've got to stop. +You can't make the posies in your garden any color you have a mind, +my girl, and I can't change the spots on the trout I land. We can't, +either of us, make a sunset, or a rainbow, or stop a thunder-storm, +or raise an east wind. There are things we run up blind against, and +I reckon this is one of 'em. It's got to come out the way it will, +and you and I can't hinder it, Abigail." + +"We can hinder that poor boy from having his heart broken." + +The Squire whistled. "Lock the stable-door after the colt is stolen, +eh?" + +"Eben Merritt, what do you mean?" + +"I mean that the boy comes here now an then, not courting the girl, +as I take it, at all, and shows so far no signs of anything amiss, +and had, in my opinion, best be let alone. Lord, when I was his age, +if a girl like Lucina had been in the question, and anybody had tried +to rein me up short, I'd have kicked over the breeches entirely. I'd +have either got her or blown my brains out. That boy can take care of +himself, anyhow. He'll stop coming here of his own accord, if he +thinks he'd better." + +Abigail sniffed scornfully with her thin nostrils. + +"Wait and see," said the Squire. + +"I shall wait a long time before I see," she said, but she was +mistaken. The very next week Jerome did not come, then a month went +by and he had not appeared once at the Squire's house. + + + + +Chapter XXIX + + +One Sunday afternoon, during the latter part of July, Lucina Merritt +strolled down the road to her aunt Camilla's. The day was very +warm--droning huskily with insects, and stirring lazily with limp +leaves. + +There had been no rain for a long time, and the road smoked high with +white dust at every foot-fall. Lucina raised her green and white +muslin skirts above her embroidered petticoat, and set her little +feet as lightly as a bird's. She carried a ruffled green silk parasol +to shield herself from the sun, though her hat had a wide brim and +flapped low over her eyes. + +Her mother had remonstrated with her for going out in the heat, since +she had not looked quite well of late. "You will make your head +ache," said she. + +"It is so cool in Aunt Camilla's north room," pleaded Lucina, and had +her way. + +She walked slowly, as her mother had enjoined, but it was like +walking between a double fire of arrows from the blazing white sky +and earth; when she came in sight of her aunt Camilla's house her +head was dizzy and her veins were throbbing. + +Lucina had not been happy during the last few weeks, and sometimes, +in such cases, physical discomfort acts like a tonic poison. For the +latter part of the way she thought of nothing but reaching the +shelter of Camilla's north room; her mind regarding all else was at +rest. + +Miss Camilla's house was closed as tightly as a convent; not a breath +of out-door air would she have admitted after the early mornings of +those hot days. Lucina entered into night and coolness in comparison +with the glare of day outside. When she had her hat removed, and sat +in the green gloom of the north parlor, sipping a glass of water +which Liza had drawn from the lowest depths of the well, then +flavored with currant-jelly and loaf-sugar, she felt almost at peace +with her own worries. + +Her aunt Camilla, clad in dimly flowing old muslin, sat near the +chimney-place, swaying a feather fan. She had her Bible on her knees, +but she had not been reading; the light was too dim for her eyes. The +fireplace was filled with the feathery green of asparagus, which also +waved lightly over the gilded looking-glass, and was reflected airily +therein. Asparagus plumes waved over all the old pictures also. The +whole room from this delicate garnishing, the faded green tone of the +furniture covers and carpet, from the wall-paper in obscure +arabesques of green and satiny white, appeared full of woodland +shadows. Miss Camilla, swaying her feather fan, served to set these +shadows slowly eddying with a motion of repose. She had dozed in her +chair, and her mind had lapsed into peaceful dreams before her niece +arrived. Now she sat beaming gently at her. "Do you feel refreshed, +dear?" she asked, when Lucina had finished her tumbler of +currant-jelly water. + +"Yes, thank you, Aunt Camilla." + +"I fear you were not strong enough to venture out in such heat, glad +as I am to see you, dear. Had you not better let 'Liza bring you a +pillow, and then you can lie down on the sofa and perhaps have a +little nap?" + +"No, thank you, Aunt Camilla, I am not sleepy. I am quite well. I am +going to sit by the window and read." + +With that Lucina rose, got a book bound in red and gold from the +stately mahogany table, and seated herself by the one window whose +shutters were not tightly closed. It was a north window, and only one +leaf of the upper half of the shutter was open. The aperture +disclosed, instead of burning sky, a thick screen of horse-chestnut +boughs. The great fan-like leaves almost touched the window-glass, +and tinted all the dim parallelogram of light. + +Even Lucina's golden head and fair face acquired somewhat of this +prevailing tone of green, being transposed into another key of color. +All her golden lights, and her roses, were lost in a delicate green +pallor, which might have beseemed a sea-nymph. Her aunt, sitting +aloof in that same green shaft of day filtered through horse-chestnut +leaves, and also changed thereby, kept glancing at her uneasily. She +knew that her brother and his wife had been anxious lately about +Lucina. She ventured a few more gently solicitous remarks, which +Lucina met sweetly, still with a little impatience of weariness, +scarcely lifting her face from her book; then she ventured no more. + +"The child does not like to have us so anxious over her," she +thought, with that unfailing courtesy and consideration which would +spare others though she torment herself thereby. She longed +exceedingly to offer Lucina a wineglass of a home-brewed cordial, +compounded from the rich juice of the blackberry, the finest of +French brandy, and sundry spices, which was her panacea, but she +abstained, lest it disturb her. Miss Camilla set a greater value upon +peace of mind than upon aught else. + +Lucina bent her face over her book, and turned the leaves quickly, as +if she were reading with absorption. Presently Miss Camilla thought +she looked better. The soft lapping as of waves, of the Sabbath calm, +began again to oversteal her body and spirit. Visions of her peaceful +past seemed to confuse themselves with the present. "You--must stay +to tea, and--not--go home until--after sunset, when it is cooler," +she murmured, drowsily, and with a dim conviction that this was a +Sabbath of long ago, that Lucina was a little girl in a short frock +and pantalettes; then in a few minutes her head drooped limply +towards her shoulder, and all her thoughts relaxed into soft +slumberous breaths. + +When her aunt fell asleep, Lucina looked up, with that quick, +startled sense of loneliness which sometimes, in such case, comes to +a sensitive consciousness. "Aunt Camilla is asleep," she thought; she +turned to her book again. It was a copy of Mrs. Hemans's poems. +Somehow the vivid sentiment of the lines failed to please her, though +she, like her young lady friends, had heretofore loved them well. +Lucina read the first stanza of "The warrior bowed his crested head" +with no thrill of her maiden breast; then she turned to "The Bride of +the Greek Isles," and that was no better. + +She arose, tiptoed softly over to the table, and examined the other +books thereon. There were volumes of the early English poets, an +album, and _A Souvenir of Friendship_, in red and gold, like the +Hemans. She opened the souvenir, and looked idly at the small, +exquisitely fine steel engravings, the alliterative verses, the tales +of sentiment beginning with long preambles couched in choicest +English. She shut the book with a little weary sigh, and looked +irresolutely at her sleeping aunt, then at the chair by the north +window. + +Lucina felt none of the languor which is sometimes caused by extreme +heat. Instead, there was a fierce electric tension through all her +nerves. She was weary almost to death, the cool of this dark room was +unutterably grateful to her, yet she could not remain quiet. She had +left her parasol and hat on the hall-table. She stole out softly, +with scarcely the faintest rustle of skirts, tied on her hat, took +her parasol, and went through the house to the back-garden door. + +Looking back, she saw the old servant-woman's broadly interrogatory +face in a vine-wreathed kitchen-window. "I am going out in the garden +a little while, 'Liza," said Lucina. + +The garden was down-crushed, its extreme of sweetness pressed out +beneath the torrid sunbeams as under flaming hoofs. Lucina passed +between the wilting ranks and flattened beds of flowers, and the +breath of them in her face was like the rankest sweetness of love, +when its delicacy, even for itself, is all gone. The pungent odor of +box was like a shameless call from the street. Lucina went into the +summer-house and sat down. It was stifling, and the desperate +sweetnesses of the garden seemed to have collected there, as in a +nest. + +Lucina, after a minute, sprang up, her face was a deep pink, she had +a gentle distracted frown on her sweet forehead, her lips were +pouting; she did not look in the least like the Lucina of the early +spring. + +She went out of the summer-house, and down the garden paths, and then +over a stone wall, into the rear field, which bounded it. This field +had been mowed not long before, and the stubble was pink and gold in +the afternoon light. + +The field was broad, and skirted on the west by a thick wood. Lucina, +holding her green parasol, crossed the field to the wood. The stubble +was hot to her feet, white butterflies flew in her face, rusty-winged +things hurled themselves in her path, like shrill completions from +some mill of insect life. + +All along the wood there was a border of shadow. Lucina kept close to +the trees, and so down the field. A faint, cool dampness stole out +from the depths of the wood and tempered the heat for the width of +its shade. Lucina put down her parasol; she was walking quite +steadily, as if with a purpose. + +The wood extended the length of many fields, running parallel with +the main village street, behind the houses. Lucina, passing the +Prescott house from the rear, instead of the front, seeing the +unpainted walls and roof-slopes of barn and wood-sheds, and the +garden, had a curious sense of retroversion in material things which +suited well her mind. She felt that day as if she were turned +backward to her own self. + +The fields were divided from one another by stone walls. Lucina +crossed these, and kept on until she reached a field some distance +beyond Doctor Prescott's house. Then she left the shadow of the wood, +and crossed the field to the main road. In crossing this she kept +close to the wall, slinking along rapidly, for she felt guilty; this +field was all waving with brown heads of millet which should not have +been trampled. + +She got to the road and nobody had seen her. She crossed it, entered +a rutty cart-path, and was in the Edwards' woodland. + +For the first time in her life, Lucina Merritt was doing something +which she acknowledged to herself to be distinctly unmaidenly. She +had come to this wood because she had heard Jerome say that he often +strolled here of a Sunday afternoon. Her previous little schemes for +meeting him had been innocent to her own understanding, but now she +had tasted the fruit of knowledge of her own heart. + +She felt fairly sick with shame at what she was doing, she blushed to +her own thoughts, but she had a helpless impulse as before, some +goading spur in her own nature which she could not withstand. + +She hurried softly down the cart-path between the trees, then +suddenly stood still, for under a great pine-tree on the right lay +Jerome. His hat was off, one arm was thrown over his head, his face +was flushed with heat and slumber. Lucina, her body bent aloof with +an indescribable poise of delicacy and the impulse of flight, yet +looked at her sleeping lover until her whole heart seemed to feed +itself through her eyes. + +Lucina had not seen him for more than six weeks, except by sly +glimpses at meeting and on the road. She thought, pitifully, that he +had grown thin; she noticed what a sad droop his mouth had at the +corners. She pitied, loved, and feared him, with all the trifold +power of her feminine heart. + +As she looked at him, her remembrance of old days so deepened and +intensified that they seemed to close upon the present and the +future. Love, even when it has apparently no past, is at once a +memory and a revelation. Lucina saw the little lover of her innocent +childish dreams asleep there, she saw the poor boy who had gone +hungry and barefoot, she saw the young man familiar in the +strangeness of the future. And, more than that, Lucina, who had +hitherto shown fully to her awakening heart only her thought of +Jerome, having never dared to look at him and love him at the same +time, now gazed boldly at him asleep, and a sense of a great mystery +came over her. In Jerome she seemed to see herself also, the unity of +the man and woman in love dawned upon her maiden imagination. She +felt as if Jerome's hands were her hands, his breath hers. "I never +knew he looked like me before," she thought with awe. + +Then suddenly Jerome, with no stir of awaking, opened his eyes and +looked at her. Often, on arousing from a deep sleep, one has a sense +of calm and wonderless observation as of a new birth. Jerome looked +for a moment at Lucina with no surprise. In a new world all things +may be, and impossibilities become commonplaces. + +Then he sprang up, and went close to her. "Is it you?" he said, in a +sobbing voice. + +Lucina looked at him piteously. She wanted to run away, but her limbs +trembled, her little hands twitched in the folds of her muslin skirt. +Jerome saw her trembling, and a soft pink suffusing her fair face, +even her sweet throat and her arms, under her thin sleeves. He knew, +with a sudden leap of tenderness, which would have its way in spite +of himself, why she was there. She had wanted to see him so, the dear +child, the fair, wonderful lady, that she had come through the heat +of this burning afternoon, stealing away alone from all her friends, +and even from her own decorous self, for his sake. He pointed to the +clear space under the pine where he had been lying. "Shall we sit +down there--a minute?" he stammered. + +"I--think I--had better go," said Lucina, faintly, with the quick +impulse of maidenhood to flee from that which it has sought. + +"Only a few minutes--I have something to tell you." + +They sat down, Lucina with her back against the pine-tree, Jerome at +her side. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but instead it widened +into a vacuous smile. He looked at Lucina and she at him, then he +came closer to her and took her in his arms. + +Neither of them spoke. Lucina hid her face on his breast, and he held +her so, looking out over her fair head at the wood. His mouth was +shut hard, his eyes were full of fierce intent of combat, as if he +expected some enemy forth from the trees to tear his love from him. +For the first time in his life he realized the full might of his own +natural self. He felt as if he could trample upon the needs of the +whole world, and the light of his own soul; to gain this first sweet +of existence, whose fragrance was in his face. + +The strongest realization of his nature hitherto, that of the +outreaching wants of others, weakened. He was filled with the +insensate greed of creation for himself. He held Lucina closer, and +bent his head down over hers. Then she turned her face a little, and +their lips met. + +Lucina had never since her childhood kissed any man but her father, +and as for Jerome, he had held such things with a shame of scorn. +This meant much to both of them, and the shock of such deep meaning +caused them to start apart, as if with fear of each other. Lucina +raised her head, and even pushed Jerome away, gently, and he loosened +his hold and stood up before her, all pale and trembling. + +"You must forgive me--I--forgot myself," he said, with quick gasps +for breath, "I won't--sit--down there again." Then he went on, +speaking fast: "I have been--wanting to tell you, but there was no +chance. I could not come to see you any longer. I could not. I +thought a man could go to see a woman when he was in love with her, +and could bear it when the love was all on his side, and there was +no--chance of marriage. I thought I could bear it if it pleased you, +but--I didn't know it would be like this. I was never in love, and I +did not know. I could think of nothing but wanting you. It was +spoiling me for everything else, and there are other things in the +world besides this. If I came much longer I should not be fit to +come. I _could_ not come any longer." Jerome looked down at Lucina, +with an air of stern, yet wistful, argument. She sat before him with +downcast, pale, and sober face, then she rose, and all her girlish +irresolution and shame dropped from her, and left for a moment the +woman in her unveiled. + +"I love you as much as you love me," she said, simply. + +Jerome looked at her. "You--don't mean--that?" + +"Yes, I suppose I did when you told me first, but I did not know it +then. Now I know it. I have been very unhappy because I feared you +might be staying away because you thought I did not love you, but I +dared not try to see you as I did before, because I had found myself +out. To-day I could not help it, whatever you might think of me, or +whatever I might think of myself. I could not bear to worry any +longer, lest you might be unhappy because you thought I did not love +you. I do, and you need not stay away any more for that." + +"Lucina--you don't mean--" + +"Do you think I would have let you--do as you did a minute ago, if I +had not?" said she, and a blush spread over her face and neck. + +"I--thought--it was all--me--that--_you_--did not--" + +"No, I let you," whispered Lucina. + +"Oh, you don't mean that you--like me this same way that I do +you--enough to marry me! You don't mean that?" + +"Yes, I do," replied Lucina; she looked up at him with a curious +solemn steadfastness. She was not blushing any more. + +"I--never thought of this," Jerome said, drawing a long, sobbing +breath. He stood looking at her, his face all white and working. +"Lucina," he began, then paused, for he could not speak. He walked a +little way down the path, then came back. "Lucina," he said, +brokenly, "as God is my witness--I never thought of this--I +never--thought that you--could-- Oh, look at yourself, and look at +me! You know that I could not have thought--oh, look at yourself, +there was never anybody like you! I did not think that you +could--care for or--be hurt by--_me_." + +"I have never seen anybody like you, not even father," Lucina said. +She looked at him with the shrinking yet loving faithfulness of a +child before emotion which it cannot comprehend. She could not +understand why, if Jerome loved her and she him, there was anything +to be distressed about. She could not imagine why he was so pale and +agitated, why he did not take her in his arms and kiss her again, why +they could not both be happy at once. + +"Oh, my God!" cried Jerome, and looked at her in a way which +frightened her. + +"Don't," she said, softly, shrinking a little. + +"Lucina, you know how poor I am," he said, hoarsely. "You know +I--can't--marry." + +"I don't need much," said she. + +"I couldn't--give you what you need." + +"Father would, then." + +"No, he would not. I give my wife all or nothing." + +Lucina trembled. The same look which she remembered when Jerome would +not take her little savings was in his eyes. + +"Then--I would not take anything from father," she said, tremulously. +"I wouldn't mind--being--poor." + +"I have seen the wives of poor men, and you shall not be made one by +me. If I thought I had not strength enough to keep you from that, as +far as I was concerned, I would leave you this minute, and throw +myself in the pond over there." + +"I am not afraid to be the wife of--a poor man--if I love him. +I--could save, and--work," Lucina said, speaking with the necessity +of faithfulness upon her, yet timidly, and turning her face aside, +for her heart had begun to fear lest Jerome did not really love her +nor want her, after all. A woman who would sacrifice herself for +love's sake cannot understand the sacrifice, nor the love, which +refuses it. + +"You shall not be, whether you are afraid or not!" Jerome cried out, +fiercely. "Haven't I seen John Upham's wife? Oh, God!" + +Lucina began moving slowly down the path towards the road; Jerome +followed her. "I must go," she said, with a gentle dignity, though +she trembled in all her limbs. "I came across the fields from Aunt +Camilla's. I left her asleep, and she will wake and miss me." + +"Oh," cried Jerome, "I wish--" then he stopped himself. "Yes, she +will, I suppose," he added, lamely. + +"He does not want me to stay," thought Lucina, with a sinking of +heart and a rising of maiden pride. She walked a little faster. + +Jerome quickened his pace, and touched her shoulder. "You must not +think about me--about this," he murmured, hoarsely. "_You_ must not +be unhappy about it!" + +Lucina turned and looked in his face sadly, yet with a soft +stateliness. "No," said she, "I will not. I do not see, after all, +why I should be unhappy, or you either. Many people do not marry. I +dare say they are happier. Aunt Camilla seems happy. I shall be like +her. There is nothing to hinder our friendship. We can always be +friends, like brothers and sisters even, and you can come to see +me--" + +"No, I can't," said Jerome, "I can't do that even. I told you I could +not." + +Lucina said no more. She turned her face and went on. She said +good-bye quickly when she reached the road, and was across it and +under the bars into the millet. + +Jerome did not attempt to follow her; he stood for a moment watching +her moving through the millet, as through the brown waves of a +shallow sea; then he went back into the woods. When he reached the +place where he had sat with Lucina he stopped and spoke, as if she +were still there. + +"Lucina," he said, "I promise you before God, that I will never, so +long as I live, love or marry any other woman but you. I promise you +that I will work as I never did before--my fingers to the bone, my +heart to its last drop of blood--to earn enough to marry you. And +then, if you are free, I will come to you again. I will fight to win +you, with all the strength that is in me, against the whole world, +and I will love you forever, forever, but I promise you that I will +never say this in your hearing to bind you and make you wait, when I +may die and never come." + + + + +Chapter XXX + + +Lucina did not go into her aunt Camilla's house again that afternoon. +She crossed the fields--her aunt's garden--skirted the house to the +road--thence home. + +When she entered the south door her mother met her. "Why didn't you +wait until it was cooler?" she asked; then, before the girl could +answer, "What is the matter? Why, Lucina, you have been crying!" + +"Nothing," replied Lucina, piteously, pushing past her mother. + +"Where are you going?" + +"Up-stairs to my chamber." With that Lucina was on the stairs, and +her mother followed. + +The two were a long time in Lucina's chamber; then Abigail came down +alone to her husband in the sitting-room. + +The Squire, who was as alert as any fox where his beloved daughter +was concerned, had scented something wrong, and looked up anxiously +when his wife entered. + +"She isn't sick, is she?" he asked. + +"She will be, if we don't take care," Abigail replied, shortly. + +"You don't mean it!" cried the Squire, jumping up. "I'll go for the +doctor this minute. It was the heat. Why didn't you keep her at home, +Abigail?" + +"Sit down, for mercy's sake, Eben!" said Abigail. She sat down +herself as she spoke, and crossed her little slender feet and hands +with a quick, involuntary motion, which was usual to her. "It is as I +told you," said she. Abigail Merritt, good comrade of a wife though +she was, yet turned aggressively feminine at times. + +The Squire sat down. "What do you mean, Abigail?" + +"I mean--that I wish that Edwards boy had never entered this house." + +"Abigail, you don't mean that Lucina-- What _do_ you mean, Abigail?" +finished the Squire, feebly. + +"I mean that I was right in thinking some harm would come from that +boy being here so much," replied his wife. Then she went on and +repeated in substance the innocent little confession which Lucina had +made to her in her chamber. + +The Squire listened, his bearded chin sunken on his chest, his +forehead, under the crest of yellow locks, bent gloomily. + +"It seems as if you and I had done everything that we could for the +child ever since she was born," he said, huskily, when his wife had +finished. His first emotion was one of cruel jealousy of his +daughter's love for another man. + +Abigail looked at him with quick pity, but scarcely with full +understanding. She could never lose, as completely as he, their +daughter, through a lover. She had not to yield her to another of the +same sex, and in that always the truest sting of jealousy lies. + +"So far as that goes, it is no more than we had to expect, Eben," she +said. "You know that. I turned away from my parents for you." + +"I know it, Abigail, but--I thought, maybe, it wouldn't come yet a +while. I've done all I could. I bought her the little horse--she +seemed real pleased with that, Abigail, you know. I thought, maybe, +she would be contented a while here with us." + +"Eben Merritt, you don't for a minute think that she can be anywhere +but with us, for all this!" + +"It's the knowledge that she's willing to be that comes hard," said +the Squire, piteously--"it's that, Abigail." + +"I don't know that she's any too willing to," returned Abigail, half +laughing. "The principal thing that seems to trouble the child is +that Jerome won't come to see her. I rather think that if he would +come to see her she would be perfectly contented." + +"And why can't he come to see her, if she wants him to--will you tell +me that?" cried the Squire, with sudden fervor. + +"Eben Merritt, would you have the poor child getting to thinking more +of him than she does, when he isn't going to marry her?" + +"And why isn't he going to marry her, if she wants him? By the Lord +Harry, Lucina shall have whoever she wants, if it's a prince or a +beggar! If that fellow has been coming here, and now--" + +"Eben, listen to me and keep quiet!" cried Abigail, running at her +great husband's side, with a little, wiry, constraining hand on his +arm, for the Squire had sprung from his seat and was tramping up and +down in his rage that Lucina should be denied what she wanted, even +though it were his own heart's blood. "You know what I told you," +Abigail said. "Jerome is behaving well. You know he can't marry +Lucina--he hasn't a penny." + +"Then I'll give 'em pennies enough to marry on. The girl shall have +whom she wants; I tell you that, Abigail." + +"How much have you got to give them until we are gone, even if Jerome +would marry under such conditions; and I told you what he said to +Lucina about it," returned his wife, quietly. + +"I'll go to work myself, then," shouted the Squire; "and as for the +boy, he shall swallow his damned pride before he gives my girl an +anxious hour. What is he, to say he will or will not, if she lifts +her little finger? By the Lord Harry, he ought to go down on his face +like a heathen when she looks at him!" + +"Eben," said Abigail, "will you listen to me? I tell you, Jerome is +behaving as well as any young man can. I know he is, from what Lucina +has told me. He loves her, and he is proving it by giving her up. You +know that he cannot marry her unless he drags her into poverty, and +you know how much you have to help them with. You know, too, good as +Jerome is, and worthy of praise for what he has done, that Lucina +ought to do better than marry him." + +"He is a good boy, Abigail, and if she's got her heart set on him she +shall have him." + +"You don't know that her heart is set on him, Eben. I think the best +thing we can do is to send her down to Boston for a little visit--she +may feel differently when she comes home." + +"I won't have her crossed, Abigail. Was she crying when you left +her?" + +"She will soon be quiet and go to sleep. I am going to make some +toast for her supper. Eben, where are you going?" The Squire had set +forth for the door in a determined rush. + +"I am going to see that boy, and know what this work means," he +cried, in a loud voice of wrath and pity. + +However, Abigail's vivacious persistency of common-sense usually +overcame her husband's clumsy headlongs of affection. She carried the +day at last, and the Squire subsided, though with growls of +remonstrance, like a partially tamed animal. + +"Have your way, and send her down to Boston, if you want to, +Abigail," said he; "but when she comes back she shall have whatever +she wants, if I move heaven and earth to get it for her." + +So that day week Jerome, going one morning to his work, stood aside +to let the stage-coach pass him, and had a glimpse of Lucina's fair +face in the wave of a blue veil at the window. She bowed, but the +stage dashed by in such a fury of dust that Jerome could scarcely +discern the tenor of the salutation. He thought that she smiled, and +not unhappily. "She is going away," he told himself; "she will go to +parties, and see other people, and forget me." He tried to dash the +bitterness of his heart at the thought, with the sweetness of +unselfish love, but it was hard. He plodded on to his work, the young +springiness gone from his back and limbs, his face sternly downcast. + +As for Lucina, she was in reality leaving Upham not unhappily. She +was young, and the sniff of change is to the young as the smell of +powder to a war-horse. New fields present always wide ranges of +triumphant pleasure to youth. + +Lucina, moreover, loved with girlish fervor the friend, Miss Rose +Soley, whom she was going to visit in Boston. She had not seen her +for some months, and she tasted in advance the sweets of mutual +confidences. That morning Jerome's face was a little confused in +Lucina's mind with that of a rosy-cheeked and dark-ringleted girl, +and young passion somewhat dimmed by gentle affection for one of her +own sex. + +Then, too, Lucina had come, during the last few days, to a more +cheerful and hopeful view of the situation. After all, Jerome loved +her, and was not that the principal thing? Perhaps, in time, it would +all come right. Jerome might get rich; in the meantime, she was in no +hurry to be married and leave her parents, and if Jerome would only +come to see her, that would be enough to make her very happy. She +thought that after her return he would very probably come. She +reasoned, as she thought, astutely, that he would not be able to help +it, when he saw her after a long absence. Then she had much faith in +her father's being able to arrange this satisfactorily for her, as he +had arranged all other matters during her life. + +"Now don't you fret, Pretty," he had said, when she bade him +good-bye, "father will see to it that you have everything you want." +And Lucina, all blushing with innocent confusion, had believed him. + +In addition to all this she had in her trunks, strapped at the back +of the stage-coach, two fine, new silk gowns, and one muslin, and a +silk mantilla. Also she carried a large blue bandbox containing a new +plumed hat and veil, which cheered her not a little, being one of +those minor sweets which providentially solace the weak feminine soul +in its unequal combat with life's great bitternesses. + +Lucina was away some three months, not returning until a few days +before Thanksgiving; then she brought her friend, Miss Rose Soley, +with her, and also a fine young gentleman, with long, curling, fair +locks, and a face as fair as her own. + +While Lucina was gone, Jerome led a life easier in some respects, +harder in others. He had no longer the foe of daily temptation to +overcome, but instead was the steady grind of hunger. Jerome, in +those days, felt the pangs of that worst hunger in the world--the +hunger for the sight of one beloved. Some mornings when he awoke it +seemed to him that he should die of mere exhaustion and starvation of +spirit if he saw not Lucina before night. In those days he would +rather have walked over fiery plough-shares than visited any place +where he had seen Lucina, and where she now was not. He never went +near the wood, where they had sat together; he would not pass even, +if he could help it, the Squire's house or Miss Camilla's. His was +one of those minds for whom, when love has once come, place is only +that which holds, or is vacant of, the beloved. He was glad when the +white frost came and burned out the gardens and the woodlands with +arctic fires of death, for then the associations with old scenes were +in a measure lost. + +One Sunday after the frost, when the ground was shining stiff with +it, as with silver mail, and all the trees thickened the distance as +with glittering furze, he went to his woodland, and found that he +could bear the sight of the place where he and Lucina had been +together; its strangeness of aspect seemed to place it so far in the +past. + +Jerome threw up his head in the thin, sparkling air. "I will have her +yet," he said, quite aloud; and "if I do not, I can bear that." + +He felt like one who would crush the stings of fate, even if against +his own heart. He had grown old and thin during the last weeks; he +had worked so hard and resolutely, yet with so little hope; and he +who toils without hope is no better than a slave to his own will. +That day, when he went home, his eyes were bright and his cheeks +glowing. His mother and sister noticed the difference. + +"I was afraid he was gettin' all run down," Ann Edwards told Elmira; +"but he looks better to-day." + +Elmira herself was losing her girlish bloom. She was one who needed +absolute certainties to quiet distrustful imaginations, and matters +betwixt herself and Lawrence Prescott were less and less on a stable +footing. Lawrence was working hard; she should not have suspected +that his truth towards her flagged, but she sometimes did. He did not +come to see her regularly. Sometimes two weeks went past, sometimes +three, and he had not come. In fact, Lawrence endeavored to come only +when he could do so openly. + +"I hate to deceive father more than I can help," he told Elmira, but +she did not understand him fully. + +She was a woman for whom the voluntary absence of a lover who yet +loves was almost an insoluble problem, and in that Lucina was not +unlike her. She was not naturally deceptive, but, when it came to +love, she was a Jesuit in conceiving it to sanctify its own ends. + +The suspense, the uncertainty, as to her lover coming or not, was +beginning to tell upon her. Every nerve in her slight body was in an +almost constant state of tension. + +It was just a week from that day that Jerome and Elmira, being seated +in meeting, saw Lucina enter with her parents and her visiting +friends. Jerome's heart leaped up at the sight of Lucina, then sank +before that of the young man following her up the aisle. "He is going +to marry her; she has forgotten me," he thought, directly. + +As for Elmira, she eyed Miss Rose Soley's dark ringlets under the +wide velvet brim of her hat, the crimson curve of her cheek, and the +occasional backward glance of a black eye at Lawrence Prescott seated +directly behind her. When meeting was over, she caught Jerome by the +arm. "Come out quick," she said, in a sharp whisper, and Jerome was +glad enough to go. + +Lucina's guests spent Thanksgiving with her. Jerome saw them twice, +riding horseback with Lawrence Prescott--Lucina on her little white +horse, Miss Soley on Lawrence's black, the strange young man on the +Squire's sorrel, and Lawrence on a gray. + +Lucina colored when she saw Jerome, and reined her horse, lingering +behind the others, but he did not seem to notice it, and never looked +at her after his first grave bow; then she touched her horse, and +galloped after her friends with a windy swirl of blue veil and +skirts. + +Jerome wondered if his sister would hear that Lawrence Prescott had +been out riding with Lucina and her friends. When he got home that +night, he met Belinda Lamb coming out of the gate; when he entered, +he saw by Elmira's face that she had heard. She was binding shoes +very fast; her little face was white, except for red spots on the +cheeks, her mouth shut hard. Her mother kept looking at her +anxiously. + +"You'd better not worry till you know you've got something to worry +about; likely as not, they asked him to go with them 'cause Lucina's +beau don't know how to ride very well, and he couldn't help it," she +said, with a curious aside of speech, as if Jerome, though on the +stage, was not to hear. + +He took no notice, but that night he had a word with his sister after +their mother had gone to bed. "If he has asked you to marry him, you +ought to trust him," said he. "I don't believe his going to ride with +that girl means anything. You ought to believe in him until you know +he isn't worthy of it." + +Elmira turned upon him with a flash of eyes like his own. "Worthy!" +she cried--"don't I think he would be worthy if he did leave me for +her! Do you think I would blame him if he did leave anybody as poor +as I am, worked 'most to skin and bone, of body and soul too, for +anybody like that girl? I guess I wouldn't blame him, and you +needn't. I don't blame him; it's true, I know, he'll never come to +see me again, but I don't blame him." + +"If he doesn't come to see you again he'll have me to hear from," +Jerome said, fiercely. + +"No, he won't. Don't you ever dare speak to him, or blame him, Jerome +Edwards; I won't have it." Elmira ran into her chamber, leaving an +echo of wild sobs in her brother's ears. + +The day after Thanksgiving, Lucina's friends went away; when Jerome +came home that night Elmira's face wore a different expression, which +Mrs. Edwards explained with no delay. + +"Belinda Lamb has been here," she said, "and that young man is that +Boston girl's beau; he ain't Lucina's, and Lawrence Prescott ain't +nothing to do with it. He was up there last night, but it wa'n't +anything. Why, Jerome Edwards, you look as pale as death!" + +Jerome muttered some unintelligible response, and went out of the +room, with his mother staring after him. He went straight to his own +little chamber, and, standing there in the still, icy gloom of the +winter twilight, repeated the promise which he had made in summer. + +"If you are true to me, Lucina," he said, in a straining whisper--"if +you are true to me--but I'll leave it all to you whether you are or +not, I'll work till I win you." + + + + +Chapter XXXI + + +On the evening of the next day Jerome went to call on Lawyer +Eliphalet Means. Lawyer Means lived near the northern limit of the +village, on the other side of the brook. + +Jerome, going through the covered bridge which crossed the brook, +paused and looked through a space between the side timbers. This +brook was a sturdy little torrent at all times; in spring it was a +river. Now, under the white concave of wintry moonlight, it broke +over its stony bed with a fierce persistency of advance. Jerome +looked down at the rapid, shifting water-hillocks and listened to +their lapsing murmur, incessantly overborne by the gathering rush of +onset, then nodded his head conclusively, as if in response to some +mental question, and moved on. + +Lawyer Eliphalet Means lived in the old Means house. It upreared +itself on a bare moon-silvered hill at the right of the road, with a +solid state of simplest New England architecture. It dated back to +the same epoch as Doctor Prescott's and Squire Merritt's houses, but +lacked even the severe ornaments of their time. + +Jerome climbed the shining slope of the hill to the house door, which +was opened by Lawyer Means himself; then he followed him into the +sitting-room. A great cloud of tobacco smoke came in his face when +the sitting-room door was thrown open. Through it Jerome could +scarcely see Colonel Jack Lamson, in a shabby old coat, seated before +the blazing hearth-fire, with a tumbler of rum-and-water on a little +table at his right hand. + +"Sit down," said Means to Jerome, and pulled another chair forward. +"Quite a sharp night out," he added. + +"Yes, sir," replied Jerome, seating himself. + +Lawyer Means resumed his own chair and his pipe, at which he puffed +with that jealous comfort which comes after interruption. Colonel +Lamson, when he had given a friendly nod of greeting to the young +man, without removing his pipe from his mouth, leaned back his head +again, stretched his legs more luxuriously, and blew the smoke in +great wreaths around his face. This sitting-room of Lawyer Means's +was a scandal to the few matrons of Upham who had ever penetrated it. +"Don't look as if a woman had ever set foot in it," they said. The +ancient female relative of Lawyer Means who kept his house had not +been a notable house-keeper in her day, and her day was nearly past. +Moreover, she had small control over this particular room. + +The great apartment, with the purple clouds of tobacco smoke, which +were settling against its low ceiling and in its far corners, +transfused with golden gleams of candles and rosy flashes of +fire-light, dingy as to wall-paper and carpet, with the dust of +months upon all shiny surfaces, seemed a very fortress of +bachelorhood wherein no woman might enter. + +The lawyer's books in the tall cases were arranged in close ranks of +strictest order, as were also the neatly ticketed files of letters +and documents in the pigeon-holes of the great desk; otherwise the +whole room seemed fluttering and protruding out of its shadows with +loose ends of paper and corners of books. All the free lines in the +room were the tangents of irrelevancy and disorder. + +The lawyer, puffing at his pipe, with eyes half closed, did not look +at Jerome, but his attitude was expectant. + +Jerome stared at the blazing fire with a hesitating frown, then he +turned with sudden resolution to Means. "Can I see you alone a +minute?" he asked. + +The Colonel rose, without a word, and lounged out of the room; when +the door had shut behind him, Jerome turned again to the lawyer. "I +want to know if you are willing to sell me two hundred and sixty-five +dollars' worth of your land," said he. + +"Which land?" + +"Your land on Graystone brook. I want one hundred and thirty-two +dollars and fifty cents' worth on each side." + +"Why don't you make it even dollars, and what in thunder do you want +the land on two sides for?" asked the lawyer, in his dry voice, +threaded between his lips and pipe. + +Jerome took an old wallet from his pocket. "Because two hundred and +sixty-five dollars is all the money I've got saved," he replied, +"and--" + +"You haven't brought it here to close the bargain on the spot?" +interrupted the lawyer. + +"Yes; I knew you could make out the deed." + +Means puffed hard at his pipe, but his face twitched as if with +laughter. + +"I want it on both sides of the brook," Jerome said, "because I don't +want anybody else to get it. I want to build a saw-mill, and I want +to control all the water-power." + +"I thought you said that was all the money you had." + +"It is." + +"How are you going to build a saw-mill, then? That money won't pay +for enough land, let alone the mill." + +"I am going to wait until I save more money; then I shall buy more +land and build the mill," replied Jerome. + +"Why not borrow the money?" + +Jerome shook his head. + +"Suppose I let you have some money at six per cent.; suppose you +build the mill, and I take a mortgage on that and the land." + +"No, sir." + +"Why not? If I am willing to trust a young fellow like you with +money, what is your objection to taking it?" + +"I would rather wait until I can pay cash down, sir," replied Jerome, +sturdily. + +"You'll be gray as a badger before you get the money." + +"Then I'll be gray," said Jerome. His handsome young face, full of +that stern ardor which was a principle of his nature, confronted the +lawyer's, lean and dry, deepening its shrewdly quizzical lines about +mouth and eyes. + +Means looked sharply at Jerome. "What has started you in this? What +makes you think it will be a good thing?" he asked. + +"No saw-mill nearer than Westbrook, good water-power, straight course +of brook, below the falls can float logs down to the mill from above, +then down to Dale. People in Dale are paying heavy prices for lumber +on account of freight; then the railroad will go through Dale within +five years, and they will want sleepers, and--" + +"Perhaps they won't take them from you, young man." + +"I have been to Squire Lennox, in Dale; he is the prime mover in the +railroad, and will be a director, if not the president; he has given +me the refusal of the job." + +"Where will you get your logs?" + +"I have bargained with two parties." + +"Five years is a long time ahead." + +"It won't be, if I wait long enough." + +"You are a damned fool not to borrow the money. The railroad may go +through in another year, and all the standing wood in the county may +burn down," said Means, quietly. + +"Let it then," said Jerome, looking at him. + +The lawyer laughed, silently. + +When Jerome went home he had in his pocket a deed of the land, but on +the right bank of the brook only, the lawyer having covenanted not to +sell or build upon the left bank. Thus he had enough land upon which +to build his mill when he should have saved the money. He felt nearer +Lucina than he had ever done before. The sanguineness of youth, which +is its best stimulant for advance, thrilled through all his veins. He +had mentioned five years as the possible length of time before +acquisition; secretly he laughed at the idea. Five years! Why, he +could save enough money in three years--in less than three years--in +two years! It had been only a short time since he had made the last +payment on the mortgage, and he had saved his two hundred and +sixty-five dollars. A saw-mill would not cost much. He could build a +great part of it himself. + +That night Jerome truly counted his eggs before they were hatched. +All the future seemed but a nest for his golden hopes. He would work +and save--he was working and saving. He would build his mill; as he +thought further, the foundation-stones were laid, the wheel turned, +and the saw hissed through the live wood. He would marry Lucina; he +saw her in her bridal white-- + +All this time, with that sublime cruelty which man can show towards +one beloved when working for love's final good, and which is a feeble +prototype of the Higher method, Jerome gave not one thought to the +fact that Lucina knew nothing of his plans, and, if she loved him, as +she had said, must suffer. When, moreover, one has absolute faith in, +and knowledge of, his own intentions for the welfare of another, it +is difficult to conceive that the other may not be able to spell out +his actions towards the same meaning. + +Jerome really felt as if Lucina knew. The next Sunday he watched her +come into meeting with an exquisite sense of possession, which he +imagined her to understand. + +When he did not go to see her that night, but, instead, sat happily +brooding over the future, it never once occurred to him that it might +be otherwise with her. + +All poor Lucina's ebullition of spirits from her pleasant visit, her +pretty gowns, and her fond belief that Jerome could not have meant +what he said, and would come to see her after her return, was fast +settling into the dregs of disappointment. + +Night after night she put on one of her prettiest gowns, and waited +with that wild torture of waiting which involves uncertainty and +concealment, and Jerome did not come. Lucina began to believe that +Jerome did not love her; she tried to call her maidenly pride to her +aid, and succeeded in a measure. She stopped putting on a special +gown to please Jerome should he come; she stopped watching out for +him; she stopped healing her mind with hope in order that it might be +torn open afresh with disappointment, but the wound remained and +gaped to her consciousness, and Lucina was a tender thing. She held +her beautiful head high and forced her face to gentle smiles, but she +went thin and pale, and could not sleep of a night, and her mother +began to fret about her, and her father to lay down his knife and +fork and stare at her across the table when she could not eat. + +Squire Eben at that time ransacked the woods for choice game, and +himself stood over old Hannah or his wife, broiling the delicate +birds that they be done to a turn, and was fit to weep when his +pretty Lucina could scarcely taste them. Often, too, he sent +surreptitously to Boston for dainties not obtainable at home--East +India fruits and jellies and such--to tempt his daughter's appetite, +and watched her with great frowns of anxious love when they were set +before her. + +One afternoon, when Lucina had gone up to her chamber to lie down, +having left her dinner almost untasted, though there was a little fat +wild bird and guava jelly served on a china plate, and an orange and +figs to come after, the Squire beckoned his wife into the +sitting-room and shut the door. + +"D'ye think she's going into a decline?" he whispered. His great +frame trembled all over when he asked the question, and his face was +yellow-white. Years ago a pretty young sister of his, whose namesake +Lucina was, had died of a decline, as they had termed it, and, ever +since, death of the young and fair had worn that guise to the fancy +of the Squire. He remembered just how his young sister had looked +when she was fading to her early tomb, and to-day he had seemed to +see her expression in his daughter's face. + +Abigail laid her little hand on his arm. "Don't look so, Eben," she +said. "I don't think she is in a decline; she doesn't cough." + +"What ails her, Abigail?" + +Mrs. Merritt hesitated. "I don't know that much ails her, Eben," she +said, evasively. "Girls often get run down, then spring up again." + +"Abigail, you don't think the child is fretting about--that boy +again?" + +"She hasn't mentioned his name to me for weeks, Eben," replied +Abigail, and her statement carried reassurance, since the Squire +argued, with innocent masculine prejudice, that what came not to a +woman's tongue had no abiding in her mind. + +His wife, if she were more subtle, gave no evidence of it. "I think +the best plan would be for her to go away again," she added. + +The Squire looked at her wistfully. "Do you think it would, Abigail?" + +"I think she would brighten right up, the way she did before." + +"She did brighten up, didn't she?" said the Squire, with a sigh. +"Well, maybe you're right, Abigail, but you've got to go with her +this time. The child isn't going away, looking as she does now, +without her mother." + +So it happened that, a week or two later, Jerome, going to his work, +met the coach again, and this time had a glimpse of Abigail Merritt's +little, sharply alert face beside her daughter's pale, flower-like +droop of profile. He had not been in the shop long before his uncle's +wife came with the news. She stood in the doorway, quite filling it +with her voluminosity of skirts and softly palpitating bulk, holding +a little fluttering shawl together under her chin. + +"They've gone out West, to Ohio, to Mis' Merritt's cousin, Mary Jane +Anstey, that was; she married rich, years ago, and went out there to +live, and Abigail 'ain't seen her since. She's been teasin' her to +come for years; her own folks are all dead an' gone, an' her husband +is poorly, an' she can't leave him to come here. Camilla, she paid +the expenses of one of 'em out there. Lucina's been real miserable +lately, an' they're worried about her. The Squire's sister, that she +was named for, went down in a decline in six months; so her mother +has taken her out there for a change, an' they're goin' to make a +long visit. Lucina is real poorly. I had it from 'Lizy Wells. Camilla +told her." + +Jerome shifted his back towards his aunt as he sat on his bench. His +face, bent over his work, was white and rigid. + +"You're coldin' of the shop off, Belindy," said Ozias. + +"Well, I s'pose I be," said she, with a pleasant titter of apology, +and backed off the threshold and shut the door. + +"That's a woman," said Ozias, "who 'ain't got any affairs of her own, +but she's perfectly contented an' happy with her neighbors', taken +weak. That's the kind of woman to marry if you ain't got anythin' to +give her--no money, no interests in life, no anythin'." + +Jerome made no reply. His uncle gave a shrewd glance at him. "When ye +can't eat lollypops, it's jest as well not to have them under your +nose," he remarked, with seemingly no connection, but Jerome said +nothing to that either. + +He worked silently, with fierce energy, the rest of the morning. He +had not heard before of Lucina's ill health; she had not been to +church the Sunday previous, but he had thought of nothing serious +from that. Now the dreadful possibility came to him--suppose she +should die and leave his world entirely, of what avail would all his +toil be then? When he went home that noon he ate his dinner hastily, +then, on his way back to the shop, left the road, crossed into a +field, and sat down in the wide solitude, on a rock humping out of +the dun roll of sere grass-land. Always, in his stresses of spirit, +Jerome sought instinctively some closet which he had made of the free +fastnesses of nature. + +The day was very dull and cold; snow threatened, should the weather +moderate. Overhead was a suspended drift of gray clouds. The earth +was stark as a corpse in utter silence. The stillness of the frozen +air was like the stillness of death and despair. A fierce blast would +have given at least the sense of life and fighting power. "Suppose +she dies," thought Jerome--"suppose she dies." + +He tried to imagine the world without Lucina, but he could not, for +with all his outgoing spirit his world was too largely within him. +For the first time in his life, the conception of the death of that +which he loved better than his life was upon him, and it was a +conception of annihilation. "If Lucina is not, then I am not, and +that upon which I look is not," was in his mind. + +When he rose, he staggered, and could scarcely see his way across the +field. When he entered his uncle's shop, Ozias looked at him sharply. +"If you're sick you'd better go home and go to bed," he said, in a +voice of harsh concern. + +"I am not sick," said Jerome, and fell to work with a sort of fury. + +As the days went on it seemed to him that he could not bear life any +longer if he did not hear how Lucina was, and yet the most obvious +steps to hear he did not take. It never occurred to him to march +straight to the Squire's house, and inquire of him concerning his +daughter's health. Far from that, he actually dreaded to meet him, +lest he read in his face that she was worse. He did not go to +meeting, lest the minister mention her in his prayer for the sick; he +stayed as little as possible in the company of his mother and sister, +lest they repeat the sad news concerning her; if a neighbor came in, +he got up and left the room directly. He never went to the village +store of an evening; he ostracized himself from his kind, lest they +stab him with the confirmation of his agonizing fear. For the first +time in his life Jerome had turned coward. + +One day, when Lucina had been gone about a month, he was coming home +from Dale when he heard steps behind him and a voice shouting for him +to stop. He turned and saw Colonel Jack Lamson coming with breathless +quickening of his stiff military gait. + +When the Colonel reached him he could scarcely speak; his wheezing +chest strained his coat to exceeding tightness, his face was purple, +he swung his cane with spasmodic jerks. "Fine day," he gasped out. + +"Yes, sir," said Jerome. + +It was near the end of February, the snow was thawing, and for the +first time there was a suggestion of spring in the air which caused +one, with the recurrence of an old habit of mind, to listen and sniff +as for birds and flowers. + +The two men stepped along, picking their way through the melting +snow. "The doctor has ordered me out for a three-mile march every +day. I'm going to stent myself," said the Colonel, still breathing +hard; then he looked keenly at Jerome. "What have you been doing to +yourself, young fellow?" he asked. + +"Nothing. I don't know what you mean," answered Jerome. + +"Nothing! Why, you have aged ten years since I last saw you!" + +"I am well enough, Colonel Lamson." + +"How about that deed I witnessed? Have you got enough money to build +the mill yet?" + +"No, I haven't," replied Jerome, with a curious tone of defiance and +despair, which the Colonel interpreted wrongly. + +"Oh, don't give up yet," he said, cheerfully. "Rome wasn't built in a +day, you know." + +Jerome made no reply, but trudged on doggedly. + +"How is she?" asked the Colonel, suddenly. + +Jerome turned white and looked at him. "Who?" he said. + +The Colonel laughed, with wheezy facetiousness. "Why, she--_she_. +Young men don't build nests or saw-mills unless there is a she in the +case." + +"There isn't--" began Jerome. Then he shut his mouth hard and walked +on. + +"It's only my joke, Jerome," laughed the Colonel, but there was no +responsive smile on Jerome's face. Colonel Lamson eyed him narrowly. +"The Squire had a letter from his wife yesterday," he said, with no +preface. Then he started, for Jerome turned upon him a face as of one +who is braced for death. + +"How--is she?" he gasped out. + +"Who? Mrs. Merritt? No, confound it all, my boy, she's better! Hold +on to yourself, my boy; I tell you she's better." + +Jerome gave a deep sigh, and walked ahead so fast that the Colonel +had to quicken his pace. "Wait a minute," he panted; "I want a word +with you." + +Jerome stopped, and the Colonel came up and faced him. "Look here, +young man," he said, with sudden wrath, "if I thought for a minute +you had jilted that girl, I wouldn't stop for words; I would take you +by the neck like a puppy, and I'd break every bone in your body." + +Jerome squared his shoulders involuntarily; his face, confronting the +Colonel's, twitched. "I'll kill you or any other man who dares to say +I did," he cried out, fiercely. + +"If I hadn't known you didn't I would have seen you damned before I'd +spoken to you," returned the Colonel; "but what I want to ask now is, +what in--are you doing?" + +"I'd like to know what business 'tis of yours!" + +"What in--are you doing, my boy?" repeated the Colonel. + +There was something ludicrous in the contrast between his strong +language and his voice, into which had come suddenly a tone of +kindness which was almost caressing. Jerome, since his father's day, +had heard few such tones addressed to him, and his proudly +independent heart was softened and weakened by his anxiety and relief +over Lucina. + +"I am--working my fingers to the bone--to win her, sir," he blurted +out, brokenly. + +"Does she know it?" + +"Do you think I would say anything to her to bind her when I might +never be able to marry her?" said Jerome, with almost an accent of +wonder. + +The Colonel whistled and said no more, for just then Belinda Lamb and +Paulina Maria came up, holding their petticoats high out of the +slush. + +The two men walked on to Upham village, the Colonel straight, as if +at the head of a battalion, though his lungs pumped hard at every +step, holding back his square shoulders, protruding his tight +broadcloth, swinging his stick airily, Jerome at his side, burdened +like a peasant, with his sheaf of cut leather, but holding up his +head like a prince. + + + + +Chapter XXXII + + +Lucina and her mother were away some three months; it was late spring +when they returned. It had been told in Upham that Lucina was quite +well, but when people saw her they differed as to her appearance. +"She looks dreadful delicate now, accordin' to my way of thinkin'," +some of the women, spying sharply upon her from their sitting-room +windows and their meeting-house pews, reported. + +Jerome saw her for the first time after her return when she followed +her father and mother up the aisle one Sunday in May when all the +orchards were white. He thought, with a great throb of joy, that she +looked quite well, that she must be well. If the red and white of her +cheeks was a little too clear, he did not appreciate it. She was all +in white, like the trees, with some white blossoms and plumes on her +hat. + +After meeting, he lingered a little on the porch, though Elmira was +walking on, with frequent pauses turning her head and looking for +him. However, when Lucina appeared, he did not get the kindly glance +for which he had hoped. She was talking so busily with Mrs. Doctor +Prescott that she did not seem to see him, but the color on her +cheeks was deeper. Jerome joined his sister hastily and went home +quite contented, thinking Lucina was very well. + +However, in a few weeks' time he began to hear whispers to the +contrary. Sometimes Lucina did not go to meeting; still, she was seen +out frequently riding and walking. When Jerome caught a glimpse of +her he strove to shut away the knowledge that she did not look well +from his own consciousness. But when Lucina had been at home six +weeks she took a sudden turn for the better, which could have been +dated accurately from a certain morning when she met Colonel Jack +Lamson, she being out riding and he walking. He kept pace with the +slow amble of her little white horse for some distance, sometimes +grasping the bridle and stopping in a shady place to talk more at +ease. + +When Lucina got home that noon her mother noticed a change in her. +"You look better than you have done for weeks," said she. + +"I enjoyed my ride," Lucina said, with a smile and a blush which her +mother could not fathom. The girl ate a dinner which gladdened her +father's heart; afterwards she went up to her chamber, and presently +came down with her hat on and her silk work-bag on her arm. + +"I am going to take one of my chair-covers over to Aunt Camilla's," +said she. + +"Well, walk slowly," said her mother, trying to conceal her delight +lest it betray her past anxiety. Lucina had not touched her +embroidery for weeks, nor stepped out-of-doors of her own accord. + +When she was gone her father and mother looked at each other. "She's +better," Eben said, with a catch in his voice. + +"I haven't seen her so bright for weeks," replied Abigail. She had a +puzzled look in spite of her satisfaction. That night she ascertained +through wariest soundings that Lucina had not met Jerome when riding +in the morning. She had suspected something, though she scarcely knew +what. Lucina's secrecy lately had deceived even her mother. She had +begun to think that the girl had not been as much in earnest in her +love affair as she had thought, and was drooping from some other +cause. + +When Lucina revealed with innocent readiness that she had met Colonel +Lamson that morning and talked with him, and with no one else, +Abigail could make nothing of it. + +However, Lucina from that day on improved. She took up her little +tasks; she seemed quite as formerly, only, possibly, somewhat older +and more staid. + +The Squire thought that her recovery was due to a certain bitter +medicine which Doctor Prescott had given her, and often extolled it +to his wife. "It is singular that medicine should work like a flash +of lightning after she had been taking it for weeks with no effect," +thought Abigail, but she said nothing. + +One afternoon, not long after her talk with Colonel Lamson, Lucina +met Jerome face to face in the road, and stopped and held out her +hand to him. "How do you do?" she said, paling and blushing, and yet +with a sweet confidence which was new in her manner. + +Jerome bowed low, but did not offer his hand. She held out hers +persistently. + +"I can't shake hands," he said, "mine is stained with leather; it +smells of it, too." + +"I am not afraid of leather," Lucina returned, gently. + +"I am," Jerome said, with a defiance in which there was no +bitterness. Then, as Lucina still looked at him and held out her +hand, with an indescribable air of pretty, childish insistence and +womanly pleading, her blue eyes being sober almost to tears, he +motioned her to wait a moment, and swung over the fence and down the +road-side, which was just there precipitous, to the brook-bed. He got +down on his knees, plunged his hands into the water, like a golden +net-work in the afternoon light, washed his hands well, and returned +to Lucina. She laid her little hand in his, but she shook her head, +smiling. "I liked it better the other way," said she. + +"I couldn't touch your hand with mine like that." + +"You would give me more if you let me give you something sometimes," +said Lucina, with a pretty, sphinx-like look at him as she drew her +hand away. + +Jerome wondered what she had meant after they had separated. Acute as +he was, and of more masterly mind than she, he was at a loss, for she +had touched that fixed idea which sways us all to greater or less +degree and some to delusion. Jerome, with his one principle of +giving, could not even grasp a problem which involved taking. + +He puzzled much over it, then decided, not with that lenient +slighting, as in other cases when womankind had vexed him with blind +words, but with a fond reverence, as for some angelic mystery, that +it was because Lucina was a girl. "Maybe girls are given to talking +in that riddlesome kind of way," thought Jerome. + +He was blissfully certain upon one point, at all events. Lucina's +whole manner had given evidence to a confidence and understanding +upon her part. + +"She knows what I am doing," he told himself. "She knows how I am +working, and she is contented and willing to wait. She knows, but she +isn't bound." Jerome had not dreamed that Lucina's indisposition had +had aught to do with distress of mind upon his account. + +Now he fell upon work as if it had been a veritable dragon of old, +which he must slay to rescue his princess. He toiled from earliest +dawn until far dark, and not with hands only. Still he did not +neglect his gratuitous nursing and doctoring. He saved like a miser, +though not at his mother's and sister's expense. He himself would +taste, in those days, no butter, no sugar, no fresh meat, no bread of +fine flour, but he saw to it that is mother and Elmira were well +provided. + +When winter came again, he used to hasten secretly along the road, +not wishing to meet Lucina for a new reason--lest she discover how +thin his coat was against the wintry blast, how thin his shoes +against the snow. + +"I never thought Jerome was so close," Elmira sometimes said to her +mother. + +"He ain't close, he's got an object," returned Ann, with a shrewd, +mysterious look. + +"What do you mean, mother?" + +"Nothin'." + +Elmira's and Lawrence's courtship progressed after the same fashion. +If Doctor Prescott suspected anything he made no sign. Lawrence was +attending patients regularly with his father and reading hard. + +Sometimes, during his occasional calls upon Elmira, he saw Jerome. +The two young men, when they met on the road, exchanged covertly +cordial courtesies; a sort of non-committal friendship was struck up +between them. Lawrence was the means of introducing Jerome to a new +industry, of which he might otherwise never have heard. + +"Father and I were on the old Dale road this morning," he said, "and +there is a fine cranberry-meadow there on the left, if anybody wants +to improve it. There's plenty of chance for drainage from that little +stream that runs into Graystone, and it's sheltered from the frost. +Old Jonathan Hawkins owns it; we went there--his wife is sick--and he +said he used to sell berries off it, but it had run down. He said +he'd be glad to let somebody work it on shares, just allowing him for +the use of the land. He's too old to bother with it himself, and he +is pretty well straitened for money. There's money in it, I guess." + +Jerome listened, and the next day went over to Jonathan Hawkins's +place, on the old Dale road, and made his bargain. Some of his work +on the cranberry-meadow was done before light, his lantern moving +about the misty expanse like a marsh candle. When the berries were +ripe he employed children to pick them, John Upham's among the rest. +He cleared quite a sum by this venture, and added it to his store. In +two years' time he had saved enough money for his mill, and early in +the fall had the lumber all ready. He had engaged one carpenter from +Dale; he thought that he could build the mill himself with his help, +and that of some extra hands for raising. + +On the evening before the day on which he expected to begin work he +went to see Adoniram Judd. The Judds lived off the main road, in a +field connected with it by a cart-path. Their house, after the +commonest village pattern--a long cottage with two windows on either +side of the front door--stood closely backed up against a wood of +pines and larches. The wind was cold, and the sound of it in the +evergreens was like a far-off halloo of winter. The house had a +shadowy effect in waning moonlight, the walls were mostly gray, being +only streaked high on the sheltered sides with old white paint. + +Since Paulina Maria could not afford to have a coat of new paint on +her house, she had a bitter ambition, from motives of tidiness and +pride, to at least remove all traces of the old. She felt that the +chief sting of present deprivation lay in the evidence of its +contrast with former plenty. She hated the image in her memory of her +cottage glistening with the white gloss of paint, and would have +weakened it if she could. Paulina Maria accordingly, standing on a +kitchen-chair, had scrubbed with soap and sand the old paint-streaks +as high as her long arms would reach, and had, at times, when his +rheumatism would permit, set her tall husband to the task. The paint, +which was difficult to remove by any but its natural effacers--the +long courses of nature--was one of those minor material antagonisms +of life which keep the spirit whetted for harder ones. + +Paulina Maria Judd had many such; when the pricks of fate were too +firm set against her struggling feet she saved herself from the +despair of utter futility by taking soap and water and sand, and +going forth to attack the paint on her house walls, and also the +front door-stone worn in frequent hollows for the collection of dirt +and dust. + +This evening, when Jerome drew near, he saw a long rise of back over +the door-step, and a swiftly plying shoulder and arm. Paulina Maria +looked up without ceasing when Jerome stood beside her. + +"You're working late," he said, with an attempt at pleasantry. + +"I have to do my cleanin' late or not at all," replied Paulina Maria, +in her cold, calm voice. She rubbed more soap on her cloth. + +"Uncle Adoniram at home?" Jerome had always called Adoniram "Uncle," +though he was his father's cousin. + +"Yes." + +"I want to see him a minute about something." + +"You'll have to go round to the back door. I can't have more dirt +tracked into this while it's wet." + +Jerome went around the house to the back door. As he passed the +lighted sitting-room windows he saw a monstrous shadow with steadily +moving hands on the curtain. He fumbled his way through the lighted +room, in which sat Adoniram Judd closing shoes and his son Henry +knitting. When the door opened Henry, whose shadow Jerome had seen on +the window-pane, looked up with the vacant peering of the blind, but +his fingers never ceased twirling the knitting-needles. + +"How are you?" said Jerome. + +Adoniram returned his salutation without rising, and bade him take a +chair. Henry spoke not at all, and bent his dim eyes again over his +knitting without a smile. Henry Judd had the lank height of his +father, and his blunt elongation of face and features, informed by +his mother's spirit. The result in his expression was an absolute +ferocity instead of severity of gloom, a fury of resentment against +his fate, instead of that bitter leaning towards it which is the acme +of defiance. + +Henry Judd bent his heavy, pale brows over the miserable feminine +work to which he was forced. His long hands were white as a girl's, +and revealed their articulation as they moved; his face, +transparently pale, showed a soft furze of young beard on cheek and +chin. + +"How are you, Henry?" asked Jerome. + +Henry made no reply, only scowled more gloomily. Paulina Maria's +ardent severity of Christianity had produced in her son, under his +first stress of life, a fierce rebound. To no word of Scripture would +Henry Judd resort for comfort; he never bent knee in prayer, and +would not be led, even by his mother's authority, to meeting on +Sunday. The voice of his former mates, who had with him no sympathy +of like affliction, filled him with a sullen rage of injury. He was +somewhat younger than Jerome, but had seemed formerly much attracted +to him. Now he had not spoken to him for a year. + +Jerome, when he entered, had looked happy and eager, as if he was +burdened with some pleasant news. Now his expression changed; he +looked at Adoniram, then at Henry, then at Adoniram again, and +motioned an inquiry with his lips. Adoniram shook his head sadly. + +Paulina Maria came in through the kitchen, where she had left her +scrubbing utensils, got an unfinished shoe, and sat down to her +binding. She did not notice Jerome again, and he sat frowning moodily +at the floor. + +"It is a cold night for the season," remarked Adoniram, at length, +with an uneasy attempt at entertainment, to which Jerome did not +respond with much alacrity. He acted at first as if he did not hear, +then collected himself, said that it was cold, and there might be a +frost if the wind went down, and rose. + +"You ain't goin' so soon?" asked Adoniram, with slow surprise. + +"I only ran over for a minute; I've got some work to do," muttered +Jerome, and went out. + +He went along the ridgy cart-path across the field to the road, but +when he reached it he stopped short. He stood for ten minutes or +more, motionless, thinking so intently that it was as if his body +stood aside from his swift thought, then he returned to the Judd +house. + +He went around to the back door, but when he reached it he stopped +again. After a little he crept noiselessly back to the cart-path, and +so to the road again. + +But it was as if, when he reached the road, he met some unseen and +mighty arm of denial which barred it. He stopped there for the second +time. Then he went back again to the Judd house, and this time when +he reached the door he opened it and went in. + +When he entered the sitting-room, where Adoniram and Paulina Maria +and Henry were, they all looked up in astonishment. + +"Forgot anything?" inquired Adoniram. + +"Yes," replied Jerome. Then he went on, speaking fast, in a strained +voice, which he tried hard to make casual. "There was something I +wanted to say. I've been thinking about Henry's eyes. If--you want to +take him to Boston, to that doctor, I've got the money. I've got five +hundred dollars you're welcome to. I believe you said it would take +that." He looked straight at Paulina Maria as he spoke, and she +dropped her work and looked at him. + +Adoniram made a faint, gasping noise, then sat staring at them both. +Henry started, but knitted on as remorselessly as his own fate. + +"How did you come by so much money?" asked Paulina Maria, in her +pure, severe voice. + +"I saved if from my earnings." + +"What for?" + +"You'll be welcome to take it, and use it for Henry." + +"That ain't answering my question." + +Jerome was silent. + +"You needn't answer if you don't want to," said Paulina Maria, "for I +know. You've kept it dark from everybody but Lawyer Means and your +mother and Elmira, but your mother told me a year ago. I haven't told +a soul. You've been saving up this money to build a mill with +and--I've been over to your mother's this afternoon--you are going to +start it to-morrow." + +"I am not obliged to start it to-morrow," said Jerome. + +"You're obliged to for all me. Do you think I'll take that money?" + +Jerome turned to Henry. "Henry, it's for you, and not your mother," +said he. "Will you take it?" + +Henry, still knitting, shook his head. + +"I tell you there is no hurry about the mill. I can wait and earn +more. I give it to you freely." + +"We shouldn't take it unless I give you a note of hand, Jerome," +Adoniram interposed, in a quavering voice. + +Paulina Maria looked at her husband. "What is your note of hand +worth?" she asked, sternly. + +"Won't you take it, Henry? I've always thought a good deal of you, +and I don't want you to be blind," Jerome said. + +Henry shook his head; there was an awful inexorableness with himself +displayed in his steady knitting. + +"There are things worse than blindness," said Paulina Maria. "Nobody +shall sacrifice himself for my son. If our own prayers and sacrifices +are not sufficient, it is the will of the Lord that he should suffer, +and he will suffer." + +"Take it, Henry," pleaded Jerome, utterly disregarding her. + +"Would you take it in my son's place?" demanded Paulina Maria, +suddenly. She looked fixedly at Jerome. "Answer me," said she. + +"That has nothing to do with it!" Jerome cried, angrily. "He is going +blind, and this money will cure him. If you are his mother--" + +"Don't ask anybody to take even a kindness that you wouldn't take +yourself," said Paulina Maria. + +Jerome flung out of the room without another word. When he got +out-of-doors, he found Adoniram at his elbow. + +"I want ye to know that I'm much obliged to ye, J'rome," he +whispered. He felt for Jerome's hand and shook it. "Thank ye, thank +ye, J'rome," he repeated, brokenly. + +"I don't want any thanks," replied Jerome. "Can't you take the money +and make Henry go with you to Boston and see the doctor, if she +won't?" + +"It's no use goin' agin her, J'rome." + +"I believe she's crazy." + +"No, she ain't, J'rome--no, she ain't. She knows how you saved up +that money, an' she won't take it. She's made so she can't take +anybody else's sufferin' to ease hers, an' so's Henry--he's like his +mother." + +"Can't you make her take it, Uncle Adoniram?" + +"She can't make herself take it; but I'm jest as much obliged to ye, +J'rome." + +Adoniram was about to re-enter the house. "She'll wonder where I be," +he muttered, but Jerome stopped him. "If I do begin work on the mill +to-morrow," said he, "I sha'n't be able to fetch and carry to Dale, +nor to do as much work in Uncle Ozias's shop. Do you suppose you can +help out some?" + +"I can, if I'm as well as I be now, J'rome." + +"Of course, you can earn more than you do now," said Jerome. That was +really the errand upon which he had come to the Judds that evening. +He had been quite elated with the thought of the pleasure it would +give them, when the possibility of larger service--Henry's cure by +means of his cherished hoard--had suddenly come to him. + +He arranged with Adoniram Judd that he should go to the shop the next +morning, then bade him good-night, and turned his own steps thither. + +When he came in sight of Ozias Lamb's shop, its window was throwing a +long beam of light across the field creeping with dry grass before +the frosty wind. When Jerome opened the door, he started to see Ozias +seated upon his bench, his head bowed over and hidden upon his idle +hands. Jerome closed the door, then stood a moment irresolute, +staring at his uncle's dejected figure. "What's the matter, Uncle +Ozias?" he asked. + +Ozias did not speak, but made a curious, repellent motion with his +bowed shoulders. + +"Are you sick?" + +Again Ozias seemed to shunt him out of the place with that speaking +motion of his shoulder. + +Jerome went close to him. "Uncle Ozias, I want to know what is the +matter?" he said, then started, for suddenly Ozias raised his face +and looked at him, his eyes wild under his shaggy grizzle of hair, +his mouth twisted in a fierce laugh. "Want to know, do ye?" he +cried--"want to know? Well, I'll tell ye. Look at me hard; I'm a +sight. Look at me. Here's a man, 'most threescore years and ten, +who's been willin' to work, an' has worked, an' 'ain't been +considered underwitted, who's been strugglin' to keep a roof over his +head an' his wife's, an' bread in their two mouths; jest that, no +more. He 'ain't had any children; nobody but himself an' his wife, +an' she contented with next to nothin'. Jest a roof an' bread for +them--jest that; an' he an able-bodied man, that's worked like a +dog--jest that; an' he's got to give it up. Look at him, he's a sight +for wise men an' fools." Ozias laughed. + +"What on earth do you mean, Uncle Ozias?" + +"Simon Basset is goin' to foreclose to-morrow." + +Jerome stared at his uncle incredulously. "Why, I thought you had +earned plenty to keep the interest up of late years!" he said. + +"There was more than present interest to pay; there was back +interest, and I've been behind on taxes, and there was an old doctor +bill, when I had the fever; an' that wa'n't all--I never told ye, nor +anybody. I was fool enough to sign a note for George Henry Green, in +Westbrook, some years ago. He come to me with tears in his eyes, said +he wouldn't care so much if it wa'n't for his wife an' children; he'd +got to raise the money, an' couldn't get nobody to sign his note. I +lost every dollar of it. It's been all I could do to pay up, an' I +couldn't keep even with the interest. I knew it was comin'." + +"How much interest do you owe?" asked Jerome, in an odd voice. He was +very pale. + +"Two hundred an' seventy dollars--it's twelve per cent." + +"And you can't raise it?" + +"Might as well try to raise the dead." + +"Well, I can let you have it," said Jerome. + +"You?" + +"Yes." + +His uncle looked at him with his sharp, strained eyes; then he made a +hoarse noise, between a sob and a cough. "Rob you of that money +you've been savin' to build your mill! We'll take to the woods +first!" he cried. + +"I've saved a good deal more than two hundred and seventy dollars." + +"You want every dollar of it for your mill. Don't talk to me." + +"I'd want every dollar if I was going to build it, but I am not," +said Jerome. + +"What d'ye mean? Ain't ye goin' to start it to-morrow?" + +"No, I've decided not to." + +"Why not, I'd like to know?" + +"I'm going to wait until the Dale railroad seems a little nearer. I +shouldn't have much business for the mill now if I built it, and +there's no use in its standing rotting. I'm going to wait a little." + +Poor Ozias Lamb looked at him with his keen old eyes, which were, +perhaps, dulled a little by the selfishness of his sore distress. +"D'ye mean what ye say, J'rome?" he asked, wistfully, in a tone that +was new to him. + +"Yes, I do; you can have the money as well as not." + +"I'll give ye my note, an' ye can have this piece of land an' the +shop--this ain't mortgaged--as security, an' I'll pay ye--fair per +cent.," Ozias said, hesitatingly. + +"All right," returned Jerome. + +"An'," Ozias faltered, "I'll work my fingers to the bone; I'll +steal--but you shall have your money back before you are ready to +begin the mill." + +"That may be quite a while," Jerome said, laughing as openly as a +child. His uncle suspected nothing, though once he could scarcely +have been deceived. + +"I've been round to Uncle Adoniram's to-night," Jerome added, "to get +him to come here to-morrow and help with that lot of shoes. I'm going +to take up with an offer I've had to cut some wood on shares. I think +I can make some money out of it, and it'll be a change from so much +shoemaking, for a while." + +"You never was the build for a shoemaker," said his uncle. + + + + +Chapter XXXIII + + +Jerome gave his mother the same reason which he had given Ozias for +the postponement of the mill. + +"It seems to me it's dreadful queer you didn't find out it wa'n't +best till the day before you were goin' to start work on it," said +she, but she suspected nothing. + +As for Elmira, she manifested little interest in that or anything +else. She was not well that autumn. Elmira's morbidly sensitive +temperament was working her harm under the trial of circumstances. +Extreme love, sensitiveness, and self-depreciation in some natures +produce jealousy as unfailingly as a chemical combination its given +result. Elmira, though constantly spurring herself into trust in her +lover, was again jealous of him and Lucina Merritt. + +Lawrence had been seen riding and walking with Lucina. He had called +at the Squire's on several evenings, when Elmira had hoped that he +might visit her. She was too proud to mention the matter to Lawrence, +but she began to be galled into active resentment by her clandestine +betrothal. Why should not everybody know that she had a beau like +other girls; that Lawrence was hers, not Lucina Merritt's? Elmira +wished, recklessly and defiantly, that people could find out every +time that Lawrence came to see her. Whenever she heard a hint to the +effect that he was attentive to her, she gave it significance by her +bearing. Possibly in that way she herself precipitated matters. + +She had not been feeling well for some time, having every afternoon a +fever-ache in her limbs and back, and a sensation of weariness which +almost prostrated her, when, one evening, Lawrence came, and, an hour +afterwards, his father. + +Elmira never forgot, as long as she lived, Doctor Prescott's +handsome, coldly wrathful old face, as he stood in the parlor door +looking at her and Lawrence. He had come straight in, without +knocking. Mrs. Edwards had gone to bed, Jerome was not at home. + +Lawrence had been sitting on the sofa with Elmira, his arm around her +waist. He arose with her, still clasping her, and confronted his +father. "Well, father," he said, with an essay at his gay laugh, +though he blushed hotly, and then was pale. As for Elmira, she would +have slipped to the floor had it not been for her lover's arm. + +Doctor Prescott stood looking at them. + +"Father, this is the girl I am going to marry," Lawrence said, +finally, with a proudly defiant air. + +"Very well," replied the doctor; "but when you marry her, it will be +without one penny from me, in realization or anticipation. You will +have only what your wife brings you." + +"I can support my wife myself," returned Lawrence, with a look which +was the echo of his father's own. + +"So you can, before long, at the expense of your father's practice, +which he himself has given you the ability to undermine," said the +doctor, in his cold voice. "I bid you both good-evening. You, my son, +can come home within a half-hour, or you will find the doors locked." + With that the doctor went out; there was a creak of cramping wheels, +and a lantern-flash in the window, then a roll, and clatter of hoofs. + +Elmira showed more decision of spirit than her lover had dreamed was +in her. She drove him away, in spite of his protestations. "All is +over between us, if you don't go at once--at once," said she, with a +strange, hysterical force which intimidated him. + +"Elmira, you know I will be true to you, dear. You know I will marry +you, in spite of father and the whole world," vowed Lawrence; but he +went at her insistence, not knowing, indeed, what else to do. + +The next day Elmira wrote him a letter setting him free. When she had +sent the letter she sat working some hours longer, then she went +up-stairs and to bed. That night she was in a high fever. + +Lawrence came, but she did not know it. He had a long talk with +Jerome, and almost a quarrel. The poor young fellow, in his wrath and +shame of thwarted manliness, would fain have gone to that excess of +honor which defeats its own ends. He insisted upon marrying Elmira +out of hand. "I'll never give her up--never, I'll tell you that. I've +told father so to his face!" cried Lawrence. When he went up-stairs +with Jerome and found Elmira in the uneasy stupor of fever, he seemed +half beside himself. + +"I'm to blame, father's to blame. Oh, poor girl--poor girl," he +groaned out, when he and Jerome were down-stairs again. + +That night Lawrence had a stormy scene with his father. He burst upon +him in his study and upbraided him to his face. "You've almost killed +her; she's got a fever. If she lives through it I am going to marry +her!" he shouted. + +The doctor was pounding some drugs in his mortar. He brought the +pestle down with a dull thud, as he replied, without looking at his +son. "You will marry her or not, as you choose, my son. I have not +forbidden you; I have simply stated the conditions, so far as I am +concerned." + +The next morning, before light, Lawrence was over to see Elmira. +After breakfast his mother came and remained the greater part of the +day. Elmira grew worse rapidly. Since Doctor Prescott was out of the +question, under the circumstances, a physician from Westbrook was +summoned. Elmira was ill several weeks; Lawrence haunted the house; +his mother and Paulina Maria did much of the nursing, as Mrs. Edwards +was unable. Neither Lawrence nor Mrs. Prescott ever fairly knew if +Doctor Prescott was aware that she nursed the sick girl. If he was, +he made no sign. He also said nothing more to Lawrence about his +visits. + +It was nearly spring before Elmira was quite recovered. Her illness +had cost so much that Jerome had not been able to make good the +deficit occasioned by his loan to Ozias Lamb, as he would otherwise +have been. He postponed his mill again until autumn, and worked +harder than ever. That summer he tried the experiment of raising some +of the fine herbs, such as summer savory, sweet-marjoram, and thyme, +for the market. Elmira helped in that. There is always a relief to +the soul in bringing it into intimate association with the uniformity +of nature. Elmira, bending over the bed of herbs, with the sweet +breath of them in her nostrils, gained a certain quiet in her unrest +of youth and passion. It was as if she kept step with a mightier +movement which tended towards eternity. She had persisted, in spite +of Lawrence's entreaties, in her determination that he should cease +all attention to her. He had gone away, scarcely understanding, +almost angry, with her, but she was firm, with a firmness which she +herself had not known to be within her capacity. + +She looked older that summer, and there was a staidness in her +manner. She always worked over the herb-beds with her back to the +road, lest by any chance she should see Lawrence riding by with +Lucina. + +"I know what you're working so extra hard for," she told Jerome one +day, with wistful, keen eyes upon his face. + +"I've always worked hard, haven't I?" he said, evasively. + +"Yes, you've worked hard, but this is extra hard. Jerome Edwards, you +think, maybe, if you can earn enough, you can marry her by-and-by." + +Jerome colored, but he met his sister's gaze freely. "Well, suppose I +do," said he. + +"Oh, Jerome, do you suppose it's any use--do you suppose she will?" +Elmira cried out, in a kind of incredulous pity. + +"I know she will." + +"Did she say so--did she say she would wait? Oh, Jerome!" + +"Do you think I would bind her to wait?" + +"But she must have owned she liked you. Did she?" + +"That's between her and me." + +"Don't you feel afraid that she may turn to somebody else? Don't you, +Jerome?" Elmira questioned him with a feverish eagerness which +puzzled him. + +"Not with her," he answered. + +Elmira felt comforted by his faith in a way which he did not suspect. +It strengthened her own. Perhaps, after all, Lawrence would not care +for Lucina; perhaps he would work and wait for her, as, indeed, he +had vowed to do. After that Elmira worked over the herb-beds with her +face to the road. When Belinda Lamb reported that Lawrence and Lucina +had been out riding, and Ann said, with a bitter screw of her nervous +little face, "Fish in shallow waters bites easy, especially when +there's gold on the hook," she was not much disturbed. + +Ann fully abetted her daughter in her resolution to dismiss her +suitor, after his father's manifestation. "I guess there's as good +fish in the sea as ever was caught," said she, "and I guess Doctor +Seth Prescott 'll find out that. If there's them he don't think fit +to tie his son's shoestrings, there's them that feels above tyin' +'em." + +In September Jerome began work on his mill. He had never been so +hopeful in his life. It cost him more self-denial not to go to Lucina +and speak out his hope than ever before. He queried with himself if +he could not go, then shut his heart, opening like a mouth of hunger +for happiness, hard against it. "The mill may burn down; they may not +buy the logs. I've got to wait," he told himself. + +By early spring the mill was in full operation. The railroad through +Dale was surveyed, and work was to be commenced on it the next fall, +and Jerome had the contract for the sleepers. Again he wondered if he +should not go to Lucina and tell her, and again he resolved to wait. +He had made up his mind that he would not speak until a fixed income +was guaranteed by at least a year's test. + +"I wish they would put railroads through for us every year," he said +to the man whom he had secured to help him. He was an elderly man +from Granby, who had owned a mill there, which had been sold three +years before. He had a tidy sum in bank, and people wondered at his +going to work again. + +"I 'ain't got so very many years to work," he told Jerome when he +sought to hire him, "an' I thought I'd give up for good three years +ago; thought I'd take it easy, an' have a comfortable old age. I got +fifty dollars more'n I expected when I sold out the mill, an' I laid +it out for extras for mother an' me; bought her a sofy an' stuffed +rockin'-chair, a new set of dishes, an' some teaspoons, an' some +strainers for the windows agin fly-time. 'Now, mother,' says I, +'we'll jest lay down in the daytime, an' rock, an' eat with our new +spoons out of our new dishes, an' keep the flies out, the rest of our +lives.' + +"But mother she looked real sober. 'What's the matter?' says I. + +"'Nothin',' says she, 'only I was thinkin' about your father.' + +"'What about him?' says I. + +"'Nothin',' says she, 'only I remember mother's sayin', when he quit +work, he wouldn't live long. She always said it was a bad sign.' + +"That settled me. I remembered father didn't live six months after he +quit work, an' grandfather before him, an' I'd every reason to think +it run in the family. So says I to mother, 'Well, I'm havin' too good +a time livin' to throw it away settin' in rockin'-chairs an' layin' +down in the daytime. If work is goin' to keep up the picnic a while +longer, why, I'm goin' to work.' + +"So the very next day I hired out to the man that bought my mill, an' +there I've worked ever since, till now, when he's got his son he +wants to give the job to. I'll go with ye, an' welcome, for a spell. +Mother ain't afeard to stay alone, an' I'll go home over Sundays. Ye +need somebody who knows somethin' about a mill, if ye're green at it +yourself." + +This man, whose name was Martin Cheeseman, was hoary with age, but +far from being past his prime of work. He had a large and shambling +strength of body and limb, like an old bear, and his sinews were, of +their kind, as tough as those of the ancient woods which he severed. + +One afternoon, when the mill had been in operation about two months, +Squire Eben Merritt, John Jennings, and Colonel Lamson came through +from the thick woods into the clearing. The Squire bore his +fishing-rod and dangled a string of fine trout. John Jennings had a +book under his arm. + +When they emerged into the clearing, the Colonel sat down upon a +stump and wiped his red face. The veins in his forehead and neck were +swollen purple, and he breathed hard. "It's hotter than seven +devils," he gasped. + +"Devils are supposed to be acclimated," John Jennings remarked, +softly. He stood looking about him. The Squire had gone into the +mill, where Jerome was at work. + +Martin Cheeseman was outside, shearing from lengths of logs some last +straggling twigs before they were taken into the mill for sawing. The +old man's hat had lost its brim, and sat back on his head like a +crown; some leaves were tangled in his thick, gray fleece of hair and +beard. His shaggy arms were bare; he wielded his hatchet with energy, +grimacing at every stroke. + +"He might be the god Pan putting his fallen trees out of their last +agonies," said Jennings, dreamily, and yet half laughing, as if at +himself, for the fancy. + +The Colonel only groaned in response. He fanned himself with his hat. +Jennings stood, backed up against a tree, surveying things, his fine, +worn face full of a languid humor and melancholy. + +The place looked like a sylvan slaughter-field. The ground was +thick-set with the mangled and hacked stumps of great chestnut-trees, +and strewn with their lifeless limbs and trunks, as with members of +corpses; every stump, as Jennings surveyed it with fanciful gaze, +looked with its spread of supporting roots upon the surface, +curiously like a great foot of a woody giant, which no murderer could +tear loose from its hold in its native soil. + +All the clearing was surrounded with thickets of light-green foliage, +amidst which clouds of white alder unfolded always in the soft wind +with new surfaces of sweetness. + +However, all the fragrant evidence of the new leaves and blossoms was +lost and overpowered here. One perceived only that pungent aroma of +death which the chestnut-trees gave out from their fresh wounds and +their spilled sap of life. One also could scarcely hear the spring +birds for the broad whir of the saw-mill, which seemed to cut the air +as well as the logs. Even the gurgling rush of the brook was lost in +it, but not the roar of water over the dam. + +The Squire came out of the mill, whither he had been to say a good +word to Jerome, and stood by Martin Cheeseman. "Lord," he said, +"think of the work those trees had to grow, and the fight they made +for their lives, and then along comes a man with an axe, and breaks +in a minute what he can never make nor mend! What d'ye mean by it, +eh?" + +Martin Cheeseman looked at him with shrewd, twinkling eyes. He was +waist-deep in the leafy twigs and boughs as in a nest. "Well," he +said, "we're goin' to turn 'em into somethin' of more account than +trees, an' that's railroad-sleepers; an' that's somethin' the way +Natur' herself manages, I reckon. Look at the caterpillar an' the +butterfly. Mebbe a railroad-sleeper is a butterfly of a tree, lookin' +at it one way." + +"That's all very well, but how do you suppose the tree feels?" said +the Squire, hotly. + +"Not bein' a tree, an' never havin' been a tree, so's to remember it, +I ain't able to say," returned the old man, in a dry voice; "but, +mebbe, lookin' at it on general principles, it ain't no more painful +for a tree to be cut down into a railroad-sleeper than it is for a +man to be cut down into an angel." + +John Jennings laughed. + +"You'd make a good lawyer on the defence," said the Squire, +good-naturedly, "but, by the Lord Harry, if all the trees of the +earth were mine, men might live in tents and travel in caravans till +doomsday for all I'd cut one down!" + +The Colonel and Jennings did not go into the mill, but they nodded +and sang out good-naturedly to Jerome as they passed. He could not +leave--he had an extra man to feed the saw that day, and had been +rushing matters since daybreak--but he looked out at them with a +radiant face from his noisy interior, full of the crude light of +fresh lumber and sawdust. + +The Squire's friendly notice had pleased his very soul. + +"That's a smart boy," panted the Colonel, when they had passed. + +"Yes, sir; he's the smartest boy in this town," assented the Squire, +with a nod of enthusiasm. + +Not long after they emerged from the woods into the road they reached +Jennings's house, and he left his friends. + +The Colonel lived some quarter of a mile farther on. He had reached +his gate, when he said, abruptly, to the Squire, "Look here, Eben, +you remember a talk we had once about Jerome Edwards and your girl?" + +The Squire stared at him. "Yes; why?" + +"Nothing, only seeing him just now set me to wondering if you were +still of the same mind about it." + +"If being willing that Lucina should have the man she sets her heart +on is the same mind, of course I am; but, good Lord, Jack, that's all +over! He hasn't been to the house for a year, and Lucina never thinks +of him!" + +Colonel Lamson laughed wheezily. "Well, that's all I wanted to know, +Eben." + +"What made you ask me that?" asked the Squire, suspiciously. + +"Nothing; seeing Jerome and his mill brought it to mind. Well, I'll +be along to-night." + +"That's all over," the Squire called out again to the Colonel, going +slowly up the hill to the house door. However, when he got home, he +questioned Abigail. + +"I haven't heard Lucina mention Jerome Edwards's name for months," +said she, "and he never comes here; but she seems perfectly contented +and happy. I think that's all over." + +"I thought so," said Eben. + +Abigail was preparing the punch, for the Squire expected his friends +that evening. Jennings came first; some time after Means and Lamson +arrived. They had a strange air of grave excitement and elation. + +When the game of cards was fairly under way, the Colonel played in a +manner which confused them all. + +"By the Lord Harry, Jack, this is the third time you've thrown away +an honor!" the Squire roared out, finally. "Is it the punch that's +gone to your head?" + +"No, Eben," replied the Colonel, in a hoarse voice, with solemn and +oratorical cadences, as if he rose to address a meeting. "It is not +the punch. I am _used_ to punch. It is money. I've just had word +that--that old mining stock I bought when I was in the service, and +haven't thought worth more than a New England sheep farm, has been +sold for sixty-five thousand dollars." + + + + +Chapter XXXIV + + +The next week Colonel Lamson went to Boston, and took his friend John +Jennings with him. Whether the trip was purely a business one, or was +to be regarded in the light of a celebration of the Colonel's good +fortune, never transpired. + +Upham people exchanged wishes to the effect that John Jennings and +Colonel Lamson might not take, in their old age, to sowing again the +wild oats of their youth. "John Jennings drank himself most into his +grave; an' as for Colonel Lamson, it's easy enough to see that he's +always had his dram, when he felt like it. If they get home sober an' +alive with all that money, they're lucky," people said. It was the +general impression in Upham that the Colonel had gone to Boston with +his sixty-five thousand dollars in his pocket. Lawyer Means's ancient +relative, who served as house-keeper, was reported to have confessed +that she was on tenter-hooks about it. + +However, in a week the Colonel and his friend returned, and the most +anxious could find nothing in their appearance to justify their +gloomy fears. They had never looked so spick and span and prosperous +within the memory of Upham, for both of them were clad in glossiest +new broadcloth, of city cut, and both wore silk bell-hats, which gave +them the air of London dandies. Jennings, moreover, displayed in his +fine shirt-front a new diamond pin, and the Colonel stepped out with +stately flourishes of a magnificent gold-headed cane. + +Soon it was told on good authority that the lawyer's house-keeper, +and John Jennings's also, had a present from the Colonel of a rich +black satin gown, that the lawyer had a gold-headed cane--which he +was, indeed, seen to carry, holding it stiff and straight, like a +roll of parchment, with never a flourish--and the Squire a gun +mounted in silver, and such a fishing-rod as had never been seen in +the village. When Lucina Merritt came to meeting the Sunday after the +Colonel's return, there glistened in her little ears, between her +curls, some diamond ear-drops, and Abigail wore a shawl which had +never been seen in Upham before. + +Lawyer Means's female relative, and Jennings's house-keeper, said, +emphatically, that they didn't believe that either of them drank a +drop of anything stronger than water all the time they were gone. + +The Colonel was radiant with satisfaction; he went about with his +face beaming as unreservedly as a child's who has gotten a treasure. +He often confided to Means his perfect delight in his new wealth. +"Hang it all, Means," he would say, "I wouldn't find a word of fault, +not a word, I'd strut like a peacock, if that poor little girl I +married was only alive, and I could buy her a damned thing out of it; +then there's something else, Means--" the Colonel's face would take +on an expression of mingled seriousness and humor--"Means," he would +conclude, in a hoarse, facetious whisper, "I bought those stocks when +I was first married; thought I'd got to pitch in and provide for my +family, and in order to save enough money to get them I ran in debt +for a new uniform and some cavalry boots and a pony, and damned if I +know if I ever paid for them." + +Jerome, going to the mill one day shortly afterwards, reached the +Means house as the Colonel was coming down the hill. "Stop a moment," +the Colonel called, and Jerome waited until he reached him. "Fine +day," said the Colonel. + +"Yes, sir, 'tis," replied Jerome; then he added, "I was glad to hear +of your good fortune, sir." + +"Suppose," said the Colonel, abruptly, "that twenty-five thousand of +it had come to you, what would you have done with it?" + +Jerome looked at him in a bewildered fashion. "It wasn't mine, and +there's no use talking about it," he said. + +"What would you do with it? Out with it! Would you stick to that +bargain you made in Robinson's that evening?" + +Jerome hesitated. + +"You needn't be afraid to speak," urged the Colonel. "If you'd stick +to it, say so. I sha'n't call it any reflection upon me; I haven't +the slightest intention of giving twenty-five thousand dollars to the +poor, and if you've changed your mind, say so." + +"I haven't changed my mind, and I would stick to it," Jerome replied +then. + +"And," said the Colonel, "you are sticking to that other resolution +of yours, to work until you win a certain fair lady, are you?" + +Jerome colored high. He was inclined to be indignant, but there was a +strange earnestness in the Colonel's manner. + +"I'm not the sort of fellow not to stick to a resolution of that kind +when I've once made it," he replied, shortly. + +The Colonel chuckled. "Well, I didn't think you were," he +returned--"didn't think you were, Jerome. That's all. Good-day." +With that, to Jerome's utter astonishment, Colonel Lamson trudged +laboriously up the hill to the Means house again. + +"He must have come down just to ask me those questions," thought +Jerome, and thought with more bewilderment still that the Colonel +must even have been watching for him. He had no conception of his +meaning, but he laughed to himself at the bare fancy of twenty-five +thousand dollars coming to him, and also at the suggestion that he +would not be true to his resolution to win Lucina. Jerome was +beginning to feel as if she were already won. The next spring, if he +continued to prosper, he had decided to speak to her, and, as the +months went on, nothing happened to discourage him. + +The next winter the snows were uncommonly heavy. They began before +Thanksgiving and came in thick storms. There were great drifts in all +the door-yards, the stone walls and fences were hidden, the trees +stood in deep, swirling hollows of snow. Now and then a shed-roof +broke under the frozen weight; one walked through the village street +as through clear-cut furrows of snow, all the shadows were blue, +there was a dazzle of glacier light over the whole village when the +sun arose. However, it was a fine winter for Jerome, as far as his +work was concerned. Wood is drawn easily on sleds, and the snow air +nerves one for sharp labors. Jerome calculated that by May he should +be not only doing a prosperous business, but should have a snug +little sum clear. Then he would delay no longer. + +On the nineteenth day of March came the last snow-storm, and the +worst of the season. Martin Cheeseman went home early. Jerome did not +stay in the mill long after he left. The darkness was settling down +fast, and he could do little by himself. + +Moreover, an intense eagerness to be at home seized him. He began to +imagine that something had happened to his mother or Elmira, and +imagination of evil was so foreign to him that it had almost the +force of conviction. + +He fell also to thinking of his father, inconsequently, as it seemed, +yet it was not so, for imagined disasters lead back by retrograde of +sequence to memories of real ones. + +He lived over again his frenzied search for his father, his discovery +of the hat on the shore of the deep pond. "Poor father!" he muttered. + +All the way home this living anxiety for his mother and sister, and +this dead sorrow haunted him. He thought as he struggled through the +snow, his face bent before the drive of the sleet as before a flail +of ice, how often in all weathers his father had traversed this same +road, how his own feet could scarcely step out of his old tracks. He +thought how many a night, through such a storm as this, his father +had toiled wearily home, and with no such fire of youth and hope in +his heart to cheer him on. "Father must have given up a long time +before he died," he said to himself. + +The imagination of his father plodding homeward in his old harness of +hopeless toil grew so strong that his own identity paled. He seemed +to lose all ambition and zeal, a kind of heredity of discouragement +overspread him. "I don't know but I'll have to give up, finally, the +way he did," he muttered, panting under the buffeting of the snow +wind. + +He met no one on his way home. Once a loaded wood-sled came up behind +him with a faint creak and jingle of harness, then the straining +flanks of the horse, the cubic pile of wood shaded out of shape by +the snow, the humped back of the driver on the top, passed out of +sight, as behind a slanting white curtain. The village houses receded +through shifting distances of pale gloom; one could scarcely +distinguish the white slants of their roofs, and the lamp-lights +which shone out newly in some of the windows made rosy nimbuses. + +When Jerome drew near his own home he looked eagerly, and saw, with +relief, that the white thickness of the storm was suffused with light +opposite the kitchen windows. + +"Everything all right?" he asked, when he entered, stamping and +shaking himself. + +Elmira was toasting bread, and she turned her flushed face +wonderingly. "Yes; why shouldn't it be?" she said. + +"No reason why. It's an awful storm." + +Ann was knitting fast, sitting over against a window thick with +clinging shreds of snow. Her face was in the shadow, but she looked +as if she had been crying. She did not speak when Jerome entered. + +"What ails mother?" he whispered to Elmira, following her into the +pantry when he had a chance. + +"She's been telling a dream she had last night about father, and it +made her feel bad. Hush!" + +When they were all seated at the supper-table, Ann, of her own +accord, began to talk again of her dream. + +"I've been tellin' your sister about a dream I had last night," said +she, with a curious, tearful defiance, "an' I'm goin' to tell you. It +won't hurt you any to have your poor father brought to mind once in a +while." + +"Of course you can tell it, mother, though I don't need that to bring +father to mind. I was thinking about him all the way home," Jerome +answered. + +"Well, I guess you don't often think about him all the way home. I +guess you and your sister both don't think about your poor father, +that worked and slaved for you, enough to hurt you. I had a dream +last night that I 'ain't been able to get out of my mind all day. I +dreamt that I was in this room, an' it was stormin', jest as it is +now. I could hear the wind whistlin' an' howlin', an' the windows +were all thick with snow. I dreamt I had a little baby in my arms +that was sick; it was cryin' an' moanin', an' I was walkin' up an' +down, up an' down, tryin' to quiet it. I didn't have my rheumatism, +could walk as well as anybody. All of a sudden, as I was walkin', I +smelt flowers, an' there on the hearth-stone was a rose-bush, all in +bloom. I went up an' picked a rose, an' shook it in the baby's face +to please it, an' then I heard a strange noise, that drowned out the +wind in the chimney an' the baby's cryin'. It sounded like cattle +bellowing, dreadful loud and mournful. I laid the baby down in the +rockin'-chair, an' first thing I knew it wasn't there. Instead of it +there was a most beautiful bird, like a dove, as white as snow. It +flew 'round my head once, and then it was gone. I thought it went up +chimney. + +"The cattle bellowing sounded nearer, an' I could hear them trampin'. +I run to the front door, an' there they were, comin' down the road, +hundreds of 'em, horns a-tossin' an' tails a-lashin', flingin' up the +snow like water. I clapped to the front door, an' bolted it, an' run +into the parlor, an' looked out of the window, an' there on the other +side, as plain as I ever see it in my life, was your father's +face--there was my husband's face. + +"He didn't look a day older than when he left, an' his eyes an' his +mouth were smilin' as I hadn't seen 'em since he was a young man. + +"'Oh, Able!' says I. 'Oh, Abel!' An' then the face wa'n't there, an' +I heard a noise behind me, an' looked around. + +"I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that parlor. All the chairs +an' the sofa were covered with my weddin'-dress, that was made over +for Elmira; the window-curtains were made of it, an' the +table-spread. Thinks I, 'How was there enough of that silk, when we +had hard work to get Elmira's dress out?' + +"Then I saw, in the middle of the room, a great long thing, all +covered over with silk, an' I thought it was a coffin. I went up to +it, an' there was Abel's hat on it, the one he wore when he went +away. I took the hat off, an' the weddin'-silk, an' there was a +coffin. + +"I thought it was Abel's. I raised the lid and looked. The coffin was +full of beautiful clear water, an' I could see through it the bottom, +all covered with bright gold dollars. I leant over it, and there was +my own face in the water, jest as plain as in a lookin'-glass, an' +there was Abel's beside it. Then I turned around quick, an' there was +Abel--there was my husband, standin' there alive an' well. Then I +woke up." + +Ann ended with a hysterical sob. Jerome and Elmira exchanged +terrified glances. + +"That was a beautiful dream, mother," Jerome said, soothingly. "Now +try to eat your supper." + +"It's been so real all day. I feel as if--your father had come an' +gone again," Ann sobbed. + +"Try and eat some of this milk-toast, mother; it's real nice," urged +Elmira. + +But Ann could eat no supper. She seemed completely unstrung, for some +mysterious reason. They persuaded her to go to bed early; but she was +not asleep when they went up-stairs, about ten o'clock, for she +called out sharply to know if it was still snowing. + +"No, mother," Jerome answered, "I have just looked out, and there are +some stars overhead. I guess the storm is over." + +"Oh, Jerome, you don't suppose mother is going to be sick, do you?" +Elmira whispered, when they were on the stairs. + +"No, I guess she's only nervous about her dream. The storm may have +something to do with it, too." + +"Oh, Jerome, I feel exactly as if something was going to happen!" + +"Nonsense," said Jerome, laughing. "You are nervous yourself. I'll +give you and mother some valerian, both of you." + +"Jerome, I am _sure_ something is going to happen." + +"It would be strange if something didn't. Something is happening all +over the earth with every breath we draw." + +"Jerome, I mean to _us!_" + +Jerome gave his sister a little push into her room. "Go to bed, and +to sleep," said he, "and leave your door open if you're scared, and +I'll leave mine." + +Jerome himself could not get to sleep soon; once or twice Elmira +spoke to him, and he called back reassuringly, but his own nerves +were at a severe tension. "What has got into us all?" he thought, +impatiently. It was midnight before he lost himself, and he had slept +hardly an hour when he wakened with a great start. + +A wild clamor, which made his blood run cold, came from below. He +leaped out of bed and pulled on his trousers, hearing all the while, +as in a dream, his mother's voice shrilling higher and higher. "Oh, +Abel, Abel, Abel! Oh, Abel!" + +Elmira, with a shawl over her night-gown, bearing a flaring candle, +rushed across the landing from her room. "Oh," she gasped, "what is +it? what is it?" + +"I guess mother has been dreaming again," Jerome replied, hoarsely, +but the thought was in his mind that his mother had gone mad. + +"There's--cold air--coming--in," Elmira said, in her straining voice. +"The front door is--wide open." + +At that Jerome pushed her aside and rushed down the stairs and into +the kitchen. + +There stood his mother over an old man, seated in her rocking-chair. +There she stood, pressing his white head against her breast, calling +over and over again in a tone through whose present jubilation +sounded the wail of past woe, "Oh, Abel, Abel, Abel!" + +Jerome looked at them. He wondered, dazedly, if he were really there +and awake, or asleep and dreaming up-stairs in his bed. Elmira came +close beside him and clutched his arm--even that did not clear his +bewildered perceptions into certainty. It is always easier for the +normal mind, when confronted by astonishing spectacles, to doubt its +own accuracy rather than believe in them. "Do _you_ see him?" he +whispered, sharply, to Elmira. + +"Yes; who is it? _Who_ is it?" + +Then Jerome, in his utter bewilderment, spoke out the secret which he +had kept since childhood. + +"It can't be father," said he--"it can't be. I found his hat on the +shore of the Dead Hole. Father drowned himself there." + +At the sound of his voice Ann turned around. "It's your father!" she +cried out, sharply--"it's your father come home. Abel, here's the +children." + +Jerome eyed a small japanned box, or trunk, on the floor, a stout +stick, and a handkerchief parcel. He noted then clots of melting snow +where the old man had trod. Somehow the sight of the snow did more to +restore his faculties than anything else. "For Heaven's sake, let us +go to work!" he cried to Elmira, "or he'll die. He's exhausted with +tramping through the snow. Get some of that brandy in the cupboard, +quick, while I start up the fire." + +"Is it father? Oh, Jerome, is it father?" + +"Mother says so. Get the brandy, quick." + +Jerome stirred the fire into a blaze, and put on the kettle, then he +went to his mother and laid his hand on her shoulder. "Now, mother," +he said, "he must be put into a warm bed." + +"Yes, put him into his own bed--his own bed!" shrieked his mother. +"Oh, Abel, dear soul, come and sleep in your own bed again, after all +these years! Poor man, poor man, you've got home to your own bed!" + +Jerome gave his mother's thin, vibrating shoulder a firm shake. +"Mother," he said, "tell me--you must tell me--is this man father?" + +"Don't you know him? Don't you know your own father? Look at him." +Ann threw back her head and pointed at the old worn face on her +breast. + +Jerome stared at it. "Where--did he come--from?" he panted. + +"I don't know. He's come. Oh, Abel, Abel, you've come home!" + +"Give me some of that brandy, quick," Jerome called to Elmira, who +stood trembling, holding the bottle and glass. He poured out some +brandy, and, with a teaspoon, fed the old man, a few drops at a time. +Presently he raised his head feebly, but it sank back. He tried to +speak. "Don't try to talk," said Jerome; "wait till you're rested. +Mother, let him alone now; sit down there. Elmira, you must try and +help me a little." + +"If you've got to be helped, I'll help," cried Ann, fiercely. + +With that his mother, who had not walked since he could remember, ran +into the bedroom, and began spreading the sheets smooth and shaking +the pillows. + +The old man was a light-weight. Jerome almost carried him into the +bedroom, and laid him on the bed. He fed him with more brandy, and +put hot-water bottles around him. Presently he breathed evenly in a +sweet sleep. Ann sat by his side, holding his hand, and would not +stir, though Jerome besought her to go up-stairs to Elmira's room. + +"I guess I don't leave him to stray away again," said she. + +Out in the kitchen, Elmira pressed close to Jerome. "Is it," she +whispered in his ear--"is it father?" + +Jerome nodded. + +"How do you know?" + +"I remember." + +"Are you sure?" + +"Yes, he's grown old, but I remember." + +"Where--did he--come from?" + +"I don't know. We must wait till he wakes up." + +The brother and sister huddled close together over the fire, and +waited. Elmira held Jerome's hand fast in her little cold one. + +"What's in that little tin trunk?" + +"Hush; I don't know." + +"Jerome, mother _walked!_" + +"Hush; I saw her." + +It was an hour before they heard a sound from the bedroom. Then Ann's +voice rang out clearly, and another, husky and feeble, sounded in +response. Jerome and Elmira went into the room, and stood beside the +bed. + +"Here's the children, Abel," said Ann. + +The face on the pillow looked stranger than before to Jerome. When +half unconscious it had worn a certain stern restraint, which +coincided with his old memories; now it was full of an innocent +pleasantness, like a child's, which puzzled him. The old man began +talking eagerly too, and Jerome remembered his father as very +slow-spoken, though it might have been the slowness of self-control, +not temperament. + +"How they've grown!" he said, looking at his children and then at +Ann. "That's Jerome, and that's Elmira. How I've lotted on this day." + He held out a feeble hand; Elmira took it, timidly, then leaned over +and kissed him. Jerome took it then, and it seemed to him like a hand +from the grave. His doubt passed; he knew that this man was his +father. + +"I hadn't got asleep," Ann said; "I was thinkin' about him. I heard +somebody at the front door; I got up and went; I knew it was him." + +The old man smiled at them all. "I'll tell you where I've been," he +said. "It won't take long. I was behindhand in that interest money. I +couldn't earn enough to get ahead nohow. I was nothin' but a drag on +you all, nothin' but a drag. All of a sudden, that day when I went +away, I reasoned of it out. Says I, that mortgage will be foreclosed; +my stayin' where I be won't make no difference about that. I ain't +doin' anythin' for my family, anyway. I'm wore out tryin', and it's +no use. If I go away, I can do more for 'em than if I stay. I can +save every cent I earn, till I get enough to pay that mortgage up. +I'll get a chance that way to do somethin' for 'em. So I went." + +The utter inconsequence of his father's reasoning struck Jerome like +a chill. "His mind isn't just right," he thought. + +"Where did you go, Abel?" asked his mother. + +"To West Linfield." + +"What!" cried Jerome. "That's only twenty miles away." + +Abel Edwards laughed with child-like cunning. "I know it," he said. +"I went to work on Jabez Summers's farm there. It's way up the +hill-road; nobody ever came there that knew me. I took another name, +too--called myself Ephraim Green. I've saved up fifteen hundred +dollars. It's there in that little tin chist. I bought that of +Summers for a shillin', to keep my money in. There's five hundred in +gold, an' the rest in bank-bills. You needn't worry now, mother. +We'll pay that mortgage up to-morrow." + +"The mortgage is all paid. We've paid it, Abel," cried Ann. + +"Paid! The mortgage ain't paid!" + +"Yes, we've paid it. We all earnt money an' paid it." + +"Then we can keep the money," said the old man, happily. "We can keep +it, mother; I thought it would go kinder hard partin' with it. I've +worked so hard to save it. I 'ain't had many clothes, an' I 'ain't +ever been to meetin' lately, my coat got so ragged." + +Elmira was crying. + +"How did you get here to-night, father?" Jerome asked, huskily. + +"I walked from West Linfield; started yesterday afternoon. I come as +far as Westbrook, an' it began to snow. I put up at Hayes's Tavern." + +"At Hayes's Tavern, with all that money!" exclaimed Elmira. + +"Why, ain't they honest there?" asked the old man, quickly. + +"Yes, father, they're all right, I guess. Go on." + +"They seemed real honest," said his father. "I told 'em all about it, +and they acted real interested. Mis' Hayes she fried me some +slapjacks for supper. I had a good room, with a man who was goin' to +Boston this mornin'. He started afore light; he was gone when I woke +up. I stayed there till afternoon, then I started out. I got a lift +as far as the Corners, then I walked a spell and went into a house, +where they give me some supper, and give me another lift as far as +the Stone Hill Meetin'-house. I've been trampin' since. It was ruther +hard, on account of the roads bein' some drifted, but it's stopped +snowin'." + +"Why didn't you come on the coach, Abel, when you had all that +money?" asked Ann, pitifully. "I wonder it hadn't killed you." + +"Do you suppose I was goin' to spend that money for coach hire? You +dun'no' how awful hard it come, mother," replied the old man. He +closed his eyes as he spoke; he was weary almost to death. + +"He'll go to sleep again if you don't talk, mother," Jerome +whispered. + +"Well, I'll lay down side of him, an' mebbe we'll both go to sleep," +his mother said, with a strange docility. Jerome assisted her into +the bed, then he and Elmira went back to the kitchen. + +Jerome motioned to Elmira to be quiet, and cautiously lifted the +little japanned trunk and passed it from one hand to the other, as if +testing its weight. Elmira watched him with her bewildered, tearful +eyes. Finally he tiptoed softly out with it, motioning her to follow +with the candle. They went into the icy parlor and closed the door. + +"What's the matter, Jerome?" Elmira whispered. + +"I'm afraid there may be something wrong with the money. I'm going to +find it out before he does, if there is." + +There was a little padlock on the trunk, but it was tied together +with a bit of leather shoestring, not locked. Jerome took out his +jack-knife, cut the string, and opened the trunk. Elmira held the +candle while he examined the contents. There was a large old wallet +stuffed with bank-notes, also several parcels of them tied up +carefully. + +"It's just as I thought," Jerome muttered. + +"What?" + +"Some of the money is gone. The gold isn't here. It might have been +the man who roomed with him at Hayes's Tavern. There have been queer +things done there before now. All I wonder is, he didn't take it +all." + +"Oh, Jerome, it isn't gone?" + +"Yes, the gold is gone. Here is the bag it was in. The thief left +that. Suppose he thought he might be traced by it." + +"Oh, poor father, poor father, what will he do!" moaned Elmira. + +"He'll do nothing. He'll never know it," said Jerome. + +"What do you mean?" + +"Wait here a minute." Jerome went noiselessly out of the room and +up-stairs. He returned soon with a leathern bag, which he carried +with great caution. "I'm trying to keep this from jingling," he +whispered. + +"Oh, Jerome, what is it?" + +Jerome laughed and untied the mouth of the bag. "You must help me put +it into the other bag; every dollar will have to be counted out +separately." + +"Oh, Jerome, is it money you've saved?" + +"Yes; and don't you ever tell of it to either of them, or anybody +else, as long as you live. I guess poor father sha'n't know he's lost +any of his money he's worked so hard to get, if I can help it." + + + + +Chapter XXXV + + +A stranger passing Abel Edwards's house the day after his return +might have gotten the impression that one of the functions of village +life--a wedding or a funeral--was going on there. From morning until +late at night the people came down the road, wading through the snow, +the men with trousers tucked into boots, the women with +yarn-stockings over their shoes, their arms akimbo, pinning their +kilted petticoats to their hips. Many drove there in sleighs, tilting +to the drifts. The Edwards's door-yard was crowded with teams. + +All the relatives who had come fourteen years before to Abel +Edwards's funeral came now to his resurrection. They had gotten the +news of it in such strange, untraceable ways, that it seemed almost +like mental telegraphy. The Greens of Westbrook were there--the three +little girls in blue, now women grown. One of them came with her +husband and baby; another with a blushing lout of a lad, to whom she +was betrothed; and the third, with a meek blue eye, on the watch for +a possible lover in the company. The Lawson sisters, from Granby, +arrived early in the day, being conveyed thither by an obliging +neighbor. Amelia Stokes rode to Upham on the butcher's wagon, in lieu +of another conveyance, and her journey was a long one, necessitating +hot ginger-tea and the toasting of her slim feet at the fire upon her +arrival. Amelia was clad in mourning for her old mother, who had died +the year before. At intervals she wept furtively, incited to grief by +recollections of her mother, which the place and occasion awakened. + +"Every once in a while it comes over me how poor mother relished them +hot biscuits and that tea at your funeral," she whispered softly to +Abel, who smiled with child-like serenity in response. + +All day Abel sat in state, which was, however, intensified in the +afternoon by a new suit of clothes, which Jerome had purchased in +Dale. As soon as Jerome returned with it, he was hustled into the +bedroom with his father. + +"Get your father into 'em quick, before anybody else comes," said Ann +Edwards. She was dressed in her best, and Elmira had further adorned +her with a little worked lace kerchief of her own, fastened at the +bosom with a sprig of rose-geranium leaves and blossoms. Ann had +confined herself to her chair since arising that morning. She made no +allusion to her walking the night before, and seemed to expect +assistance as usual. + +"Do you suppose mother can't walk this morning?" Elmira whispered to +Jerome. + +"Hush," he replied, "don't bother her with it unless she speaks of it +herself. I have a book which gives instances of people recovering +under strong excitement, and then going back to where they were +before. I don't believe mother can walk, or she would." + +Ann Edwards and Abel sat side by side on the sofa in the parlor, and +the visitors came and greeted them, with a curious manner, which had +in it not so much of the joy of greeting, as awe and a solemn +perplexity. Always, after shaking hands with the united couple, they +whispered furtively to one another that Abel Edwards was much +changed, they should scarcely have known him. Yet, with their simple +understandings, they could not have defined the change, which they +recognized plainly enough, for it lay not so much in form and feature +as in character. Abel Edwards's hair was white, he was somewhat +fuller in his face, but otherwise he was little altered, so far as +mere physical characteristics went. The change in him was subtler. +Jerome had noticed it the night before, and it was evidently a +permanent condition. Abel Edwards, from being a reserved man, with +the self-containment of one who is buffeted by unfair odds of fate, +yet will not stoop to vain appeals, but holds always to the front his +face of dumb dissent and purpose, was become a garrulous and happy +child. People hinted that Abel Edwards's mind was affected, but it +was a question whether that was the case, or whether it was the +simple result of his abandonment, fourteen years before, of the reins +which had held an original nature in check. He might possibly have +merely, when renouncing his toil over the up-grade of life, slipped +back to his first estate, and thus have experienced in one sense no +change at all. + +Many of Abel's old friends and neighbors were not fully convinced of +the desirability of his reappearance. When a man has been out of his +foothold in the crowd for fourteen years, he cannot regain it without +undue jostling of people's shoulders, and prejudices even. The +resurrection of the dead might have, if the truth were told, +uncomfortable and perplexing features for their nearest and dearest, +and Abel Edwards had been practically dead and buried. + +"They were gettin' along real well before he come; of course, they're +glad to see him, but I dun'no' whether they'll get along as well with +him or not," proclaimed Mrs. Green of Westbrook, with the very +aggressiveness of frankness, and many looked assent. + +Abel's wife had no question in her inmost heart of its utter +blessedness at his return, but her grief at his loss had never +healed. For that resolute feminine soul, which had fought on in spite +of it, her husband had died anew every morning of those fourteen +years when she awoke to consciousness of life; but it was different +with his children. For both of them the old wounds had closed; it was +now like tearing them asunder, for it is often necessary to revive an +old pain to fully appreciate a present joy. Had Jerome and Elmira +been older at the time of their father's disappearance, it would have +been otherwise, but as it was, their old love for him had been +obliterated, not merely by time and absence, but growth. It was +practically impossible, though they would not have owned it to +themselves, for them to love their father, when he first returned, as +they had used. They were painfully anxious to be utterly faithful, +and had an odd sort of tender but imaginative pity towards him, but +they could grasp no more. Both of them hesitated when they said +father; every time they returned home and found him there it was with +a sensation of surprise. + +Three days after Abel Edwards's return came one of the severest +rain-storms ever known in Upham. The storm began before light; when +people first looked out in the morning their windows were glazed with +streaming wet, but it did not reach its full fury until eleven +o'clock. Then the rain fell in green and hissing sheets. + +"Gorry," Martin Cheeseman said, looking out of the mill door, which +seemed to open into a solid wall of water, "looks as if the great +deep was turned upsidedown overhead. If it keeps on this way long +there'll be mischief." + +"Think there'll be danger to the mill?" Jerome asked, quickly. + +"No, I guess not, it's built strong; but I wouldn't resk the solid +airth long under Niagry. Where you goin'?" + +"Down to Robinson's store. I want to get something." + +"Well, I should think you were half-witted to go out in this soak if +you could keep a roof over your head," cried Cheeseman, but Jerome +was gone. + +He bought strong rope at Robinson's store, and before night the mill +was anchored to some stout trees and one great granite bowlder. +Cheeseman helped grumblingly. "I shall get laid up with rheumatiz out +of it," he said; "an' this rain can't keep on, it ain't in natur', +out of the Old Testament." + +But the rain continued all that day and night, and the next day, with +almost unremitting fury. At times it seemed more than rain--there +were liquid shafts reaching from earth to sky. By noon of the second +day, half the cellars in the village were flooded; coops floated in +slatted wrecks over fields; the roads were knee-deep in certain +places; the horses drew back--it was like fording a stream. People +began to be alarmed. + +"If this keeps on an hour longer, there'll be the devil to pay," +Squire Eben Merritt said, when he came home to dinner. He had been +down to Lawyer Means's and crossed the Graystone brook, which was now +a swollen river. + +"What will happen?" asked Abigail. + +"Happen? The Main Street bridge will go, and the saw-mill, and the +Lord knows what else." + +Lucina turned pale. + +"It will be hard on Jerome if he loses his mill," said her mother. + +"Well, the boy will lose it if it keeps on," returned the Squire. +"He's working hard, with four men to help him; they're loading it +with stones and anchoring it with ropes, but it can't stand much +more. I miss my guess, if the foundations are not undermined now." + +Lucina said not a word, but as soon as she could she slipped +up-stairs to her chamber and prayed that her Heavenly Father would +save poor Jerome's mill, and stop the rain; but it kept on raining. +When Lucina heard the fierce dash of it on her window-pane, like an +angry dissent to her petition, she prayed more fervently, sobbing +softly in the whiteness of her maiden bed; still it rained. + +The mighty body of snow, pierced in a thousand places by the rain as +by liquid fingers, settled with inconceivable rapidity. Great drifts +which had slanted to the tops of north windows twelve hours before +were almost gone. The wide snow-levels of the fields were all +honey-combed and glistening here and there with pools. The trees +dripped with clots of melting snow, there were avalanches from the +village roofs, and even in the houses was heard the roar of the +brook. It was, however, no longer a brook, not even a river, but a +torrent. It over spread its banks on either side. Forest trees stood +knee-deep in it, their branches swept it. At three o'clock Jerome's +mill was surrounded, though on one side by only a rippling shallow of +water. He had plenty of helpers all day; for if his dam and mill +went, there was danger to the Main Street bridge. Now they had all +taken advantage of the last firm footing, and left the mill. They had +joined a watching group on a rise of ground beyond the flood. The +rain was slacking somewhat, and half the male portion of the village +seemed assembled, watching for the possible destruction of the mill. +Now and then came a hoarse shout across the swelling water to Jerome. +He alone remained in his mill, standing by the great door that +overlooked the dam and the falls. He was high above it, but the spray +wet his face. + +The great yellow flood came leaping tumultuously over the dam, and +rebounding in wild fountains of spray. Trees came with it, and +joists--a bridge somewhere above had gone. Strange, uncanny wreckage, +which could not be defined, bobbed on the torrent, and took the +plunge of annihilation over the dam. Every now and then came a cry +and a groan of doubt from the watchers, who thought this or that +might be a drowned man. + +Besides the thundering rush of the water there were other sounds, +which Jerome seemed to hear with all his nervous system. The mill +hummed with awful musical vibrations, it strained and creaked like a +ship at sea. + +The hoarse shouts from the shore for him to leave the mill were +redoubled, but he paid no heed. He was on the other side, and knew +nothing of a sudden commotion among the people when Jake Noyes came +dashing through the trees and calling for Doctor Prescott, who had +joined them some half hour before. + +"Come quick, for God's sake!" he shouted; "you're wanted on the other +side of the brook, and the bridge will be gone, and you'll have to go +ten miles round. Colonel Lamson is down with apoplexy!" + +Jerome did not know when the doctor followed Noyes hurriedly out to +the road where his team was waiting, and Squire Eben Merritt went at +a run after them, shouting back, "Don't let that boy stay in that +mill too long; see to it, some of you." + +There came a great barn-roof down-stream, followed by a tossing wake +of hay and straw. The crowd on shore groaned. It broke when it passed +the falls, and so the danger to the bridge below was averted, but a +heavy beam slewed sidewise as it passed the mill, and struck it. The +mill quivered in every beam, and the floor canted like the deck of a +vessel. Martin Cheeseman rushed in and caught Jerome roughly by the +arm. "For God's sake, what ye up to?" he shouted above the roar of +the water, "Come along with ye. She's goin'!" + +The old man had a rope tied to his middle; Jerome followed him, +unresistingly, and they crossed, almost waist-deep and in danger of +being swept from their foothold by the current. Cheeseman kept tight +hold of Jerome's arm. "Bear up," he said, in a hoarse whisper, as +they struggled out of the water; "life's more'n a mill." + +"It's more than a mill that's going down," replied Jerome, in a dull +monotone which Cheeseman did not hear. There were plenty of +out-stretched hands to help them to the shore; the men pressed around +with rude sympathy. + +"It's darned hard luck," one and another said, with the defiant +emphasis of an oath. + +Then they turned from Jerome and riveted their attention upon the +mill, which swayed visibly. Jerome stood apart, his back turned, +looking away into the depths of the dripping woods. Cheeseman came up +and clapped his shoulder hard. "Don't ye want to see it go?" he +cried. "It's a sight. Might as well get all ye can out of it." + +Jerome shook his head. + +"Ye'd better. I tell ye, it's a sight. I've seen three go in my +lifetime, an' one of 'em was my own. Lord, I looked on with the rest! +Might as well get all the fun you can out of your own funeral. Hullo! +There--there goes the dam, an'--there goes the mill!" + +There was a wild chorus of shouts and groans. Jerome's mill went +reeling down-stream, but he did not see it. He had heard the new +spouting roar of water and the crash, and knew what it meant, but +look he would not. + +"Ye missed it," said Cheeseman. + +Some of the men came up and wrung his hand hurriedly, then were off +with the crowd to see the Main Street bridge go. Jerome sat down +weakly on a pile of sodden logs, which the flood had not reached. + +Cheeseman stared at him. "What on airth are you settin' down there +for?" he asked. + +"I'm going, pretty soon," Jerome replied. + +"You'll catch your death, settin' there in those wet clothes. Come, +git up and go home." + +Jerome did not stir; his white face was set straight ahead; he +muttered something which the other could not hear. Cheeseman looked +at him perplexedly. He laid hold of his shoulder and shook him again, +and ordered him angrily, with no avail; then set off himself. He was +old, and the chill of his wet clothes was stealing through him. + +Not long afterwards Jerome went down the road towards home. Half way +there he met a hurrying man, belated for the tragic drama on the +village stage. + +"Hullo!" he called, excitedly. "Your mill gone?" + +"Yes." + +"Dam gone?" + +"Yes." + +"Gosh! Bridge gone?" + +"Don't know." + +"Gosh! if I ain't quick, I'll miss the whole show," cried the man, +with a spurt ahead; but, after all, he stopped a moment and looked +back curiously at Jerome plodding down the flooded road, his weary +figure bent stiffly, with the slant of his own dejectedness, athwart +the pelting slant of the storm. + + + + +Chapter XXXVI + + +Jerome, when his mill went down, felt that his dearest hope in life +went with it. His fighting spirit did not fail him; he had not the +least inclination to settle back for the buffets of fate; but the +combat henceforth would be for honor only, not victory. He felt that +his defeats had established themselves in an endless ratio to his +efforts. + +"I shall go to work again, and save up money for a new mill. I shall +build it after a long while; but something will always happen to put +me back, and I shall never marry her," he told himself. + +Had he the money with which he had made good his father's loss, he +could have rebuilt in a short time, but he did not consider the +possibility of taking that and, perhaps, supplementing it by a loan +from his father. "It would break the old man's heart to touch his +money," he said, "and the mill might go again, and it would all be +lost." + +On the morning after the destruction of his mill, Squire Eben Merritt +came to Jerome's door, and gave him a daintily folded little note. +"Lucina sent this to you," he said, and eyed him with a sort of sad +keenness as he took it and thanked him in a bewildered fashion, his +haggard face reddening. + +The Squire himself looked as if he had passed a sleepless night, his +fresh color had faded, his face was elongated. "I'm sorry enough +about your loss, my boy," he said, "but I can't say as much as I +might, or feel as much as I might, if my old friend hadn't gone down +in--a deeper flood." The Squire's voice broke. Jerome looked away +from his working face. He had scarcely, in his own selfishness of +loss, grasped the news of Colonel Lamson's death, which had taken +place before the bridge went down and before the doctor arrived. He +muttered something vaguely sympathetic in response. Lucina's little +letter seemed to burn his fingers. + +The Squire dashed his hand across his eyes, coughed hard, then +glanced at the letter. "Lucina has been talking to her mother," he +said, abruptly. "It seems the--Colonel Lamson had told her something +that you said to him. We didn't know how matters stood. By-and-by you +and I will have a talk. Don't be too down-hearted over the +mill--there's more than one way out of that difficulty. In the +meantime, there's her letter--I've read it. She's cried all night +because your damned mill has gone, and looks sick enough to call the +doctor this morning, and, by the Lord Harry! sir, you can think +yourself a lucky fellow!" With that the Squire shook his head +fiercely and strode down the path with bowed shoulders. Jerome went +up-stairs with his letter. + +"What did the Squire want?" his mother called, but he did not heed +her. + +It was his first letter from Lucina. He opened it and read; there +were only a few delicately formed lines, but for him they were as +finely cut, with all possible lights of meaning, as a diamond: + +"Dear Friend" [wrote Lucina],--"I beg you to accept my sympathy in +the disaster which has befallen your property, and I implore you not +to be disheartened, and not to consider me unmaidenly for signing +myself your ever faithful and constant friend, through all the joys +or vicissitudes of life. + + "Lucina Merritt." + +This letter, modelled after the fashion which Lucina had learned at +school, whereby she bound and laced over with set words and phrases, +as with a species of emotional stays, her love and pity, not +considering it decorous to give them full breath, filled Jerome with +happiness and despair. He understood that Colonel Lamson had betrayed +him, that Lucina, all unasked, had bound herself in love and +faithfulness to him through all his failing efforts. + +"I won't have it--I won't have it!" he muttered, fiercely, but he +kissed the little letter with exulting rapture. "I've got this much, +anyhow," he thought. + +He wondered if he should answer it. How could he refuse her dear +constancy and affection, yet how could he accept it? He had no hope +of marrying her, he reasoned that it would be better for her should +he even repulse her rudely. It would be like screwing the rack for +his own body to do that, but he declared to himself that he ought. +"She'll never marry at all, if she waits for you; it'll hinder her +looking at somebody else; she'll be an old maid, she'll be all alone +in the world, with no husband or children, and you know it," he told +himself, with a kind of mental squaring of his own fists in his face. +All the time, with that curious, dogmatic selfishness which has +sometimes its roots in unselfishness itself, he never considered the +effect upon poor Lucina of the repulse of her love and constancy. +Such was his ardor for unselfishness that, in its pursuit, he would +have made all others selfish nor cared. + +That day the sun shone in a bright, windy sky. The snow was nearly +gone, the brook still leaped in a furious torrent, but there was no +more danger from it. The waters were, in fact, receding slowly. +Jerome worked all day near the ruinous site of his mill, and Martin +Cheeseman with him. He had a quantity of logs and lumber, which had +escaped the flood, to care for. Cheeseman inquired if he was going to +rebuild the mill. + +"When I get money enough," Jerome replied, with a sturdy fling of a +log. + +"'Ain't ye got most enough?" + +"No." + +"Ye ought to have. What ye done with it?" + +"Put it to a good use," Jerome said, with no resentment of the +other's curiosity. + +"Why don't ye hire money, if ye 'ain't got enough?" + +"I don't hire money," answered Jerome, and heaved another log with a +splendid swing from his shoulders. + +Cheeseman looked at him doubtfully. "Well," he said, "I 'ain't got +none to hire. I've got my money out of mills on the banks of roarin' +streams, an' I'm goin' to keep it out. I believe in Providence, but I +don't believe in temptin' of it. I 'ain't got no money to hire." + +"And I don't want to hire, so we sha'n't quarrel about that," Jerome +replied, shortly. + +"I don't say that I wouldn't let ye have a little money, if you +needed it, an' it was for somethin' safe for both of us," said +Cheeseman, uneasily, "but, as I said before, I don't believe in +temptin' of Providence, especially when it seems set agin you." + +"I am not going to shirk any blame off on to Providence," Jerome +responded, scornfully. "It was Stimson's weak dam up above." + +"Mebbe the dam was weak, but Providence took advantage of it," +insisted Cheeseman, who, in spite of his cheerful temperament, had a +gloomy theology. "I'd like to know why ye think your mill went down; +do ye think ye done anything to deserve it?" he said, further, in an +argumentative tone. + +"If I thought I had, I'd do it again," Jerome returned, and went off +to a distant pile of lumber out of sound of Cheeseman's voice. + +He felt a proud sensitiveness, almost a shame, over his calamity, +which he would have been at a loss to explain. All day long, when men +came to view the scene of disaster, he tried to avoid them. He shrank +in spirit even from their sympathy. + +"No worse for me than for anybody else," he would reply, when told +repeatedly, with gruff condolence, that it was hard luck. His +sensitiveness might have arisen from some hereditary taint from his +orthodox ancestors of their belief that misfortune is the whip-lash +for sin, or from his native resentment of pity. At home he could not +talk of it either with his mother or Elmira; as for his father, he +sat in the sun and dozed. It was doubtful if he fully realized what +had happened. + +Jerome worked in the woods that day until after dark; when he went +home he found that the Squire had been there with a request for him +to be one of the bearers at the Colonel's funeral. That was +considered a post of melancholy honor, and his mother looked sadly +important over it. + +"I s'pose as long as the poor Colonel is gone himself, an' there's +only three left that he used to be so intimate with, that they +thought you would be a good one," said she. + +"It is strange they did not ask some one nearer his age," Jerome +said, wonderingly. + +The funeral was appointed for the next afternoon. Jerome sat in the +parlor of the Means house with the mourners, who were few, as the +dead man had no kin in Upham. Indeed, there was nobody except his +three old friends, his house-keeper, and Abigail Merritt and Lucina. + +Jerome did not look at Lucina, nor she at him; as the service went +on, he heard her weeping softly. The minister, Solomon Wells, +standing near the black length of the coffin, lifted his voice in +eulogy of the dead. The parlor door-way and that of the room beyond, +were set with faces straining with attention. + +The minister's voice was weak; every now and then people looked +inquiringly at one another, and there were fine hisses of +interrogation. This parlor of the Means house had never been used +since the time of the lawyer's mother. Women had been hard at work +there all day, but still there was over everything a dim, filmy +effect, as of petrified dust and damp. A great pier-glass loomed out +of the gloom of a wall like a sheet of fog, with scarcely a gleam of +gold left in its tarnished frame. The steel engravings over the +mantel-shelf and between the windows showed blue hazes of mildew. The +mahogany and rosewood of the furniture was white in places; there had +been a good fire all day, but all the covers and the carpet steamed +in one's face with cold damp. However, scarcely a woman in Upham but +would have been willing to be a legitimate mourner for the sake of +investigating the mysterious best-room, which had had a certain glory +in the time of the lawyer's mother. + +A great wreath of white flowers lay on the coffin. Its breathless +sweetness clung to the nostrils and seemed to fill the whole house. +Now and then a curl of pungent smoke floated from the door-cracks of +the air-tight stove. All the high lights in the room were the silver +of the coffin trimmings and the white wreath. + +Solomon Wells had a difficult task. The popular opinion of Colonel +Jack Lamson in Upham was that he had led a hard life, and had +hastened his end by strong drink. He could neither tell the commonly +accepted truth out of respect to the deceased, nor lies out of regard +to morality. However, one favorable point in the character of the +deceased, upon which people were agreed, was his geniality and bluff +heartiness of good-humor. That the minister so enlarged and displayed +to the light of admiration that he almost made of it the aureole of a +saint. He was obliged then to take refuge in the broad field of +generalities, and discourse upon his text of "All flesh is as grass," +until his hearers might well lose sight of the importance of any +individual flicker of a grass blade to this wind or that, before the +ultimate end of universal hay. + +Solomon Wells was not a brilliant man, but he had a fine instinct for +other people's corns and prejudices. Everybody agreed that his +remarks were able; there were no dissenting voices. He concluded with +an apt and solemnly impressive reference to the wheat and the chaff, +the garnering and the casting into furnace, leaving the application +concerning the deceased wholly to his audience. That completed his +success. When he sat down there was a heaving sigh of applause. + +All through the discourse, the hymns, and the concluding prayer, +Lucina sobbed softly at intervals, her face hidden in her cambric +handkerchief. Somehow it went to her tender soul that the poor +Colonel should be lying there with no wife or child to mourn him; +then she had loved him, as she had loved everybody and everything +that had come kindly into her life. Every time she thought of the +corals and the beautiful ear-rings which the Colonel had given her +she wept afresh. Moreover, the motive for tears is always complex; +hers may have been intensified somewhat by her anxiety about her +lover and his misfortune. Now and then her mother touched her arm +remonstratingly. "Hush; you'll make yourself sick, child," she +whispered, softly; but poor Lucina was helpless before her grief. + +The Squire, John Jennings, and Lawyer Means all sat by the dead body +of their friend, with pale and sternly downcast faces. Jerome looked +scarcely less sad. He remembered as he sat there every kind word +which the Colonel had ever spoken to him, and every one seemed +magnified a thousand-fold. This call to lend his living strength +towards the bearing of the dead man to his last home seemed like a +call to a labor of love and gratitude, though he was still much +perplexed that he should have been selected. + +"There's Doctor Prescott and Cyrus Robinson and Uncle Ozias--any one +of them nearer his own age," he thought. It was not until the next +day but one that the mystery was solved. That night Lawyer Eliphalet +Means came to see Jerome, and informed him that the Colonel had left +a will, whereby he was entitled to a legacy of twenty-five thousand +dollars. + + + + +Chapter XXXVII + + +Colonel Lamson's will divided sixty-five thousand dollars among five +legatees--ten thousand was given to John Jennings, five thousand to +Eliphalet Means, five thousand to Eben Merritt, twenty thousand to +Lucina Merritt, and twenty-five thousand to Jerome Edwards. + +Upham was not astonished by the first four bequests; the last almost +struck it dumb. "What in creation did he leave twenty-five thousand +dollars to that feller for? He wa'n't nothin' to him," Simon Basset +stammered, when he first heard the news on Tuesday night in +Robinson's store. His face was pale and gaping, and folk stared at +him. + +Suddenly a man cried out, "By gosh, J'rome promised to give the hull +on't away! Don't ye remember?" + +"That's so," cried another; "an' Doctor Prescott an' Basset have got +to hand out ten thousand apiece if he does. Fork over, Simon." + +"Guess ye'll wait till doomsday afore J'rome sticks to his part +on't," said Basset, with a sneer; but his lips were white. + +"No, I won't; no, I won't," responded the man, hilariously. "J'rome's +goin' to do it; Jake here says he heard so; it come real straight." +He winked at the others, who closed around, grinning maliciously. + +Basset broke through them with an oath and made for the door. "It's a +damned lie, I tell ye!" he shouted, hoarsely; "an' if J'rome's sech a +G-- d-- fool, I'll see ye all to h--, and him too, afore I pay a +dollar on't." + +When the door had slammed behind him, the men looked at one another +curiously. "You don't s'pose J'rome will do it," one said, +meditatively. + +"He'll do it when the river runs uphill an' crows are white," +answered another, with a hard laugh. + +"I dun'no'," said another, doubtfully. "J'rome Edwards 's always been +next-door neighbor to a fool, an' there's no countin' on what a fool +'ll do!" + +"S'pose you'd calculate on comin' in for some of the fool's money, if +he should give it up," remarked a dry and unexpected voice at his +elbow. + +The man looked around and saw Ozias Lamb. "Ye don't think he'll do +it, do ye?" he cried, eagerly. + +"'Ain't got nothin' to say," replied Ozias. "I s'pose when a fool +does part with his money, there's always wise men 'nough to take it." + +John Upham, who, with some meagre little purchases in hand, had been +listening to the discussion, started for the door. When he had opened +it, he turned and faced them. "I'll tell ye one thing, all of ye," he +said, "an' that is, _he'll_ do it." + +There was a clamor of astonishment. "How d'ye know it? Did he tell ye +so?" they shouted. + +"Wait an' see," returned John Upham, and went out. + +Plodding along his homeward road, a man passed him at a rapid stride. +John Upham started. "Hullo, J'rome," he called, but getting no +response, thought he had been mistaken. + +However, the man was Jerome, but the tumult of his soul almost +deafened him to voices of the flesh. He was, for the time, out of the +plane of purely physical sounds on one of the spirit, full of +unutterable groanings and strivings. + +When Jerome had received the news of his legacy, he had felt, for the +first time in his whole life, the joy of sudden acquisition and +possession. His head reeled with it; he was, in a sense, intoxicated. +"Am I rich? _I--I?_" he asked himself. Pleasures hitherto out of his +imagination of possession seemed to float within his reach on this +golden tide of wealth. + +He would have been more than man had not this first grasp of the +divining-rod of the pleasures of earth filled him with the lust of +them. Even his love for Lucina, and his parents and sister, seemed +for a while subverted by that love for himself, to which the chance +of its gratification gave rise. Vanities which he had never known +within his nature, and petty emulations, rose thick, like a crop of +weeds on a rich soil. He saw himself in broadcloth and fine linen, +with a great festoon of gold chain on his breast and a gold watch in +pocket, walking with haughty flourishes of a cane, or riding in his +own carriage. He saw himself in a new house, grander than Doctor +Prescott's; he saw his parlor more richly furnished, _his_ wife, +_his_ mother and sister more finely attired than any women in the +village, _his_ father throned like a king in the late sunshine of +life. Jerome had usually sound financial judgment and conservative +estimate of the value of money, but now he thought of twenty-five +thousand dollars as almost unlimited wealth. + +That night, after he had the news from Lawyer Means, he could not +sleep until nearly morning. He lay awake, spending, mentally, +principal and interest of his little fortune over and over, and +spending, besides that, much of the singleness and unselfishness of +his own heart. + +However, after an hour or two of sleep, which seemed to turn, as +sleep sometimes will, the erratic currents of his mind back into the +old channels, from which it had been forced by this earthquake stress +of life, he experienced a complete revulsion. + +He remembered--what he had either forgotten or ignored--the scene in +the store, his vow, the drawing up of the document which registered +it. He awoke into this memory as into a chilling atmosphere, and went +down-stairs with a grave face. He met his mother's and sister's +almost hysterical delight, which had not abated overnight, his +father's child-like wonder and admiration, soberly; as soon as he +could, he got away to his work, which was still in the wood where his +mill had stood. Cheeseman had gone home, still Jerome was not alone +much of the day. People came to congratulate him, also out of +curiosity. The little village was wild over the legacy, and the +document concerning its division among the poor. + +There were two distinct factions, one upholding the belief that +Jerome would remain true to his promise, the other full of scoffing +and scorn at the insanity of it. Both factions invaded Jerome, and +while neither broached the matter directly, strove by indirect and +sly methods to ascertain his mind. + +"S'pose ye'll quit work now, J'rome; s'prised to see ye here this +mornin'," said one. + +"When ye goin' to run for Congress, J'rome?" asked another. + +Still another inquired, meaningly, with a sly wink at his comrades, +how much money he was going to allow for home missions? and another, +when he was going to Boston to buy his gold watch and chain? Until he +went home at night he was haunted by the doubtful attention of the +idle portion, just now large, of the village population. + +It was too early for planting, and quite recently the supply of work +from the Dale shoe-dealer had been scanty. People were at a loss to +account for it, as the business had increased during the last two +years, and many Upham men had been employed. Lately there had been a +rumor as to the cause, but few had given it credence. + +This afternoon, however, it was confirmed. Just before dark, a man, +breathless, as if he had been running, joined the knot of loafers. +"Well," he said, panting, "I've found out why the shoes have been so +scarce." + +The others stared at him, inquiringly. + +"That--durned varmint, over to Dale, he's bought the old +meetin'-house, an'--sent down to Boston fer--some machines, an'--he's +goin' to have a factory. There's no more handwork to be done; that's +the reason he's been holdin' it back." + +"How'd ye find it out? Who told ye?" asked one and another, scowling. + +"Saw 'em, with my own eyes, unloadin' of the new machines at the +railroad, an' saw the gang of men he's got to work 'em hangin' round +his store. It's the railroad that's done it. It's made freight to +Boston cheap enough so's he can make it pay. Robinson's goin' to give +up shoes here. I had it straight. He don't want to compete with +machine-work, and he don't want to put in machines himself. It was an +unlucky day for Upham when that railroad went through Dale." + +"Curse the railroad, an' curse all the new ideas that take the bread +out of poor men's mouths to give it to the rich," said a bitter +voice, and there was a hoarse amen from the crowd. + +"I'd give ten years of my life if I could raise enough money, or, if +a few of us together could raise enough money, to start a factory in +Upham," cried a man, fiercely, "then we'd see whether it was brains +as good as other men's that were lacking!" + +The man, who had not been there long, was quite young, not much older +than Jerome, and had a keen, thin face, with nervous red spots coming +and going in his cheeks, and fiery, deep-set eyes. He had the +reputation of being very smart and energetic, and having considerable +self-taught book-knowledge. He had a wife and two babies, and was, if +the truth were told, staying away from home that day that his wife, +who was a delicate, anxious young thing, might think he was at work. +He had eaten nothing since morning. + +"We shouldn't be no better off, if you put machines in your factory," +said a squat, elderly man, with a surly overhanging brow and a dull +weight of jaw. + +"I guess we who are not too old to learn could run machines as well +as anybody, if we tried," returned the young man, scornfully; "and as +for the rest, handwork is always going to have a market value, and +there'll always be some sort of a demand for it. It would go hard if +we couldn't give those that couldn't run machines something to do, if +we had the factory; but we haven't, and, what's more, we sha'n't +have." As he spoke, he went over to Jerome, who was prying up a +heavy log, and lifted with him. + +"Do you think you could form a company, if you had enough money +between you?" Jerome asked him. + +"Yes, of course; we'd be fools if we didn't," he said. + +"I say, curse the railroads and the machines! I wish every railroad +track in the country was tore up! I wish every train of cars was +kindlin'-wood, an' all the engine wheels an' the machine wheels would +lock, till the crack of doom!" shouted the bitter voice again. + +"There's no use in damning progress because we happen to be in the +way of it. I'd rather be run over than lock the wheels myself," +Jerome said, suddenly. + +"It remains to be seen whether ye would or not," the voice returned, +with sarcastic meaning. There was a smothered chuckle from the crowd, +which began to disperse; the shadows were getting thick in the wood. + +After supper that night, Jerome went up to his room, and sat down at +his window. His curtain was pulled high. He looked out into the +darkness and tried to think, but directly a door slammed, and a +shrill babble of feminine tongues began in the room below. Belinda +Lamb had arrived. + +Jerome got his hat, stole softly down-stairs, and out of the front +door. "I've got to be alone somewhere, where I can think," he said to +himself, and forthwith made for the site of his mill; he could be +sure of solitude there at that hour. + +When he arrived, he sat down on a pile of logs and gazed unseeingly +at the broad current of the brook, silvering out of the shadows to +the light of a young moon. The roar of it was loud in his ears, but +he did not seem to hear it. There are times when the spirit of the +living so intensifies that it comes into a silence and darkness of +nature like death. + +Jerome, in the solitude of the woods, without another human soul +near, could concentrate his own into full action. As he sat there, he +began to defend his own case like a lawyer against a mighty opponent, +whom he recognized from the dogmas of orthodoxy, and also from an +insight inherited from generations of Calvinistic ancestors, as his +own conscience. + +Jerome presented his case tersely, the arguments were all clearly +determined beforehand. "This twenty-five thousand dollars," he said, +"will lift me and mine out of grinding poverty. If I give it up, my +father and mother and sister will have none of it. Father has come +home unfit for any further struggles; mother has aged during the last +few days. She was nerved up to bear trouble, the shock of joy has +taken her last strength. She can do little now. This money will make +them happy and comfortable through their last days. If I give up this +money, they may come to want. I have lost my work in Dale, like the +rest; I may not be able to get a living, even; we may all suffer. +This money will give my sister a marriage-portion, and possibly +influence Doctor Prescott to favor his son's choice. If that does +not, my failure to carry out my part of the agreement, and the +doctor's consequent release from his, may influence him to make no +further opposition. If I give the money, and so force the doctor to +give his, or put him to shame for refusing, Elmira can never marry +Lawrence. I can give more to Uncle Ozias than he would receive as his +share of a common division. I can send Henry Judd to Boston to have +his eyes cured. And--I can marry Lucina Merritt. She loves me, she is +waiting for me. I have not answered her letter. She is wondering now +why I do not come. If I give up the money, I can never marry her--I +can never come." + +Then the great still voice, which was, to his conception, within him, +yet without, through all nature, had its turn, and Jerome listened. + +Then he answered, fiercely, as to spoken arguments. "I know the whole +is greater than the parts; I know that to make a whole village +prosperous and happy is more than the welfare of three or four, but +the three and the four come first, and that which I would have for +myself is divine, and of God, and I cannot be what I would be without +it, for no man who hungers gets his full strength. If I give this, it +is all. I can make no more of my life." + +He looked as if he listened again for a moment, and then stood up. +"Well," he said, "it is true, if a man gives his all he can do no +more, and no more can be asked of him. What I have said I will do, I +will do, and I will save neither myself nor mine by a lie which I +must lie to--my own soul!" + +Jerome went down the path to the road, but stopped suddenly, as if he +had got a blow. "Oh, my God!" he cried, "Lucina!" All at once a +consideration had struck him which had never fully done so before. +All at once he grasped the possibility that Lucina might suffer from +his sacrifice as much as he. "I can bear it--myself," he groaned, +"but Lucina, Lucina; suppose--it should kill her--suppose it +should--break her heart. I am stronger to suffer than she. If I could +bear hers and mine, if I could bear it all. Oh, Lucina, I cannot hurt +_you_--I cannot, I cannot! It is too much to ask. God, I _cannot!_" + +Jerome stood still, in an involuntary attitude of defiance. His arm +was raised, his fist clinched, as if for a blow; his face uplifted +with stern reprisal; then his arm dropped, his tense muscles relaxed. +"I could not marry her if I did not give it up," he said. "I should +not be worthy of her; there is no other way." + + + + +Chapter XXXVIII + + +Jerome went to Lawyer Means's that night. Means, himself, answered +his knock, and Jerome opened abruptly upon the subject in his mind. +"I want to give away that money, as I said I would," he declared. + +The lawyer peered above a flaring candle into the darkness. "Oh, it +is you, is it! Come in." + +"No, I can't come in. It isn't necessary. I have nothing to say but +that. I want to give away the money, according to that paper you drew +up, and I want you to arrange it." + +"You've made up your mind to keep that fool's promise, have you?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Look here, young man, have you thought this over?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"You know what you're going to lose. You remember that your own +family--your father and mother and sister--can't profit by the gift?" + +"Yes, sir; I have thought it all over." + +"Do you realize that if you stick to your part of the bargain, it +does not follow that the doctor and Basset will stick to theirs?" + +Jerome stared at him. "Didn't they sign that document before +witnesses?" + +The lawyer laughed. "That document isn't worth the paper it's written +on. It was all horse-play. Didn't you know that, Jerome?" + +"Did the doctor and Basset know it?" + +"The doctor did. He wouldn't have signed, otherwise. As for +Basset--well, I don't know, but if he comes and asks me, as he will +before he unties his purse strings, I shall tell him the truth about +it, as I'm bound to, and not a dollar will he part with after he +finds out that he hasn't got to. You can judge for yourself whether +Doctor Seth Prescott is likely to fling away a fourth of his property +in any such fool fashion as this." + +"Well, I don't know that it makes any difference to me whether they +give or not," said Jerome, proudly. + +"Do you mean that you will abide by your part of the agreement if the +others do not abide by theirs?" + +"I mean, that I keep my promise when I can; and if every other man +under God's footstool breaks his, it is no reason why I should break +mine." + +"That sounds very fine," said the lawyer, dryly; "but do you realize, +my young friend, how far your large fortune alone would go when +divided among the poor of this village?" + +"Yes, sir; I have reckoned it up. There are about one hundred who +would come under the terms of the agreement. My money alone, divided +among them, would give about two hundred and fifty dollars apiece." + +"That is a large sum." + +"It is large to a man who has never seen fifty dollars at once in his +hand, and it is large when several unite and form a company for a new +factory, with machines." + +"Do you think they will do that?" + +"Yes, sir. Henry Eames will set it going; give him a chance." + +"Why don't you, instead of parting with your money, set up the +factory yourself, and employ the whole village?" + +"That is not what I said I would do, and it is better for the village +to employ itself. I might fail, or my factory might go, as my mill +has." + +"How long do you suppose it will be that every man will have his two +hundred and fifty dollars after you have given it to him? Tell me +that, if you can." + +"That isn't my lookout." + +"Why isn't it your lookout? A careless giver is as bad as a thief, +sir." + +"I am not a careless giver," replied Jerome, stoutly. "I can't tell, +and no man can tell, how long they will keep what I give them, or how +long it will be before the stingiest and wisest get their shares away +from the weak; but that is no more reason why I should not give this +money than it is a reason why the Lord Almighty should not furnish us +all with fingers and toes, and our five senses, and our stomachs." + +"You might add, our immortal souls, which the parsons say we'll get +snatched away from us if we don't watch out," said Means, with a +short laugh. "Well, Jerome, it is too late for me to attend to this +business to-night. I am worn out, too, by what I have been through +lately. Come to-morrow, and, if you are of the same mind, we'll fix +it up." + +Somewhat to Jerome's surprise, the lawyer extended a lean, brown hand +for his, which he shook warmly, with a hearty "Good-night, sir." + +"I don't believe he was trying to hinder me from giving it, after +all," Jerome thought, as he went down the hill. + +Eliphalet Means, shuffling in loose slippers, returned to his +sitting-room, where were John Jennings and Eben Merritt. There were +no cards, and no punch, and no conviviality for the three bereaved +friends that night. The three sat before the fire, and each smoked a +melancholy pipe, and each, when he looked at or spoke to the others, +looked and spoke, whatever his words might be, to the memory of their +dead comrade. + +The chair in which the Colonel had been used to sit stood a little +aloof, at a corner of the fireplace. Often one of the trio would eye +it with furtive mournfulness, looking away again directly without a +glance at the others. + +When Means entered, he was smiling, for the first time that evening. +"Well," he said, "I have seen something to-night that I have never +seen before, that I shall never see again, and that no man in this +town has ever seen before, or will see again, unless he lives till +the millennium." + +The others stared at him. "What d'ye mean?" asked the Squire. + +"I have seen something rarer than a white black-bird, and harder to +discover than the north pole. I have seen a poor man, clothed and in +his right mind, give away every dollar of a fortune within three days +after he got it." + +The two men looked at him, speechless. "He hasn't!" gasped the +Squire, finally. + +"He has." + +"By the Lord Harry!" + +"Well," said John Jennings, slowly, "if I had started out on a search +for such a man I should have wanted more than Diogenes's lantern." + +"And I should have called for blue-lights and rockets, the aurora +borealis, chain lightning, the solar system, and the eternal light of +nature, but I discovered him with a penny dip," said Eliphalet Means, +chuckling. He stood on the hearth before his two friends, his back to +the fire; it was a cool night, and he had got chilled at the open +door. + +"He is going to give away the whole of it?" John Jennings said, with +wondering rumination. + +"Every dollar." + +Means looked at them, all the shrewd humor faded out of his face. +"I've got something to tell both of you," he said, gravely; "and, +Eben, while I think of it, I have a letter that _he_ wanted given to +your daughter. Remind me to hand it over to you to take to her when +you go home to-night. I've got something to tell you; the time has +come; _he_ said it would. I didn't half believe it, God forgive me. I +tell you, I've got a keen scent for the bad in human nature, but he +had a keen one for the good. He'd have made a sharp counsel on the +right side. After _he_ got his money, he used to talk day and night +about the poverty of this town. He had a great heart. He--_wanted and +intended that twenty-five thousand dollars to go just the way it is +going_." The lawyer, with every word, shook his skinny right hand +before the others' faces; he paused a second and looked at them with +solemn impressiveness; then he continued: "He wanted to give that +twenty-five thousand dollars, in equal parts, to the poor of this +town, as indicated in that instrument which I drew up at Robinson's +for Prescott and Basset, but instead of giving it himself he left it +to Jerome Edwards to give. He said that it would amount to the same +thing, and I tried to argue him out of it. I did not believe any man +could stand the temptation of a fortune between his fingers, but _he_ +said Jerome Edwards could and would, and the money was as sure to go +as he intended it to as if he doled it out himself in dollars and +cents, and he was right. God bless him! And--_that twenty-five +thousand dollars is going just the way he meant it to go_." + + + + +Chapter XXXIX + + +The next day Jerome went again to Lawyer Means's. It was near noon +when he returned; he met many people on the road, and they all looked +at him strangely. Men stood in knots, and the hum of their +conversation died low when he drew near. They nodded to him with +curious respect and formality; after he had passed, the rumble of +voices began anew. One woman, whom he met just before he turned the +corner of his own road, stopped and held out a slender, trembling +hand. + +"I want to shake hands with you, J'rome," she said, in a sweet, +hysterical voice. Then she raised to his a worn face, with the +piteous downward lines of old tears at mouth and eyes, and a rasped +red, as of tears and frost, on thin cheeks. "That money is goin' to +save my little home for me; I didn't know but I'd got to go on the +town. God bless you, J'rome," she whispered, quaveringly. + +"The Colonel's the one to be thanked," Jerome said. + +"I come under that agreement, don't I?" she asked, anxiously. "They +told me that lone women without anybody to support 'em came under +it." + +"Yes, you do, Miss Patch." + +"Oh, God bless you, God bless you, J'rome Edwards!" she cried, with a +fervor strange upon a New England tongue. + +"Colonel Lamson is the one to have the thanks and the credit," Jerome +repeated, pushing gently past her. His face was hot. He wondered, as +he approached his house, if his own family had heard the news. As +soon as he opened the door he saw that they had. Elmira did not lift +a white, dumbly accusing face from her work; his father looked at him +with curious, open-mouthed wonder; his mother spoke. + +"I want to know if it's true," she said. + +"Yes, mother, it is." + +"You've given it all away?" + +"Yes, mother." + +"Your own folks won't get none of it?" + +Jerome shook his head. He had a feeling as if he were denying his own +flesh and blood; for the moment even his own conscience turned upon +him, and accused him of injustice and lack of filial love and +gratitude. + +Ann Edwards looked at her son, with a face of pale recrimination and +awe. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it without a word. "I +never had a black silk dress in my life," said she, finally, in a +shaking voice, and that was all the reproach which she ever offered. + +"You shall have a black silk dress anyhow, mother," Jerome replied, +piteously. He went out of the room, and his father got up and +followed him, closing the door mysteriously. + +"That was a good deal to give away, J'rome," he whispered. + +"I know it, father, and I'll work my fingers to the bone to make it +good to you and mother. That's all I've got to live for now." + +"J'rome," whispered the father, thrusting his old face into his +son's, with an angelic expression. + +"What is it, father?" + +"_You shall have my fifteen hundred, an' build a new mill._" + +"Father, I'd _die_ before I'd touch a dollar of your money!" cried +Jerome, passionately, and, tears in his eyes, flung away out to the +barn, whither he was bound, to feed the horse. + +He watched all day for a chance to speak alone to Elmira, but she +gave him none, until after supper that night. Then, when he beckoned +her into the parlor, she followed him. + +"Elmira," he said, "don't feel any worse about this than you can +help. I had to do it." + +"If you care more about strangers than you do about your own, that is +all there is to it," she said, in a quiet voice, looking coldly in +his face. + +"Elmira, it isn't that. You don't understand." + +"I have said all I have to say." + +"Let me tell you--" + +"I have heard all I want to." + +"Elmira, don't give up so. Maybe things will be brighter somehow. I +had to do my duty." + +"It is a noble thing to do your duty," she said, with a bitter smile +on her little face. Elmira, that night, seemed like a stranger to +Jerome, and maybe to herself. Despair had upstirred from the depths +of her nature strange, tigerish instincts, which otherwise might have +slept there unmanifest forever. She also had not failed to appreciate +Jerome's action in all its bearings upon herself and Lawrence +Prescott, and, when she heard of it, had given up all her longing +hope of happiness. + +"You have to do it, whether it is noble or not," returned Jerome. + +"Of course," said she, "and if your sister is in the way of it, +trample her down; don't stop for that." She went out, but turned +back, and added, harshly, "I saw Jake Noyes this afternoon on my way +home. He was coming here to ask you to go up to Doctor Prescott's +this evening; he wants to see you. If he says anything about me, you +can tell him that as long as he and you do your duty, I am satisfied. +I ask nothing more, not even his precious son." Elmira rushed across +the entry, with a dry sob. Jerome stood still a moment; it seemed to +him that he had undertaken more than he could bear. A dreadful +thought came to him; suppose Lucina were to look upon him as his +sister did. Suppose she were to take it all in the same way. It did +not seem as if she could, but she was a woman, like his sister, and +how could he tell? + +Jerome got his hat and went to Doctor Prescott's. He wondered why he +had been summoned there, and braced himself for almost anything in +the way of contumely, but with no dread of it. The prospect of +legitimate combat, where he could hit back, acted like a stimulant +after his experience with his sister. + +Lawrence Prescott answered his knock, and Jerome wondered, vaguely, +at his radiant welcome. He shook his hand with warm emphasis. "Father +is in the study," he said; "walk right in--walk right in, Jerome." +Then he added, speaking close to Jerome's ear, "God bless you, old +fellow!" + +Jerome gave an astonished glance at him as he went into the study, +whose door stood open. Doctor Prescott was seated at his desk, his +back towards the entrance. + +"Good-evening. Sit down," he said, curtly, without turning his head. + +"Good-evening, sir," replied Jerome, but remained standing. He stood +still, and stared, with that curious retrospection into which the +mind can often be diverted from even its intensest channels, at the +cases of leather-bound books and the grimy medicine-bottles, green +and brown with the sediments of old doses, which had so impressed him +in his childhood. He saw, with an acute throb of memory, the old +valerian bottle, catching the light like liquid ruby. He had stepped +back so completely into his past, of a little, pitiful suppliant, yet +never wholly intimidated, boy, in this gloomy, pungent interior, that +he started, as across a chasm of time, when the doctor arose, came +forward, and spoke again. "Be seated," he said, with an imperious +wave towards a chair, and took one for himself. + +Jerome sat down; in spite of himself, as he looked at the doctor +opposite, the same old indignant, yet none the less vital, sense of +subjection in the presence of superiority was over him as in his +childhood. He saw again Doctor Seth Prescott as the incarnation of +force and power. There was, in truth, something majestic about the +man--he was an autocrat in a narrow sphere; but his autocracy was +genuine. The czar of a little New England village may be as real in +quality as the Czar of all the Russias. + +The doctor began to speak, moving his finely cut lips with clear +precision. + +"I understand," said he, "that you have fulfilled the promise which +you made in my presence several years ago, to give away twenty-five +thousand dollars, should such a sum be given to you. Am I right in so +understanding?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Do you know that the instrument, drawn up by Lawyer Means at that +time is illegal, that no obligation stated therein could be +enforced?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Who told you--Mr. Means?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Before you gave the money or after?" + +"Before." + +"You know that I am not under the slightest legal restriction to give +the sum for which I stand pledged in that instrument, even though you +have fulfilled your part of the agreement." + +"It depends upon what you consider a legal restriction." + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"I mean that I make no promise which is not a legal restriction upon +myself," replied Jerome, with a proud look at the other man. + +"Neither do I," returned the doctor, with a look as proud; "but your +remark is simply a quibble, which we will pass over. I say again, +that I am under no legal restriction, in the common acceptance of +that term, to give a fourth part of my property to the poor of this +town. That you admit?" + +Jerome nodded. + +"Well, sir," said the doctor, "knowing that fact myself, having it +admitted by you and all others, I have yet determined to abide by my +part of that instrument, and relinquish one fourth part of the +property of which I stand possessed." + +Jerome started; he could scarcely believe his ears. + +"But," the doctor continued, "since I am in no wise bound by the +terms of the instrument, as drawn up by Lawyer Means, I propose to +alter some of them, as I deem judicious for the public welfare. +One-fourth of my property, which consists largely of real estate, +cannot manifestly be given in ready money without great delay and +loss. Therefore I propose giving to a large extent in land, and in a +few cases liquidations of mortgage deeds; and--I also propose giving +in such proportions and to such individuals as I shall approve and +select; a strictly indiscriminate division is directly opposed to my +views. I trust that you do not consider that this method is to be +objected to on the grounds of any infringement upon my legal +restrictions." + +"No, sir, I don't," replied Jerome. + +"There is one other point, then I have done," said Doctor Prescott. +"I have withdrawn my objection to my son's marriage with your sister. +That is all. I have said and heard all I wish, and I will not detain +you any longer." Doctor Prescott looked at him with a pale and +forbidding majesty in his clear-cut face. Jerome arose, and was +passing out without a word, as he was bidden, when the old man held +out his hand. He had the air of extending a sceptre, and a haughty +downward look, as if the whole world, and his own self, were under +his feet. Jerome shook the proffered hand, and went. His hand was on +the latch of the outer door, when the sitting-room door on the left +opened, and he felt himself enveloped, as it were, in a softly +gracious feminine presence, made evident by wide rustlings of silken +skirts, pointed foldings of lavender-scented white wool over +out-stretched arms, and heaving waves of white lace over a high, +curving bosom. Doctor Prescott's wife drew Jerome to her as if he +were still a child, and kissed him on his cheek. "Give your sister my +fondest love, and may God give you your own reward, dear boy," she +said, in her beautiful voice, which was like no other woman's for +sweetness and softness, though she was as large as a queen. + +Then she was gone, and Jerome went home, with the scent of lavender +from her laces and silks and white wools still in his nostrils, and a +subtler sweetness of womanhood and fine motherhood dimly perceived in +his soul. + +When he got home, he knew, by the light in the parlor windows, that +Lawrence was with his sister. He had been in bed some time before he +heard the front door shut. + +Elmira, when she came up-stairs, opened his door a crack, and +whispered, in a voice tremulous with happiness, "Jerome, you asleep?" + +"No." + +"Do--you know--about Lawrence and me?" + +"Yes; I'm real glad, Elmira." + +"I hope you'll forgive me for speaking to you the way I did, Jerome." + +"That's all right, Elmira." + + + + +Chapter XL + + +The next morning Jerome was just going out of the yard when he met +Paulina Maria Judd and Henry coming in. Paulina Maria held her blind +son by the hand, but he walked with an air of resisting her guidance. + +"J'rome, I've come to see you about that money," said Paulina Maria. +"I hear you're goin' to give us two hundred and fifty dollars. I told +you once we wouldn't take your money." + +"This is different. This is the money Colonel Lamson left me, that +I'd agreed to give away." + +"It ain't any different to us. You can keep it." + +"I sha'n't keep it, anyway. For God's sake, aunt, take it! Henry, +take it, and get your eyes cured!" + +"I sha'n't take money that's given in any such way, and neither will +my son. I haven't changed my mind about what I said the other night, +and neither has he. You need this money yourself. If the money had +been left to us, it would have been different; we sha'n't take it, +and you needn't offer it to us; you can count us out in your +division. We sha'n't take what Doctor Prescott has offered +neither--to give us the mortgage on our house. It's an honest debt, +and we don't want to shirk it. If we're paupers, we'll be paupers of +God, but of no man!" + +"Henry," pleaded Jerome, "just listen to me." But it was of no +avail. His cousin turned his blind face sternly away from his +pleading voice, and went out of the yard, still seeming to strive +against his mother's leading hand. + +Jerome followed them, still arguing with them; he even walked with +them a little, after the turn of the road. Then he gave it up, and +went on to the store, where he had an errand. He resolved to see +Adoniram, and try to influence him to take the money for his blind +son. He could not believe that he would not do so. Long before he +reached the store he could hear the gabble of excited voices, and +loud peals of rough laughter. "What's going on?" he thought. When he +entered, he saw Simon Basset backed up against a counter, at bay, as +it were, before a great throng of village men and boys. Basset was +deathly white through his grime and beard-stubble, his gaunt jaws +snapping like a wolf's, his eyes fierce with terror. + +"Shell out, Simon," shouted a young man, with a butting motion of a +shock head towards the old man. "Shell out, I tell ye, or ye'll have +a writ served on ye." + +"I tell ye I won't; ye don't know nothin' about it; I 'ain't got no +property!" shrieked Simon Basset, amidst a wild burst of laughter. + +"He 'ain't got no property, he 'ain't, hi!" shouted the boys on the +outskirts, with peals of goblin merriment. + +"I tell ye I 'ain't got more'n five thousand dollars to my name!" + +"You 'ain't, eh? Where's all your land, you old liar?" asked the +young man, who seemed spokesman for the crowd. + +"It ain't wuth nothin'. I couldn't sell it to-day if I wanted to." + +"Gimme the land, then, an' we'll take the risk," was the cry. "J'rome +and the doctor have shelled out; now it's your turn, or you'll hev +the officers after ye." + +Jerome pushed his way through the crowd. "What are you scaring him +for?" he demanded. "He's an old man, and you ought to be ashamed of +yourselves." + +"He ain't more'n seventy," replied the young man, "an' he's smart as +a cricket--he's smart enough to gouge the whole town, old 's he is." + +"That's so, Eph!" chorused his supporters. + +Jerome grasped Basset by the shoulder. "Don't you know you are not +obliged to give a dollar, if you don't want to?" he asked. "That +paper wasn't legal." + +The old man shrank before him with craven terror, and yet with the +look of a dog which will snap when he sees an unwary hand. "Ye don't +git me into none of yer traps," he snarled. "What made Doctor +Prescott give anythin'?" + +"He gave because he wanted to keep his promise, not because he was +forced to by that paper." + +"Likely story," said Simon Basset. + +"I tell you it's so." + +"Likely story, Seth Prescott ever give it if he wa'n't obliged to. Ye +can't trap me." + +"Go and ask him, if you don't believe me," said Jerome. + +"Ye don't trap me, I'm too old." + +"Go and ask Lawyer Means, then." + +"I guess, when ye git me into that pesky lawyer's clutches, ye'll +know it! Ye can't trap me. I guess I know more about law than ye do, +ye damned little upstart ye! Why couldn't ye have kept your dead +man's shoes to home, darn ye? Ye'll come on the town yerself, yet; ye +won't have money enough to pay fer your buryin', an' I hope to God ye +won't! Curse ye! I'll live to see ye in your pauper's grave yet, old +'s I be. Ye _thief!_ I tell ye, I 'ain't got no money. I 'ain't got +more'n five thousand dollars, countin' everythin' in the world, an' +I'll see ye all damned to hell afore I'll give ye a dollar. Let me +out, will ye?" Simon Basset made a clawing, cat-like rush through +the crowd to the door. + +"I tell you, Simon Basset, you haven't got to give a dollar," shouted +Jerome; but he might as well have shouted to the wind. + +"No use, J'rome," chuckled the shock-headed young man, "he's gone +plumb crazy over it. You can't make him listen to nothin'." + +"What do you mean, badgering him so?" cried Jerome, angrily. + +"He's a mean old cuss, anyhow," said the young man, with a defiant +laugh. + +"That's so! Serves him right," grunted the others. They were all much +younger than Jerome, and many of them were mere boys. It seemed +strange that a man as sharp as Basset had taken them seriously. + +Jerome, the more he thought it over, was convinced that Simon Basset +was half crazed with the fear of parting with his money. When he came +out of the store, he hesitated; he was half inclined to follow Basset +home, and try to reason him into some understanding of the truth. +Then, remembering his violent attitude towards himself, he decided +that it would be useless, and went home. He planned to plough his +garden that day. + +"I've got to work at something," Jerome told himself; "if it isn't +one thing, it's got to be another." He dwelt always upon Lucina: +what she was thinking of him; if she thought that he did not love +her, because he had given her up; if she would look at him, if she +were to see him, as his sister had done the night before. Jerome had +not yet answered Lucina's letter. He did not know how to answer it; +but he carried it with him night and day. + +He went home, got his horse and plough, and fell to work in his hilly +garden ground. His father came out and sat on a stone and watched him +happily. Jerome was scarcely accustomed to his father yet, but he +treated him as tenderly as if he were a child, and the old man +followed him like one. Indeed, he seemed to prefer his son to his +wife, though Ann watched him with jealous affection. Ann Edwards had +never walked since the night of her husband's return. She never +alluded to it; sometimes her children thought that she had not known +it herself. + +Jerome was still ploughing in the afternoon when his uncle Ozias Lamb +came. + +Ozias stumped softly through the new-turned mould. He had a folded +paper in his hand, and he extended it towards Jerome. "D'ye know +anythin' about this?" he asked. His face was ashy. + +Jerome brought his horse to a stand. "What is it?" + +"Don't ye know?" + +"No, I don't." + +"Well, it's that mortgage deed that Basset held on my place, +with--the signature torn off, cancelled--" Ozias said, in a hoarse +voice. "D'ye know anythin' about it now?" + +"No, I don't," replied Jerome, with emphasis. + +"Well," said Ozias, "I found it under the front door-sill. Belindy +said she heard a knock on the front door, but when she went there +wa'n't nobody there, an' there was this paper. She come runnin' out +to the shop with it. It was jest before noon. What d'ye s'pose it +means?" + +Jerome took the deed and examined it closely. "Have you read what's +written above the heading of it?" he asked. + +"No; what is it, J'rome?" + +Ozias put on his spectacles; Jerome pointed to a crabbed line above +the heading of the mortgage deed. + +"I giv as present the forth part of my proputty, this morgidge to +Ozier Lamm. + + "Simon Basset." + +"He's took crazy!" cried Ozias, staring wildly at it. + +"Guess he's been crazy over dollars and cents all his life, and this +is just an acute phase of it," replied Jerome, calmly, taking up his +plough handles again. + +"I b'lieve the hull town's crazy. I've heard that Doctor Prescott has +give his place back to John Upham, an' Peter Thomas is comin' out of +the poor-farm an' goin' back to his old house. J'rome, I declar' to +reason, I b'lieve you're crazy, an' the hull town has caught it. +What's that? Who's comin'?" + +A wild-eyed little boy, with fair hair stiff to the breeze, came +racing across the plough ridges. "Come quick! Come quick!" he gasped. +"They've sent me--Doctor Prescott's ain't to home--he's most dead! +Come quick!" + +"Where to?" shouted Jerome, pulling the tackle off the horse. + +"Come quick, J'rome!" + +"Where _to?_" + +"Speak up, can't ye?" cried Ozias, shaking the boy by his small +shoulder. + +"To Basset's!" screamed the boy, shrilly, jerked away from Ozias, and +was off, clearing the ground like a hound, with long leaps. + +"Lord," said Ozias, looking at the deed, "it's killed him!" + +Jerome had freed the horse from the plough, and now sprang upon his +back. + +"Ye ain't goin' to ride him bare-back?" asked Ozias. + +"I'm not going to stop for a saddle. G'long!" Jerome bent forward, +slapped the horse on the neck, dug his heels into his sides, and was +off at a gallop. + +Ozias followed, still clutching the deed. Abel Edwards came out as he +reached the house. "Where's J'rome goin' to?" he asked. + +"Down to Basset's; somethin's happened. He's fell dead or somethin'. +I'm goin' to see what the matter is." + +"Wait till I git my hat, an' I'll go with ye." + +The two old men went at a fast trot down the road, and many joined +them, all hurrying to Simon Basset's. + +They had reached Lawyer Means's house, which stood in sight of +Basset's, before they met a returning company. "It's no use your +goin'," shouted a man in advance. "He's gone. J'rome Edwards said so +the minute he see him, an' now Doctor Prescott he's come, an' he says +so. He was dead before they cut him down." + +With the throng of excited men and boys came one pale-faced, elderly +woman, with her cap awry and her apron over her shoulders. She was +Miss Rachel Blodgett, Eliphalet Means's house-keeper. + +She took up her position by the Means's gate, and the crowd gathered +about her as a nucleus. Other women came running out of neighboring +houses, and pressed close to her skirts. Cyrus Robinson's son pushed +before her, and, when she began to speak in a strained treble, +overpowered it with a coarse volume of bass. "Let me tell what I've +got to first," he ordered, importantly. "My part comes first, then +it's your turn. I've got to go back to the store. It was just about +noon that Simon Basset come in ag'in and asked for a piece of rope. +Said he wanted it to tie his cow with. I got out some rope, and he +tried to beat me down on it; asked me if I hadn't got some +second-hand rope I'd let him have a piece of. Finally I got mad, and +asked him why, if he wasn't willing to pay for rope what it was +worth, he didn't use a halter or his clothes-line. + +"He whined out that his halter was broke, and he hadn't had a +clothes-line for years. That last I believed, quick enough, for I +knew he didn't ever have any washing done. + +"Then I asked him why he didn't steal a rope if he was too poor to +pay for it, and he said he was too poor. He wasn't worth more than +five thousand dollars in the world, and he'd given away all he was +going to of that. When he got started on that, he ripped and raved +the way he did this morning; hang it, if I didn't begin to think he +was out of his mind. Then he went off, about ten minutes past twelve, +without his rope. I suppose there were pieces of rope enough around, +but I got mad, he acted so darned mean about it, and wouldn't hunt it +up for him, and I'm glad now I didn't." + +Rachel Blodgett, who had been teetering with eagerness on her thin +old ankles, interposing now and then sharp quavers of abortive +speech, cut short Robinson's last words with the impetuosity of her +delivered torrent. "I washed to-day," said she. "I didn't wash +yesterday because it wasn't a good drying-day, and last week I had my +clothes around three days in the tub, and I made up my mind I +wouldn't do it again. So I washed to-day. + +"I got my clothes all hung out before dinner. I had an uncommon heavy +wash to-day, an extra table-cloth--Mr. Means tipped his coffee over +yesterday morning--and the sheets of the spare chamber bed were in, +so I put up a little piece of line I had, between those two trees, +beside my regular clothes-line. + +"About an hour ago I thought to myself the clothes ought to be dry, +and I'd just step out and look. So I run out, and there were the +clothes I'd hung on the little line--some dish-towels, and two of my +aprons, and one of Mr. Means's shirts--down on the ground in the +dirt, and the line was gone. Thinks I, 'Where's that line gone to?' + +"I stood there gaping, I couldn't make head or tail of it. Then I see +the little Crossman boy out in the yard, and I hollered to +him--'Willy,' says I, 'come here a minute.' + +"He come running over, and I asked him if he'd seen anybody in our +yard since noon. He said he hadn't seen anybody but Mr. Basset. He +saw him coming out of our yard tucking something under his coat. + +"That put me on the track. If I do say it of the dead, and one that's +gone to his account in an awful way, Mr. Basset had been over here +time and time again, and helped himself. I ain't going to say he +stole; he helped himself. He helped himself to our kindling wood, and +our hammer, and our spade, and our rake. After the spade went, I made +a notch on the rake-handle so I could tell it, and when that went, I +slipped over to Mr. Basset's one day when I knew he wasn't there, and +there was our rake in his shed. I said nothing to nobody, but I just +brought our rake home again, and I hid it where he didn't find it +again. Mr. Means, though he's a lawyer, looks out sharper for other +folks' belongings than he does for his own. He'd never say anything; +he went and bought another spade and hammer, and he'd bought another +rake if I hadn't got that. + +"When that little Crossman boy said he'd seen Mr. Basset coming out +of our yard tucking something under his coat, it put me right on the +track, though I couldn't think what he wanted with that little piece +of rope. I should have thought he wanted it to mend a harness with, +but his old horse died last winter; folks said he didn't have enough +to eat, but I ain't going to pass any judgment on that, and I knew he +sold his old harness, because the man he sold it to had been to Mr. +Means to get damages for being taken in. The harness had broke, and +his horse had run away, and the man declared that that harness had +been glued together in places. + +"But I don't know anything about that. The poor man is dead, and if +he glued his harness, it's for him to give account of, not me. I +couldn't think what he wanted that rope for, but I felt mad. The rope +wasn't worth much, but it was his helping himself to it, without +leave or license, that riled me, and there were my clean clothes all +down in the dirt--there they are now, you can see 'em there--and I +knew I'd got to wash 'em over. + +"So I made up my mind I'd got spunk enough, and I'd go right over +there and tell Simon Basset I wanted my rope. So I took off my apron +and clapped it over my shoulders--I've had a little rheumatism +lately, and the wind's kind of cold to-day--and I run over there. + +"I--don't know what came over me. When I got to the house, a chill +struck all through my bones. I trembled like a leaf. I felt as if +something had happened. I thought, at first, I'd turn around and go +home, and then I thought I wouldn't be so silly, that it was just +nerves, and nothing had happened. I went round to the side door, and +I didn't see him puttering around anywhere, so I peeked into the +wood-shed. I thought if I saw my rope there I'd just take it, and run +home and say nothing to nobody. + +"But I didn't see it, so I went back to the door and knocked. I +knocked three times, and nobody came. Then I opened the door a crack, +and hollered--'Mr. Basset!' says I, 'Mr. Basset!' + +"I called a number of times, then I got out of patience. I thought +he'd gone away somewhere, and I might as well go in and see if I +couldn't find my rope. So I opened the door wide and stepped in. + +"It was awful still in there--somehow the stillness seemed to hit my +ears. It was just like a tomb. That dreadful horror came over me +again. I felt the cold stealing down my back. I made up my mind I'd +just peek into the kitchen, and if I didn't see my rope, I wouldn't +look any farther; I'd go home. + +"So--the kitchen door was ajar, and I pushed it, and it swung open, +and--I looked, and there--there!" + +Suddenly the woman's shrill monologue was intensified by hysteria. +She pointed wildly, as if she saw again the awful sight which she had +seen through that open door. + +"There, there!" she shrieked--"there! He was--there--oh--Willy--the +doctor--Jerome Edwards--Willy--oh, there, there!" She caught her +breath with choking sobs, she laughed, and the laugh ended in a +wailing scream; she clutched her throat, she struggled, she was +beside herself for the time, run off her track of reason by her +panic-stricken nerves. + +Two pale, chattering women, nearly as hysterical as she, led her, +weeping shrilly all the way, into the house, and the crowd dispersed; +some, whose curiosity was not yet satisfied, to seek the scene of the +tragedy, some to return home with the news. Two men of the latter, +walking along the village street, discussed the amount of the +property left by the dead man. "It's as much as fifty thousand +dollars," said one. + +"Every dollar of it," assented the other. + +"It ain't likely he's made a will. Who's goin' to heir it? He 'ain't +got a relation that I know of. All the folks I ever heard of his +havin', since I can remember, was his step-father an' his brother +Sam, an' they died twenty odd years ago." + +"Adoniram Judd's father was Simon Basset's mother's cousin." + +"He wa'n't." + +"Yes, he was. They both come from Westbrook, where I was born." + +"Now they can pay off the mortgage, and get Henry's eyes fixed." + +"Adoniram Judd ain't goin' to get all that money!" + +"I wouldn't sell ye his chance on 't for forty thousand dollars." + + + + +Chapter XLI + + +During Jerome's absence at Simon Basset's, Squire Eben Merritt's wife +came across lots to the Edwardses' house. A little red shawl over her +shoulders stood out triangularly to the gusts of spring wind; a +forked end of red ribbon on her bonnet fluttered sharply. Abigail +Merritt moved with nervous impetus across the fields, like an erratic +thread of separate purpose through an even web. All the red of the +spring landscape was in the swift passing of her garments. All that +was not in straight parallels of accord with the universal yielding +of nature to the simplest law of growth was in her soul. She passed +on her own errand, cutting, as it were, a swath of spirit through the +soft influence of the spring. Abigail Merritt's mouth was tightly +shut, her eyes were narrow gleams of resolution, there were red spots +on her cheeks. She had left Lucina weeping on the bed in her little +chamber; she had said nothing to her, nor her husband, but she had +resolved upon her own course of action. + +"It is time something was done," said Abigail Merritt, nodding to +herself in the glass as she tied on her bonnet, "and I am going to do +it." + +When she reached the Edwardses' house, she stepped briskly up the +path, bowing to Mrs. Edwards in the window, and Elmira opened the +door before she knocked. + +"Good-afternoon; I would like to see your brother a moment," Abigail +announced, abruptly. + +"He isn't at home," said Elmira; "something has happened at Simon +Basset's--I don't know what. A boy came after Jerome, and he hurried +off. Father's gone too." Elmira blushed all over her face and neck +as she spoke. "Jerome will be sorry he wasn't at home," she added. +She had a curious sense of innocent confusion over the situation. + +Mrs. Edwards blushed too, like an echo, though she gave her little +dark head an impatient toss. + +"Then please ask your brother if he will be so kind as to come to the +Squire's after supper to-night," she returned, in her smart, prettily +dictatorial way, and took leave at once, though Elmira urged her +politely to come in and rest and wait for her brother's return. + +She gave the message to Jerome when he came home. "What do you +suppose she wants of you?" she asked, wonderingly. Jerome shook his +head. + +"Why, you look as white as a sheet!" said Elmira, staring at him. + +"I've seen enough this afternoon to make any man look white," Jerome +replied, evasively. + +"Well, I suppose you have; it is awful about Simon Basset," Elmira +assented, shudderingly. + +Jerome had to force himself to his work after he had received Mrs. +Merritt's message. The tragedy of Simon Basset had given him a +terrible shock, and now this last set his nerves in a tumult in spite +of himself. + +"What can she want?" he questioned, over and over. "Shall I see +Lucina? What can her mother have to say to me?" + +One minute, thinking of Simon Basset, he stood convicted, to his +shame, of the utter despicableness of all his desires pertaining to +the earth and the flesh, by that clear apprehension of eternity which +often comes to one at the sight of sudden death. He settled with +himself that wealth and success and learning, and love itself even, +where as nothing beside that one surety of eternity, which holds the +sequence of good and evil, and is of the spirit. + +Then, in a wild rebellion of honesty, he would own to himself that, +whether he would have it so or not, to his understanding, still +hampered by the conditions of the flesh, perhaps made morbid by +resistance to them, but that he could not tell, love was the one +truth and reality and source of all things; that life was because of +love, not love because of life. + +Jerome set his mouth hard as he ploughed. The newly turned sods clung +to his feet and made them heavy, as the fond longings of the earth +clung to his soul. It seemed to Jerome that he had never loved Lucina +as he loved her then, that he had never wanted her so much. Also that +he had never been so firmly resolved to give her up. If Lucina had +seemed beyond his reach before, she seemed doubly so then, and her +new wealth loomed between them like an awful golden flood of +separation. "I have given away all my money," he said. "Shall I marry +a wife with money, to make good my loss?" He laughed at himself with +bitter scorn for the fancy. + +After supper, he dressed himself in his best clothes, and set out for +Squire Merritt's, evading as much as he could his mother's questions +and surmises. Ann's bitterness at his disposal of his money was +softened to loquacity by her curiosity. + +"I s'pose," said she, "that if that poor girl goes down on her knees +to you, an' tells you her heart is breakin', that you'll jest hand +her over to the town poor, the way you did your money." + +"Don't, mother," whispered Elmira, as Jerome went out, making no +response. + +"I'm goin' to say what I think 's best. I'm his mother," returned +Ann. But when Jerome was gone, she broke down and cried, and +complained that the poor boy hadn't eat any supper, and she was +afraid he'd be sick. Abel, sitting near her, snivelled softly for +sympathy, not fairly comprehending her cause for tears. When she +stopped weeping, and took up her knitting-work again, he drew a sigh +of relief and fell to eating an apple. + +As for Elmira, she tried to comfort her mother, and she had an +anxious curiosity about Jerome and his call at the Merritts'; but +Lawrence Prescott was coming that evening. + +Presently Ann heard her singing up-stairs in her chamber, whither she +had gone to curl her hair and change her gown. + +"I'm glad somebody can sing," muttered Ann; but in the depths of her +heart was a wish that her son, instead of her daughter, could have +had the reason for song, if it were appointed to one only. "Women +don't take things so hard as men," reasoned Ann Edwards. + +When Jerome knocked at Squire Merritt's door that evening, Mrs. +Merritt opened it. For a minute everything was dark before him; he +had thought that he might see Lucina. His voice sounded strange in +his own ears when he replied to Mrs. Merritt's greeting; he almost +reeled when he followed her into the parlor. It was a cool, spring +night, and there was a fire on the hearth. A silver branch of candles +on the mantel-shelf lit the room. + +Mrs. Merritt looked anxiously at Jerome as she placed a chair. "I +hope you are well," she said, in her quick way, but her voice was +kind. Jerome thought it sounded like Lucina's. He stammered that he +was quite well. + +"You look pale." + +When he made no response to that, she added, with a motherly cadence, +that he had been through a great deal lately; that she had felt very +sorry about the loss of his mill. + +Jerome thanked her. He sat opposite, in a great mahogany arm-chair, +holding himself very erect; but his pulses sang in his ears, and his +downcast eyes scanned the roses in the carpet. He did not understand +it, but he was for the moment like a school-boy before the aroused +might of feminity of this little woman. + +"It is partly about your mill that I want to see you," said Abigail +Merritt. "The Squire has something which he wishes to propose, but he +has begged me to do so for him. He thinks my chances of success are +better. I don't know about that," she finished, smiling. + +Jerome looked up then, with quick attention, and she came at once to +the point. Abigail Merritt, her mind once made up, was not a woman to +beat long about a bush. "The Squire has, as you know," she said, "a +legacy of five thousand dollars from poor Colonel Lamson. He wishes +to invest part of it. He would like to rebuild your mill." + +Jerome colored high. "Thank him, and thank you," he said; "but--" + +"He does not propose to give it to you," she interposed, quickly. "He +would not venture to propose that, however much he might like to do +so. His plan is to rebuild the mill, and for you to work it on +shares--you to have your share of the profits for your labor. You +could have the chance to buy him out later, when you were able." + +Jerome was about to speak, but Abigail interrupted again. "I beg you +not to make your final decision now," she said. "There is no +necessity for it. I would rather, too, that you gave your answer to +the Squire instead of me. I have nothing to do with it. It is simply +a proposition of the Squire's for you to consider at your leisure. +You know how much my husband has always thought of you since you were +a child. He would be glad to help you, and help himself at the same +time, if you will allow him to do so; but that can pass over. I have +something else of more importance to me to say. Jerome Edwards," said +she, suddenly, and there was a new tone in her voice, "I want you to +tell me just how matters stand between you and my daughter, Lucina. I +am her mother, and I have a right to know." + +Jerome looked at her. His handsome young face was very white. +"I--have been working hard to earn enough money to marry," he said, +speaking quick, as if his breath failed him. "I lost my mill. I will +not ask her to wait." + +"You had a fortune, but you gave it away," returned Mrs. Merritt. +"Well, we will not discuss that; that is not between you and me, or +any human being, if you did what you thought right. Lucina has twenty +thousand dollars, you know that?" + +Jerome nodded. "Yes," he replied, hoarsely. + +"What difference will it make whether you have the money or your +wife?" + +"It makes a difference to me," Jerome cried then, with that old flash +of black eyes which had intimidated the little girl Lucina in years +past. + +"And yet you say you love my daughter," said Mrs. Merritt, looking at +him steadily. + +"I love her so much that I would lay down my life for her!" Jerome +cried, fiercely, and there was a flare of red over his pale face. + +"But not so much that you would sacrifice one jot or one tittle of +your pride for her," responded Abigail Merritt, with sharp scorn. +Suddenly she sprang up from her chair and stood before the young man, +every nerve in her slight body quivering with the fire of eloquence. +"Now listen, Jerome Edwards," said she. "I know who and what you are, +and I know who and what my daughter is. I give you your full due. You +have traits which are above the common, and out of the common; some +which are noble, and some which render you dangerous to the peace of +any one who loves you. I give you your full due, and I give my +daughter hers. I can say it without vanity--it is the simple +truth--Lucina has had her pick and choice among many. She could have +wedded, had she chosen, in high stations. She has a face and +character which win love for her wherever she goes. I am not here to +offer or force my daughter upon any unwilling lover. If I had not +been sure, from what she has told me, and from what I have observed, +that you were perfectly honest in your affection for her, I should +not have sent for you to-night. I--" + +She stopped, for Jerome burst out with a passion which startled her. +"Honest! Oh, my God! I love her so that I am nothing without her. I +love her more than the whole world, more than my own life!" + +"Then give up your pride for her, if you love her," said Abigail, +sharply. + +"My pride!" + +"Yes, your pride. You have given away everything else, but how dare +you think yourself generous when you have kept the thing that is +dearest of all? You generous--you! Talk of Simon Basset! You are a +miser of a false trait in your own character. You are a worse miser +than he, unless you give it up. What are you, that you should say, 'I +will go through life, and I will give, and not take?' What are you, +that you should think yourself better than all around you--that you +should be towards your fellow-creatures as a god, conferring +everything, receiving nothing? If you love my daughter, prove it. +Take what she has to give you, and give her, what is worth more than +money, if you had the riches of Croesus, the pride of your heart." + +Jerome stood before her, looking at her. Then, without a word, he +went across the room to a window, and stood there, his back towards +her, his face towards the moonlight night outside. + +"Is it pride or principle?" he said, hoarsely, without turning his +head. + +"Pride." + +Jerome stood silently at the window. Abigail watched him, her brows +contracted, her fingers twitching; there were red spots on her +cheeks. This had cost her dearly. She, too, had given up her pride +for love of Lucina. + +Jerome, with a sudden motion of his shoulders, as if he flung off a +burden, left the window and crossed the room. He was very pale, but +his eyes were shining. He towered over Mrs. Merritt with his splendid +height, and she was woman enough, even then, to note how handsome he +was. "Will you give me Lucina for my wife?" said he. + +Tears sprang to Abigail's eyes, her little face quivered. She took +Jerome's hand, pressed it, murmured something, and went out. Jerome +understood that she had gone to call Lucina. + +It was not long before he heard Lucina's step on the stairs, and the +rustle of her skirts. Then there was a suspensive silence, as if she +hesitated at the door; then the latch was lifted and she came in. + +Lucina, in a straight hanging gown of blue silk, stood still near the +door, looking at Jerome with a wonderful expression of love and +modest shrinking and trust and fear, and a gentle dignity and +graciousness withal, which only a maiden's face can compass. Lucina +did not blush nor tremble, though her steady poise seemed rather due +to the repression of tremors than actual calm of spirit. Though no +color came into Lucina's smooth, pale curves of cheek, and though her +little hands were clasped before her, like hands of marble, her blue +eyes were dilated, and pulses beat hard in her delicate throat and +temples. + +Jerome, on his part, was for a minute unable to speak or approach +her. An awe of her, as of an angel, was over him, now that for the +first time the certainty of possession was in his heart. It often +happens that one receiving for the first time a great and +long-desired blessing, can feel, for the moment, not joy and triumph +so much as awe and fear at its sudden glory of fairness in contact +with his unworthiness. + +But, all at once, as Jerome hesitated a soft red came flaming over +Lucina's face and neck, and tears of distress welled up in her eyes. +Far it was from her to understand how her lover felt, for awe of +herself was beyond her imagination, and a dreadful fear lest her +mother had been mistaken and Jerome did not want her after all, was +in her heart. She gave him a little look, at once proud and piteously +shamed, and put her hand on the door-latch; but with that Jerome was +at her side and his arms were around her. + +"Oh, Lucina," he said, "I am poor--I am poorer than when I spoke to +you before. You must give all and I nothing, except myself, which +seems to me as nothing when I look at you. Will you take me so?" + +Then Lucina looked straight up in his face, and her blushes were +gone, and her blue eyes were dark, as if from unknown depths of love +and faithfulness. "Don't you know," she said, with an authoritative +seriousness, which seemed beyond her years and her girlish +experience--"don't you know that when I give you all I give to +myself, and that if I did not give you all I could never give to +myself, but should be poor all my life? + +"And, and--" continued Lucina, tremulously, for she was beginning to +falter, being nerved to such length of assertive speech only by her +wish to comfort and reassure Jerome, "don't you know--don't you know, +Jerome, that--a woman's giving is all her taking, and--you wouldn't +take the gingerbread, dear, and the money for the shoes, when we were +both children--but, maybe your--taking from--somebody who loves you +is your--best giving--" + +With that Lucina was sobbing softly on Jerome's shoulder, and he was +leaning his face close to hers, whispering brokenly and kissing her +hair and her cheek. + +"It doesn't matter, after all, because you lost your mill, dear," +Lucina said, presently, "because we have money enough for everything, +now." + +"It is your money, for your own needs always," Jerome returned, +quickly, and with a sudden recoil as from a touch upon a raw surface, +for the sensitiveness of a whole life cannot be hardened in a moment. + +"No, it is yours, too; he meant it so," said Lucina, with a little +laugh. "You wait a minute and I will show you." + +With that Lucina fumbled in the pocket of her silken gown and +produced a letter. + +"Read this, dear," said she, "and you will see what I mean." + +"What is it?" asked Jerome, wonderingly, staring at the +superscription, which was, "For Mistress Lucina Merritt, to be opened +and read by herself, at her pleasure and discretion, and to be read +by herself and Jerome Edwards jointly on the day of their betrothal." + +"Come over to the light and we will read it together," said Lucina. + +Jerome and Lucina sat down on the sofa under the branching +candlestick and read the letter with their heads close together. The +letter ran: + +"Dear Mistress Lucina,--When this you read an old soldier will have +fought his last battle, and his heart, which has held you as kindly +as a father's, will have ceased to beat. But he prays that you will +ever, in your own true and loving heart, save a place for his memory, +and he begs you to accept as an earnest of his affection, with his +fond wishes for your happiness, the sum of twenty thousand dollars, +as specified in his last will and testament. + +"And he furthermore begs that the said sum of twenty thousand dollars +be regarded by you, when you wed Jerome Edwards, in the light of a +dowry, to be employed by you both, for your mutual good and profit, +during your married life. And this with my commendation for the +wisdom of your choice, and my fervent blessing upon my foster son and +daughter. + +"I am, dear Mistress Lucina, your obedient servant to command, your +devoted friend, and your affectionate foster father, + + "John Lamson." + + +THE END + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Jerome, A Poor Man, by Mary E. 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