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+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
+
+
+
+
+
+
+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. Wilkins Freeman
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