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diff --git a/6991.txt b/6991.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2b5bf58 --- /dev/null +++ b/6991.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7199 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Across the Years, by Eleanor H. Porter + +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: Across the Years + +Author: Eleanor H. Porter + +Posting Date: October 26, 2012 [EBook #6991] +Release Date: November, 2004 +First Posted: February 20, 2003 +Last Updated: June 20, 2010 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ACROSS THE YEARS *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis A. Weyant, Charles Franks, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + +ACROSS THE YEARS + +BY + +ELEANOR H. PORTER + + + + +Contents + + + +WHEN FATHER AND MOTHER REBELLED +JUPITER ANN +THE AXMINSTER PATH +PHINEAS AND THE MOTOR CAR +THE MOST WONDERFUL WOMAN +THE PRICE OF A PAIR OF SHOES +THE LONG ROAD +A COUPLE OF CAPITALISTS +IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF KATY +THE BRIDGE ACROSS THE YEARS +FOR JIMMY +A SUMMONS HOME +THE BLACK SILK GOWNS +A BELATED HONEYMOON +WHEN AUNT ABBY WAKED UP +WRISTERS FOR THREE +THE GIVING THANKS OF CYRUS AND HULDAH +A NEW ENGLAND IDOL + + + +The stories in this volume are here reprinted by the courteous +permission of the publishers of the periodicals in which they first +appeared,--The Ladies' Home Journal, Ainslee's Magazine, The Scrap +Book, The New England Magazine, The Pictorial Review, The Housewife, +The Pacific Monthly, The Arena, Lippincott's Magazine, Harper's Bazaar, +The Century Magazine, Woman, Holland's Magazine, The Designer. + + + + +When Father and Mother Rebelled + + + +"'Tain't more 'n a month ter Christmas, Lyddy Ann; did ye know it?" said +the old man, settling back in his chair with a curiously resigned sigh. + +"Yes, I know, Samuel," returned his wife, sending a swift glance over +the top of her glasses. + +If Samuel Bertram noticed the glance he made no sign. "Hm!" he murmured. +"I've got ten neckerchiefs now. How many crocheted bed-slippers you +got?--eh?" + +"Oh, Samuel!" remonstrated Lydia Ann feebly. + +"I don't care," asserted Samuel with sudden vehemence, sitting erect in +his chair. "Seems as if we might get somethin' for Christmas 'sides +slippers an' neckerchiefs. Jest 'cause we ain't so young as we once was +ain't no sign that we've lost all our faculty for enj'yment!" + +"But, Samuel, they're good an' kind, an' want ter give us somethin'," +faltered Lydia Ann; "and--" + +"Yes, I know they're good an' kind," cut in Samuel wrathfully. "We've +got three children, an' each one brings us a Christmas present ev'ry +year. They've got so they do it reg'lar now, jest the same as they--they +go ter bed ev'ry night," he finished, groping a little for his simile. +"An' they put jest about as much thought into it, too," he added grimly. + +"My grief an' conscience, Samuel,--how can you talk so!" gasped the +little woman opposite. + +"Well, they do," persisted Samuel. "They buy a pair o' slippers an' a +neckerchief, an' tuck 'em into their bag for us--an' that's done; an' +next year they do the same--an' it's done again. Oh, I know I'm +ongrateful, an' all that," acknowledged Samuel testily, "but I can't +help it. I've been jest ready to bile over ever since last Christmas, +an' now I have biled over. Look a-here, Lyddy Ann, we ain't so awful +old. You're seventy-three an' I'm seventy-six, an' we're pert as +sparrers, both of us. Don't we live here by ourselves, an' do most all +the work inside an' outside the house?" + +"Yes," nodded Lydia Ann timidly. + +"Well, ain't there somethin' you can think of sides slippers you'd like +for Christmas--'specially as you never wear crocheted bed-slippers?" + +Lydia Ann stirred uneasily. "Why, of course, Samuel," she began +hesitatingly, "bed-slippers are very nice, an'--" + +"So's codfish!" interrupted Samuel in open scorn. "Come," he coaxed, +"jest supposin' we was youngsters again, a-tellin' Santa Claus what we +wanted. What would you ask for?" + +Lydia Ann laughed. Her cheeks grew pink, and the lost spirit of her +youth sent a sudden sparkle to her eyes. "You'd laugh, dearie. I ain't +a-goin' ter tell." + +"I won't--'pon honor!" + +"But it's so silly," faltered Lydia Ann, her cheeks a deeper pink. +"Me--an old woman!" + +"Of course," agreed Samuel promptly. "It's bound ter be silly, ye know, +if we want anythin' but slippers an' neckerchiefs," he added with a +chuckle. "Come--out with it, Lyddy Ann." + +"It's--it's a tree." + +"Dampers and doughnuts!" ejaculated Samuel, his jaw dropping. "A tree!" + +"There, I knew you'd laugh," quavered Lydia Ann, catching up her +knitting. + +"Laugh? Not a bit of it!" averred Samuel stoutly. "I--I want a tree +myself!" + +"Ye see, it's just this," apologized Lydia Ann feverishly. "They give us +things, of course, but they never make anythin' of doin' it, not even +ter tyin' 'em up with a piece of red ribbon. They just slip into our +bedroom an' leave 'em all done up in brown paper an' we find 'em after +they're gone. They mean it all kind, but I'm so tired of gray worsted +and sensible things. Of course I can't have a tree, an' I don't suppose +I really want it; but I'd like somethin' all pretty an' sparkly an'--an' +silly, you know. An' there's another thing I want--ice cream. An' I want +to make myself sick eatin' it, too,--if I want to; an' I want little +pink-an'-white sugar pep'mints hung in bags. Samuel, can't you see how +pretty a bag o' pink pep'mints 'd be on that green tree? An'--dearie +me!" broke off the little old woman breathlessly, falling back in her +chair. "How I'm runnin' on! I reckon I _am_ in my dotage." + +For a moment Samuel did not reply. His brow was puckered into a +prodigious frown, and his right hand had sought the back of his head--as +was always the case when in deep thought. Suddenly his face cleared. + +"Ye ain't in yer dotage--by gum, ye ain't!" he cried excitedly. "An' I +ain't, neither. An' what's more, you're a-goin' ter have that tree--ice +cream, pink pep'mints, an' all!" + +"Oh, my grief an' conscience--Samuel!" quavered Lydia Ann. + +"Well, ye be. We can do it easy, too. We'll have it the night 'fore +Christmas. The children don't get here until Christmas day, ever, ye +know, so 't won't interfere a mite with their visit, an' 'twill be all +over 'fore they get here. An' we'll make a party of it, too," went on +Samuel gleefully. "There's the Hopkinses an' old Mis' Newcomb, an' Uncle +Tim, an' Grandpa Gowin'--they'll all come an' be glad to." + +"Samuel, could we?" cried Lydia Ann, incredulous but joyous. "Could we, +really?" + +"I'll get the tree myself," murmured Samuel, aloud, "an' we can buy some +o' that shiny stuff up ter the store ter trim it." + +"An' I'll get some of that pink-an'-white tarl'tan for bags," chimed in +Lydia Ann happily: "the pink for the white pep'mints, an' the white for +the pink. Samuel, won't it be fun?" And to hear her one would have +thought her seventeen instead of seventy-three. + + * * * * * + +A week before Christmas Samuel Bertram's only daughter, Ella, wrote this +letter to each of her brothers: + +It has occurred to me that it might be an excellent idea if we would +plan to spend a little more time this year with Father and Mother when +we go for our usual Christmas visit; and what kind of a scheme do you +think it would be for us to take the children, and make a real family +reunion of it? + +I figure that we could all get there by four o'clock the day before +Christmas, if we planned for it; and by staying perhaps two days after +Christmas we could make quite a visit. What do you say? You see Father +and Mother are getting old, and we can't have them with us many more +years, anyway; and I'm sure this would please them--only we must be +very careful not to make it too exciting for them. + +The letters were dispatched with haste, and almost by return mail came +the answers; an emphatic approval, and a promise of hearty cooperation +signed "Frank" and "Ned." What is every one's business is apt to be no +one's business, however, and no one notified Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Bertram +of the change of plan, each thinking that one of the others would attend +to it. + +"As for presents," mused Ella, as she hurried downtown two days before +Christmas, "I never can think what to give them; but, after all, there's +nothing better than bed-slippers for Mother, and a warm neckerchief for +Father's throat. Those are always good." + +The day before Christmas dawned clear and cold. It had been expected +that Ella, her husband, and her twin boys would arrive at the little +village station a full hour before the train from the north bringing +Ned, Mrs. Ned, and little Mabel, together with Frank and his wife and +son; but Ella's train was late--so late that it came in a scant five +minutes ahead of the other one, and thus brought about a joyous greeting +between the reunited families on the station platform itself. + +"Why, it's not so bad we were late, after all," cried Ella. "This is +fine--now we can all go together!" + +"Jove! but we're a cheery sight!" exclaimed Ned, as he counted off on +his fingers the blooming faces of those about him. "There are ten of +us!" + +"Only fancy what they'll say at the house when they catch their first +glimpse of us!" chuckled Frank. "The dear old souls! How Father's eyes +will shine and Mother's cap-strings bob! By the way, of course they know +we're coming to-day?" + +There was a moment's silence; then Ella flushed. "Why! didn't--didn't +you tell them?" she stammered. + +"I? Why, of course not!" cried Frank. "I supposed you were going to. But +maybe Ned-" He paused and turned questioning eyes on his brother. + +Ned shook his head. "Not I," he said. + +"Why, then--then they don't know," cried Ella, aghast. "They don't know +a thing!" + +"Never mind, come on," laughed Ned. "What difference does it make?" + +"'What difference does it make'!" retorted Ella indignantly. "Ned +Bertram, do you suppose I'd take the risk of ten of us pouncing down on +those two poor dears like this by surprise? Certainly not!" + +"But, Ella, they're expecting six of us to-morrow," remonstrated Frank. + +"Very true. But that's not ten of us to-day." + +"I know; but so far as the work is concerned, you girls always do the +most of that," cut in Ned. + +"Work! It isn't the work," almost groaned Ella. "Don't you see, boys? +It's the excitement--'twouldn't do for them at all. We must fix it some +way. Come, let's go into the waiting-room and talk it up." + +It was not until after considerable discussion that their plans were +finally made and their line of march decided upon. To advance in the +open and take the house by storm was clearly out of the question, though +Ned remarked that in all probability the dear old creatures would be +dozing before the fire, and would not discover their approach. Still, it +would be wiser to be on the safe side; and it was unanimously voted that +Frank should go ahead alone and reconnoiter, preparing the way for the +rest, who could wait, meanwhile, at the little hotel not far from the +house. + +The short winter day had drawn almost to a close when Frank turned in at +the familiar gate of the Bertram homestead. His hand had not reached the +white knob of the bell, however, when the eager expectancy of his face +gave way to incredulous amazement; from within, clear and distinct, had +come the sound of a violin. + +"Why, what--" he cried under his breath, and softly pushed open the +door. + +The hall was almost dark, but the room beyond was a blaze of light, with +the curtains drawn, and apparently every lamp the house contained +trimmed and burning. He himself stood in the shadow, and his entrance +had been unnoticed, though almost the entire expanse of the room before +him was visible through the half-open doorway. + +In the farther corner of the room a large evergreen tree, sparkling with +candles and tinsel stars, was hung with bags of pink and white tarletan +and festoons of puffy popcorn. Near it sat an old man playing the +violin; and his whole wiry self seemed to quiver with joy to the tune of +his merry "Money Musk." In the center of the room two gray-haired men +were dancing an old-time jig, bobbing, bowing, and twisting about in a +gleeful attempt to outdo each other. Watching them were three old women +and another old man, eating ice cream and contentedly munching +peppermints. And here, there, and everywhere was the mistress of the +house, Lydia Ann herself, cheeks flushed and cap-strings flying, but +plainly in her element and joyously content. + +For a time the man by the hall door watched in silent amazement; then +with a low ejaculation he softly let himself out of the house, and +hurried back to the hotel. + +"Well?" greeted half a dozen voices; and one added: "What did they say?" + +Frank shook his head and dropped into the nearest chair. "I--I didn't +tell them," he stammered faintly. + +"Didn't tell them!" exclaimed Ella. "Why, Frank, what was the trouble? +Were they sick? Surely, they were not upset by just seeing you!" +Frank's eyes twinkled "Well, hardly!" he retorted. "They--they're having +a party." + +"A party!" shrieked half a dozen voices. + +"Yes; and a tree, and a dance, and ice cream, and pink peppermints," +Frank enumerated in one breath. + +There was a chorus of expostulation; then Ella's voice rose dominant. +"Frank Bertram, what on earth do you mean?" she demanded. "Who is having +all this?" + +"Father and Mother," returned Frank, his lips twitching a little. "And +they've got old Uncle Tim and half a dozen others for guests." + +"But, Frank, how can they be having all this?" faltered Ella. "Why, +Father's not so very far from eighty years old, and--Mabel, Mabel, my +dear!" she broke off in sudden reproof to her young niece, who had come +under her glance at that moment. "Those are presents for Grandpa and +Grandma. I wouldn't play with them." + +Mabel hesitated, plainly rebellious. In each hand was a gray worsted +bed-slipper; atop of her yellow curls was a brown neckerchief, cap +fashion. + +There were exclamations from two men, and Ned came forward hurriedly. +"Oh, I say, Ella," he remonstrated, "you didn't get those for presents, +did you?" + +"But I did. Why not?" questioned Ella. + +"Why, I got slippers, you see. I never can think of anything else. +Besides, they're always good, anyhow. But I should think _you_, a +_woman_, could think of something--" + +"Never mind," interrupted Ella airily. "Mother's a dear, and she won't +care if she does get two pairs." + +"But she won't want three pairs," groaned Frank; "and I got slippers +too!" + +There was a moment of dismayed silence, then everybody laughed. + +Ella was the first to speak. "It's too bad, of course, but never mind. +Mother'll see the joke of it just as we do. You know she never seems to +care what we give her. Old people don't have many wants, I fancy." + +Frank stirred suddenly and walked the length of the room. Then he +wheeled about. + +"Do you know," he said, a little unsteadily, "I believe that's a +mistake?" + +"A mistake? What's a mistake?" + +"The notion that old people don't have any--wants. See here. They're +having a party down there--a party, and they must have got it up +themselves. Such being the case, of course they had what they wanted for +entertainment--and they aren't drinking tea or knitting socks. They're +dancing jigs and eating pink peppermints and ice cream! Their eyes are +like stars, and Mother's cheeks are like a girl's; and if you think I'm +going to offer those spry young things a brown neckerchief and a pair of +bed-slippers you're much mistaken--because I'm not!" + +"But what--can--we do?" stammered Ella. + +"We can buy something else here--to-night--in the village," declared +Frank; "and to-morrow morning we can go and give it to them." + +"But--buy what?" + +"I haven't the least idea," retorted Frank, with an airy wave of his +hands. "Maybe 'twill be a diamond tiara and a polo pony. Anyway, I know +what 'twon't be--'twon't be slippers or a neckerchief!" + + * * * * * + +It was later than usual that Christmas morning when Mr. and Mrs. Samuel +Bertram arose. If the old stomachs had rebelled a little at the pink +peppermints and ice cream, and if the old feet had charged toll for +their unaccustomed activity of the night before, neither Samuel nor +Lydia Ann would acknowledge it. + +"Well, we had it--that tree!" chuckled Samuel, as he somewhat stiffly +thrust himself into his clothes. + +"We did, Samuel,--we did," quavered Lydia Ann joyfully, "an' wa'n't it +nice? Mis' Hopkins said she never had such a good time in all her life +before." + +"An' Uncle Tim an' Grandpa Gowin'--they was as spry as crickets, an' +they made old Pete tune up that 'Money Musk' three times 'fore they'd +quit." + +"Yes; an'--my grief an' conscience, Samuel! 'tis late, ain't it?" broke +off Lydia Ann, anxiously peering at the clock. "Come, come, dear, you'll +have ter hurry 'bout gettin' that tree out of the front room 'fore +the children get here. I wouldn't have 'em know for the world how silly +we've been--not for the world!" + +Samuel bridled, but his movements showed a perceptible increase of +speed. + +"Well, I do' know," he chuckled. + +"'T wa'n't anythin' so awful, after all. But, say," he called +triumphantly a moment later, as he stooped and picked up a small object +from the floor, "they will find out if you don't hide these 'ere +pep'mints!" + +The tree and the peppermints had scarcely disappeared from the "front +room" when Frank arrived. + +"Oh, they're all coming in a minute," he laughed gayly in response to +the surprised questions that greeted him. "And we've brought the +children, too. You'll have a houseful, all right!" + +A houseful it certainly proved to be, and a lively one, too. In the +kitchen "the girls" as usual reigned supreme, and bundled off the little +mother to "visit with the boys and the children" during the process of +dinner-getting, and after dinner they all gathered around the fireplace +for games and stories. + +"And now," said Frank when darkness came and the lamps were lighted, +"I've got a new game, but it's a very mysterious game, and you, Father +and Mother, must not know a thing about it until it's all ready." And +forthwith he conducted the little old man and the little old woman out +into the kitchen with great ceremony. + +"Say, Samuel, seems as if this was 'most as good as the party," +whispered Lydia Ann excitedly, as they waited in the dark. "I know it; +an' they hain't asked us once if we was gettin' too tired! Did ye +notice, Lyddy Ann?" + +"Yes, an' they didn't make us take naps, either. Ain't it nice? Why, +Samuel, I--I shan't mind even the bed-slippers now," she laughed. + +"Ready!" called Frank, and the dining-room door was thrown wide open. + +The old eyes blinked a little at the sudden light, then widened in +amazement. Before the fireplace was a low sewing-table with a chair at +each end. The table itself was covered with a white cloth which lay in +fascinating little ridges and hillocks indicating concealed treasures +beneath. About the table were grouped the four eager-eyed grandchildren +and their no less eager-eyed parents. With still another ceremonious bow +Frank escorted the little old man and the little old woman to the +waiting chairs, and with a merry "One, two, three!" whisked off the +cloth. + +For one amazed instant there was absolute silence; then Lydia Ann drew a +long breath. + +"Samuel, Samuel, they're presents--an' for us!" she quavered joyously. +"It's the bed-slippers and the neckerchiefs, an' they did 'em all up in +white paper an' red ribbons just for us." + +At the corner of the mantelpiece a woman choked suddenly and felt for +her handkerchief. Behind her two men turned sharply and walked toward +the window; but the little old man and the little old woman did not +notice it. They had forgotten everything but the enchanting array of +mysteries before them. + +Trembling old hands hovered over the many-sized, many-shaped packages, +and gently patted the perky red bows; but not until the grandchildren +impatiently demanded, "Why don't you look at 'em?" did they venture to +untie a single ribbon. Then the old eyes shone, indeed, at sight of the +wonderful things disclosed; a fine lace tie and a bottle of perfume; a +reading-glass and a basket of figs; some dates, raisins, nuts, and +candies, and a little electric pocket lantern which would, at the +pressure of a thumb, bring to light all the secrets of the darkest of +rooms. There were books, too, such as Ella and Frank themselves liked to +read; and there was a handsome little clock for the mantel--but there +was not anywhere a pair of bed-slippers or a neckerchief. + +At last they were all opened, and there remained not one little red bow +to untie. On the table, in all their pristine glory, lay the presents, +and half-buried in bits of paper and red ribbon sat the amazed, but +blissfully happy, little old man and little old woman. Lydia Ann's lips +parted, but the trembling words of thanks froze on her tongue--her eyes +had fallen on a small pink peppermint on the floor. + +"No, no, we can't take 'em," she cried agitatedly. "We hadn't ought to. +We was wicked and ongrateful, and last night we--we--" She paused +helplessly, her eyes on her husband's face. "Samuel, you--you tell," she +faltered. + +Samuel cleared his throat. + +"Well, ye see, we--yes, last night, we--we--" He could say no more. + +"We--we had a party to--to make up for things," blurted out Lydia Ann. +"And so ye see we--we hadn't ought ter take these--all these!" + +Frank winced. His face grew a little white as he threw a quick glance +into his sister's eyes; but his voice, when he spoke, was clear and +strong from sheer force of will. + +"A party? Good! I'm glad of it. Did you enjoy it?" he asked. + +Samuel's jaw dropped. Lydia Ann stared speechlessly. This cordial +approval of their folly was more incomprehensible than had been the +failure to relegate them to naps and knitting earlier in the afternoon. + +"And you've got another party to-night, too; haven't you?" went on Frank +smoothly. "As for those things there"--he waved his hand toward the +table--"of course you'll take them. Why, we picked them out on purpose +for you,--every single one of them,--and only think how we'd feel if you +didn't take them! Don't you--like them?" + +"'Like them'!" cried Lydia Ann, and at the stifled sob in her voice +three men and three women caught their breath sharply and tried to +swallow the lumps in their throats. "We--we just love them!" + +No one spoke. The grandchildren stared silently, a little awed. Ella, +Frank, and Ned stirred restlessly and looked anywhere but at each other. + +Lydia Ann flushed, then paled. "Of course, if--if you picked 'em +out 'specially for us--" she began hesitatingly, her eyes anxiously +scanning the perturbed faces of her children. + +"We did--especially," came the prompt reply. + +Lydia Ann's gaze drifted to the table and lingered upon the clock, the +tie, and the bottle of perfume. "'Specially for us," she murmured +softly. Then her face suddenly cleared. "Why, then we'll have to take +them, won't we?" she cried, her voice tremulous with ecstasy. "We'll +just have to--whether we ought to or not!" + +"You certainly will!" declared Frank. And this time he did not even try +to hide the shake in his voice. + +"Oh!" breathed Lydia Ann blissfully. "Samuel, I--I think I'll take a +fig, please!" + + + + +Jupiter Ann + + + +It was only after serious consideration that Miss Prue had bought the +little horse, Jupiter, and then she changed the name at once. For a +respectable spinster to drive any sort of horse was bad enough in Miss +Prue's opinion; but to drive a heathen one! To replace "Jupiter" she +considered "Ann" a sensible, dignified, and proper name, and "Ann" she +named him, regardless of age, sex, or "previous condition of servitude." +The villagers accepted the change--though with modifications; the horse +was known thereafter as "Miss Prue's Jupiter Ann." + +Miss Prue had said that she wanted a safe, steady horse; one that would +not run, balk, or kick. She would not have bought any horse, indeed, had +it not been that the way to the post office, the store, the church, and +everywhere else, had grown so unaccountably long--Miss Prue was +approaching her sixtieth birthday. The horse had been hers now a month, +and thus far it had been everything that a dignified, somewhat timid +spinster could wish it to be. Fortunately--or unfortunately, as one may +choose to look at it--Miss Prue did not know that in the dim recesses of +Jupiter's memory there lurked the smell of the turf, the feel of the +jockey's coaxing touch, and the sound of a triumphant multitude shouting +his name; in Miss Prue's estimation the next deadly sin to treason and +murder was horse racing. + +There was no one in the town, perhaps, who did not know of Miss Prue's +abhorrence of horse racing. On all occasions she freed her mind +concerning it; and there was a report that the only lover of her youth +had lost his suit through his passion for driving fast horses. Even the +county fair Miss Prue had refused all her life to attend--there was the +horse racing. It was because of all this that she had been so loath to +buy a horse, if only the way to everywhere had not grown so long! + +For four weeks--indeed, for five--the new horse, Ann, was a treasure; +then, one day, Jupiter remembered. + +Miss Prue was driving home from the post office. The wide, smooth road +led straight ahead under an arch of flaming gold and scarlet. The +October air was crisp and bracing, and unconsciously Miss Prue lifted +her chin and drew a long breath. Almost at once, however, she frowned. +From behind her had come the sound of a horse's hoofs, and reluctantly +Miss Prue pulled the right-hand rein. + +Jupiter Ann quickened his gait perceptibly, and lifted his head. His +ears came erect. + +"Whoa, Ann, whoa!" stammered Miss Prue nervously. + +The hoof beats were almost abreast now, and hurriedly Miss Prue turned +her head. At once she gave the reins an angry jerk; in the other light +carriage sat Rupert Joyce, the young man who for weeks had been +unsuccessfully trying to find favor in her eyes because he had already +found it in the eyes of her ward and niece, Mary Belle. + +"Good-morning, Miss Prue," called a boyish voice. + +"Good-morning," snapped the woman, and jerked the reins again. + +Miss Prue awoke then to the sudden realization that if the other's speed +had accelerated, so, too, had her own. + +"Ann, Ann, whoa!" she commanded. Then she turned angry eyes on the young +man. "Go by--go by! Why don't you go by?" she called sharply. + +In obedience, young Joyce touched the whip to his gray mare: but he did +not go by. With a curious little shake, as if casting off years of dull +propriety, Jupiter Ann thrust forward his nose and got down to business. + +Miss Prue grew white, then red. Her hands shook on the reins. + +"Ann, Ann, whoa! You mustn't--you can't! Ann, please whoa!" she +supplicated wildly. She might as well have besought the wind not to +blow. + +On and on, neck and neck, the horses raced. Miss Prue's bonnet slipped +and hung rakishly above one ear. Her hair loosened and fell in +straggling wisps of gray to her shoulders. Her eyeglasses dropped from +her nose and swayed dizzily on their slender chain. Her gloves split +across the back and showed the white, tense knuckles. Her breath came in +gasps, and only a moaning "whoa--whoa" fell in jerky rhythm from her +white lips. Ashamed, frightened, and dismayed, Miss Prue clung to the +reins and kept her straining eyes on the road ahead. + +On and on down the long straight road flew Jupiter Ann and the little +gray mare. At door and window of the scudding houses appeared men and +women with startled faces and upraised hands. Miss Prue knew that they +were there, and shuddered. The shame of it--she, in a horse-race, and +with Rupert Joyce! Hurriedly she threw a look at the young man's face to +catch its expression; and then she saw something else: the little gray +mare was a full half-head in the lead of Jupiter Ann! + +It was then that a strange something awoke in Miss Prue--a fierce new +something that she had never felt before. Her lips set hard, and her +eyes flashed a sudden fire. Her moaning "whoa--whoa" fell silent, and +her hands loosened instinctively on the reins. She was leaning forward +now, eagerly, anxiously, her eyes on the head of the other horse. +Suddenly her tense muscles relaxed, and a look that was perilously near +to triumphant joy crossed her face--Jupiter Ann was ahead once more! + +By the time the wide sweep of the driveway leading to Miss Prue's home +was reached, there was no question of the result, and well in the lead +of the little gray mare Jupiter Ann trotted proudly up the driveway and +came to a panting stop. + +Flushed, disheveled, and palpitating, Miss Prue picked her way to the +ground. Behind her Rupert Joyce was just driving into the yard. He, too, +was flushed and palpitating--though not for the same reason. + +"I--I just thought I'd drive out and see Mary Belle," he blurted out +airily, assuming a bold front to meet the wrath which he felt was sure +to come. At once, however, his jaw dropped in amazement. + +"Mary Belle? I left her down in the orchard gathering apples," Miss Prue +was saying cheerfully. "You might look for her there." And she +smiled--the gracious smile of the victor for the vanquished. + +Incredulously the youth stared; then, emboldened, he plunged on +recklessly: + +"I say, you know, Miss Prue, that little horse of yours can run!" + +Miss Prue stiffened. With a jerk she straightened her bonnet and thrust +her glasses on her nose. + +"Ann has been bad--very bad," she said severely. "We'll not talk of it, +if you please. I am ashamed of her!" And he turned haughtily away. + +And yet-- + +In the barn two minutes later, Miss Prue patted Jupiter Ann on the +neck--a thing she had never done before. + +"We beat 'em, anyhow, Ann," she whispered. "And, after all, he's a +pleasant-spoken chap, and if Mary Belle wants him--why--let's let her +have him!" + + + + +The Axminster Path + + + +"There, dear, here we are, all dressed for the day!" said the girl +gayly, as she led the frail little woman along the strip of Axminster +carpet that led to the big chair. + +"And Kathie?" asked the woman, turning her head with the groping +uncertainty of the blind. + +"Here, mother," answered a cheery voice. "I'm right here by the window." + +"Oh!" And the woman smiled happily. "Painting, I suppose, as usual." + +"Oh, I'm working, as usual," returned the same cheery voice, its owner +changing the position of the garment in her lap and reaching for a spool +of silk. + +"There!" breathed the blind woman, as she sank into the great chair. +"Now I am all ready for my breakfast. Tell cook, please, Margaret, that +I will have tea this morning, and just a roll besides my orange." And +she smoothed the folds of her black silk gown and picked daintily at the +lace in her sleeves. + +"Very well, dearie," returned her daughter. "You shall have it right +away," she added over her shoulder as she left the room. + +In the tiny kitchen beyond the sitting-room Margaret Whitmore lighted +the gas-stove and set the water on to boil. Then she arranged a small +tray with a bit of worn damask and the only cup and saucer of delicate +china that the shelves contained. Some minutes later she went back to +her mother, tray in hand. + +"'Most starved to death?" she demanded merrily, as she set the tray upon +the table Katherine had made ready before the blind woman. "You have +your roll, your tea, your orange, as you ordered, dear, and just a bit +of currant jelly besides." + +"Currant jelly? Well, I don't know,--perhaps it will taste good. 'T was +so like Nora to send it up; she's always trying to tempt my appetite, +you know. Dear me, girls, I wonder if you realize what a treasure we +have in that cook!" + +"Yes, dear, I know," murmured Margaret hastily. "And now the tea, +Mother--it's getting colder every minute. Will you have the orange +first?" + +The slender hands of the blind woman hovered for a moment over the +table, then dropped slowly and found by touch the position of spoons, +plates, and the cup of tea. + +"Yes, I have everything. I don't need you any longer, Meg. I don't like +to take so much of your time, dear--you should let Betty do for me." + +"But I want to do it," laughed Margaret. "Don't you want me?" + +"Want you! That isn't the question, dear," objected Mrs. Whitmore +gently. "Of course, a maid's service can't be compared for an instant +with a daughter's love and care; but I don't want to be selfish--and you +and Kathie never let Betty do a thing for me. There, there! I won't +scold any more. What are you going to do to-day, Meg?" + +Margaret hesitated. She was sitting by the window now, in a low chair +near her sister's. In her hands was a garment similar to that upon which +Katherine was still at work. + +"Why, I thought," she began slowly, "I'd stay here with you and +Katherine a while." + +Mrs. Whitmore set down her empty cup and turned a troubled face toward +the sound of her daughter's voice. + +"Meg, dear," she remonstrated, "is it that fancy-work?" + +"Well, isn't fancy-work all right?" The girl's voice shook a little. + +Mrs. Whitmore stirred uneasily. + +"No, it--it isn't--in this case," she protested. "Meg, Kathie, I don't +like it. You are young; you should go out more--both of you. I +understand, of course; it's your unselfishness. You stay with me lest I +get lonely; and you play at painting and fancy-work for an excuse. Now, +dearies, there must be a change. You must go out. You must take your +place in society. I will not have you waste your young lives." + +"Mother!" Margaret was on her feet, and Katherine had dropped her work. +"Mother!" they cried again. + +"I--I shan't even listen," faltered Margaret. "I shall go and leave you +right away," she finished tremulously, picking up the tray and hurrying +from the room. + +It was hours later, after the little woman had trailed once more along +the Axminster path to the bed in the room beyond and had dropped asleep, +that Margaret Whitmore faced her sister with despairing eyes. + +"Katherine, what shall we do? This thing is killing me!" + +The elder girl's lips tightened. For an instant she paused in her +work--but for only an instant. + +"I know," she said feverishly; "but we mustn't give up--we mustn't!" + +"But how can we help it? It grows worse and worse. She wants us to go +out--to sing, dance, and make merry as we used to." + +"Then we'll go out and--tell her we dance." + +"But there's the work." + +"We'll take it with us. We can't both leave at once, of course, but old +Mrs. Austin, downstairs, will be glad to have one or the other of us sit +with her an occasional afternoon or evening." + +Margaret sprang to her feet and walked twice the length of the room. + +"But I've--lied so much already!" she moaned, pausing before her sister. +"It's all a lie--my whole life!" + +"Yes, yes, I know," murmured the other, with a hurried glance toward the +bedroom door. "But, Meg, we mustn't give up--'twould kill her to know +now. And, after all, it's only a little while!--such a little while!" + +Her voice broke with a half-stifled sob. The younger girl shivered, but +did not speak. She walked again the length of the room and back; then +she sat down to her work, her lips a tense line of determination, and +her thoughts delving into the few past years for a strength that might +help her to bear the burden of the days to come. + + * * * * * + +Ten years before, and one week after James Whitmore's death, Mrs. James +Whitmore had been thrown from her carriage, striking on her head and +back. + +When she came to consciousness, hours afterward, she opened her eyes on +midnight darkness, though the room was flooded with sunlight. The optic +nerve had been injured, the doctor said. It was doubtful if she would +ever be able to see again. + +Nor was this all. There were breaks and bruises, and a bad injury to the +spine. It was doubtful if she would ever walk again. To the little woman +lying back on the pillow it seemed a living death--this thing that had +come to her. + +It was then that Margaret and Katherine constituted themselves a +veritable wall of defense between their mother and the world. Nothing +that was not inspected and approved by one or the other was allowed to +pass Mrs. Whitmore's chamber door. + +For young women only seventeen and nineteen, whose greatest +responsibility hitherto had been the selection of a gown or a ribbon, +this was a new experience. + +At first the question of expense did not enter into consideration. +Accustomed all their lives to luxury, they unhesitatingly demanded it +now; and doctors, nurses, wines, fruits, flowers, and delicacies were +summoned as a matter of course. + +Then came the crash. The estate of the supposedly rich James Whitmore +was found to be deeply involved, and in the end there was only a +pittance for the widow and her two daughters. + +Mrs. Whitmore was not told of this at once. She was so ill and helpless +that a more convenient season was awaited. That was nearly ten years +ago--and she had not been told yet. + +Concealment had not been difficult at first. The girls had, indeed, +drifted into the deception almost unconsciously, as it certainly was not +necessary to burden the ears of the already sorely afflicted woman with +the petty details of the economy and retrenchment on the other side of +her door. + +If her own luxuries grew fewer, the change was so gradual that the +invalid did not notice it, and always her blindness made easy the +deception of those about her. + +Even the move to another home was accomplished without her realizing +it--she was taken to the hospital for a month's treatment, and when the +month was ended she was tenderly carried home and laid on her own bed; +and she did not know that "home" now was a cheap little flat in Harlem +instead of the luxurious house on the avenue where her children were +born. + +She was too ill to receive visitors, and was therefore all the more +dependent on her daughters for entertainment. + +She pitied them openly for the grief and care she had brought upon them, +and in the next breath congratulated them and herself that at least they +had all that money could do to smooth the difficult way. In the face of +this, it naturally did not grow any easier for the girls to tell the +truth--and they kept silent. + +For six years Mrs. Whitmore did not step; then her limbs and back grew +stronger, and she began to sit up, and to stand for a moment on her +feet. Her daughters now bought the strip of Axminster carpet and laid a +path across the bedroom, and another one from the bedroom door to the +great chair in the sitting-room, so that her feet might not note the +straw matting on the floor and question its being there. + +In her own sitting-room at home--which had opened, like this, out of her +bedroom--the rugs were soft and the chairs sumptuous with springs and +satin damask. One such chair had been saved from the wreck--the one at +the end of the strip of carpet. + +Day by day and month by month the years passed. The frail little woman +walked the Axminster path and sat in the tufted chair. For her there +were a china cup and plate, and a cook and maids below to serve. For her +the endless sewing over which Katherine and Margaret bent their backs to +eke out their scanty income was a picture or a bit of embroidery, +designed to while away the time. + +As Margaret thought of it it seemed incredible--this tissue of +fabrications that enmeshed them; but even as she wondered she knew that +the very years that marked its gradual growth made now its strength. + +And in a little while would come the end--a very little while, the +doctor said. + +Margaret tightened her lips and echoed her sister's words: "We mustn't +give up--we mustn't!" + +Two days later the doctor called. He was a bit out of the old life. + +His home, too, had been--and was now, for that matter--on the avenue. He +lived with his aunt, whose heir he was, and he was the only one outside +of the Whitmore family that knew the house of illusions in which Mrs. +Whitmore lived. + +His visits to the little Harlem flat had long ceased to have more than a +semblance of being professional, and it was an open secret that he +wished to make Margaret his wife. Margaret said no, though with a +heightened color and a quickened breath--which told at least herself how +easily the "no" might have been a "yes." + +Dr. Littlejohn was young and poor, and he had only his profession, for +all he was heir to one of the richest women on the avenue; and Margaret +refused to burden him with what she knew it would mean to marry her. In +spite of argument, therefore, and a pair of earnest brown eyes that +pleaded even more powerfully, she held to her convictions and continued +to say no. + +All this, however, did not prevent Dr. Littlejohn from making frequent +visits to the Whitmore home, and always his coming meant joy to three +weary, troubled hearts. To-day he brought a great handful of pink +carnations and dropped them into the lap of the blind woman. + +"Sweets to the sweet!" he cried gayly, as he patted the slim hand on the +arm of the chair. + +"Doctor Ned--you dear boy! Oh, how lovely!" exclaimed Mrs. Whitmore, +burying her face in the fragrant flowers. "And, doctor, I want to speak +to you," she broke off earnestly. "I want you to talk to Meg and Kathie. +Perhaps they will listen to you. I want them to go out more. Tell them, +please, that I don't need them all the time now." + +"Dear me, how independent we are going to be!" laughed the doctor. "And +so we don't need any more attention now, eh?" + +"Betty will do." + +"Betty?" It was hard, sometimes, for the doctor to remember. + +"The maid," explained Mrs. Whitmore; "though, for that matter, there +might as well be no maid--the girls never let her do a thing for me." + +"No?" returned the doctor easily, sure now of where he stood. "But you +don't expect me to interfere in this housekeeping business!" + +"Somebody must," urged Mrs. Whitmore. "The girls must leave me more. It +isn't as if we were poor and couldn't hire nurses and maids. I should +die if it were like that, and I were such a burden." + +"Mother, _dearest_!" broke in Margaret feverishly, with an +imploring glance toward her sister and the doctor. + +"Oh, by the way," interposed the doctor airily, "it has occurred to me +that the very object of my visit to-day is right along the lines of what +you ask. I want Miss Margaret to go driving with me. I have a call to +make out Washington Heights way." + +"Oh, but--" began Margaret, and paused at a gesture from her mother. + +"There aren't any 'buts' about it," declared Mrs. Whitmore. "Meg shall +go." + +"Of course she'll go!" echoed Katherine. And with three against her, +Margaret's protests were in vain. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Whitmore was nervous that night. She could not sleep. + +It seemed to her that if she could get up and walk, back and forth, back +and forth, she could rest afterward. She had not stepped alone yet, to +be sure, since the accident, but, after all, the girls did little more +than guide her feet, and she was sure that she could walk alone if she +tried. + +The more she thought of it the more she longed to test her strength. +Just a few steps back and forth, back and forth--then sleep. She was +sure she could sleep then. Very quietly, that she might not disturb the +sleepers in the bedroom beyond, the blind woman sat up in bed and +slipped her feet to the floor. + +Within reach were her knit slippers and the heavy shawl always kept at +the head of her bed. With trembling hands she put them on and rose +upright. + +At last she was on her feet, and alone. To a woman who for ten years had +depended on others for almost everything but the mere act of breathing, +it was joy unspeakable. She stepped once, twice, and again along the +side of her bed; then she stopped with a puzzled frown--under her feet +was the unyielding, unfamiliar straw matting. She took four more steps, +hesitatingly, and with her arms outstretched at full length before her. +The next instant she recoiled and caught her breath sharply; her hands +had encountered a wall and a window--_and there should have been no +wall or windows there_! + +The joy was gone now. + +Shaking with fear and weakness, the little woman crept along the wall +and felt for something that would tell her that she was still at home. +Her feet made no sound, and only her hurried breathing broke the +silence. + +Through the open door to the sitting-room, and down the wall to the +right-on and on she crept. + +Here and there a familiar chair or stand met her groping hands and held +them hesitatingly for a moment, only to release them to the terror of an +unfamiliar corner or window-sill. + +The blind woman herself had long since lost all realization of what she +was doing. There was only the frenzied longing to find her own. She did +not hesitate even at the outer door of the apartment, but turned the key +with shaking hands and stepped fearlessly into the hall. The next moment +there came a scream and a heavy fall. The Whitmore apartment was just at +the head of the stairs, and almost the first step of the blind woman had +been off into space. + + * * * * * + +When Mrs. Whitmore regained consciousness she was alone in her own bed. + +Out in the sitting-room, Margaret, Katherine, and the doctor talked +together in low tones. At last the girls hurried into the kitchen, and +the doctor turned and entered the bedroom. With a low ejaculation he +hurried forward. + +Mrs. Whitmore flung out her arm and clutched his hand; then she lay back +on the pillow and closed her eyes. + +"Doctor," she whispered, "where am I?" + +"At home, in your own bed." + +"Where is this place?" + +Dr. Littlejohn paled. He sent an anxious glance toward the sitting-room +door, though he knew very well that Margaret and Katherine were in the +kitchen and could not hear. + +"Where is this place?" begged the woman again. + +"Why, it--it--is--" The man paused helplessly. + +Five thin fingers tightened their clasp on his hand, and the low voice +again broke the silence. + +"Doctor, did you ever know--did you ever hear that a fall could give +back--sight?" + +Dr. Littlejohn started and peered into the wan face lying back on the +pillow. Its impassiveness reassured him. + +"Why, perhaps--once or twice," he returned slowly, falling back into his +old position, "though rarely--very rarely." + +"But it has happened?" + +"Yes, it has happened. There was a case recently in England. The shock +and blow released the pressure on the optic nerve; but--" + +Something in the face he was watching brought him suddenly forward in +his chair. "My dear woman, you don't mean--you can't--" + +He did not finish his sentence. Mrs. Whitmore opened her eyes and met +his gaze unflinchingly. Then she turned her head. + +"Doctor," she said, "that picture on the wall there at the foot of the +bed--it doesn't hang quite straight." + +"Mrs. Whitmore!" breathed the man incredulously, half rising from his +chair. + +"Hush! Not yet!" The woman's insistent hand had pulled him back. "Why am +I here? Where is this place?" + +There was no answer. + +"Doctor, you must tell me. I must know." + +Again the man hesitated. He noted the flushed cheeks and shaking hands +of the woman before him. It was true, she must know; and perhaps, after +all, it was best she should know through him. He drew a long breath and +plunged straight into the heart of the story. + +Five minutes later a glad voice came from the doorway. + +"Mother, dearest--then you're awake!" The doctor was conscious of a +low-breathed "Hush, don't tell her!" in his ears; then, to his +amazement, he saw the woman on the bed turn her head and hold out her +hand with the old groping uncertainty of the blind. + +"Margaret! It is Margaret, isn't it?" + +Days afterward, when the weary, pain-racked body of the little mother was +forever at rest, Margaret lifted her head from her lover's shoulder, +where she had been sobbing out her grief. + +"Ned, I can't be thankful enough," she cried, "that we kept it from +Mother to the end. It's my only comfort. She didn't know." + +"And I'm sure she would wish that thought to be a comfort to you, dear," +said the doctor gently. "I am sure she would." + + + + +Phineas and the Motor Car + + + +Phineas used to wonder, sometimes, just when it was that he began to +court Diantha Bowman, the rosy-cheeked, golden-haired idol of his +boyhood. Diantha's cheeks were not rosy now, and her hair was more +silver than gold, but she was not yet his wife. + +And he had tried so hard to win her! Year after year the rosiest apples +from his orchard and the choicest honey from his apiary had found their +way to Diantha's table; and year after year the county fair and the +village picnic had found him at Diantha's door with his old mare and his +buggy, ready to be her devoted slave for the day. Nor was Diantha +unmindful of all these attentions. She ate the apples and the honey, and +spent long contented hours in the buggy; but she still answered his +pleadings with her gentle: "I hain't no call to marry yet, Phineas," and +nothing he could do seemed to hasten her decision in the least. It was +the mare and the buggy, however, that proved to be responsible for what +was the beginning of the end. + +They were on their way home from the county fair. The mare, head +hanging, was plodding through the dust when around the curve of the road +ahead shot the one automobile that the town boasted. The next moment the +whizzing thing had passed, and left a superannuated old mare looming +through a cloud of dust and dancing on two wabbly hind legs. + +"Plague take them autymobiles!" snarled Phineas through set teeth, as he +sawed at the reins. "I ax yer pardon, I'm sure, Dianthy," he added +shamefacedly, when the mare had dropped to a position more nearly +normal; "but I hain't no use fur them 'ere contraptions!" + +Diantha frowned. She was frightened--and because she was frightened she +was angry. She said the first thing that came into her head--and never +had she spoken to Phineas so sharply. + +"If you did have some use for 'em, Phineas Hopkins, you wouldn't be +crawlin' along in a shiftless old rig like this; you'd have one yourself +an' be somebody! For my part, I like 'em, an' I'm jest achin' ter ride +in 'em, too!" + +Phineas almost dropped the reins in his amazement. "Achin' ter ride in +'em," she had said--and all that he could give her was this "shiftless +old rig" that she so scorned. He remembered something else, too, and his +face flamed suddenly red. It was Colonel Smith who owned and drove that +automobile, and Colonel Smith, too, was a bachelor. What if--Instantly +in Phineas's soul rose a fierce jealousy. + +"I like a hoss, myself," he said then, with some dignity. "I want +somethin' that's alive!" + +Diantha laughed slyly. The danger was past, and she could afford to be +merry. + +"Well, it strikes me that you come pretty near havin' somethin' that +_wa'n't_ alive jest 'cause you had somethin' that was!" she +retorted. "Really, Phineas, I didn't s'pose Dolly could move so fast!" + +Phineas bridled. + +"Dolly knew how ter move--once," he rejoined grimly. "'Course nobody +pretends ter say she's young now, any more 'n we be," he finished with +some defiance. But he drooped visibly at Diantha's next words. + +"Why, I don't feel old, Phineas, an' I ain't old, either. Look at +Colonel Smith; he's jest my age, an' he's got a autymobile. Mebbe I'll +have one some day." + +To Phineas it seemed that a cold hand clutched his heart. + +"Dianthy, you wouldn't really--ride in one!" he faltered. + +Until that moment Diantha had not been sure that she would, but the +quaver in Phineas's voice decided her. + +"Wouldn't I? You jest wait an' see!" + +And Phineas did wait--and he did see. He saw Diantha, not a week later, +pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, sitting by the side of Colonel Smith in +that hated automobile. Nor did he stop to consider that Diantha was only +one of a dozen upon whom Colonel Smith, in the enthusiasm of his new +possession, was pleased to bestow that attention. To Phineas it could +mean but one thing; and he did not change his opinion when he heard +Diantha's account of the ride. + +"It was perfectly lovely," she breathed. "Oh, Phineas, it was jest like +flyin'!" + +"'Flyin'!'" Phineas could say no more. He felt as if he were +choking,--choking with the dust raised by Dolly's plodding hoofs. + +"An' the trees an' the houses swept by like ghosts," continued Diantha. +"Why, Phineas, I could 'a' rode on an' on furever!" + +Before the ecstatic rapture in Diantha's face Phineas went down in +defeat. Without one word he turned away--but in his heart he registered +a solemn vow: he, too, would have an automobile; he, too, would make +Diantha wish to ride on and on forever! + +Arduous days came then to Phineas. Phineas was not a rich man. He had +enough for his modest wants, but until now those wants had not included +an automobile--until now he had not known that Diantha wished to fly. +All through the autumn and winter Phineas pinched and economized until +he had lopped off all of the luxuries and most of the pleasures of +living. Even then it is doubtful if he would have accomplished his +purpose had he not, in the spring, fallen heir to a modest legacy of a +few thousand dollars. The news of his good fortune was not two hours old +when he sought Diantha. + +"I cal'late mebbe I'll be gettin' me one o' them 'ere autymobiles this +spring," he said, as if casually filling a pause in the conversation. + +"_Phineas_!" + +At the awed joy in Diantha's voice the man's heart glowed within him. +This one moment of triumph was worth all the long miserable winter with +its butterless bread and tobaccoless pipes. But he carefully hid his joy +when he spoke. + +"Yes," he said nonchalantly. "I'm goin' ter Boston next week ter pick +one out. I cal'late on gettin' a purty good one." + +"Oh, Phineas! But how--how you goin' ter run it?" + +Phineas's chin came up. + +"Run it!" he scoffed. "Well, I hain't had no trouble yet steerin' a +hoss, an' I cal'late I won't have any more steerin' a mess o' senseless +metal what hain't got no eyes ter be seein' things an' gittin' scared! I +don't worry none 'bout runnin' it." + +"But, Phineas, it ain't all steerin'," ventured Diantha, timidly. +"There's lots of little handles and things ter turn, an' there's some +things you do with your feet. Colonel Smith did." + +The name Smith to Phineas was like a match to gunpowder. He flamed +instantly into wrath. + +"Well, I cal'late what Colonel Smith does, I can," he snapped. +"Besides"--airily--"mebbe I shan't git the feet kind, anyhow; I want the +best. There's as much as four or five kinds, Jim Blair says, an' I +cal'late ter try 'em all." + +"Oh-h!" breathed Diantha, falling back in her chair with an ecstatic +sigh. "Oh, Phineas, won't it be grand!" And Phineas, seeing the joyous +light in her eyes, gazed straight down a vista of happiness that led to +wedding bells and bliss. + +Phineas was gone some time on his Boston trip. When he returned he +looked thin and worried. He started nervously at trivial noises, and his +eyes showed a furtive restlessness that quickly caused remark. + +"Why, Phineas, you don't look well!" Diantha exclaimed when she saw him. + +"Well? Oh, I'm well." + +"An' did you buy it--that autymobile?" + +"I did." Phineas's voice was triumphant. Diantha's eyes sparkled. + +"Where is it?" she demanded. + +"Comin'--next week." + +"An' did you try 'em all, as you said you would?" + +Phineas stirred; then he sighed. + +"Well, I dunno," he acknowledged. "I hain't done nothin' but ride in 'em +since I went down--I know that. But there's such a powerful lot of 'em, +Dianthy; an' when they found out I wanted one, they all took hold an' +showed off their best p'ints--'demonstatin',' they called it. They raced +me up hill an' down hill, an' scooted me round corners till I didn't +know where I was. I didn't have a minute ter myself. An' they went fast, +Dianthy-powerful fast. I ain't real sure yet that I'm breathin' +natural." + +"But it must have been grand, Phineas! I should have loved it!" + +"Oh, it was, 'course!" assured Phineas, hastily. + +"An' you'll take me ter ride, right away?" If Phineas hesitated it was +for only a moment. + +"'Course," he promised. "Er--there's a man, he's comin' with it, an' +he's goin' ter stay a little, jest ter--ter make sure everything's all +right. After he goes I'll come. An' ye want ter be ready--I'll show ye a +thing or two!" he finished with a swagger that was meant to hide the +shake in his voice. + +In due time the man and the automobile arrived, but Diantha did not have +her ride at once. It must have taken some time to make sure that +"everything was all right," for the man stayed many days, and while he +was there, of course Phineas was occupied with him. Colonel Smith was +unkind enough to observe that he hoped it was taking Phineas Hopkins +long enough to learn to run the thing; but his remark did not reach +Diantha's ears. She knew only that Phineas, together with the man and +the automobile, started off early every morning for some unfrequented +road, and did not return until night. + +There came a day, however, when the man left town, and not twenty-four +hours later, Phineas, with a gleaming thing of paint and polish, stood +at Diantha's door. + +"Now ain't that pretty," quavered Diantha excitedly. "Ain't that awful +pretty!" + +Phineas beamed. + +"Purty slick, I think myself," he acknowledged. + +"An' green is so much nicer than red," cooed Diantha. + +Phineas quite glowed with joy--Colonel Smith's car was red. "Oh, green's +the thing," he retorted airily; "an' see!" he added; and forthwith he +burst into a paean of praise, in which tires, horns, lamps, pumps, +baskets, brakes, and mud-guards were the dominant notes. It almost +seemed, indeed, that he had bought the gorgeous thing before him to look +at and talk about rather than to use, so loath was he to stop talking +and set the wheels to moving. Not until Diantha had twice reminded him +that she was longing to ride in it did he help her into the car and make +ready to start. + +It was not an entire success--that start. There were several false moves +on Phineas's part, and Diantha could not repress a slight scream and a +nervous jump at sundry unexpected puffs and snorts and snaps from the +throbbing thing beneath her. She gave a louder scream when Phineas, in +his nervousness, sounded the siren, and a wail like a cry from the +spirit world shrieked in her ears. + +"Phineas, what was that?" she shivered, when the voice had moaned into +silence. + +Phineas's lips were dry, and his hands and knees were shaking; but his +pride marched boldly to the front. + +"Why, that's the siren whistle, 'course," he chattered. "Ain't it great? +I thought you'd like it!" And to hear him one would suppose that to +sound the siren was always a necessary preliminary to starting the +wheels. + +They were off at last. There was a slight indecision, to be sure, +whether they would go backward or forward, and there was some hesitation +as to whether Diantha's geranium bed or the driveway would make the best +thoroughfare. But these little matters having been settled to the +apparent satisfaction of all concerned, the automobile rolled down the +driveway and out on to the main highway. + +"Oh, ain't this grand!" murmured Diantha, drawing a long but somewhat +tremulous breath. + +Phineas did not answer. His lips were tense, and his eyes were fixed on +the road ahead. For days now he had run the car himself, and he had been +given official assurance that he was quite capable of handling it; yet +here he was on his first ride with Diantha almost making a failure of +the whole thing at the start. Was he to be beaten--beaten by a senseless +motor car and Colonel Smith? At the thought Phineas lifted his chin and +put on more power. + +"Oh, my! How f-fast we're goin'!" cried Diantha, close to his ear. + +Phineas nodded. + +"Who wants ter crawl?" he shouted; and the car leaped again at the touch +of his hand. + +They were out of the town now, on a wide road that had few turns. +Occasionally they met a carriage or a wagon, but the frightened horses +and the no less frightened drivers gave the automobile a wide +berth--which was well; for the parallel tracks behind Phineas showed +that the car still had its moments of indecision as to the course to +pursue. + +The town was four miles behind them when Diantha, who had been for some +time vainly clutching at the flying ends of her veil, called to Phineas +to stop. + +The request took Phineas by surprise. For one awful moment his mind was +a blank--he had forgotten how to stop! In frantic haste he turned and +twisted and shoved and pulled, ending with so sudden an application of +the brakes that Diantha nearly shot head first out of the car as it +stopped. + +"Why, why--Phineas!" she cried a little sharply. + +Phineas swallowed the lump in his throat and steadied himself in his +seat. + +"Ye see I--I can stop her real quick if I want to," he explained +jauntily. "Ye can do 'most anythin' with these 'ere things if ye only +know how, Dianthy. Didn't we come slick?" + +"Yes, indeed," stammered Diantha, hastily smoothing out the frown on her +face and summoning a smile to her lips--not for her best black silk gown +would she have had Phineas know that she was wishing herself safe at +home and the automobile back where it came from. + +"We'll go home through the Holler," said Phineas, after she had retied +her veil and they were ready to start. "It's the long way round, ye +know. I ain't goin' ter give ye no snippy little two-mile run, Dianthy, +like Colonel Smith did," he finished gleefully. + +"No, of course not," murmured Diantha, smothering a sigh as the +automobile started with a jerk. + +An hour later, tired, frightened, a little breathless, but valiantly +declaring that she had had a "beautiful time," Diantha was set down at +her own door. + +That was but the first of many such trips. Ever sounding in Phineas +Hopkins's ears and spurring him to fresh endeavor, were Diantha's words, +"I could 'a' rode on an' on furever"; and deep in his heart was the +determination that if it was automobile rides that she wanted, it was +automobile rides that she should have! His small farm on the edge of the +town--once the pride of his heart--began to look forlorn and deserted; +for Phineas, when not actually driving his automobile, was usually to be +found hanging over it with wrench and polishing cloth. He bought little +food and less clothing, but always--gasolene. And he talked to any one +who would listen about automobiles in general and his own in particular, +learnedly dropping in frequent references to cylinders, speed, horse +power, vibrators, carburetors, and spark plugs. + +As for Diantha--she went to bed every night with thankfulness that she +possessed her complement of limbs and senses, and she rose every morning +with a fear that the coming night would find some of them missing. To +Phineas and the town in general she appeared to be devoted to this +breathless whizzing over the country roads; and wild horses could not +have dragged from her the truth: that she was longing with an +overwhelming longing for the old days of Dolly, dawdling, and peace. + +Just where it all would have ended it is difficult to say had not the +automobile itself taken a hand in the game--as automobiles will +sometimes--and played trumps. + +It was the first day of the county fair again, and Phineas and Diantha +were on their way home. Straight ahead the road ran between clumps of +green, then unwound in a white ribbon of dust across wide fields and +open meadows. + +"Tain't much like last year, is it, Dianthy?" crowed Phineas, shrilly, +in her ear--then something went wrong. + +Phineas knew it instantly. The quivering thing beneath them leaped into +new life--but a life of its own. It was no longer a slave, but a master. +Phineas's face grew white. Thus far he had been able to keep to the +road, but just ahead there was a sharp curve, and he knew he could not +make the turn--something was the matter with the steering-gear. + +"Look out--she's got the bits in her teeth!" he shouted. "She's bolted!" + +There came a scream, a sharp report, and a grinding crash--then silence. + + * * * * * + +From away off in the dim distance Phineas heard a voice. + +"Phineas! Phineas!" + +Something snapped, and he seemed to be floating up, up, up, out of the +black oblivion of nothingness. He tried to speak, but he knew that he +made no sound. + +"Phineas! Phineas!" + +The voice was nearer now, so near that it seemed just above him. It +sounded like--With a mighty effort he opened his eyes; then full +consciousness came. He was on the ground, his head in Diantha's lap. +Diantha, bonnet crushed, neck-bow askew, and coat torn, was bending over +him, calling him frantically by name. Ten feet away the wrecked +automobile, tip-tilted against a large maple tree, completed the +picture. + +With a groan Phineas closed his eyes and turned away his head. + +"She's all stove up--an' now you won't ever say yes," he moaned. "You +wanted ter ride on an' on furever!" + +"But I will--I don't--I didn't mean it," sobbed Diantha incoherently. +"I'd rather have Dolly twice over. I _like_ ter crawl. Oh, Phineas, +I hate that thing--I've always hated it! I'll say yes next +week--to-morrow--to-day if you'll only open your eyes and tell me you +ain't a-dyin'!" + +Phineas was not dying, and he proved it promptly and effectually, even +to the doubting Diantha's blushing content. And there their rescuers +found them a long half-hour later--a blissful old man and a happy old +woman sitting hand in hand by the wrecked automobile. + +"I cal'lated somebody'd be along purty soon," said Phineas, rising +stiffly. "Ye see, we've each got a foot that don't go, so we couldn't +git help; but we hain't minded the wait--not a mite!" + + + + +The Most Wonderful Woman + + + +And a Great Man who proves himself truly great + +It was Old Home Week in the little village, and this was to be the +biggest day. From a distant city was to come the town's one really Great +Man, to speak in the huge tent erected on the Common for just that +purpose. From end to end the village was aflame with bunting and astir +with excitement, so that even I, merely a weary sojourner in the place, +felt the thrill and tingled pleasantly. + +When the Honorable Jonas Whitermore entered the tent at two o'clock that +afternoon I had a good view of him, for my seat was next the broad +aisle. Behind him on the arm of an usher came a small, +frightened-looking little woman in a plain brown suit and a plainer +brown bonnet set askew above thin gray hair. The materials of both suit +and bonnet were manifestly good, but all distinction of line and cut was +hopelessly lost in the wearing. Who she was I did not know; but I soon +learned, for one of the two young women in front of me said a low +something to which the other gave back a swift retort, woefully audible: +"_His wife_? That little dowdy thing in brown? Oh, what a pity! Such an +ordinary woman!" + +My cheeks grew hot in sympathy with the painful red that swept to the +roots of the thin gray hair under the tip-tilted bonnet. Then I glanced +at the man. + +Had he heard? I was not quite sure. His chin, I fancied, was a trifle +higher. I could not see his eyes, but I did see his right hand; and it +was clenched so tightly that the knuckles were white with the strain. I +thought I knew then. He had heard. The next minute he had passed on up +the aisle and the usher was seating the more-frightened-than-ever little +wife in the roped-off section reserved for important guests. + +It was then that I became aware that the man on my right was saying +something. + +"I beg your pardon, but-did you speak--to me?" I asked, turning to him +hesitatingly. + +The old man met my eyes with an abashed smile. + +"I guess I'm the party what had ought to be askin' pardon, stranger," he +apologized. "I talk to myself so much I kinder furgit sometimes, and do +it when folks is round. I was only sayin' that I wondered why 'twas the +good Lord give folks tongues and forgot to give 'em brains to run 'em +with. But maybe you didn't hear what she said," he hazarded, with a jerk +of his thumb toward the young woman in front. + +"About Mrs. Whitermore? Yes, I heard." + +His face darkened. + +"Then you know. And she heard, too! 'Ordinary woman,' indeed! Humph! To +think that Betty Tillington should ever live to hear herself called an +'ordinary woman'! You see, I knew her when she _was_ Betty +Tillington." + +"Did you?" I smiled encouragingly. I was getting interested, and I hoped +he would keep on talking. On the platform the guest of honor was holding +a miniature reception. He was the picture of polite attention and +punctilious responsiveness; but I thought I detected a quick glance now +and then toward the roped-off section where sat his wife and I wondered +again--had he heard that thoughtless comment? + +From somewhere had come the rumor that the man who was to introduce the +Honorable Jonas Whitermore had been delayed by a washout "down the +road," but was now speeding toward us by automobile. For my part, I fear +I wished the absentee a punctured tire so that I might hear more of the +heart-history of the faded little woman with the bonnet askew. + +"Yes, I knew her," nodded my neighbor, "and she didn't look much then +like she does now. She was as pretty as a picture and there wa'n't a +chap within sight of her what wa'n't head over heels in love with her. +But there wa'n't never a chance for but two of us and we knew it: Joe +Whitermore and a chap named Fred Farrell. So, after a time, we just sort +of stood off and watched the race--as pretty a race as ever you see. +Farrell had the money and the good looks, while Whitermore was poor as a +church mouse, and he was homely, too. But Whitermore must have had +somethin'--maybe somethin' we didn't see, for she took _him_. + +"Well, they married and settled down happy as two twitterin' birds, but +poor as Job's turkey. For a year or so she was as pretty and gay as ever +she was and into every good time goin'; then the babies came, one after +another, some of 'em livin' and some dyin' soon after they came. + +"Of course, things was different then. What with the babies and the +housework, Betty couldn't get out much, and we didn't see much of her. +When we did see her, though, she'd smile and toss her head in the old +way and say how happy she was and didn't we think her babies was the +prettiest things ever, and all that. And we did, of course, and told her +so. + +"But we couldn't help seein' that she was gettin' thin and white and +that no matter how she tossed her head, there wa'n't any curls there to +bob like they used to, 'cause her hair was pulled straight back and +twisted up into a little hard knot just like as if she had done it up +when some one was callin' her to come quick." + +"Yes, I can imagine it," I nodded. + +"Well, that's the way things went at the first, while he was gettin' his +start, and I guess they was happy then. You see, they was pullin' even +them days and runnin' neck and neck. Even when Fred Farrell, her old +beau, married a girl she knew and built a fine house all piazzas and +bow-winders right in sight of their shabby little rented cottage, I +don't think she minded it; even if Mis' Farrell didn't have anythin' to +do from mornin' till night only set in a white dress on her piazza, and +rock, and give parties, Betty didn't seem to mind. She had her Joe. + +"But by and by she didn't have her Joe. Other folks had him and his +business had him. I mean, he'd got up where the big folks in town begun +to take notice of him; and when he wa'n't tendin' to business, he was +hobnobbin' with them, so's to bring _more_ business. And--of course +she, with her babies and housework, didn't have no time for that. + +"Well, next they moved away. When they went they took my oldest girl, +Mary, to help Betty; and so we still kept track of 'em. Mary said it was +worse than ever in the new place. It was quite a big city and just +livin' cost a lot. Mr. Whitermore, of course, had to look decent, out +among folks as he was, so he had to be 'tended to first. Then what was +left of money and time went to the children. It wa'n't long, too, before +the big folks _there_ begun to take notice, and Mr. Whitermore +would come home all excited and tell about what was said to him and what +fine things he was bein' asked to do. He said 'twas goin' to mean +everythin' to his career. + +"Then come the folks to call, ladies in fine carriages with dressed-up +men to hold the door open and all that; but always, after they'd gone, +Mary'd find Betty cryin' somewhere, or else tryin' to fix a bit of old +lace or ribbon on to some old dress. Mary said Betty's clo's were awful, +then. You see, there wa'n't never any money left for _her_ things. +But all this didn't last long, for very soon the fine ladies stopped +comin' and Betty just settled down to the children and didn't try to fix +her clo's any more. + +"But by and by, of course, the money begun to come in--lots of it--and +that meant more changes, naturally. They moved into a bigger house, and +got two more hired girls and a man, besides Mary. Mr. Whitermore said he +didn't want his wife to work so hard now, and that, besides, his +position demanded it. He was always talkin' about his position those +days, tryin' to get his wife to go callin' and go to parties and take +her place as his wife, as he put it. + +"And Mary said Betty did try, and try hard. Of course she had nice clo's +now, lots of 'em; but somehow they never seemed to look just right. And +when she did go to parties, she never knew what to talk about, she told +Mary. She didn't know a thing about the books and pictures and the plays +and quantities of other things that everybody else seemed to know about; +and so she just had to sit still and say nothin'. + +"Mary said she could see it plagued her and she wa'n't surprised when, +after a time, Betty begun to have headaches and be sick party nights, +and beg Mr. Whitermore to go alone--and then cry because he did go +alone. You see, she'd got it into her head then that her husband was +ashamed of her." + +"And was--he?" demanded I. + +"I don't know. Mary said she couldn't tell exactly. He seemed worried, +sometimes, and quite put out at the way his wife acted about goin' to +places. Then, other times, he didn't seem to notice or care if he did +have to go alone. It wa'n't that he was unkind to her. It was just that +he was so busy lookin' after himself that he forgot all about her. But +Betty took it all as bein' ashamed of her, no matter what he did; and +for a while she just seemed to pine away under it. They'd moved to +Washington by that time and, of course, with him in the President's +Cabinet, it was pretty hard for her. + +"Then, all of a sudden, she took a new turn and begun to study and to +try to learn things--everything: how to talk and dress and act, besides +stuff that was just book-learnin'. She's been doin' that for quite a +spell and Mary says she thinks she'd do pretty well now, in lots of +ways, if only she had half a chance--somethin' to encourage her, you +know. But her husband don't seem to take no notice, now, just as if he's +got tired expectin' anythin' of her and that's made her so scared and +discouraged she's too nervous to act as if she _did_ know anythin'. +An' there 't is. + +"Well, maybe she is just an ordinary woman," sighed the old man, a +little sternly, "if bein' 'ordinary' means she's like lots of others. +For I suspect, stranger, that, if the truth was told, lots of other big +men have got wives just like her--women what have been workin' so tarnal +hard to help their husbands get ahead that they hain't had time to see +where they themselves was goin'. And by and by they wake up to the fact +that they hain't got nowhere. They've just stayed still, 'way behind. + +"Mary says she don't believe Betty would mind even that, if her husband +only seemed to care--to--to understand, you know, how it had been with +her and how--Crickey! I guess they've come," broke off the old man +suddenly, craning his neck for a better view of the door. + +From outside had sounded the honk of an automobile horn and the wild +cheering of men and boys. A few minutes later the long-delayed programme +began. + +It was the usual thing. Before the Speaker of the Day came other +speakers, and each of them, no matter what his subject, failed not to +refer to "our illustrious fellow townsman" in terms of highest eulogy. +One told of his humble birth, his poverty-driven boyhood, his strenuous +youth. Another drew a vivid picture of his rise to fame. A third dilated +upon the extraordinary qualities of brain and body which had made such +achievement possible and which would one day land him in the White House +itself. + +Meanwhile, close to the speaker's stand sat the Honorable Jonas +Whitermore himself, for the most part grim and motionless, though I +thought I detected once or twice a repetition of the half-troubled, +half-questioning glances directed toward his wife that I had seen +before. Perhaps it was because I was watching him so closely that I saw +the sudden change come to his face. The lips lost their perfunctory +smile and settled into determined lines. The eyes, under their shaggy +brows, glowed with sudden fire. The entire pose and air of the man +became curiously alert, as if with the eager impatience of one who has +determined upon a certain course of action and is anxious only to be up +and doing. Very soon after that he was introduced, and, amid deafening +cheers, rose to his feet. Then, very quietly, he began to speak. + +We had heard he was an orator. Doubtless many of us were familiar with +his famous nickname "Silver-tongued Joe." We had expected great things +of him--a brilliant discourse on the tariff, perhaps, or on our foreign +relations, or yet on the Hague Tribunal. But we got none of these. We +got first a few quiet words of thanks and appreciation for the welcome +extended him; then we got the picture of an everyday home just like +ours, with all its petty cares and joys so vividly drawn that we thought +we were seeing it, not hearing about it. He told us it was a little home +of forty years ago, and we began to realize, some way, that he was +speaking of himself. + +"I may, you know, here," he said, "for I am among my own people. I am at +home." + +Even then I didn't see what he was coming to. Like the rest I sat +slightly confused, wondering what it all meant. Then, suddenly, into his +voice there crept a tense something that made me sit more erect in my +seat. + +"_My_ indomitable will-power? _My_ superb courage? _My_ +stupendous strength of character? _My_ undaunted persistence and +marvelous capacity for hard work?" he was saying. "Do you think it's to +that I owe what I am? Never! Come back with me to that little home of +forty years ago and I'll show you to what and to whom I do owe it. First +and foremost I owe it to a woman--no ordinary woman, I want you to +understand--but to the most wonderful woman in the world." + +I knew then. So did my neighbor, the old man at my side. He jogged my +elbow frantically and whispered:-- + +"He's goin' to--he's goin' to! He's goin' to show her he _does_ +care and understand! He _did_ hear that girl. Crickey! But ain't he +the cute one to pay her back like that, for what she said?" + +The little wife down front did not know--yet, however. I realized that, +the minute I looked at her and saw her drawn face and her frightened, +staring eyes fixed on her husband up there on the platform--her husband, +who was going to tell all these people about some wonderful woman whom +even she had never heard of before, but who had been the making of him, +it seemed. + +"_My_ will-power?" the Honorable Jonas Whitermore was saying then. +"Not mine, but the will-power of a woman who did not know the meaning of +the word 'fail.' Not my superb courage, but the courage of one who, day +in and day out, could work for a victory whose crown was to go, not to +herself, but to another. Not my stupendous strength of character, but +that of a beautiful young girl who could see youth and beauty and +opportunity nod farewell, and yet smile as she saw them go. Not my +undaunted persistence, but the persistence of one to whom the goal is +always just ahead, but never reached. And last, not my marvelous +capacity for hard work, but that of the wife and mother who bends her +back each morning to a multitude of tasks and cares that she knows night +will only interrupt--not finish." + +My eyes were still on the little brown-clad woman down in front, so I +saw the change come to her face as her husband talked. I saw the terror +give way to puzzled questioning, and that, in turn, become surprise, +incredulity, then overwhelming joy as the full meaning came to her that +she herself was that most wonderful woman in the world who had been the +making of him. I looked then for just a touch of the old frightened, +self-consciousness at finding herself thus so conspicuous; but it did +not come. The little woman plainly had forgotten us. She was no longer +Mrs. Jonas Whitermore among a crowd of strangers listening to a great +man's Old-Home-Day speech. She was just a loving, heart-hungry, tired, +all-but-discouraged wife hearing for the first time from the lips of her +husband that he knew and cared and understood. + +"Through storm and sunshine, she was always there at her post, aiding, +encouraging, that I might be helped," the Honorable Jonas Whitermore was +saying. "Week in and week out she fought poverty, sickness, and +disappointments, and all without a murmur, lest her complaints distract +me for one precious moment from my work. Even the nights brought her no +rest, for while I slept, she stole from cot to cradle and from cradle to +crib, covering outflung little legs and arms, cooling parched little +throats with water, quieting fretful whimpers and hushing threatening +outcries with a low 'Hush, darling, mother's here. Don't cry! You'll +wake father--and father must have his sleep.' And father had it--that +sleep, just as he had the best of everything else in the house: food, +clothing, care, attention--everything. + +"What mattered it if her hands did grow rough and toil-worn? Mine were +left white and smooth--for my work. What mattered it if her back and her +head and her feet did ache? Mine were left strong and painless--for my +work. What mattered her wakefulness if I slept? What mattered her +weariness if I was rested? What mattered her disappointments if my aims +were accomplished? Nothing!" + +The Honorable Jonas Whitermore paused for breath, and I caught mine and +held it. It seemed, for a minute, as if everybody all over the house was +doing the same thing, too, so absolutely still was it, after that one +word--"nothing." They were beginning to understand--a little. I could +tell that. They were beginning to see this big thing that was taking +place right before their eyes. I glanced at the little woman down in +front. The tender glow on her face had grown and deepened and broadened +until her whole little brown-clad self seemed transfigured. My own eyes +dimmed as I looked. Then, suddenly I became aware that the Honorable +Jonas Whitermore was speaking again. + +"And not for one year only, nor two, nor ten, has this quintessence of +devotion been mine," he was saying, "but for twice ten and then a score +more--for forty years. For forty years! Did you ever stop to think how +long forty years could be--forty years of striving and straining, of +pinching and economizing, of serving and sacrificing? Forty years of +just loving somebody else better than yourself, and doing this every +day, and every hour of the day for the whole of those long forty years? +It isn't easy to love somebody else _always_ better than yourself, +you know! It means the giving up of lots of things that _you_ want. +You might do it for a day, for a month, for a year even--but for forty +years! Yet she has done it--that most wonderful woman. Do you wonder +that I say it is to her, and to her alone, under God, that I owe all +that I am, all that I hope to be?" + +Once more he paused. Then, in a voice that shook a little at the first, +but that rang out clear and strong and powerful at the end, he said: + +"Ladies, gentlemen, I understand this will close your programme. It will +give me great pleasure, therefore, if at the adjournment of this meeting +you will allow me to present you to the most wonderful woman in the +world--my wife." + +I wish I could tell you what happened then. The words--oh, yes, I could +tell you in words what happened. For that matter, the reporters at the +little stand down in front told it in words, and the press of the whole +country blazoned it forth on the front page the next morning. But really +to know what happened, you should have heard it and seen it, and felt +the tremendous power of it deep in your soul, as we did who did see it. + +There was a moment's breathless hush, then to the canvas roof there rose +a mighty cheer and a thunderous clapping of hands as by common impulse +the entire audience leaped to its feet. + +For one moment only did I catch a glimpse of Mrs. Jonas Whitermore, +blushing, laughing, and wiping teary eyes in which the wondrous glow +still lingered; then the eager crowd swept down the aisle toward her. + +"Crickey!" breathed the red-faced old man at my side. "Well, stranger, +even if it does seem sometimes as if the good Lord give some folks +tongues and forgot to give 'em brains to run 'em with, I guess maybe He +kinder makes up for it, once in a while, by givin' other folks the +brains to use their tongues so powerful well!" + +I nodded dumbly. I could not speak just then--but the young woman in +front of me could. Very distinctly as I passed her I heard her say: + +"Well, now, ain't that the limit, Sue? And her such an ordinary woman, +too!" + + + + +The Price of a Pair of Shoes + + + +For fifty years the meadow lot had been mowed and the side hill ploughed +at the nod of Jeremiah's head; and for the same fifty years the plums +had been preserved and the mince-meat chopped at the nod of his +wife's--and now the whole farm from the meadowlot to the mince-meat was +to pass into the hands of William, the only son, and William's wife, +Sarah Ellen. + +"It'll be so much nicer, mother,--no care for you!" Sarah Ellen had +declared. + +"And so much easier for you, father, too," William had added. "It's time +you rested. As for money--of course you'll have plenty in the +savings-bank for clothes and such things. You won't need much, anyhow," +he finished, "for you'll get your living off the farm just as you always +have." + +So the matter was settled, and the papers were made out. There was no +one to be considered, after all, but themselves, for William was the +only living son, and there had been no daughters. + +For a time it was delightful. Jeremiah and Hester Whipple were like +children let out of school. They told themselves that they were people +of leisure now, and they forced themselves to lie abed half an hour +later than usual each day. They spent long hours in the attic looking +over old treasures, and they loitered about the garden and the barn with +no fear that it might be time to get dinner or to feed the stock. + +Gradually, however, there came a change. A new restlessness entered +their lives, a restlessness that speedily became the worst kind of +homesickness--the homesickness of one who is already at home. + +The extra half-hour was spent in bed as before--but now Hester lay with +one ear listening to make sure that Sarah Ellen _did_ let the cat +in for her early breakfast; and Jeremiah lay with his ear listening for +the squeak of the barn door which would tell him whether William was +early or, late that morning. There were the same long hours in the attic +and the garden, too--but in the attic Hester discovered her treasured +wax wreath (late of the parlor wall); and in the garden Jeremiah found +more weeds than _he_ had ever allowed to grow there, he was sure. + +The farm had been in the hands of William and Sarah Ellen just six +months when the Huntersville Savings Bank closed its doors. It was the +old story of dishonesty and disaster, and when the smoke of Treasurer +Hilton's revolver cleared away there was found to be practically nothing +for the depositors. Perhaps on no one did the blow fall with more +staggering force than on Jeremiah Whipple. + +"Why, Hester," he moaned, when he found himself alone with his wife, +"here I'm seventy-eight years old--an' no money! What am I goin' ter +do?" + +"I know, dear," soothed Hester; "but 't ain't as bad for us as 'tis for +some. We've got the farm, you know; an'--" + +"We hain't got the farm," cut in her husband sharply. "William an' Sarah +Ellen's got it." + +"Yes, I know, but they--why, they're _us_, Jeremiah," reminded +Hester, trying to keep the quaver out of her voice. + +"Mebbe, Hester, mebbe," conceded Jeremiah; but he turned and looked out +of the window with gloomy eyes. + +There came a letter to the farmhouse soon after this from Nathan Banks, +a favorite nephew, suggesting that "uncle and aunt" pay them a little +visit. + +"Just the thing, father!" cried William. "Go--it'll do you both good!" +And after some little talk it was decided that the invitation should be +accepted. + +Nathan Banks lived thirty miles away, but not until the night before the +Whipples were to start did it suddenly occur to Jeremiah that he had now +no money for railroad tickets. With a heightened color on his old cheeks +he mentioned the fact to William. + +"Ye see, I--I s'pose I'll have ter come ter you," he apologized. "Them +won't take us!" And he looked ruefully at a few coins he had pulled from +his pocket. "They're all the cash I've got left." + +William frowned a little and stroked his beard. + +"Sure enough!" he muttered. "I forgot the tickets, too, father. 'T is +awkward--that bank blowing up; isn't it? Oh, I'll let you have it all +right, of course, and glad to, only it so happens that just now I--er, +how much is it, anyway?" he broke off abruptly. + +"Why, I reckon a couple of dollars'll take us down, an' more, mebbe," +stammered the old man, "only, of course, there's comin' back, and--" + +"Oh, we don't have to reckon on that part now," interrupted William +impatiently, as he thrust his hands into his pockets and brought out a +bill and some change. "I can send you down some more when that time +comes. There, here's a two; if it doesn't take it all, what's left can +go toward bringing you back." + +And he handed out the bill, and dropped the change into his pocket. + +"Thank you, William," stammered the old man. "I--I'm sorry--" + +"Oh, that's all right," cut in William cheerfully, with a wave of his +two hands. "Glad to do it, father; glad to do it!" + +Mr. and Mrs. Whipple stayed some weeks with their nephew. But, much as +they enjoyed their visit, there came a day when home--regardless of +weeds that were present and wax wreaths that were absent--seemed to them +the one place in the world; and they would have gone there at once had +it not been for the railroad fares. + +William had not sent down any more money, though his letters had been +kind, and had always spoken of the warm welcome that awaited them any +time they wished to come home. + +Toward the end of the fifth week a bright idea came to Jeremiah. + +"We'll go to Cousin Abby's," he announced gleefully to his wife. "Nathan +said last night he'd drive us over there any time. We'll go to-morrow, +an' we won't come back here at all--it'll be ten miles nearer home +there, an' it won't cost us a cent ter get there," he finished +triumphantly. And to Cousin Abby's they went. + +So elated was Jeremiah with the result of his scheming that he set his +wits to work in good earnest, and in less than a week he had formulated +an itinerary that embraced the homes of two other cousins, an aunt of +Sarah Ellen's, and the niece of a brother-in-law, the latter being only +three miles from 'his own farmhouse--or rather William's farmhouse, as +he corrected himself bitterly. Before another month had passed, the +round of visits was accomplished, and the little old man and the little +old woman--having been carried to their destination in each case by +their latest host--finally arrived at the farmhouse door. They were +weary, penniless, and half-sick from being feasted and feted at every +turn, but they were blissfully conscious that of no one had they been +obliged to beg the price of their journey home. + +"We didn't write we were comin'," apologized Jeremiah faintly, as he +stumbled across the threshold and dropped into the nearest chair. "We +were goin' ter write from Keziah's, but we were so tired we hurried +right up an' come home. 'Tis nice ter get here; ain't it, Hester?" he +finished, settling back in his chair. + +"'Nice'!" cried Hester tremulously, tugging at her bonnet strings. +"'Nice' ain't no name for it, Jeremiah. Why, Sarah Ellen, seems if I +don't want to do nothin' for a whole month but set in my own room an' +jest look 'round all day!" + +"You poor dear--and that's all you shall do!" soothed Sarah Ellen; and +Hester sighed, content. For so many, many weeks now she had sat upon +strange chairs and looked out upon an unfamiliar world! + + * * * * * + +It was midwinter when Jeremiah's last pair of shoes gave out. "An' there +ain't a cent ter get any new ones, Hester," he exclaimed, ruefully eying +the ominously thin place in the sole. + +"I know, Jeremiah, but there's William," murmured Hester. "I'm sure he--" + +"Oh, of course, he'd give it to me," cried Jeremiah quickly; "but--I--I +sort of hate to ask." + +"Pooh! I wouldn't think of that," declared Hester stoutly, but even as +she spoke, she tucked her own feet farther under her chair. "We gave +them the farm, and they understood they was to take care of us, of +course." + +"Hm-m, yes, I know, I know. I'll ask him," murmured Jeremiah--but he did +not ask him until the ominously thin place in the sole had become a +hole, large, round, and unmistakable. + +"Well, William," he began jocosely, trying to steady his shaking voice, +"guess them won't stand for it much longer!" And he held up the shoe, +sole uppermost. + +"Well, I should say not!" laughed William; then his face changed. "Oh, +and you'll have to have the money for some new ones, of course. By +George! It does beat all how I keep forgetting about that bank!" + +"I know, William, I'm sorry," stammered the old man miserably. + +"Oh, I can let you have it all right, father, and glad to," assured +William, still frowning. "It's only that just at this time I'm a little +short, and--" He stopped abruptly and thrust his hands into his pockets. +"Hm-m," he vouchsafed after a minute. "Well, I'll tell you what--I +haven't got any now, but in a day or two I'll take you over to the +village and see what Skinner's got that will fit you. Oh, we'll have +some shoes, father, never fear!" he laughed. "You don't suppose I'm +going to let my father go barefoot!--eh?" And he laughed again. + +Things wore out that winter in the most unaccountable fashion--at least +those belonging to Jeremiah and Hester did, especially undergarments. +One by one they came to mending, and one by one Hester mended them, +patch upon patch, until sometimes there was left scarcely a thread of +the original garment. Once she asked William for money to buy new ones, +but it happened that William was again short, and though the money she +had asked for came later, Hester did not make that same request again. + +There were two things that Hester could not patch very successfully--her +shoes. She fried to patch them to be sure, but the coarse thread knotted +in her shaking old hands, and the bits of leather--cut from still older +shoes--slipped about and left her poor old thumb exposed to the sharp +prick of the needle, so that she finally gave it up in despair. She +tucked her feet still farther under her chair these days when Jeremiah +was near, and she pieced down two of her dress skirts so that they might +touch the floor all round. In spite of all this, however, Jeremiah saw, +one day--and understood. + +"Hester," he cried sharply, "put out your foot." + +Hester did not hear--apparently. She lowered the paper she was reading +and laughed a little hysterically. + +"Such a good joke, Jeremiah!" she quavered. "Just let me read it. A man--" + +"Hester, be them the best shoes you've got?" demanded Jeremiah. + +And Hester, with a wisdom born of fifty years' experience of that +particular tone of voice, dropped her paper and her subterfuge, and said +gently: "Yes, Jeremiah." + +There was a moment's pause; then Jeremiah sprang to his feet, thrust his +hands into his pockets, and paced the tiny bedroom from end to end. + +"Hester, this thing's a-killin' me!" he blurted out at last. "Here I'm +seventy-eight years old--an' I hain't got money enough ter buy my wife a +pair of shoes!" + +"But the farm, Jeremiah--" + +"I tell ye the farm ain't mine," cut in Jeremiah savagely. "Look a-here, +Hester, how do you s'pose it feels to a man who's paid his own way since +he was a boy, bought a farm with his own money an' run it, brought up +his boys an' edyercated 'em--how do ye s'pose it feels fur that man ter +go ter his own son an' say: 'Please, sir, can't I have a nickel ter buy +me a pair o' shoestrings?' How do ye s'pose it feels? I tell ye, Hester, +I can't stand it--I jest can't! I'm goin' ter work." + +"Jere-mi-ah!" + +"Well, I am," repeated the old man doggedly. "You're goin' ter have some +shoes, an' I'm goin' ter earn 'em. See if I don't!" And he squared his +shoulders, and straightened his bent back as if already he felt the +weight of a welcome burden. + +Spring came, and with it long sunny days and the smell of green things +growing. Jeremiah began to be absent day after day from the farmhouse. +The few tasks that he performed each morning were soon finished, and +after that he disappeared, not to return until night. William wondered a +little, but said nothing. Other and more important matters filled his +mind. + +Only Hester noticed that the old man's step grew more languid and his +eye more dull; and only Hester knew that at night he was sometimes too +tired to sleep--that he could not "seem ter hit the bed," as he +expressed it. + +It was at about this time that Hester began to make frequent visits to +the half-dozen farmhouses in the settlement about them. She began to be +wonderfully busy these days, too, knitting socks and mittens, or piecing +up quilts. Sarah Ellen asked her sometimes what she was doing, but +Hester's answers were always so cheery and bright that Sarah Ellen did +not realize that the point was always evaded and the subject changed. + +It was in May that the inevitable happened. William came home one day to +find an excited, weeping wife who hurried him into the seclusion of +their own room. + +"William, William," she moaned, "what shall we do? It's father and +mother; they've--oh, William, how can I tell you!" and she covered her +face with her hands. + +William paled under his coat of tan. He gripped his wife's arm with +fingers that hurt. + +"What is it--what's happened?" he asked hoarsely. "They aren't hurt +or--dead?" + +"No, no," choked Sarah Ellen. "I didn't mean to frighten you. They're +all right that way. They--they've _gone to work_! William, what +_shall_ we do?" + +Again William Whipple gripped his wife's arm with fingers that hurt. + +"Sarah Ellen, quit that crying, for Heaven's sake! What does this mean? +What are you talking about?" he demanded. + +Sarah Ellen sopped her eyes with her handkerchief and lifted her head. + +"It was this morning. I was over to Maria Weston's," she explained +brokenly. "Maria dropped something about a quilt mother was piecing for +her, and when I asked her what in the world she meant, she looked queer, +and said she supposed I knew. Then she tried to change the subject; but +I wouldn't let her, and finally I got the whole story out of her." + +"Yes, yes, go on," urged William impatiently, as Sarah Ellen paused for +breath. + +"It seems mother came to her a while ago, and--and she went to others, +too. She asked if there wasn't some knitting or patchwork she could do +for them. She said she--she wanted to earn some money." Sarah Ellen's +voice broke over the last word, and William muttered something under his +breath. "She said they'd lost all they had in the bank," went on Sarah +Ellen hurriedly, "and that they didn't like to ask you for money." + +"Why, I always let them have--" began William defensively; then he +stopped short, a slow red staining his face. + +"Yes, I know you have," interposed Sarah Ellen eagerly; "and I said so +to Maria. But mother had already told her that, it seems. She said that +mother said you were always glad to give it to them when they asked for +it, but that it hurt father's pride to beg, so he'd gone to work to earn +some of his own." + +"Father!" exclaimed William. "But I thought you said 'twas mother. +Surely father isn't knitting socks and mittens, is he?" + +"No, no," cried Sarah Ellen. "I'm coming to that as fast as I can. You +see, 'twas father who went to work first. He's been doing all sorts of +little odd jobs, even to staying with the Snow children while their +folks went to town, and spading up Nancy Howe's flower beds for her. But +it's been wearing on him, and he was getting all tired out. Only think +of it, William--_working out--father and mother_! I just can't ever +hold up my head again! What _shall_ we do?" + +"Do? Why, we'll stop it, of course," declared William savagely. "I guess +I can support my own father and mother without their working for a +living!" + +"But it's money, William, that they want. Don't you see?" + +"Well, we'll give them money, then. I always have, anyway,--when they +asked for it," finished William in an aggrieved voice. + +Sarah Ellen shook her head. + +"It won't do," she sighed. "It might have done once--but not now. +They've got to the point where they just can't accept money doled out to +them like that. Why, just think, 't was all theirs once!" + +"Well, 'tis now--in a way." + +"I know--but we haven't acted as if it were. I can see that now, when +it's too late." + +"We'll give it back, then," cried William, his face clearing; "the whole +blamed farm!" + +Sarah Ellen frowned. She shook her head slowly, then paused, a dawning +question in her eyes. + +"You don't suppose--William, could we?" she cried with sudden eagerness. + +"Well, we can try mighty hard," retorted the man grimly. "But we've got +to go easy, Sarah Ellen,--no bungling. We've got to spin some sort of a +yarn that won't break, nor have any weak places; and of course, as far +as the real work of the farm is concerned, we'll still do the most of +it. But the place'll be theirs. See?--theirs! _Working out_--good +Heavens!" + +It must have been a week later that Jeremiah burst into his wife's room. +Hester sat by the window, bending over numberless scraps of blue, red, +and pink calico. + +"Put it up, put it up, Hester," he panted joyously. "Ye hain't got to +sew no more, an' I hain't neither. The farm is ours!" + +"Why, Jeremiah, what--how--" + +"I don't know, Hester, no more than you do," laughed Jeremiah happily; +"only William says he's tired of runnin' things all alone, an' he wants +me to take hold again. They're goin' ter make out the papers right away; +an' say, Hester,"--the bent shoulders drew themselves erect with an air +of pride,--"I thought mebbe this afternoon we'd drive over ter +Huntersville an' get some shoes for you. Ye know you're always needin' +shoes!" + + + + +The Long Road + + + +"Jane!" + +"Yes, father." + +"Is the house locked up?" + +"Yes." + +"Are ye sure, now?" + +"Why, yes, dear; I just did it." + +"Well, won't ye see?" + +"But I have seen, father." Jane did not often make so many words about +this little matter, but she was particularly tired to-night. + +The old man fell back wearily. + +"Seems ter me, Jane, ye might jest see," he fretted. "'T ain't much I'm +askin' of ye, an' ye know them spoons--" + +"Yes, yes, dear, I'll go," interrupted the woman hurriedly. + +"And, Jane!" + +"Yes." The woman turned and waited. She knew quite well what was coming, +but it was the very exquisiteness of her patient care that allowed her +to give no sign that she had waited in that same spot to hear those same +words every night for long years past. + +"An' ye might count 'em--them spoons," said the old man. + +"Yes." + +"An' the forks." + +"Yes." + +"An' them photygraph pictures in the parlor." + +"All right, father." The woman turned away. Her step was slow, but +confident--the last word had been said. + +To Jane Pendergast her father had gone with the going of his keen, clear +mind, twenty years before. This fretful, childish, exacting old man that +pottered about the house all day was but the shell that had held the +kernel--the casket that had held the jewel. But because of what it had +held, Jane guarded it tenderly, laying at its feet her life as a willing +sacrifice. + +There had been four children: Edgar, the eldest; Jane, Mary, and Fred. +Edgar had left home early, and was a successful business man in Boston. +Mary had married a wealthy lawyer of the same city; and Fred had opened +a real estate office in a thriving Southern town. + +Jane had stayed at home. There had been a time, it is true, when she had +planned to go away to school; but the death of Mrs. Pendergast left no +one at home to care for Mary and Fred, so Jane had abandoned the idea. +Later, after Mary had married and Fred had gone away, there was still +her father to be cared for, though at this time he was well and strong. + +Jane had passed her thirty-fifth birthday, when she became palpitatingly +aware of a pair of blue-gray eyes, and a determined, smooth-shaven chin +belonging to the recently arrived principal of the village school. In +spite of her stern admonition to herself to remember her years and not +quite lose her head, she was fast drifting into a rosy dream of romance +that was all the more enthralling because so belated, when the summons +of a small boy brought her sharply back to the realities. + +"It's yer father, miss. They want ye ter come," he panted. "Somethin' +has took him. He's in Mackey's drug store, talkin' awful queer. He ain't +his self, ye know. They thought maybe you could--do somethin'." + +Jane went at once--but she could do nothing except to lead gently home +the chattering, shifting-eyed thing that had once been her father. One +after another the village physicians shook their heads--they could do +nothing. Skilled alienists from the city--they, too, could do nothing. +There was nothing that could be done, they said, except to care for him +as one would for a child. He would live years, probably. His +constitution was wonderfully good. He would not be violent--just foolish +and childish, with perhaps a growing irritability as the years passed +and his physical strength failed. + +Mary and Edgar had come home at once. Mary had stayed two days and Edgar +five hours. They were shocked and dismayed at their father's condition. +So overwhelmed with grief were they, indeed, that they fled from the +room almost immediately upon seeing him, and Edgar took the first train +out of town. + +Mary, shiveringly, crept from room to room, trying to find a place where +the cackling laugh and the fretful voice would not reach her. But the +old man, like a child with a new toy, was pleased at his daughter's +arrival, and followed her about the house with unfailing persistence. + +"But, Mary, he won't hurt you. Why do you run?" remonstrated Jane. + +Mary shuddered and covered her face with her hands. + +"Jane, Jane, how can you take it so calmly!" she moaned. "How can you +bear it?" + +There was a moment's pause. A curious expression had come to Jane's +face. + +"Some one--has to," she said at last, quietly. + +Jane went down to the village the next afternoon, leaving her sister in +charge at home. When she returned, an hour later, Mary met her at the +gate, crying and wringing her hands. + +"Jane, Jane, I thought you would never come! I can't do a thing with +him. He insists that he isn't at home, and that he wants to go there. I +told him, over and over again, that he _was_ at home already, but +it didn't do a bit of good. I've had a perfectly awful time." + +"Yes, I know. Where is he?" + +"In the kitchen. I--I tied him. He just would go, and I couldn't hold +him." + +"Oh, _Mary_!" And Jane fairly flew up the walk to the kitchen door. +A minute later she appeared, leading an old man, who was whimpering +pitifully. + +"Home, Jane. I want ter go home." + +"Yes, dear, I know. We'll go." And Mary watched with wondering eyes +while the two walked down the path, through the gate and across the +street to the next corner, then slowly crossed again and came back +through the familiar doorway. + +"Home!" chuckled the old man gleefully. + +"We've come home!" + +Mary went back to Boston the next day. She said it was fortunate, +indeed, that Jane's nerves were so strong. For her part, she could not +have stood it another day. + +The days slipped into weeks, and the weeks into months. Jane took the +entire care of her father, except that she hired a woman to come in for +an hour or two once or twice a week, when she herself was obliged to +leave the house. + +The owner of the blue-gray eyes did not belie the determination of his +chin, but made a valiant effort to establish himself on the basis of the +old intimacy; but Miss Pendergast held herself sternly aloof, and +refused to listen to him. In a year he had left town--but it was not his +fault that he was obliged to go away alone, as Jane Pendergast well +knew. + +One by one the years passed. Twenty had gone by now since the small boy +came with his fateful summons that June day. Jane was fifty-five now, a +thin-faced, stoop-shouldered, tired woman--but a woman to whom release +from this constant care was soon to come, for she was not yet fifty-six +when her father died. + +All the children and some of the grandchildren came to the funeral. In +the evening the family, with the exception of Jane, gathered in the +sitting-room and discussed the future, while upstairs the woman whose +fate was most concerned laid herself wearily in bed with almost a pang +that she need not now first be doubly sure that doors were locked and +spoons were counted. + +In the sitting-room below, discussion waxed warm. + +"But what shall we do with her?" demanded Mary. "I had meant to give her +my share of the property," she added with an air of great generosity, +"but it seems there's nothing to give." + +"No, there's nothing to give," returned Edgar. "The house had to be +mortgaged long ago to pay their living expenses, and it will have to be +sold." + +"But she's got to live somewhere!" Mary's voice was fretful, +questioning. + +For a moment there was silence; then Edgar stirrad in his chair. + +"Well, why can't she go to you, Mary?" he asked. + +"Me!" Mary almost screamed the word. + +"Why, Edgar!--when you know how much I have on my hands with my great +house and all my social duties, to say nothing of Belle's engagement!" + +"Well, maybe Jane could help." + +"Help! How, pray?--to entertain my guests?" And even Edgar smiled as he +thought of Jane, in her five-year-old bonnet and her ten-year-old black +gown, standing in the receiving line at an exclusive Commonwealth Avenue +reception. + +"Well, but--" Edgar paused impotently. + +"Why don't you take her?" It was Mary who made the suggestion. + +"I? Oh, but I--" Edgar stopped and glanced uneasily at his wife. + +"Why, of course, if it's _necessary_," murmured Mrs. Edgar, with a +resigned air. "I should certainly never wish it said that I refused a +home to any of my husband's poor relations." + +"Oh, good Heavens! Let her come to us," cut in Fred sharply. "I reckon +we can take care of our 'poor relations' for a spell yet; eh, Sally?" + +"Why, sure we can," retorted. Fred's wife, in her soft Southern drawl. +"We'll be right glad to take her, I reckon." And there the matter +ended. + + * * * * * + +Jane Pendergast had been South two months, when one day Edgar received a +letter from his brother Fred. + +Jane's going North [wrote Fred]. Sally says she can't have her in the +house another week. 'Course, we don't want to tell Jane exactly +that--but we've fixed it so she's going to leave. + +I'm sorry if this move causes you folks any trouble, but there just +wasn't any other way out of it. You see, Sally is Southern and +easy-going, and I suppose not over-particular in the eyes of you stiff +Northerners. I don't mind things, either, and I suppose I'm easy, too. + +Well, great Scott!--Jane hadn't been down here five minutes before she +began to "slick up," as she called it--and she's been "slickin' up" ever +since. Sally always left things round handy, and so've the children; but +since Jane came, we haven't been able to find a thing when we wanted it. +All our boots and shoes are put away, turned toes out, and all our hats +and coats are snatched up and hung on pegs the minute we toss them off. + +Maybe this don't seem much to you, but it's lots to us. Anyhow, Jane's +going North. She says she's going to visit Edgar a little while, and I +told her I'd write and tell you she's coming. She'll be there about the +20th. Will wire you what train. + +Your affectionate brother + +FRED + +As gently as possible Edgar broke to his wife the news of the +prospective guest. Julia Pendergast was a good woman. At least she often +said that she was, adding, at the same time, that she never knowingly +refused to do her duty. She said the same thing now to her husband, and +she immediately made some very elaborate and very apparent changes in +her home and in her plans, all with an eye to the expected guest. At +four o'clock Wednesday afternoon Edgar met his sister at the station. + +"Well, I don't see as you've changed much," he said kindly. + +"Haven't I? Why, seems as if I must look changed a lot," chirruped Jane. +"I'm so rested, and Fred and Sally were so good to me! Why, they tried +not to have me do a thing--and I didn't do much, only a little puttering +around just to help out with the work." + +"Hm-m," murmured Edgar. "Well, I'm glad to see you're--rested." + +Julia met them in the hall of the beautiful Brookline residence. Lined +up with her were the four younger children, who lived at home. They made +an imposing array, and Jane was visibly affected. + +"Oh, it's so good of you--to meet me--like this!" she faltered. + +"Why, we wished to, I'm sure," returned Mrs. Pendergast, with a +half-stifled sigh. "I hope I understand my duty to my guest and my +sister-in-law sufficiently to know what is her due. I did not allow +anything--not even my committee meeting to-day--to interfere with this +call for duty at home." + +Jane fell back. All the glow fled from her face. + +"Oh, then you did stay at home--and for me! I'm so sorry," she +stammered. + +But Mrs. Pendergast raised a deprecatory hand. + +"Say no more. It was nothing. Now come, let me show you to your room. +I've given you Ella's room, and put Ella in Tom's, and Tom in Bert's, +and moved Bert upstairs to the little room over--" + +"Oh, don't!" interrupted Jane, in quick distress. "I don't want to put +people out so! Let me go upstairs." Mrs. Pendergast frowned and sighed. +She had the air of one whose kindest efforts are misunderstood. + +"My dear Jane, I am sorry, but I shall have to ask you to be as +satisfied as you can be with the arrangements I am able to make for you. +You see, even though this house is large, I am, in a way, cramped for +room. I always have to keep three guest-rooms ready for immediate +occupancy. I am a member of four clubs and six charitable and religious +organizations, besides the church, and there are always ministers and +delegates whom I feel it my duty to entertain." + +"But that is all the more reason why I should go upstairs, and not put +all those children out of their rooms," begged Jane. + +Mrs. Pendergast shook her head. + +"It does them good," she said decidedly, "to learn to be +self-sacrificing. That is a virtue we all must learn to practice." + +Jane flushed again; then she turned abruptly. "Julia, did you want me +to--to come to see you?" she asked. + +"Why, certainly; what a question!" returned Mrs. Pendergast, in a +properly shocked tone of voice. "As if I could do otherwise than to want +my husband's sister to come to us." + +Jane smiled faintly, but her eyes were troubled. + +"Thank you; I'm glad you feel--that way. You see, at Fred's--I wouldn't +have them know it for the world, they were _so_ good to me--but I +thought, lately, that maybe they didn't want--But it wasn't so, of +course. It couldn't have been. I--I ought not even to think it." + +"Hm-m; no," returned Mrs. Pendergast, with noncommittal briefness. + +Not six weeks later Mary, in her beautiful Commonwealth Avenue home, +received a call from a little, thin-faced woman, who curtsied to the +butler and asked him to please tell her sister that she wished to speak +to her. + +Mary looked worried and not over-cordial when she rustled into the room. + +"Why, Jane, did you find your way here all alone?" she cried. + +"Yes--no--well, I asked a man at the last; but, you know, I've been here +twice before with the others." + +"Yes, I know," said Mary. + +There was a pause; then Jane cleared her throat timidly. + +"Mary, I--I've been thinking. You see, just as soon as I'm strong +enough, I--I'm going to take care of myself, and then I won't be a +burden to--to anybody." Jane was talking very fast now. Her words came +tremulously between short, broken breaths. "But until I get well enough +to earn money, I can't, you see. And I've been thinking;--would you be +willing to take me until--until I can? I'm lots better, already, and +getting stronger every day. It wouldn't be for--long." + +"Why, of course, Jane!" Mary spoke cheerfully, and in a tone a little +higher than her ordinary voice. "I should have asked you to come here +before, only I feared you wouldn't be happy here--such a different life +for you, and so much noise and confusion with Belle's wedding coming on, +and all!" + +Jane gave her a grateful glance. + +"I know, of course,--you'd think that,--and it isn't that I'm finding +fault with Julia and Edgar. I couldn't do that--they're so good to me. +But, you see, I put them out so. Now, there's my room, for one thing. 'T +was Ella's, and Ella has to keep running in for things she's left, and +she says it's the same with the others. You see, I've got Ella's room, +and Ella's got Tom's, and Tom's got Bert's. It's a regular 'house that +Jack built'--and I'm the 'Jack'!" + +"I see," laughed Mary constrainedly. "And you want to come here? Well, +you shall. You--you may come a week from Saturday," she added, after a +pause. "I have a reception and a dinner here the first of the week, +and--you'd better stay away until after that." + +"Oh, thank you," sighed Jane. "You are so good. I shall tell Julia that +I'm invited here, so she won't think I'm dissatisfied. They're so good +to me--I wouldn't want to hurt their feelings!" + +"Of course not," murmured Mary. + + * * * * * + +The big, fat tire of the touring-car popped like a pistol shot directly +in front of the large white house with the green blinds. + +"This is the time we're in luck, Belle," laughed the good-natured young +fellow who had been driving the car. "Do you see that big piazza just +aching for you to come and sit on it?" + +"Are we really stalled, Will?" asked the girl. + +"Looks like it--for a while. I'll have to telephone Peters to bring +down a tire. Of course, to-day is the day we _didn't_ take it!" + +Some minutes later the girl found herself on the cool piazza, in charge +of a wonderfully hospitable old lady, while down the road the +good-looking young fellow was making long strides toward the next house +and a telephone. + +"We are staying at the Lindsays', in North Belton," explained the girl, +when he was gone, "and we came out for a little spin before dinner. +Isn't this Belton? I have an aunt who used to live here somewhere--Aunt +Jane Pendergast". + +The old lady sat suddenly erect in her chair. + +"My dear," she cried, "you don't mean to say that you're Jane +Pendergast's niece! Now, that is queer! Why, this was her very house--we +bought it when the old gentleman died last year. But, come, we'll go +inside. You'll want to see everything, of course!" + +It was some time before the young man came back from telephoning, and it +was longer still before Peters came with the new tire, and helped get +the touring-car ready for the road. The girl was very quiet when they +finally left the house, and there was a troubled look deep in her eyes. + +"Why, Belle, what's the matter?" asked the young fellow concernedly, as +he slackened speed in the cool twilight of the woods, some minutes +later. "What's troubling you, dear?" + +"Will"--the girl's voice shook--"Will, that was Aunt Jane's house. That +old lady--told me." + +"Aunt Jane?" + +"Yes, yes--the little gray-haired woman that came to live with us two +months ago. You know her." + +"Why, y-yes; I think I've--seen her." + +The girl winced, as from a blow. + +"Will, don't! I can't bear it," she choked. "It only shows how we've +treated her--how little we've made of her, when we ought to have done +everything--everything to make her happy. Instead of that, we were +brutes--all of us!" + +"Belle!"--the tone was an indignant protest. + +"But we were--listen! She lived in that house all her life till last +year. She never went anywhere or did anything. For twenty years she +lived with an old man who had lost his mind, and she tended him like a +baby--only a baby grows older all the time and more interesting, while +he--oh, Will, it was awful! That old lady--told me." + +"By Jove!" exclaimed the young fellow, under his breath. + +"And there were other things," hurried on the girl, tremulously. "Some +way, I never thought of Aunt Jane only as old and timid; but she was +young like us, once. She wanted to go away to school--but she couldn't +go; and there was some one who--loved her--once--later, and she sent +him--away. That was after--after grandfather lost his mind. Mother and +Uncle Edgar and Uncle Fred--they all went away and lived their own +lives, but she stayed on. Then last year grandfather died." + +The girl paused and moistened her lips. The man did not speak. His eyes +were on the road ahead of the slow-moving car. + +"I heard to-day--how--how proud and happy Aunt Jane was that Uncle Fred +had asked her to come and live with him," resumed the girl, after a +minute. "That old lady told me how Aunt Jane talked and talked about it +before she went away, and how she said that all her life she had taken +care of others, and it would be so good to feel that now some one was +going to look out for her, though, of course, she should do everything +she could to help, and she hoped she could still be of some use." + +"Well, she has been, hasn't she?" + +The girl shook her head. + +"That's the worst of it. We haven't made her think she was. She stayed +at Uncle Fred's for a while, and then he sent her to Uncle Edgar's. +Something must have been wrong there, for she asked mother two months +ago if she might come to us." + +"Well, I'm sure you've been--good to her." + +"But we haven't!" cried the girl. "Mother meant all right, I know, but +she didn't think. And I've been--horrid. Aunt Jane tried to show her +interest in my wedding plans, but I only laughed at her and said she +wouldn't understand. We've pushed her aside, always,--we've never made +her one of us; and--we've always made her feel her dependence." + +"But you'll do differently now, dear,--now that you understand." + +Again the girl shook her head. + +"We can't," she moaned. "It's too late. I had a letter from mother last +night. Aunt Jane's sick--awfully sick. Mother said I might expect to--to +hear of the end any day." + +"But there's some time left--a little!"--his voice broke and choked into +silence. Suddenly he made a quick movement, and the car beneath them +leaped forward like a charger that feels the prick of the spur. + +The girl gave a frightened cry, then a tremulous little sob of joy. The +man had cried in her ear, in response to her questioning eyes: + +"We're--going--to--Aunt Jane!" + +And to them both, at the moment, there seemed to be waiting at the end +of the road a little bent old woman, into whose wistful eyes they were +to bring the light of joy and peace. + + + + +A Couple of Capitalists + + + +On the top of the hill stood the big brick house--a mansion, compared to +the other houses of the New England village. At the foot of the hill +nestled the tiny brown farmhouse, half buried in lilacs, climbing roses, +and hollyhocks. + +Years ago, when Reuben had first brought Emily to that little brown +cottage, he had said to her, ruefully: "Sweetheart, 'tain't much of a +place, I know, but we'll save and save, every cent we can get, an' by +an' by we'll go up to live in the big house on the hill!" And he kissed +so tenderly the pretty little woman he had married only that morning +that she smiled brightly and declared that the small brown house was the +very nicest place in the world. + +But, as time passed, the "big house" came to be the Mecca of all their +hopes, and penny by penny the savings grew. It was slow work, though, +and to hearts less courageous the thing would have seemed an +impossibility. No luxuries--and scarcely the bare necessities of +life--came to the little house under the hill, but every month a tiny +sum found its way into the savings bank. Fortunately, air and sunshine +were cheap, and, if inside the house there was lack of beauty and cheer, +outside there was a riotous wealth of color and bloom--the flowers under +Emily's loving care flourished and multiplied. + +The few gowns in the modest trousseau had been turned inside out and +upside down, only to be dyed and turned and twisted all over again. But +what was a dyed gown, when one had all that money in the bank and the +big house on the hill in prospect! Reuben's best suit grew rusty and +seedy, but the man patiently, even gleefully, wore it as long as it +would hang together; and when the time came that new garments must be +bought for both husband and wife, only the cheapest and flimsiest of +material was purchased--but the money in the bank grew. + +Reuben never smoked. While other men used the fragrant weed to calm +their weary brains and bodies, Reuben--ate peanuts. It had been a +curious passion of his, from the time when as a boy he was first +presented with a penny for his very own, to spend all his spare cash on +this peculiar luxury; and the slow munching of this plebeian delicacy +had the same soothing effect on him that a good cigar or an old clay +pipe had upon his brother-man. But from the day of his marriage all +this was changed; the dimes and the nickels bought no more peanuts, but +went to swell the common fund. + +It is doubtful if even this heroic economy would have accomplished the +desired end had not a certain railroad company cast envious eyes upon +the level valley and forthwith sent long arms of steel bearing a puffing +engine up through the quiet village. A large tract of waste land +belonging to Reuben Gray suddenly became surprisingly valuable, and a +sum that trebled twice over the scanty savings of years grew all in a +night. + +One crisp October day, Mr. and Mrs. Reuben Gray awoke to the fact that +they were a little under sixty years of age, and in possession of more +than the big sum of money necessary to enable them to carry out the +dreams of their youth. They began joyous preparations at once. + +The big brick house at the top of the hill had changed hands twice +during the last forty years, and the present owner expressed himself as +nothing loath to part, not only with the house itself, but with many of +its furnishings; and before the winter snow fell the little brown +cottage was sold to a thrifty young couple from the neighboring village, +and the Grays took up their abode in their new home. + +"Well, Em'ly, this is livin', now, ain't it?" said Reuben, as he +carefully let himself down into the depths of a velvet-covered chair in +the great parlor. "My! ain't this nice!" + +"Just perfectly lovely," quavered the thin voice of his wife, as she +threw a surreptitious glance at Reuben's shoes to see if they were quite +clean enough for such sacred precincts. + +It was their first evening in their new abode, and they were a little +weary, for they had spent the entire day in exploring every room, +peering into every closet, and trying every chair that the establishment +contained. It was still quite early when they trudged anxiously about +the house, intent on fastening the numerous doors and windows. + +"Dear me!" exclaimed the little woman nervously, "I'm 'most afraid to go +to bed, Reuben, for fear some one will break in an' steal all these nice +things." + +"Well, you can sit up if you want to," replied her husband dryly, "but I +shall go to bed. Most of these things have been here nigh on to twenty +years, an' I guess they'll last the night through." And he marched +solemnly upstairs to the big east chamber, meekly followed by his wife. + +It was the next morning when Mrs. Gray was washing the breakfast dishes +that her husband came in at the kitchen door and stood looking +thoughtfully at her. + +"Say, Emily," said he, "you'd oughter have a hired girl. 'T ain't your +place to be doin' work like this now." + +Mrs. Gray gasped--half terrified, half pleased--and shook her head; but +her husband was not to be silenced. + +"Well, you had--an' you've got to, too. An' you must buy some new +clothes--lots of 'em! Why, Em'ly, we've got heaps of money now, an' we +hadn't oughter wear such lookin' things." + +Emily nodded; she had thought of this before. And the hired-girl hint +must have found a warm spot in her heart in which to grow, for that very +afternoon she sallied forth, intent on a visit to her counselor on all +occasions--the doctor's wife. + +"Well, Mis' Steele, I don't know what to do. Reuben says I ought to have +a hired girl; but I hain't no more idea where to get one than anything, +an' I don't know's I want one, if I did." + +And Mrs. Gray sat back in her chair and rocked violently to and fro, +eying her hostess with the evident consciousness of having presented a +poser. That resourceful woman, however, was far from being nonplussed; +she beamed upon her visitor with a joyful smile. + +"Just the thing, my dear Mrs. Gray! You know I am to go South with May +for the winter. The house will be closed and the doctor at the hotel. I +had just been wondering what to do with Nancy, for I want her again in +the spring. Now, you can have her until then, and by that time you will +know how you like the idea of keeping a girl. She is a perfect treasure, +capable of carrying along the entire work of the household, only"--and +Mrs. Steele paused long enough to look doubtfully at her friend--"she is +a little independent, and won't stand much interference." + +Fifteen minutes later Mrs. Gray departed, well pleased though withal a +little frightened. She spent the rest of the afternoon in trying to +decide between a black alpaca and a green cashmere dress. + +That night Reuben brought home a large bag of peanuts and put them down +in triumph on the kitchen table. + +"There!" he announced in high glee, "I'm goin' to have a bang-up good +time!" + +"Why, Reuben," remonstrated his wife gently, "you can't eat them +things--you hain't got no teeth to chew 'em with!" + +The man's lower jaw dropped. + +"Well, I'm a-goin' to try it, anyhow," he insisted. And try he did; but +the way his poor old stomach rebelled against the half-masticated things +effectually prevented a repetition of the feast. + +Early on Monday morning Nancy appeared. Mrs. Gray assumed a brave +aspect, but she quaked in her shoes as she showed the big strapping girl +to her room. Five minutes later Nancy came into the kitchen to find Mrs. +Gray bending over an obstinate coal fire in the range--with neither coal +nor range was the little woman in the least familiar. + +"There, now," said Nancy briskly, "I'll fix that. You just tell me what +you want for dinner, and I can find the things myself." And she attacked +the stove with such a clatter and din that Mrs. Gray retreated in +terror, murmuring "ham and eggs, if you please," as she fled through the +door. Once in the parlor, she seated herself in the middle of the room +and thought how nice it was not to get dinner; but she jumped nervously +at every sound from the kitchen. + +On Tuesday she had mastered her fear sufficiently to go into the kitchen +and make a cottage cheese. She did not notice the unfavorable glances of +her maid-of-all-work. Wednesday morning she spent happily puttering over +"doing up" some handkerchiefs, and she wondered why Nancy kept banging +the oven door so often. Thursday she made a special kind of pie that +Reuben liked, and remarked pointedly to Nancy that she herself never +washed dishes without wearing an extra apron; furthermore, she always +placed the pans the other way in the sink. Friday she rearranged the +tins on the pantry shelves, that Nancy had so unaccountably mussed up. +On Saturday the inevitable explosion came: + +"If you please, mum, I'm willin' to do your work, but seems to me it +don't make no difference to you whether I wear one apron or six, or +whether I hang my dish-towels on a string or on the bars, or whether I +wash goblets or kittles first; and I ain't in the habit of havin' folks +spyin' round on me. If you want me to go, I'll go; but if I stay, I want +to be let alone!" + +Poor little Mrs. Gray fled to her seat in the parlor, and for the rest +of that winter she did not dare to call her soul her own; but her table +was beautifully set and served, and her house was as neat as wax. + +The weeks passed and Reuben began to be restless. One day he came in +from the post office fairly bubbling over with excitement. + +"Say, Em'ly, when folks have money they travel. Let's go somewhere!" + +"Why, Reuben--where?" quavered his wife, dropping into the nearest +chair. + +"Oh, I dunno," with cheerful vagueness; then, suddenly animated, "Let's +go to Boston and see the sights!" + +"But, Reuben, we don't know no one there," ventured his wife doubtfully. + +"Pooh! What if we don't? Hain't we got money? Can't we stay at a hotel? +Well, I guess we can!" + +And his overwhelming courage put some semblance of confidence into the +more timid heart of his wife, until by the end of the week she was as +eager as he. + +Nancy was tremblingly requested to take a two weeks' vacation, and great +was the rejoicing when she graciously acquiesced. + +On a bright February morning the journey began. It was not a long +one--four hours only--and the time flew by as on wings of the wind. +Reuben assumed an air of worldly wisdom, quite awe-inspiring to his +wife. He had visited Boston as a boy, and so had a dim idea of what to +expect; moreover, he had sold stock and produce in the large towns near +his home, and on the whole felt quite self-sufficient. + +As the long train drew into the station, and they alighted and followed +the crowd, Mrs. Gray looked with round eyes of wonder at the people--she +had not realized that there were so many in the world, and she clung +closer and closer to Reuben, who was marching along with a fine show of +indifference. + +"There," said he, as he deposited his wife and his bags in a seat in the +huge waiting-room; "now you stay right here, an' don't you move. I'm +goin' to find out about hotels and things." + +He was gone so long that she was nearly fainting from fright before she +spied his dear form coming toward her. His thin, plain face looked +wonderfully beautiful to her, and she almost hugged him right before all +those people. + +"Well, I've got a hotel all right; but I hain't been here for so long +I've kinder forgot about the streets, so the man said we'd better have a +team to take us there." And he picked up the bags and trudged off, +closely followed by Emily. + +His shrewd Yankee wit carried him safely through a bargain with the +driver, and they were soon jolting and rumbling along to their +destination. He had asked the man behind the news-stand about a hotel, +casually mentioning that he had money--plenty of it--and wanted a +"bang-up good place." The spirit of mischief had entered the heart of +the news-man, and he had given Reuben the name of one of the very +highest-priced, most luxurious hotels in the city. + +As the carriage stopped, Reuben marched boldly up the broad steps and +entered the palatial office, with Emily close at his heels. Two +bell-boys sprang forward--the one to take the bags, the other to offer +to show Mrs. Gray to the reception-room. + +"No, thank you, I ain't particular," said she sweetly; "I'll wait for +Reuben here." And she dropped into the nearest chair, while her husband +advanced toward the desk. She noticed that men were looking curiously at +her, and she felt relieved when Reuben and the pretty boy came back and +said they would go up to their room. + +She stood the elevator pretty well, though she gave a little gasp (which +she tried to choke into a cough) as it started. Reuben turned to the +boy. + +"Where can I get somethin' to eat?" + +"Luncheon is being served in the main dining-room on the first floor, +sir." + +Visions of a lunch as he knew it in Emily's pantry came to him, and he +looked a little dubious. + +"Well, I'm pretty hungry; but if that's all I can get I suppose it will +have to do." + +Ten minutes later an officious head waiter, whom Emily looked upon with +timid awe, was seating them in a superbly appointed dining-room. Reuben +looked at the menu doubtfully, while an attentive, soft-voiced man at +his elbow bent low to catch his order. Few of the strange-looking words +conveyed any sort of meaning to the poor hungry man. At length spying +"chicken" halfway down the card, he pointed to it in relief. + +"I guess I'll take some of that," he said, briefly; then he added, "I +don't know how much it costs--you hain't got no price after it." + +The waiter comprehended at once. + +"The luncheon is served in courses, sir; you pay for the whole--whether +you eat it or not," he added shrewdly. "If you will let me serve you +according to my judgment, sir, I think I can please you." + +And there the forlorn little couple sat, amazed and hungry, through six +courses, each one of which seemed to their uneducated palate one degree +worse than the last. + +Two hours later they started for a long walk down the wonderful, +fascinating street. Each marvelous window display came in for its full +share of attention, but they stood longest before bakeries and +restaurants. Finally, upon coming to one of the latter, where an +enticing sign announced "_Boiled Dinner To-day, Served Hot at All +Hours_," Reuben could endure it no longer. + +"By Jinks, Em'ly, I've just got to have some of that. That stodged-up +mess I ate at the hotel didn't go to the spot at all. Come on, let's +have a good square meal." + +The hotel knew them just one night. The next morning before breakfast +Reuben manfully paid his--to him astounding--bill and departed for more +congenial quarters, which they soon found on a neighboring side street. + +The rest of the visit was, of course, delightful, only the streets were +pretty crowded and noisy, and they couldn't sleep very well at night; +moreover, Reuben lost his pocketbook with a small sum of money in it; +so, on the whole, they concluded to go home a little before the two +weeks ended. + +When spring came Nancy returned to her former mistress, and her vacant +throne remained unoccupied. Little by little the dust gathered on the +big velvet chairs in the parlor, and the room was opened less and less. +When the first green things commenced to send tender shoots up through +the wet, brown earth, Reuben's restlessness was very noticeable. By and +by he began to go off very early in the morning, returning at noon for a +hasty dinner, then away again till night. To his wife's repeated +questioning he would reply, sheepishly, "Oh, just loafin', that's all." + +And Emily was nervous, too. Of late she had taken a great fancy to a +daily walk, and it always led in one direction--down past the little +brown house. Of course, she glanced over the fence at the roses and +lilacs, and she couldn't help seeing that they all looked sadly +neglected. By and by the weeds came, grew, and multiplied; and every +time she passed the gate her throat fairly choked in sympathy with her +old pets. + +Evenings, she and Reuben spent very happily on the back stoop, talking +of their great good fortune in being able to live in such a fine large +house. Somehow they said more than usual about it this spring, and +Reuben often mentioned how glad he was that his wife didn't have to dig +in the garden any more; and Emily would reply that she, too, was glad +that he was having so easy a time. Then they would look down at the +little brown farmhouse and wonder how they ever managed to get along in +so tiny a place. + +One day, in passing this same little house, Emily stopped a moment and +leaned over the gate, that she might gain a better view of her favorite +rosebush. + +She evinced the same interest the next two mornings, and on the third +she timidly opened the gate and walked up the old path to the door. A +buxom woman with a big baby in her arms, and a bigger one hanging to her +skirts, answered her knock. + +"How do you do, Mis' Gray. Won't you come in?" said she civilly, looking +mildly surprised. + +"No, thank you--yes--I mean--I came to see you," stammered Emily +confusedly. + +"You're very good," murmured the woman, still standing in the doorway. + +"Your flowers are so pretty," ventured Mrs. Gray, unable to keep the +wistfulness out of her voice. + +"Do you think so?" carelessly; "I s'pose they need weedin'. What with my +babies an' all, I don't get much time for posies." + +"Oh, please,--would it be too much trouble to let me come an' putter +around in the beds?" queried the little woman eagerly. "Oh, I would like +it so much!" + +The other laughed heartily. + +"Well, I really don't see how it's goin' to trouble me to have you +weedin' my flowers; in fact, I should think the shoe would be on the +other foot." Then the red showed in her face a little. "You're welcome +to do whatever you want, Mis' Gray." + +"Oh, thank you!" exclaimed Emily, as she quickly pulled up an enormous +weed at her feet. + +It took but a few hours' work to bring about a wonderfully happy change +in that forlorn garden, and then Mrs. Gray found that she had a big pile +of weeds to dispose of. Filling her apron with a portion of them, she +started to go behind the house in search of a garbage heap. Around the +corner she came face to face with her husband, hoe in hand. + +"Why, Reuben Gray! Whatever in the world are _you_ doing?" + +For a moment the man was crushed with the enormity of his crime; then he +caught sight of his wife's dirt-stained fingers. + +"Well, I guess I ain't doin' no worse than you be!" And he turned his +back and began to hoe vigorously. + +Emily dropped the weeds where she stood, turned about, and walked +through the garden and up the hill, pondering many things. + +Supper was strangely quiet that night. Mrs. Gray had asked a single +question: "Reuben, do you want the little house back?" + +A glad light leaped into the old man's eyes. + +"Em'ly--would you be willin' to?" + +After the supper dishes were put away, Mrs. Gray, with a light shawl +over her head, came to her husband on the back stoop. + +"Come, dear; I think we'd better go down to-night." + +A few minutes later they sat stiffly in the best room of the farmhouse, +while the buxom woman and her husband looked wonderingly at them. + +"You wan't thinkin' of sellin', was ye?" began Reuben insinuatingly. + +The younger man's eyelid quivered a little. "Well, no,--I can't hardly +say that I was. I hain't but just bought." + +Reuben hitched his chair a bit and glanced at Emily. + +"Well, me and my wife have concluded that we're too old to +transplant--we don't seem to take root very easy--and we've been +thinkin'--would you swap even, now?" + + * * * * * + +It must have been a month later that Reuben Gray and his wife were +contentedly sitting in the old familiar kitchen of the little brown +house. + +"I've been wondering, Reuben," said his wife--"I've been wondering if +'twouldn't have been just as well if we'd taken some of the good things +while they was goin'--before we got too old to enjoy 'em." + +"Yes--peanuts, for instance," acquiesced her husband ruefully. + + + + +In the Footsteps of Katy + + + +Only Alma had lived--Alma, the last born. The other five, one after +another, had slipped from loving, clinging arms into the great Silence, +leaving worse than a silence behind them; and neither Nathan Kelsey nor +his wife Mary could have told you which hurt the more,--the saying of a +last good-bye to a stalwart, grown lad of twenty, or the folding of +tiny, waxen hands over a heart that had not counted a year of beating. +Yet both had fallen to their lot. + +As for Alma--Alma carried in her dainty self all the love, hopes, +tenderness, ambitions, and prayers that otherwise would have been +bestowed upon six. And Alma was coming home. + +"Mary," said Nathan one June evening, as he and his wife sat on the back +porch, "I saw Jim Hopkins ter-day. Katy's got home." + +"Hm-m,"--the low rocker swayed gently to and fro,--"Katy's been ter +college, same as Alma, ye know." + +"Yes; an'--an' that's what Jim was talkin' 'bout He was feelin' +bad-powerful bad." + +"Bad!"--the rocker stopped abruptly. "Why, Nathan!" + +"Yes; he--" There was a pause, then the words came with the rush of +desperation. "He said home wan't like home no more. That Katy was as +good as gold, an' they was proud of her; but she was turrible upsettin'. +Jim has ter rig up nights now ter eat supper--put on his coat an' a +b'iled collar; an' he says he's got so he don't dast ter open his head. +They're all so, too--Mis' Hopkins, an' Sue, an' Aunt Jane--don't none of +'em dast ter speak." + +"Why, Nathan!--why not?" + +"'Cause of--Katy. Jim says there don't nothin' +they say suit Katy--'bout its wordin', I mean. She changes it an' tells +'em what they'd orter said." + +"Why, the saucy little baggage!"--the rocker resumed its swaying, and +Mary Kelsey's foot came down on the porch floor with decided, rhythmic +pats. + +The man stirred restlessly. + +"But she ain't sassy, Mary," he demurred. "Jim says Katy's that sweet +an' pleasant about it that ye can't do nothin'. She tells 'em she's +kerrectin' 'em fur their own good, an' that they need culturin'. An' Jim +says she spends all o' meal-time tellin' 'bout the things on the +table,--salt, an' where folks git it, an' pepper, an' tumblers, an' how +folks make 'em. He says at first 'twas kind o' nice an' he liked ter hear +it; but now, seems as if he hain't got no appetite left ev'ry time he +sets down ter the table. He don't relish eatin' such big words an' queer +names. + +"An' that ain't all," resumed Nathan, after a pause for breath. "Jim +can't go hoein' nor diggin' but she'll foller him an' tell 'bout the +bugs an' worms he turns up,--how many legs they've got, an' all that. +An' the moon ain't jest a moon no more, an' the stars ain't stars. +They're sp'eres an' planets with heathenish names an' rings an' orbits. +Jim feels bad--powerful bad--'bout it, an' he says he can't see no way +out of it. He knows they hain't had much schooling any of 'em, only +Katy, an' he says that sometimes he 'most wishes that--that she hadn't, +neither." + +Nathan Kelsey's voice had sunk almost to a whisper, and with the last +words his eyes sent a furtive glance toward the stoop-shouldered little +figure in the low rocker. The chair was motionless now, and its occupant +sat picking at a loose thread in the gingham apron. + +"I--I wouldn't 'a' spoke of it," stammered the man, with painful +hesitation, "only--well, ye see, I--you-" he stopped helplessly. + +"I know," faltered the little woman. "You was thinkin' of--Alma." + +"She wouldn't do it--Alma wouldn't!" retorted the man sharply, almost +before his wife had ceased speaking. + +"No, no, of course not; but--Nathan, ye _don't_ think Alma'd ever +be--_ashamed_ of us, do ye?" + +"'Course not!" asserted Nathan, but his voice shook. "Don't ye worry, +Mary," he comforted. "Alma ain't a-goin' ter do no kerrectin' of us." + +"Nathan, I--I think that's 'co-rectin','" suggested the woman, a little +breathlessly. + +The man turned and gazed at his wife without speaking. Then his jaw +fell. + +"Well, by sugar, Mary! _You_ ain't a-goin' ter begin it, be ye?" he +demanded. + +"Why, no, 'course not!" she laughed confusedly. "An'--an' Alma +wouldn't." + +"'Course Alma wouldn't," echoed her husband. "Come, it's time ter shut +up the house." + +The date of Alma's expected arrival was yet a week ahead. + +As the days passed, there came a curious restlessness to the movements +of both Nathan and his wife. It was on the last night of that week of +waiting that Mrs. Kelsey spoke. + +"Nathan," she began, with forced courage, "I've been over to Mis' +Hopkins's--an' asked her what special things 'twas that Katy set such +store by. I thought mebbe if we knew 'em beforehand, an' could do 'em, +an'--" + +"That's jest what I asked Jim ter-day, Mary," cut in Nathan excitedly. + +"Nathan, you didn't, now! Oh, I'm so glad! An' we'll do 'em, won't +we?--jest ter please her?" + +"'Course we will!" + +"Ye see it's four years since she was here, Nathan, what with her +teachin' summers." + +"Sugar, now! Is it? It hain't seemed so long." + +"Nathan," interposed Mrs. Kelsey, anxiously, "I think that 'hain't' +ain't--I mean _aren't_ right. I think you'd orter say, 'It haven't +seemed so long.'" + +The man frowned, and made an impatient gesture. + +"Yes, yes, I know," soothed his wife; "but,--well, we might jest as well +begin now an' git used to it. Mis' Hopkins said that them two words, +'hain't an' 'ain't, was what Katy hated most of anythin'." + +"Yes; Jim mentioned 'em, too," acknowledged Nathan gloomily. "But he +said that even them wan't half so bad as his riggin' up nights. He said +that Katy said that after the 'toil of the day' they must 'don fresh +garments an' come ter the evenin' meal with minds an' bodies +refreshed.'" + +"Yes; an', Nathan, ain't my black silk--" + +"Ahem! I'm a-thinkin' it wa'n't me that said 'ain't' that time," +interposed Nathan. + +"Dear, dear, Nathan!--did I? Oh, dear, what _will_ Alma say?" + +"It don't make no diff'rence what Alma says, Mary. Don't ye fret," +returned the man with sudden sharpness, as he rose to his feet. "I guess +Alma'll have ter take us 'bout as we be--'bout as we be." + +Yet it was Nathan who asked, just as his wife was dropping off to sleep +that night:-- + +"Mary, is it three o' them collars I've got, or four?--b'iled ones, I +mean." + +At five o'clock the next afternoon Mrs. Kelsey put on the treasured +black silk dress, sacred for a dozen years to church, weddings, and +funerals. Nathan, warm and uncomfortable in his Sunday suit and stiff +collar, had long since driven to the station for Alma. The house, +brushed and scrubbed into a state of speckless order, was thrown wide +open to welcome the returning daughter. At a quarter before six she +came. + +"Mother, you darling!" cried a voice, and Mrs. Kelsey found herself in +the clasp of strong young arms, and gazing into a flushed, eager face. +"Don't you look good! And doesn't everything look good!" finished the +girl. + +"Does it--I mean, _do_ it?" quavered the little woman excitedly. +"Oh, Alma, I _am_ glad ter see ye!" + +Behind Alma's back Nathan flicked a bit of dust from his coat. The next +instant he raised a furtive hand and gave his collar and neckband a +savage pull. + +At the supper-table that night ten minutes of eager questioning on the +part of Alma had gone by before Mrs. Kelsey realized that thus far their +conversation had been of nothing more important than Nathan's +rheumatism, her own health, and the welfare of Rover, Tabby, and the +mare Topsy. Commensurate with the happiness that had been hers during +those ten minutes came now her remorse. She hastened to make amends. + +"There, there, Alma, I beg yer pardon, I'm sure. I hain't--er--I +_haven't_ meant ter keep ye talkin' on such triflin' things, dear. +Now talk ter us yer self. Tell us about things--anythin'--anythin' on +the table or in the room," she finished feverishly. + +For a moment the merry-faced girl stared in frank amazement at her +mother; then she laughed gleefully. + +"On the table? In the room?" she retorted. "Well, it's the dearest room +ever, and looks so good to me! As for the table--the rolls are feathers, +the coffee is nectar, and the strawberries--well, the strawberries are +just strawberries--they couldn't be nicer." + +"Oh, Alma, but I didn't mean----" + +"Tut, tut, tut!" interrupted Alma laughingly. "Just as if the cook +didn't like her handiwork praised! Why, when I draw a picture--oh, and I +haven't told you!" she broke off excitedly. The next instant she was on +her feet. "Alma Mead Kelsey, Illustrator; at your service," she +announced with a low bow. Then she dropped into her seat again and went +on speaking. + +"You see, I've been doing this sort of thing for some time," she +explained, "and have had some success in selling. My teacher has always +encouraged me, and, acting on his advice, I stayed over in New York a +week with a friend, and took some of my work to the big publishing +houses. That's why I didn't get here as soon as Kate Hopkins did. I +hated to put off my coming; but now I'm so glad I did. Only think! I +sold every single thing, and I have orders and orders ahead." + +"Well, by sugar!" ejaculated the man at the head of the table. + +"Oh-h-h!" breathed the little woman opposite. "Oh, Alma, I'm so glad!" + +In spite of Mrs. Kelsey's protests that night after supper, Alma tripped +about the kitchen and pantry wiping the dishes and putting them away. At +dusk father, mother, and daughter seated themselves on the back porch. + +"There!" sighed Alma. "Isn't this restful? And isn't that moon +glorious?" + +Mrs. Kelsey shot a quick look at her husband; then she cleared her +throat nervously. + +"Er--yes," she assented. "I--I s'pose you know what it's made of, an' +how big 'tis, an'--an' what there is on it, don't ye, Alma?" + +Alma raised her eyebrows. + +"Hm-m; well, there are still a few points that I and the astronomers +haven't quite settled," she returned, with a whimsical smile. + +"An' the stars, they've got names, I s'pose--every one of 'em," +proceeded Mrs. Kelsey, so intent on her own part that Alma's reply +passed unnoticed. + +Alma laughed; then she assumed an attitude of mock rapture, and quoted: + + "'Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific, + Fain would I fathom thy nature specific; + Loftily poised in ether capacious, + Strongly resembling the gem carbonaceous.'" + +There was a long silence. Alma's eyes were on the flying clouds. + +"Would--would you mind saying that again, Alma?" asked Mrs. Kelsey at +last timidly. + +Alma turned with a start. + +"Saying what, dearie?--oh, that nonsensical verse? Of course not! That's +only another way of saying 'twinkle, twinkle, little star.' Means just +the same, only uses up a few more letters to make the words. Listen." +And she repeated the two, line for line. + +"Oh!" said her mother faintly. "Er--thank you." + +"I--I guess I'll go to bed," announced Nathan Kelsey suddenly. + +The next morning Alma's pleadings were in vain. Mrs. Kelsey insisted +that Alma should go about her sketching, leaving the housework for her +own hands to perform. With a laughing protest and a playful pout, Alma +tucked her sketchbook under her arm and left the house to go down by the +river. In the field she came upon her father. + +"Hard at work, dad?" she called affectionately. "Old Mother Earth won't +yield her increase without just so much labor, will she?" + +"That she won't," laughed the man. Then he flushed a quick red and set a +light foot on a crawling thing of many legs which had emerged from +beneath an overturned stone. + +"Oh!" cried Alma. "Your foot, father--your're crushing something!" + +The flush grew deeper. + +"Oh, I guess not," rejoined the man, lifting his foot, and giving a +curiously resigned sigh as he sent an apprehensive glance into the +girl's face. + +"Dear, dear! isn't he funny?" murmured the girl, bending low and giving +a gentle poke with the pencil in her hand. "Only fancy," she added, +straightening herself, "only fancy if we had so many feet. Just picture +the size of our shoe bill!" And she laughed and turned away. + +"Well, by gum!" ejaculated the man, looking after her. Then he fell to +work, and his whistle, as he worked, carried something of the song of a +bird set free from a cage. + +A week passed. + +The days were spent by Alma in roaming the woods and fields, pencil and +paper in hand; they were spent by her mother in the hot kitchen over a +hotter stove. To Alma's protests and pleadings Mrs. Kelsey was deaf. +Alma's place was not there, her work was not housework, declared Alma's +mother. + +On Mrs. Kelsey the strain was beginning to tell. It was not the work +alone--though that was no light matter, owing to her anxiety that Alma's +pleasure and comfort should find nothing wanting--it was more than the +work. + +Every night at six the anxious little woman, flushed from biscuit-baking +and chicken-broiling and almost sick with fatigue, got out the black +silk gown and the white lace collar and put them on with trembling +hands. Thus robed in state she descended to the supper-table, there to +confront her husband still more miserable in the stiff collar and black +coat. + +Nor yet was this all. Neither the work nor the black silk dress +contained for Mrs. Kelsey quite the possibilities of soul torture that +were to be found in the words that fell from her lips. As the days +passed, the task the little woman had set for herself became more and +more hopeless, until she scarcely could bring herself to speak at all, +so stumbling and halting were her sentences. + +At the end of the eighth day came the culmination of it all. Alma, her +nose sniffing the air, ran into the kitchen that night to find no one in +the room, and the biscuits burning in the oven. She removed the +biscuits, threw wide the doors and windows, then hurried upstairs to her +mother's room. + +"Why, mother!" + +Mrs. Kelsey stood before the glass, a deep flush on her cheeks and tears +rolling down her face. Two trembling hands struggled with the lace at +her throat until the sharp point of a pin found her thumb and left a +tiny crimson stain on the spotlessness of the collar. It was then that +Mrs. Kelsey covered her face with her hands and sank into the low chair +by the bed. + +"Why, mother!" cried Alma again, hurrying across the room and dropping +on her knees at her mother's side. + +"I can't, Alma, I can't!" moaned the woman. "I've tried an' tried; but +I've got ter give up, I've got ter give up." + +"Can't what, dearie?--give up what?" demanded Alma. + +Mrs. Kelsey shook her head. Then she dropped her hands and looked +fearfully into her daughter's face. + +"An' yer father, too, Alma--he's tried, an' he can't," she choked. + +"Tried what? What _do_ you mean?" + +With her eyes on Alma's troubled, amazed face, Mrs. Kelsey made one last +effort to gain her lost position. She raised her shaking hands to her +throat and fumbled for the pin and the collar. + +"There, there, dear, don't fret," she stammered. "I didn't think what I +was sayin'. It ain't nothin'--I mean, it _aren't_ nothin'--it +_am_ not--oh-h!" she sobbed; "there, ye see, Alma, I can't, I +can't. It ain't no more use ter try!" Down went the gray head on Alma's +strong young shoulder. + +"There, there, dear, cry away," comforted Alma, with loving pats. "It +will do you good; then we'll hear what this is all about, from the very +beginning." + +And Mrs. Kelsey told her--and from the very beginning. When the telling +was over, and the little woman, a bit breathless and frightened, sat +awaiting what Alma would say, there came a long silence. + +Alma's lips were close shut. Alma was not quite sure, if she opened +them, whether there would come a laugh or a sob. The laugh was uppermost +and almost parted the firm-set lips, when a side glance at the quivering +face of the little woman in the big chair turned the laugh into a +half-stifled sob. Then Alma spoke. + +"Mother, dear, listen. Do you think a silk dress and a stiff collar can +make you and father any dearer to me? Do you think an 'ain't' or a +'hain't' can make me love either of you any less? Do you suppose I +expect you, after fifty years' service for others, to be as careful in +your ways and words as if you'd spent those fifty years in training +yourself instead of in training six children? Why, mother, dear, do you +suppose that I don't know that for twenty of those years you have had no +thoughts, no prayers, save for me?--that I have been the very apple of +your eye? Well, it's my turn, now, and you are the apple of my eye--you +and father. Why, dearie, you have no idea of the plans I have for you. +There's a good strong woman coming next week for the kitchen work. Oh, +it's all right," assured Alma, quickly, in response to the look on her +mother's face. "Why, I'm rich! Only think of those orders! And then you +shall dress in silk or velvet, or calico--anything you like, so long as +it doesn't scratch nor prick," she added merrily, bending forward and +fastening the lace collar. "And you shall----" + +"Ma-ry?" It was Nathan at the foot of the back stairway. + +"Yes, Nathan." + +"Ain't it 'most supper-time?" + +"Bless my soul!" cried Mrs. Kelsey, springing to her feet. + +"An', Mary----" + +"Yes." + +"Hain't I got a collar--a b'iled one, on the bureau up there?" + +"No," called Alma, snatching up the collar and throwing it on the bed. +"There isn't a sign of one there. Suppose you let it go to-night, dad?" + +"Well, if you don't mind!" And a very audible sigh of relief floated up +the back stairway. + + + + +The Bridge Across the Years + + + +John was expected on the five o'clock stage. Mrs. John had been there +three days now, and John's father and mother were almost packed up--so +Mrs. John said. The auction would be to-morrow at nine o'clock, and with +John there to see that things "hustled"--which last was really +unnecessary to mention, for John's very presence meant "hustle"--with +John there, then, the whole thing ought to be over by one o'clock, and +they off in season to 'catch the afternoon express. + +And what a time it had been--those three days! + +Mrs. John, resting in the big chair on the front porch, thought of those +days with complacency--that they were over. Grandpa and Grandma Burton, +hovering over old treasures in the attic, thought of them with terrified +dismay--that they had ever begun. + +I am coming up on Tuesday [Mrs. John had written]. We have been thinking +for some time that you and father ought not to be left alone up there on +the farm any longer. Now don't worry about the packing. I shall bring +Marie, and you won't have to lift your finger. John will come Thursday +night, and be there for the auction on Friday. By that time we shall +have picked out what is worth saving, and everything will be ready for +him to take matters in hand. I think he has already written to the +auctioneer, so tell father to give himself no uneasiness on that score. + +John says he thinks we can have you back here with us by Friday night, +or Saturday at the latest. You know John's way, so you may be sure there +will be no tiresome delay. Your rooms here will be all ready before I +leave, so that part will be all right. + +This may seem a bit sudden to you, but you know we have always told you +that the time was surely coming when you couldn't live alone any longer. +John thinks it has come now; and, as I said before, you know John, so, +after all, you won't be surprised at his going right ahead with things. +We shall do everything possible to make you comfortable, and I am sure +you will be very happy here. + +Good-bye, then, until Tuesday. With love to both of you. + +EDITH. + +That had been the beginning. To Grandpa and Grandma Burton it had come +like a thunderclap on a clear day. They had known, to be sure, that son +John frowned a little at their lonely life; but that there should come +this sudden transplanting, this ruthless twisting and tearing up of +roots that for sixty years had been burrowing deeper and deeper--it was +almost beyond one's comprehension. + +And there was the auction! + +"We shan't need that, anyway," Grandma Burton had said at once. "What +few things we don't want to keep I shall give away. An auction, indeed! +Pray, what have we to sell?" + +"Hm-m! To be sure, to be sure," her husband had murmured; but his face +was troubled, and later he had said, apologetically: "You see, Hannah, +there's the farm things. We don't need them." + +On Tuesday night Mrs. John and the somewhat awesome Maria--to whom +Grandpa and Grandma Burton never could learn not to curtsy--arrived; and +almost at once Grandma Burton discovered that not only "farm things," +but such precious treasures as the hair wreath and the parlor--set were +auctionable. In fact, everything the house contained, except their +clothing and a few crayon portraits, seemed to be in the same category. + +"But, mother, dear," Mrs. John had returned, with a laugh, in response +to Grandma Burton's horrified remonstrances, "just wait until you see +your rooms, and how full they are of beautiful things, and then you'll +understand." + +"But they won't be--these," the old voice had quavered. + +And Mrs. John had laughed again, and had patted her mother-in-law's +cheek, and had echoed-but with a different shade of meaning--"No, they +certainly won't be these!" + +In the attic now, on a worn black trunk, sat the little old man, and +down on the floor before an antiquated cradle knelt his wife. + +"They was all rocked in it, Seth," she was saying,--"John and the twins +and my two little girls; and now there ain't any one left only John--and +the cradle." + +"I know, Hannah, but you ain't _usin'_ that nowadays, so you don't +really need it," comforted the old man. "But there's my big chair +now--seems as though we jest oughter take that. Why, there ain't a day +goes by that I don't set in it!" + +"But John's wife says there's better ones there, Seth," soothed the old +woman in her turn, "as much as four or five of 'em right in our rooms." + +"So she did, so she did!" murmured the man. "I'm an ongrateful thing; so +I be." There was a long pause. The old man drummed with his fingers on +the trunk and watched a cloud sail across the skylight. The woman gently +swung the cradle to and fro. "If only they wan't goin' ter be--sold!" +she choked, after a time. "I like ter know that they're where I can look +at 'em, an' feel of 'em, an'--an' remember things. Now there's them +quilts with all my dress pieces in 'em--a piece of most every dress I've +had since I was a girl; an' there's that hair wreath--seems as if I jest +couldn't let that go, Seth. Why, there's your hair, an' John's, an' some +of the twins', an'--" + +"There, there, dear; now I jest wouldn't fret," cut in the old man +quickly. "Like enough when you get used ter them other things on the +wall you'll like 'em even better than the hair wreath. John's wife says +she's taken lots of pains an' fixed 'em up with pictures an' curtains +an' everythin' nice," went on Seth, talking very fast. "Why, Hannah, +it's you that's bein' ongrateful now, dear!" + +"So 'tis, so 'tis, Seth, an' it ain't right an' I know it. I ain't +a-goin' ter do so no more; now see!" And she bravely turned her back on +the cradle and walked, head erect, toward the attic stairs. + +John came at five o'clock. He engulfed the little old man and the little +old woman in a bearlike hug, and breezily demanded what they had been +doing to themselves to make them look so forlorn. In the very next +breath, however, he answered his own question, and declared it was +because they had been living all cooped up alone so long--so it was; and +that it was high time it was stopped, and that he had come to do it! +Whereupon the old man and the old woman smiled bravely and told each +other what a good, good son they had, to be sure! + +Friday dawned clear, and not too warm--an ideal auction-day. Long before +nine o'clock the yard was full of teams and the house of people. Among +them all, however, there was no sign of the bent old man and the erect +little old woman, the owners of the property to be sold. John and Mrs. +John were not a little disturbed--they had lost their father and mother. + +Nine o'clock came, and with it began the strident call of the +auctioneer. Men laughed and joked over their bids, and women looked on +and gossiped, adding a bid of their own now and then. Everywhere was the +son of the house, and things went through with a rush. Upstairs, in the +darkest corner of the attic--which had been cleared of goods--sat, hand +in hand on an old packing-box, a little old man and a little old woman +who winced and shrank together every time the "Going, going, gone!" +floated up to them from the yard below. + +At half-past one the last wagon rumbled out of the yard, and five +minutes later Mrs. John gave a relieved cry. + +"Oh, there you are! Why, mother, father, where _have_ you been?" + +There was no reply. The old man choked back a cough and bent to flick a +bit of dust from his coat. The old woman turned and crept away, her +erect little figure looking suddenly bent and old. + +"Why, what--" began John, as his father, too, turned away. "Why, Edith, +you don't suppose--" He stopped with a helpless frown. + +"Perfectly natural, my dear, perfectly natural," returned Mrs. John +lightly. "We'll get them away immediately. It'll be all right when once +they are started." + +Some hours later a very tired old man and a still more tired old woman +crept into a pair of sumptuous, canopy-topped twin beds. There was only +one remark. + +"Why, Seth, mine ain't feathers a mite! Is yours?" + +There was no reply. Tired nature had triumphed--Seth was asleep. + +They made a brave fight, those two. They told themselves that the chairs +were easier, the carpets softer, and the pictures prettier than those +that had gone under the hammer that day as they sat hand in hand in the +attic. They assured each other that the unaccustomed richness of window +and bed hangings and the profusion of strange vases and statuettes did +not make them afraid to stir lest they soil or break something. They +insisted to each other that they were not homesick, and that they were +perfectly satisfied as they were. And yet-- + +When no one was looking Grandpa Burton tried chair after chair, and +wondered why there was only one particular chair in the whole world that +just exactly "fitted;" and when the twilight hour came Grandma Burton +wondered what she would give to be able just to sit by the old cradle +and talk with the past. + + * * * * * + +The newspapers said it was a most marvelous escape for the whole family. +They gave a detailed account of how the beautiful residence of the +Honorable John Burton, with all its costly furnishings, had burned to +the ground, and of how the entire family was saved, making special +mention of the honorable gentleman's aged father and mother. No one was +injured, fortunately, and the family had taken up a temporary residence +in the nearest hotel. It was understood that Mr. Burton would begin +rebuilding at once. + +The newspapers were right--Mr. Burton did begin rebuilding at once; in +fact, the ashes of the Burton mansion were not cold before John Burton +began to interview architects and contractors. + +"It'll be 'way ahead of the old one," he confided to his wife +enthusiastically. + +Mrs. John sighed. + +"I know, dear," she began plaintively; "but, don't you see? it won't be +the same--it can't be. Why, some of those things we've had ever since we +were married. They seemed a part of me, John. I was used to them. I had +grown up with some of them--those candlesticks of mamma's, for instance, +that she had when I was a bit of a baby. Do you think money can buy +another pair that--that were _hers_?" And Mrs. John burst into +tears. + +"Come, come, dear," protested her husband, with a hasty caress and a +nervous glance at the clock--he was due at the bank in ten minutes. +"Don't fret about what can't be helped; besides"-and he laughed +whimsically--"you must look out or you'll be getting as bad as mother +over her hair wreath!" And with another hasty pat on her shoulder he was +gone. + +Mrs. John suddenly stopped her crying. She lowered her handkerchief and +stared fixedly at an old print on the wall opposite. The hotel--though +strictly modern in cuisine and management--was an old one, and prided +itself on the quaintness of its old-time furnishings. Just what the +print represented Mrs. John could not have told, though her eyes did not +swerve from its face for five long minutes. What she did see was a +silent, dismantled farmhouse, and a little old man and a little old +woman with drawn faces and dumb lips. + +Was it possible? Had she, indeed, been so blind? + +Mrs. John rose to her feet, bathed her eyes, straightened her neck-bow, +and crossed the hall to Grandma Burton's room. + +"Well, mother, and how are you getting along?" she asked cheerily. + +"Jest as nice as can be, daughter,--and ain't this room pretty?" +returned the little old woman eagerly. "Do you know, it seems kind of +natural like; mebbe it's because of that chair there. Seth says it's +almost like his at home." + +It was a good beginning, and Mrs. John made the most of it. Under her +skillful guidance Grandma Burton, in less than five minutes, had gone +from the chair to the old clock which her father used to wind, and from +the clock to the bureau where she kept the dead twins' little white +shoes and bonnets. She told, too, of the cherished parlor chairs and +marble-topped table, and of how she and father had saved and saved for +years to buy them; and even now, as she talked, her voice rang with +pride of possession--though only for a moment; it shook then with the +remembrance of loss. + +There was no complaint, it is true, no audible longing for lost +treasures. There was only the unwonted joy of pouring into sympathetic +ears the story of things loved and lost--things the very mention of +which brought sweet faint echoes of voices long since silent. + +"There, there," broke off the little old woman at last, "how I am +runnin' on! But, somehow, somethin' set me to talkin' ter-day. Mebbe't +was that chair that's like yer father's," she hazarded. + +"Maybe it was," agreed Mrs. John quietly, as she rose to her feet. + +The new house came on apace. In a wonderfully short time John Burton +began to urge his wife to see about rugs and hangings. It was then that +Mrs. John called him to one side and said a few hurried but very earnest +words--words that made the Honorable John open wide his eyes. + +"But, Edith," he remonstrated, "are you crazy? It simply couldn't be +done! The things are scattered over half a dozen townships; besides, I +haven't the least idea where the auctioneer's list is--if I saved it at +all." + +"Never mind, dear; I may try, surely," begged Mrs. John. And her husband +laughed and reached for his check-book. + +"Try? Of course you may try! And here's this by way of wishing you good +luck," he finished, as he handed her an oblong bit of paper that would +go far toward smoothing the most difficult of ways. + +"You dear!" cried Mrs. John. "And now I'm going to work." + +It was at about this time that Mrs. John went away. The children were at +college and boarding-school; John was absorbed in business and +house-building, and Grandpa and Grandma Burton were contented and well +cared for. There really seemed to be no reason why Mrs. John should not +go away, if she wished--and she apparently did wish. It was at about +this time, too, that certain Vermont villages--one of which was the +Honorable John Burton's birthplace--were stirred to sudden interest and +action. A persistent, smiling-faced woman had dropped into their +midst--a woman who drove from house to house, and who, in every case, +left behind her a sworn ally and friend, pledged to serve her cause. + +Little by little, in an unused room in the village hotel there began to +accumulate a motley collection--a clock, a marble-topped table, a +cradle, a patchwork quilt, a bureau, a hair wreath, a chair worn with +age and use. And as this collection grew in size and fame, only that +family which could not add to it counted itself abused and unfortunate, +so great was the spell that the persistent, smiling-faced woman had cast +about her. + +Just before the Burton house was finished Mrs. John came back to town. +She had to hurry a little about the last of the decorations and +furnishings to make up for lost time; but there came a day when the +place was pronounced ready for occupancy. + +It was then that Mrs. John hurried into Grandpa and Grandma Burton's +rooms at the hotel. + +"Come, dears," she said gayly. "The house is all ready, and we're going +home." + +"Done? So soon?" faltered Grandma Burton, who had not been told very +much concerning the new home's progress. "Why, how quick they have built +it!" + +There was a note of regret in the tremulous old voice, but Mrs. John did +not seem to notice. The old man, too, rose from his chair with a long +sigh--and again Mrs. John did not seem to notice. + + * * * * * + +"Yes, dearie, yes, it's all very nice and fine," said Grandma Burton +wearily, half an hour later as she trudged through the sumptuous parlors +and halls of the new house; "but, if you don't mind, I guess I'll go to +my room, daughter. I'm tired--turrible tired." + +Up the stairs and along the hall trailed the little procession--Mrs. +John, John, the bent old man, and the little old woman. At the end of +the hall Mrs. John paused a moment, then flung the door wide open. + +There was a gasp and a quick step forward; then came the sudden +illumination of two wrinkled old faces. + +"John! Edith!"--it was a cry of mingled joy and wonder. + +There was no reply. Mrs. John had closed the door and left them there +with their treasures. + + + + +For Jimmy + + + +Uncle Zeke's pipe had gone out--sure sign that Uncle Zeke's mind was not +at rest. For five minutes the old man had occupied in frowning silence +the other of my veranda rocking-chairs. As I expected, however, I had +not long to wait. + +"I met old Sam Hadley an' his wife in the cemetery just now," he +observed. + +"Yes?" I was careful to express just enough, and not too much, interest: +one had to be circumspect with Uncle Zeke. + +"Hm-m; I was thinkin'--" Uncle Zeke paused, shifted his position, and +began again. This time I had the whole story. + +"I was thinkin'--I don't say that Jimmy did right, an' I don't say that +Jimmy did wrong. Maybe you can tell. 'Twas like this: + +"In a way we all claimed Jimmy Hadley. As a little fellow, he was one of +them big-eyed, curly-haired chaps that gets inside your heart no matter +how tough't is. An' we was really fond of him, too,--so fond of him that +we didn't do nothin' but jine in when his pa an' ma talked as if he was +the only boy that ever was born, or ever would be--an' you know we must +have been purty daft ter stood that, us bein' fathers ourselves! + +"Well, as was natural, perhaps, the Hadleys jest lived fer Jimmy. They'd +lost three, an' he was all there was left. They wasn't very well-to-do, +but nothin' was too grand fer Jimmy, and when the boy begun ter draw +them little pictures of his all over the shed an' the barn door, they +was plumb crazy. There wan't no doubt of it--Jimmy was goin' ter be +famous, they said. He was goin' ter be one o' them painter fellows, an' +make big money. + +"An' Jimmy did work, even then. He stood well in his studies, an' worked +outside, earnin' money so's he could take drawin' lessons when he got +bigger. An' by and by he did get bigger, an' he did take lessons down +ter the Junction twice a week. + +"There wan't no livin' with Mis' Hadley then, she was that proud; an' +when he brought home his first picture, they say she never went ter bed +at all that night, but jest set gloatin' over it till the sun came in +an' made her kerosene lamp look as silly as she did when she saw 'twas +mornin'. There was one thing that plagued her, though: 'twan't +painted--that picture. Jimmy called it a 'black an' white,' an' said +'twan't paintin' that he wanted ter do, but 'lustratin'--fer books and +magazines, you know. She felt hurt, an' all put out at first: but Jimmy +told her 'twas all right, an' that there was big money in it; so she got +'round contented again. She couldn't help it, anyhow, with Jimmy, he was +that lovin' an' nice with her. He was the kind that's always bringin' +footstools and shawls, an' makin' folks comfortable. Everybody loved +Jimmy. Even the cats an' dogs rubbed up against him an' wagged their +tails at sight of him, an' the kids--goodness, Jimmy couldn't cross the +street without a dozen kids makin' a grand rush fer him. + +"Well, time went on, an' Jimmy grew tall an' good lookin'. Then came the +girl--an' she _was_ a girl, too. 'Course, Jimmy, bein' as how he'd had +all the frostin' there was goin' on everythin' so fur, carried out the +same idea in girls, an' picked out the purtiest one he could find--rich +old Townsend's daughter, Bessie. + +"To the Hadleys this seemed all right--Jimmy was merely gettin' the +best, as usual; but the rest of us, includin' old man Townsend, begun +ter sit up an' take notice. The old man was mad clean through. He had +other plans fer Bessie, an' he said so purty plain." + +"But it seems there didn't any of us--only Jimmy, maybe--take the girl +herself into consideration. For a time she was a little skittish, an' +led Jimmy a purty chase with her dancin' nearer an' nearer, an' then +flyin' off out of reach. But at last she came out fair an' square fur +Jimmy, an' they was as lively a pair of lovers as ye'd wish ter see. It +looked, too, as if she'd even wheedle the old man 'round ter her side of +thinkin'." + +"The next thing we knew Jimmy had gone ter New York. He was ter study, +an' at the same time pick up what work he could, ter turn an honest +penny, the Hadleys said. We liked that in him. He was goin' ter make +somethin' of himself, so's he'd be worthy of Bessie Townsend or any +other girl." + +"But't was hard on the Hadleys. Jimmy's lessons cost a lot, an' so did +just livin' there in New York, an' 'course Jimmy couldn't pay fer it +all, though I guess he worked nights an' Sundays ter piece out. Back +home here the Hadleys scrimped an' scrimped till they didn't have half +enough ter eat, an' hardly enough ter cover their nakedness. But they +didn't mind--'t was fer Jimmy. He wrote often, an' told how he was +workin', an' the girl got letters, too; at least, Mis' Hadley said she +did. An' once in a while he'd tell of some picture he'd finished, or +what the teacher said. + +"But by an' by the letters didn't come so often. Sam told me about it at +first, an' he said it plagued his wife a lot. He said she thought maybe +Jimmy was gettin' discouraged, specially as he didn't seem ter say much +of anything about his work now. Sam owned up that the letters wan't so +free talkin'; an' that worried him. He was afraid the boy was keepin' +back somethin'. He asked me, kind of sheepish-like, if I s'posed such a +thing could be as that Jimmy had gone wrong, somehow. He knew cities was +awful wicked an' temptin', he said. + +"I laughed him out of that notion quick, an' I was honest in it, too. +I'd have as soon suspected myself of goin' ter the bad as Jimmy, an' I +told him so. Things didn't look right, though. The letters got skurser +an' skurser, an' I began ter think myself maybe somethin' was up. Then +come the newspaper. + +"It was me that took it over to the Hadleys. It was a little notice in +my weekly, an' I spied it 'way down in the corner just as I thought I +had the paper all read. 'Twan't so much, but to us 'twas a powerful lot; +jest a little notice that they was glad ter see that the first prize had +gone ter the talented young illustrator, James Hadley, an' that he +deserved it, an' they wished him luck. + +"The Hadleys were purty pleased, you'd better believe. They hadn't seen +it, 'course, as they wan't wastin' no money on weeklies them days. Sam +set right down an' wrote, an' so did Mis' Hadley, right out of the +fullness of their hearts. Mis' Hadley give me her letter ter read, she +was that proud an' excited; an' 't was a good letter, all brimmin' over +with love an' pride an' joy in his success. I could see just how Jimmy'd +color up an' choke when he read it, specially where she owned up how +she'd been gettin' purty near discouraged 'cause they didn't hear much +from him, an' how she'd rather die than have her Jimmy fail. + +"Well, they sent off the letters, an' by an' by come the answer. It was +kind of shy and stiff-like, an' I think it sort of disappointed 'em; but +they tried ter throw it off an' say that Jimmy was so modest he didn't +like ter take praise. + +"'Course the whole town was interested, an' proud, too, ter think he +belonged ter us; an' we couldn't hear half enough about him. But as time +went on we got worried. Things didn't look right. The Hadleys was still +scrimpin', still sendin' money when they could, an' they owned up that +Jimmy's letters wan't real satisfyin' an' that they didn't come often, +though they always told how hard he was workin'. + +"What was queerer still, every now an' then I'd see his name in my +weekly. I looked fer it, I'll own. I run across it once in the +'Personals,' an' after that I hunted the paper all through every week. +He went ter parties an' theaters, an' seemed ter be one of a gay crowd +that was always havin' good times. I didn't say nothin' ter the Hadleys +about all this, 'course, but it bothered me lots. What with all these +fine doin's, an' his not sendin' any money home, it looked as if the old +folks didn't count much now, an' that his head had got turned sure. + +"As time passed, things got worse an' worse. Sam lost two cows, an' Mis' +Hadley grew thinner an' whiter, an' finally got down sick in her bed. +Then I wrote. I told Jimmy purty plain how things was an' what I thought +of him. I told him that there wouldn't be any more money comin' from +this direction (an' I meant ter see that there wan't, too!), an' I +hinted that if that 'ere prize brought anythin' but honor, I should +think 't would be a mighty good plan ter share it with the folks that +helped him ter win it. + +"It was a sharp letter, an' when it was gone I felt 'most sorry I'd sent +it; an' when the answer come, I _was_ sorry. Jimmy was all broke +up, an' he showed it. He begged me ter tell him jest how his ma was; an' +if they needed anythin', ter get it and call on him. He said he wished +the prize had brought him lots of money, but it hadn't. He enclosed +twenty-five dollars, however, and said he should write the folks not ter +send him any more money, as he was goin' ter send it ter them now +instead. + +"Of course I took the letter an' the money right over ter Sam, an' after +they'd got over frettin' 'cause I'd written at all, they took the money, +an' I could see it made 'em look ten years younger. After that you +couldn't come near either of 'em that you didn't hear how good Jimmy was +an' how he was sendin' home money every week. + +"Well, it wan't four months before I had ter write Jimmy again. Sam +asked me too, this time. Mis' Hadley was sick again, an' Sam was +worried. He thought Jimmy ought ter come home, but he didn't like ter +say so himself. He wondered if I wouldn't drop him a hint. So I wrote, +an' Jimmy wrote right away that he'd come. + +"We was all of a twitter, 'course, then--the whole town. He'd got +another prize--so the paper said--an' there was a paragraph praisin' up +some pictures of his in the magazine. He was our Jimmy, an' we was proud +of him, yet we couldn't help wonderin' how he'd act. We wan't used ter +celebrities--not near to! + +"Well, he came. He was taller an' thinner than when he went away, an' +there was a tired look in his eyes that went straight ter my heart. +'Most the whole town was out ter meet him, an' that seemed ter bother +him. He was cordial enough, in a way, but he seemed ter try ter avoid +folks, an' he asked me right off ter get him 'out of it.' I could see he +wan't hankerin' ter be made a lion of, so we got away soon's we could +an' went ter his home. + +"You should have seen Mis' Hadley's eyes when she saw him, tall an' +straight in the doorway. And Sam--Sam cried like a baby, he was so proud +of that boy. As fer Jimmy, his eyes jest shone, an' the tired look was +all gone from them when he strode across the room an' dropped on his +knees at his mother's bedside with a kind of choking cry. I come away +then, and left them. + +"We was kind of divided about Jimmy, after that. We liked him, 'most all +of us, but we didn't like his ways. He was too stand-offish, an' queer, +an' we was all mad at the way he treated the girl. + +"'Twas given out that the engagement was broken, but we didn't believe +'t was her done it, 'cause up ter the last minute she'd been runnin' +down ter the house with posies and goodies. Then _he_ came, an' she +stopped. He didn't go there, neither, an', so far as we knew, they +hadn't seen each other once. The whole town was put out. We didn't +relish seein' her thrown off like an old glove, jest 'cause he was +somebody out in the world now, an' could have his pick of girls with +city airs and furbelows. But we couldn't do nothin', 'cause he he +_was_ good ter his folks, an' no mistake, an' we did like that. + +"Mis' Hadley got better in a couple of weeks, an' he begun ter talk of +goin' back. We wanted ter give him a banquet an' speeches and a +serenade, but he wouldn't hear a word of it. He wouldn't let us tell him +how pleased we was at his success, either. The one thing he wouldn't +talk about was his work, an' some got most mad, he was so modest. + +"He hardly ever left the house except fer long walks, and it was on one +of them that the accident happened. It was in the road right in front of +the field where I was ploughing, so I saw it all. Bessie Townsend, on +her little gray mare, came tearin' down the Townsend Hill like mad. + +"Jimmy had stopped ter speak ter me, at the fence, but the next minute +he was off like a shot up the road. He ran an' made a flyin' leap, an' I +saw the mare rear and plunge. Then beast and man came down together, and +I saw Bessie slide to the ground, landin' on her feet. + +"When I got there Bessie Townsend was sittin' on the ground, with +Jimmy's head in her arms, which I thought uncommon good of her, seein' +the mortification he'd caused her. But when I saw the look in her eyes, +an' in his as he opened them an' gazed up at her, I reckoned there might +be more ter that love-story than most folks knew. What he said ter her +then I don't know, but ter me he said jest four words, +'Don't--tell--the--folks,' an' I didn't rightly understand jest then +what he meant, for surely an accident like that couldn't be kept +unbeknownst. The next minute he fell back unconscious. + +"It was a bad business all around, an' from the very first there wan't +no hope. In a week 'twas over, an' we laid poor Jimmy away. Two days +after the funeral Sam come ter me with a letter. It was addressed ter +Jimmy, an' the old man couldn't bring himself ter open it. He wanted, +too, that I should go on ter New York an' get Jimmy's things; an' after +I had opened the letter I said right off that I'd go. I was mad over +that letter. It was a bill fer a suit of clothes, an' it asked him purty +sharplike ter pay it. + +"I had some trouble in New York findin' Jimmy's boardin'-place. There +had been a fire the night before, an' his landlady had had ter move; but +at last I found her an' asked anxiously fer Jimmy's things, an' if his +pictures had been hurt. + +"Jimmy's landlady was fat an' greasy an' foreign-lookin', an' she didn't +seem ter understand what I was talkin' about till I repeated a bit +sharply:-- + +"'Yes, his pictures. I've come fer 'em.' + +"Then she shook her head. + +"'Meester Hadley did not have any pictures.' + +"'But he must have had 'em,' says I, 'fer them papers an' magazines he +worked for. He made 'em!' + +"She shook her head again; then she gave a queer hitch to her shoulders, +and a little flourish with her hands. + +"'Oh--ze pictures! He did do them--once--a leetle: months ago.' + +"'But the prize,' says I. 'The prize ter James Hadley!' + +"Then she laughed as if she suddenly understood. + +"Oh, but it is ze grand mistake you are makin',' she cried, in her +silly, outlandish way of talkin'. 'There is a Meester James Hadley, an' +he does make pictures--beautiful pictures--but it is not this one. This +Meester Hadley did try, long ago, but he failed to succeed, so my son +said; an' he had to--to cease. For long time he has worked for me, for +the grocer, for any one who would pay--till a leetle while ago. Then he +left. In ze new clothes he had bought, he went away. Ze old +ones--burned. He had nothing else.' + +"She said more, but I didn't even listen. I was back with Jimmy by the +roadside, and his 'Don't--tell--the--folks' was ringin' in my ears. I +understood it then, the whole thing from the beginnin'; an' I felt dazed +an' shocked, as if some one had struck me a blow in the face. I wan't +brought up ter think lyin' an' deceivin' was right. + +"I got up by an' by an' left the house. I paid poor Jimmy's bill fer +clothes--the clothes that I knew he wore when he stood tall an' straight +in the doorway ter meet his mother's adorin' eyes. Then I went home. + +"I told Sam that Jimmy's things got burned up in the fire--which was the +truth. I stopped there. Then I went to see the girl--an' right there I +got the surprise of my life. She knew. He had told her the whole thing +long before he come home, an' insisted on givin' her up. Jest what he +meant ter do in the end, an' how he meant ter do it, she didn't know; +an' she said with a great sob in her voice, that she didn't believe he +knew either. All he did know, apparently, was that he didn't mean his ma +should find out an' grieve over it--how he had failed. But whatever he +was goin' ter do, it was taken quite out of his hands at the last. + +"As fer Bessie, now,--it seems as if she can't do enough fer Sam an' +Mis' Hadley, she's that good ter 'em; an' they set the world by her. +She's got a sad, proud look to her eyes, but Jimmy's secret is safe. + +"As I said, I saw old Sam an' his wife in the cemetery to-night. They +stopped me as usual, an' told me all over again what a good boy Jimmy +was, an' how smart he was, an' what a lot he'd made of himself in the +little time he'd lived. The Hadleys are old an' feeble an' broken, an' +it's their one comfort--Jimmy's success." + +Uncle Zeke paused, and drew a long breath. Then he eyed me almost +defiantly. + +"I ain't sayin' that Jimmy did right, of course; but I ain't +sayin'--that Jimmy did wrong," he finished. + + + + +A Summons Home + + + +Mrs. Thaddeus Clayton came softly into the room and looked with +apprehensive eyes upon the little old man in the rocking-chair. + +"How be ye, dearie? Yer hain't wanted fer nothin', now, have ye?" she +asked. + +"Not a thing, Harriet," he returned cheerily. "I'm feelin' real pert, +too. Was there lots there? An' did Parson Drew say a heap o' fine +things?" + +Mrs. Clayton dropped into a chair and pulled listlessly at the black +strings of her bonnet. + +"'T was a beautiful fun'ral, Thaddeus--a beautiful fun'ral. I--I 'most +wished it was mine." + +"Harriet!" + +She gave a shamed-faced laugh. + +"Well, I did--then Jehiel and Hannah Jane would 'a' come, an' I could +'a' seen 'em." + +The horrified look on the old man's face gave way to a broad smile. + +"Oh, Harriet--Harriet!" he chuckled, "how could ye seen 'em if you was +dead?" + +"Huh? Well, I--Thaddeus,"--her voice rose sharply in the silent +room,--"every single one of them Perkins boys was there, and Annabel, +too. Only think what poor Mis' Perkins would 'a' given ter seen 'em +'fore she went! But they waited--_waited_, Thaddeus, jest as everybody +does, till their folks is dead." + +"But, Harriet," demurred the old man, "surely you'd 'a' had them boys +come ter their own mother's fun'ral!" + +"Come! I'd 'a' had 'em come before, while Ella Perkins could 'a' feasted +her eyes on 'em. Thaddeus,"--Mrs. Clayton rose to her feet and stretched +out two gaunt hands longingly,--"Thaddeus, I get so hungry sometimes for +Jehiel and Hannah Jane, seems as though I jest couldn't stand it!" + +"I know--I know, dearie," quavered the old man, vigorously polishing his +glasses. + +"Fifty years ago my first baby came," resumed the woman in tremulous +tones; "then another came, and another, till I'd had six. I loved 'em, +an' tended 'em, an' cared fer 'em, an' didn't have a thought but was fer +them babies. Four died,"--her voice broke, then went on with renewed +strength,--"but I've got Jehiel and Hannah Jane left; at least, I've got +two bits of paper that comes mebbe once a month, an' one of 'em's signed +'your dutiful son, Jehiel,' an' the other, 'from your loving daughter, +Hannah Jane.'" + +"Well, Harriet, they--they're pretty good ter write letters," ventured +Mr. Clayton. + +"Letters!" wailed his wife. "I can't hug an' kiss letters, though I try +to, sometimes. I want warm flesh an' blood in my arms, Thaddeus; I want +ter look down into Jehiel's blue eyes an' hear him call me 'dear old +mumsey!' as he used to. I wouldn't ask 'em ter stay--I ain't +unreasonable, Thaddeus. I know they can't do that." + +"Well, well, wife, mebbe they'll come--mebbe they'll come this summer; +who knows?" + +She shook her head dismally. + +"You've said that ev'ry year for the last fifteen summers, an' they +hain't come yet. Jehiel went West more than twenty years ago, an' he's +never been home since. Why, Thaddeus, we've got a grandson 'most +eighteen, that we hain't even seen! Hannah Jane's been home jest once +since she was married, but that was nigh on ter sixteen years ago. She's +always writin' of her Tommy and Nellie, but--I want ter see 'em, +Thaddeus; I want ter see 'em!" + +"Yes, yes; well, we'll ask 'em, Harriet, again--we'll ask 'em real +urgent-like, an' mebbe that'll fetch 'em," comforted the old man. +"We'll ask 'em ter be here the Fourth; that's eight weeks off yet, an' I +shall be real smart by then." + +Two letters that were certainly "urgent-like" left the New England +farmhouse the next morning. One was addressed to a thriving Western +city, the other to Chattanooga, Tennessee. + +In course of time the answers came. Hannah Jane's appeared first, and +was opened with shaking fingers. + +_Dear Mother_ [read Mrs. Clayton aloud]: Your letter came two or three +days ago, and I have hurried round to answer it, for you seemed to be so +anxious to hear. I'm real sorry, but I don't see how we can get away +this summer. Nathan is real busy at the store; and, some way, I can't +seem to get up energy enough to even think of fixing up the children to +take them so far. Thank you for the invitation, though, and we should +enjoy the visit very much; but I guess we can't go just yet. Of course +if anything serious should come up that made it necessary--why, that +would be different: but I know you are sensible, and will understand how +it is with us. + +Nathan is well, but business has been pretty brisk, and he is in the +store early and late. As long as he's making money, he don't mind; but I +tell him I think he might rest a little sometimes, and let some one else +do the things he does. + +Tom is a big boy now, smart in his studies and with a good head for +figures. Nellie loves her books, too; and, for a little girl of eleven, +does pretty well, we think. + +I must close now. We all send love, and hope you are getting along all +right. Was glad to hear father was gaining so fast. + +Your loving daughter + +HANNAH JANE + +The letter dropped from Mrs. Clayton's fingers and lay unheeded on the +floor. The woman covered her face with her hands and rocked her body +back and forth. + +"There, there, dearie," soothed the old man huskily; "mebbe Jehiel's +will be diff'rent. I shouldn't wonder, now, if Jehiel would come. There, +there! don't take on so, Harriet! don't! I jest know Jehiel'll come." + +A week later Mrs. Clayton found another letter in the rural delivery +box. She clutched it nervously, peered at the writing with her dim old +eyes, and hurried into the house for her glasses. + +Yes, it was from Jehiel. + +She drew a long breath. Her eager thumb was almost under the flap of the +envelope when she hesitated, eyed the letter uncertainly, and thrust it +into the pocket of her calico gown. All day it lay there, save at +times--which, indeed, were of frequent occurrence--when she took it from +its hiding-place, pressed it to her cheek, or gloried in every curve of +the boldly written address. + +At night, after the lamp was lighted, she said to her husband in tones +so low he could scarcely hear: + +"Thaddeus, I--I had a letter from Jehiel to-day." + +"You did--and never told me? Why, Harriet, what--" He paused helplessly. + +"I--I haven't read it, Thaddeus," she stammered. "I couldn't bear to, +someway. I don't know why, but I couldn't. You read it!" She held out +the letter with shaking hands. + +He took it, giving her a sharp glance from anxious eyes. As he began to +read aloud she checked him. + +"No; ter yerself, Thaddeus--ter yerself! Then--tell me." + +As he read she watched his face. The light died from her eyes and her +chin quivered as she saw the stern lines deepen around his mouth. A +minute more, and he had finished the letter and laid it down without a +word. + +"Thaddeus, ye don't mean--he didn't say--" + +"Read it--I--I can't," choked the old man. + +She reached slowly for the sheet of paper and spread it on the table +before her. + +_Dear Mother_ [Jehiel had written]: Just a word to tell you we are +all O. K. and doing finely. Your letter reminded me that it was about +time I was writing home to the old folks. I don't mean to let so many +weeks go by without a letter from me, but somehow the time just gets +away from me before I know it. + +Minnie is well and deep in spring sewing and house-cleaning. I +know--because dressmaker's bills are beginning to come in, and every +time I go home I find a carpet up in a new place! + +Our boy Fred is eighteen to-morrow. You'd be proud of him, I know, if +you could see him. Business is rushing. Glad to hear you're all right +and that father's rheumatism is on the gain. + +As ever, your affectionate and dutiful son, JEHIEL + +Oh, by the way--about that visit East. I reckon we'll have to call it +off this year. Too bad; but can't seem to see my way clear. + +Bye-bye, J. + +Harriet Clayton did not cry this time. She stared at the letter long +minutes with wide-open, tearless eyes, then she slowly folded it and put +it back in its envelope. + +"Harriet, mebbe-" began the old man timidly. + +"Don't, Thaddeus--please don't!" she interrupted. "I--I don't want ter +talk." And she rose unsteadily to her feet and moved toward the kitchen +door. + +For a time Mrs. Clayton went about her work in a silence quite unusual, +while her husband watched her with troubled eyes. His heart grieved over +the bowed head and drooping shoulders, and over the blurred eyes that +were so often surreptitiously wiped on a corner of the gingham apron. +But at the end of a week the little old woman accosted him with a face +full of aggressive yet anxious determination. + +"Thaddeus, I want ter speak ter you about somethin'. I've been thinkin' +it all out, an' I've decided that I've got ter kill one of us off." + +"Harriet!" + +"Well, I have. A fun'ral is the only thing that will fetch Jehiel and--" + +"Harriet, are ye gone crazy? Have ye gone clean mad?" + +She looked at him appealingly. + +"Now, Thaddeus, don't try ter hender me, please. You see it's the only +way. A fun'ral is the--" + +"A 'fun'ral'--it's murder!" he shuddered. + +"Oh, not ter make believe, as I shall," she protested eagerly. "It's--" + +"Make believe!" + +"Why, yes, of course. _You'll_ have ter be the one ter do it, +'cause I'm goin' ter be the dead one, an'--" + +"Harriet!" + +"There, there, _please_, Thaddeus! I've jest got ter see Jehiel and +Hannah Jane 'fore I die!" + +"But--they--they'll come if--" + +"No, they won't come. We've tried it over an' over again; you know we +have. Hannah Jane herself said that if anythin' 'serious' came up it +would be diff'rent. Well, I'm goin' ter have somethin' 'serious' come +up!" + +"But, Harriet--" + +"Now, Thaddeus," begged the woman, almost crying, "you must help me, +dear. I've thought it all out, an' it's easy as can be. I shan't tell +any lies, of course. I cut my finger to-day, didn't I?" + +"Why--yes--I believe so," he acknowledged dazedly; "but what has that to +do--" + +"That's the 'accident,' Thaddeus. You're ter send two telegrams at +once--one ter Jehiel, an' one ter Hannah Jane. The telegrams will say: +'Accident to your mother. Funeral Saturday afternoon. Come at once.' +That's jest ten words." + +The old man gasped. He could not speak. + +"Now, that's all true, ain't it?" she asked anxiously. "The 'accident' +is this cut. The 'fun'ral' is old Mis' Wentworth's. I heard ter-day that +they couldn't have it until Saturday, so that'll give us plenty of time +ter get the folks here. I needn't say whose fun'ral it is that's goin' +ter be on Saturday, Thaddeus! I want yer ter hitch up an' drive over ter +Hopkinsville ter send the telegrams. The man's new over there, an' won't +know yer. You couldn't send 'em from here, of course." + +Thaddeus Clayton never knew just how he allowed himself to be persuaded +to take his part in this "crazy scheme," as he termed it, but persuaded +he certainly was. + +It was a miserable time for Thaddeus then. First there was that hurried +drive to Hopkinsville. Though the day was warm he fairly shivered as he +handed those two fateful telegrams to the man behind the counter. Then +there was the homeward trip, during which, like the guilty thing he was, +he cast furtive glances from side to side. + +Even home itself came to be a misery, for the sweeping and the dusting +and the baking and the brewing which he encountered there left him no +place to call his own, so that he lost his patience at last and moaned: + +"Seems ter me, Harriet, you're a pretty lively corpse!" + +His wife smiled, and flushed a little. + +"There, there, dear! don't fret. Jest think how glad we'll be ter see +'em!" she exclaimed. + +Harriet was blissfully happy. Both the children had promptly responded +to the telegrams, and were now on their way. Hannah Jane, with her +husband and two children, were expected on Friday evening; but Jehiel +and his wife and boy could not possibly get in until early on the +following morning. + +All this brought scant joy to Thaddeus. There was always hanging over +him the dread horror of what he had done, and the fearful questioning as +to how it was all going to end. + +Friday came, but a telegram at the last moment told of trains delayed +and connections missed. Hannah Jane would not reach home until +nine-forty the next morning. So it was with a four-seated carryall that +Thaddeus Clayton started for the station on Saturday morning to meet +both of his children and their families. + +The ride home was a silent one; but once inside the house, Jehiel and +Hannah Jane, amid a storm of sobs and cries, besieged their father with +questions. + +The family were all in the darkened sitting-room--all, indeed, save +Harriet, who sat in solitary state in the chamber above, her face pale +and her heart beating almost to suffocation. It had been arranged that +she was not to be seen until some sort of explanation had been given. + +"Father, what was it?" sobbed Hannah Jane. "How did it happen?" + +"It must have been so sudden," faltered Jehiel. "It cut me up +completely." + +"I can't ever forgive myself," moaned Hannah Jane hysterically. "She +wanted us to come East, and I wouldn't. 'Twas my selfishness--'twas +easier to stay where I was; and now--now--" + +"We've been brutes, father," cut in Jehiel, with a shake in his voice; +"all of us. I never thought--I never dreamed-father, can--can we +see--her?" + +In the chamber above a woman sprang to her feet. Harriet had quite +forgotten the stove-pipe hole to the room below, and every sob and moan +and wailing cry had been woefully distinct to her ears. With streaming +eyes and quivering lips she hurried down the stairs and threw open the +sitting-room door. + +"Jehiel! Hannah Jane! I'm here, right here--alive!" she cried. "An' I've +been a wicked, wicked woman! I never thought how bad 'twas goin' ter +make _you_ feel. I truly never, never did. 'Twas only myself--I +wanted yer so. Oh, children, children, I've been so wicked--so awful +wicked!" + +Jehiel and Hannah Jane were steady of head and strong of heartland joy, +it is said, never kills; otherwise, the results of that sudden +apparition in the sitting-room doorway might have been disastrous. + +As it was, a wonderfully happy family party gathered around the table an +hour later; and as Jehiel led a tremulous, gray-haired woman to the seat +of honor, he looked into her shining eyes and whispered: + +"Dear old mumsey, now that we've found the way home again, I reckon +we'll be coming every year--don't you?" + + + + +The Black Silk Gowns + + + +The Heath twins, Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia, rose early that +morning, and the world looked very beautiful to them--one does not buy +a black silk gown every day; at least, Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia +did not. They had waited, indeed, quite forty years to buy this one. + +The women of the Heath family had always possessed a black silk gown. It +was a sort of outward symbol of inward respectability--an unfailing +indicator of their proud position as members of one of the old families. +It might be donned at any time after one's twenty-first birthday, and it +should be donned always for funerals, church, and calls after one had +turned thirty. Such had been the code of the Heath family for +generations, as Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia well knew; and it was +this that had made all the harder their own fate--that their +twenty-first birthday was now forty years behind them, and not yet had +either of them attained this _cachet_ of respectability. + +To-day, however, there was to come a change. No longer need the +carefully sponged and darned black alpaca gowns flaunt their wearers' +poverty to the world, and no longer would they force these same wearers +to seek dark corners and sunless rooms, lest the full extent of that +poverty become known. It had taken forty years of the most rigid economy +to save the necessary money; but it was saved now, and the dresses were +to be bought. Long ago there had been enough for one, but neither of the +women had so much as thought of the possibility of buying one silk gown. +It was sometimes said in the town that if one of the Heath twins +strained her eyes, the other one was obliged at once to put on glasses; +and it is not to be supposed that two sisters whose sympathies were so +delicately attuned would consent to appear clad one in new silk and the +other in old alpaca. + +In spite of their early rising that morning, it was quite ten o'clock +before Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia had brought the house into the +state of speckless nicety that would not shame the lustrous things that +were so soon to be sheltered beneath its roof. Not that either of the +ladies expressed this sentiment in words, or even in their thoughts; +they merely went about their work that morning with the reverent joy +that a devoted priestess might feel in making ready a shrine for its +idol. They had to hurry a little to get themselves ready for the eleven +o'clock stage that passed their door; and they were still a little +breathless when they boarded the train at the home station for the city +twenty miles away--the city where were countless yards of shimmering +silk waiting to be bought. + +In the city that night at least six clerks went home with an unusual +weariness in their arms, which came from lifting down and displaying +almost their entire stock of black silk. But with all the weariness, +there was no irritation; there was only in their nostrils a curious +perfume as of lavender and old lace, and in their hearts a strange +exaltation as if they had that day been allowed a glad part in a sacred +rite. As for Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia, they went home awed, yet +triumphant: when one has waited forty years to make a purchase one does +not make that purchase lightly. + +"To-morrow we will go over to Mis' Snow's and see about having them made +up," said Miss Priscilla with a sigh of content, as the stage lumbered +through the dusty home streets. + +"Yes; we want them rich, but plain," supplemented Miss Amelia, +rapturously. "Dear me, Priscilla, but I am tired!" + +In spite of their weariness the sisters did not get to bed very early +that night. They could not decide whether the top drawer of the +spare-room bureau or the long box in the parlor closet would be the +safer refuge for their treasure. And when the matter was decided, and +the sisters had gone to bed, Miss Priscilla, after a prolonged +discussion, got up and moved the silk to the other place, only to slip +out of bed later, after a much longer discussion, and put it back. Even +then they did not sleep well: for the first time in their lives they +knew the responsibility that comes with possessions; they +feared--burglars. + +With the morning sun, however, came peace and joy. No moth nor rust nor +thief had appeared, and the lustrous lengths of shimmering silk defied +the sun itself to find spot or blemish. + +"It looks even nicer than it did in the store, don't it?" murmured Miss +Priscilla, ecstatically, as she hovered over the glistening folds that +she had draped in riotous luxury across the chair-back. + +"Yes,--oh, yes!" breathed Miss Amelia. "Now let's hurry with the work so +we can go right down to Mis' Snow's." + +_"Black_ silk-_black_ silk!" ticked the clock to Miss +Priscilla washing dishes at the kitchen sink. + +"You've got a black _silk_! You've _got_ a black _silk!"_ +chirped the robins to Miss Amelia looking for weeds in the garden. + +At ten o'clock the sisters left the house, each with a long brown parcel +carefully borne in her arms. At noon--at noon the sisters were back +again, still carrying the parcels. Their faces wore a look of mingled +triumph and defeat. + +"As if we _could_ have that beautiful silk put into a +_plaited_ skirt!" quavered Miss Priscilla, thrusting the key into +the lock with a trembling hand. "Why, Amelia, plaits always crack!" + +"Of course they do!" almost sobbed Miss Amelia. "Only think of it, +Priscilla, our silk--_cracked_!" + +"We will just wait until the styles change," said Miss Priscilla, with +an air of finality. "They won't always wear plaits!" + +"And we know all the time that we've really got the dresses, only they +aren't made up!" finished Miss Amelia, in tearful triumph. + +So the silk was laid away in two big rolls, and for another year the old +black alpaca gowns trailed across the town's thresholds and down the +aisle of the church on Sunday. Their owners no longer sought shadowed +corners and sunless rooms, however; it was not as if one were +_obliged_ to wear sponged and darned alpacas! + +Plaits were "out" next year, and the Heath sisters were among the first +to read it in the fashion notes. Once more on a bright spring morning +Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia left the house tenderly bearing in their +arms the brown-paper parcels--and once more they returned, the brown +parcels still in their arms. There was an air of indecision about them +this time. + +"You see, Amelia, it seemed foolish--almost wicked," Miss Priscilla was +saying, "to put such a lot of that expensive silk into just sleeves." + +"I know it," sighed her sister. + +"Of course I want the dresses just as much as you do," went on Miss +Priscilla, more confidently; "but when I thought of allowing Mis' Snow +to slash into that beautiful silk and just waste it on those great +balloon sleeves, I--I simply couldn't give my consent!--and 'tisn't as +though we hadn't _got_ the dresses!" + +"No, indeed!" agreed Miss Amelia, lifting her chin. And so once more the +rolls of black silk were laid away in the great box that had already +held them a year; and for another twelve months the black alpacas, now +grown shabby indeed, were worn with all the pride of one whose garments +are beyond reproach. + +When for the third time Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia returned to their +home with the oblong brown parcels there was no indecision about them; +there was only righteous scorn. + +"And do you really think that Mis' Snow _expected_ us to allow that +silk to be cut up into those skimpy little skin-tight bags she called +skirts?" demanded Miss Priscilla, in a shaking voice. "Why, Amelia, we +couldn't ever make them over!" + +"Of course we couldn't! And when skirts got bigger, what could we do?" +cried Miss Amelia. "Why, I'd rather never have a black silk dress than +to have one like that--that just couldn't be changed! We'll go on +wearing the gowns we have. It isn't as if everybody didn't know we had +these black silk dresses!" + +When the fourth spring came the rolls of silk were not even taken from +their box except to be examined with tender care and replaced in the +enveloping paper. Miss Priscilla was not well. For weeks she had spent +most of her waking hours on the sitting-room couch, growing thiner, +weaker, and more hollow-eyed. + +"You see, dear, I--I am not well enough now to wear it," she said +faintly to her sister one day when they had been talking about the black +silk gowns; "but you--" Miss Amelia had stopped her with a shocked +gesture of the hand. + +"Priscilla--as if I could!" she sobbed. And there the matter had ended. + + * * * * * + +The townspeople were grieved, but not surprised, when they learned that +Miss Amelia was fast following her sister into a decline. It was what +they had expected of the Heath twins, they said, and they reminded one +another of the story of the strained eyes and the glasses. Then came the +day when the little dressmaker's rooms were littered from end to end +with black silk scraps. + +"It's for Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia,'" said Mrs. Snow, with tears +in her eyes, in answer to the questions that were asked. + +"It's their black silk gowns, you know." + +"But I thought they were ill--almost dying!" gasped the questioner. + +The little dressmaker nodded her head. Then she smiled, even while she +brushed her eyes with her fingers. + +"They are--but they're happy. They're even happy in this!" touching the +dress in her lap. "They've been forty years buying it, and four making +it up. Never until now could they decide to use it; never until now +could they be sure they wouldn't want to--to make it--over." The little +dressmaker's voice broke, then went on tremulously: "There are folks +like that, you know--that never enjoy a thing for what it is, lest +sometime they might want it--different. Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia +never took the good that was goin'; they've always saved it for +sometime--later." + + + + +A Belated Honeymoon + + + +The haze of a warm September day hung low over the house, the garden, +and the dust-white road. On the side veranda a gray-haired, erect little +figure sat knitting. After a time the needles began to move more and +more slowly until at last they lay idle in the motionless, withered +fingers. + +"Well, well, Abby, takin' a nap?" demanded a thin-chested, wiry old man +coming around the corner of the house and seating himself on the veranda +steps. + +The little old woman gave a guilty start and began to knit vigorously. + +"Dear me, no, Hezekiah. I was thinkin'." She hesitated a moment, then +added, a little feverishly: "--it's ever so much cooler here than up ter +the fair grounds now, ain't it, Hezekiah?" + +The old man threw a sharp look at her face. "Hm-m, yes," he said. "Mebbe +'t is." + +From far down the road came the clang of a bell. As by common consent +the old man and his wife got to their feet and hurried to the front of +the house where they could best see the trolley-car as it rounded a +curve and crossed the road at right angles. + +"Goes slick, don't it?" murmured the man. + +There was no answer. The woman's eyes were hungrily devouring the last +glimpse of paint and polish. + +"An' we hain't been on 'em 't all yet, have we, Abby?" he continued. + +She drew a long breath. + +"Well, ye see, I--I hain't had time, Hezekiah," she rejoined +apologetically. + +"Humph!" muttered the old man as they turned and walked back to their +seats. + +For a time neither spoke, then Hezekiah Warden cleared his throat +determinedly and faced his wife. + +"Look a' here, Abby," he began, "I'm agoin' ter say somethin' that has +been 'most tumblin' off'n the end of my tongue fer mor'n a year. Jennie +an' Frank are good an' kind an' they mean well, but they think 'cause +our hair's white an' our feet ain't quite so lively as they once was, +that we're jest as good as buried already, an' that we don't need +anythin' more excitin' than a nap in the sun. Now, Abby, _didn't_ +ye want ter go ter that fair with the folks ter-day? Didn't ye?" + +A swift flush came into the woman's cheek. + +"Why, Hezekiah, it's ever so much cooler here, an'--" she paused +helplessly. + +"Humph!" retorted the man, "I thought as much. It's always 'nice an' +cool' here in summer an' 'nice an' warm' here in winter when Jennie goes +somewheres that you want ter go an' don't take ye. An' when 't ain't +that, you say you 'hain't had time.' I know ye! You'd talk any way ter +hide their selfishness. Look a' here, Abby, did ye ever ride in them +'lectric-cars? I mean anywheres?" + +"Well, I hain't neither, an', by ginger, I'm agoin' to!" + +"Oh, Hezekiah, Hezekiah, don't--swear!" + +"I tell ye, Abby, I will swear. It's a swearin' matter. Ever since I +heard of 'em I wanted ter try 'em. An' here they are now 'most ter my +own door an' I hain't even been in 'em once. Look a' here, Abby, jest +because we're 'most eighty ain't no sign we've lost int'rest in things. +I'm spry as a cricket, an' so be you, yet Frank an' Jennie expect us ter +stay cooped up here as if we was old--really old, ninety or a hundred, +ye know--an' 't ain't fair. Why, we _will_ be old one of these +days!" + +"I know it, Hezekiah." + +"We couldn't go much when we was younger," he resumed. "Even our weddin' +trip was chopped right off short 'fore it even begun." + +A tender light came into the dim old eyes opposite. + +"I know, dear, an' what plans we had!" cried Abigail; "Boston, an' +Bunker Hill, an' Faneuil Hall." + +The old man suddenly squared his shoulders and threw back his head. + +"Abby, look a' here! Do ye remember that money I've been savin' off an' +on when I could git a dollar here an' there that was extra? Well, +there's as much as ten of 'em now, an' I'm agoin' ter spend 'em--all of +'em mebbe. I'm _agoin'_ ter ride in them 'lectric-cars, an' so be +you. An' I ain't goin' ter no old country fair, neither, an' no more be +you. Look a' here, Abby, the folks are goin' again ter-morrer ter the +fair, ain't they?" + +Abigail nodded mutely. Her eyes were beginning to shine. + +"Well," resumed Hezekiah, "when they go we'll be settin' in the sun +where they say we'd oughter be. But we ain't agoin' ter stay there, +Abby. We're goin' down the road an' git on them 'lectric-cars, an' when +we git ter the Junction we're agoin' ter take the steam cars fer Boston. +What if 'tis thirty miles! I calc'late we're equal to 'em. We'll have +one good time, an' we won't come home until in the evenin'. We'll see +Faneuil Hall an' Bunker Hill, an' you shall buy a new cap, an' ride in +the subway. If there's a preachin' service we'll go ter that. They have +'em sometimes weekdays, ye know." + +"Oh, Hezekiah, we--couldn't!" gasped the little old woman. + +"Pooh! 'Course we could. Listen!" And Hezekiah proceeded to unfold his +plans more in detail. + +It was very early the next morning when the household awoke. By seven +o'clock a two-seated carryall was drawn up to the side-door, and by a +quarter past the carryall, bearing Jennie, Frank, the boys, and the +lunch baskets, rumbled out of the yard and on to the highway. + +"Now, keep quiet and don't get heated, mother," cautioned Jennie, +looking back at the little gray-haired woman standing all alone on the +side veranda. + +"Find a good cool spot to smoke your pipe in, father," called Frank, as +an old man appeared in the doorway. + +There followed a shout, a clatter, and a cloud of dust--then silence. +Fifteen minutes later, hand in hand, a little old man and a little old +woman walked down the white road together. + +To most of the passengers on the trolley-car that day the trip was +merely a necessary means to an end; to the old couple on the front seat +it was something to be remembered and lived over all their lives. Even +at the Junction the spell of unreality was so potent that the man forgot +things so trivial as tickets, and marched into the car with head erect +and eyes fixed straight ahead. + +It was after Hezekiah had taken out the roll of bills--all ones--to pay +the fares to the conductor that a young man in a tall hat sauntered down +the aisle and dropped into the seat in front. + +"Going to Boston, I take it," said the young man genially. + +"Yes, sir," replied Hezehiah, no less genially. "Ye guessed right the +first time." + +Abigail lifted a cautious hand to her hair and her bonnet. So handsome +and well-dressed a man would notice the slightest thing awry, she +thought. + +"Hm-m," smiled the stranger. "I was so successful that time, suppose I +try my luck again.--You don't go every day, I fancy, eh?" + +"Sugar! How'd he know that, now?" chuckled Hezekiah, turning to his wife +in open glee. "So we don't, stranger, so we don't," he added, turning +back to the man. "Ye hit it plumb right." + +"Hm-m! great place, Boston," observed the stranger. "I'm glad you're +going. I think you'll enjoy it." + +The two wrinkled old faces before him fairly beamed. + +"I thank ye, sir," said Hezekiah heartily. "I call that mighty kind of +ye, specially as there are them that thinks we're too old ter be +enj'yin' of anythin'." + +"Old? Of course you're not too old! Why, you're just in the prime to +enjoy things," cried the handsome man, and in the sunshine of his +dazzling smile the hearts of the little old man and woman quite melted +within them. + +"Thank ye, sir, thank ye sir," nodded Abigail, while Hezekiah offered +his hand. + +"Shake, stranger, shake! An' I ain't too old, an' I'm agoin' ter prove +it. I've got money, sir, heaps of it, an' I'm goin' ter spend it--mebbe +I'll spend it all. We're agoin' ter see Bunker Hill an' Faneuil Hall, +an' we're agoin' ter ride in the subway. Now, don't tell me we don't +know how ter enj'y ourselves!" + +It was a very simple matter after that. On the one hand were infinite +tact and skill; on the other, innocence, ignorance, and an overwhelming +gratitude for this sympathetic companionship. + +Long before Boston was reached Mr. and Mrs. Warden and "Mr. Livingstone" +were on the best of terms, and when they separated at the foot of the +car-steps, to the old man and woman it seemed that half their joy and +all their courage went with the smiling man who lifted his hat in +farewell before being lost to sight in the crowd. + +"There, Abby, we're here!" announced Hezekiah with an exultation that +was a little forced. "Gorry! There must be somethin' goin' on ter-day," +he added, as he followed the long line of people down the narrow passage +between the cars. + +There was no reply. Abigail's cheeks were pink and her bonnet-strings +untied. Her eyes, wide opened and frightened, were fixed on the swaying, +bobbing crowds ahead. In the great waiting-room she caught her husband's +arm. + +"Hezekiah, we can't, we mustn't ter-day," she whispered. "There's such a +crowd. Let's go home an' come when it's quieter." + +"But, Abby, we--here, let's set down," Hezekiah finished helplessly. + +Near one of the outer doors Mr. Livingstone--better known to his friends +and the police as "Slick Bill"--smiled behind his hand. Not once since +he had left them had Mr. and Mrs. Hezekiah Warden been out of his sight. + +"What's up, Bill? Need assistance?" demanded a voice at his elbow. + +"Jim, by all that's lucky!" cried Livingstone, turning to greet a dapper +little man in gray. "Sure I need you! It's a peach, though I doubt if we +get much but fun, but there'll be enough of that to make up. Oh, he's +got money--'heaps of it,' he says," laughed Livingstone, "and I saw a +roll of bills myself. But I advise you not to count too much on that, +though it'll be easy enough to get what there is, all right. As for the +fun, Jim, look over by that post near the parcel window." + +"Great Scott! Where'd you pick 'em?" chuckled the younger man. + +"Never mind," returned the other with a shrug. "Meet me at Clyde's in +half an hour. We'll be there, never fear." + +Over by the parcel-room an old man looked about him with anxious eyes. + +"But, Abby, don't ye see?" he urged. "We've come so fer, seems as though +we oughter do the rest all right. Now, you jest set here an' let me go +an' find out how ter git there. We'll try fer Bunker Hill first, 'cause +we want ter see the munurmunt sure." + +He rose to his feet only to be pulled back by his wife. + +"Hezekiah Warden!" she almost sobbed. "If you dare ter stir ten feet +away from me I'll never furgive ye as long as I live. We'd never find +each other ag'in!" + +"Well, well, Abby," soothed the man with grim humor, "if we never found +each other ag'in, I don't see as 'twould make much diff'rence whether ye +furgived me or not!" + +For another long minute they silently watched the crowd. Then Hezekiah +squared his shoulders. + +"Come, come, Abby," he said, "this ain't no way ter do. Only think how +we wanted ter git here an' now we're here an' don't dare ter stir. There +ain't any less folks than there was--growin' worse, if anythin'--but I'm +gittin' used ter 'em now, an' I'm goin' ter make a break. Come, what +would Mr. Livin'stone say if he could see us now? Where'd he think our +boastin' was about our bein' able ter enj'y ourselves? Come!" And once +more he rose to his feet. + +This time he was not held back. The little woman at his side adjusted +her bonnet, tilted up her chin, and in her turn rose to her feet. + +"Sure enough!" she quavered bravely. "Come, Hezekiah, we'll ask the way +ter Bunker Hill." And, holding fast to her husband's coat sleeve, she +tripped across the floor to one of the outer doors. + +On the sidewalk Mr. and Mrs. Hezekiah Warden came once more to a halt. +Before them swept an endless stream of cars, carriages, and people. +Above thundered the elevated railway cars. + +"Oh-h," shuddered Abigail and tightened her grasp on her husband's coat. + +It was some minutes before Hezekiah's dry tongue and lips could frame +his question, and then his words were so low-spoken and indistinct that +the first two men he asked did not hear. The third man frowned and +pointed to a policeman. The fourth snapped: "Take the elevated for +Charlestown or the trolley-cars, either;" all of which served but to +puzzle Hezekiah the more. + +Little by little the dazed old man and his wife fell back before the +jostling crowds. They were quite against the side of the building when +Livingstone spoke to them. + +"Well, well, if here aren't my friends again!" he exclaimed cordially. + +There was something of the fierceness of a drowning man in the way +Hezekiah took hold of that hand. + +_"Mr. Livin'stone!"_ he cried; then he recollected himself. "We was +jest goin' ter Bunker Hill," he said jauntily. + +"Yes?" smiled Livingstone. "But your luncheon--aren't you hungry? Come +with me; I was just going to get mine." + +"But you--I--" Hezekiah paused and looked doubtingly at his wife. + +"Indeed, my dear Mrs. Warden, you'll say 'Yes,' I know," urged +Livingstone suavely. "Only think how good a nice cup of tea would taste +now." + +"I know, but--" She glanced at her husband. + +"Nonsense! Of course you'll come," insisted Livingstone, laying a gently +compelling hand on the arm of each. + +Fifteen minutes later Hezekiah stood looking about him with wondering +eyes. + +"Well, well, Abby, ain't this slick?" he cried. + +His wife did not reply. The mirrors, the lights, the gleaming silver and +glass had filled her with a delight too great for words. She was vaguely +conscious of her husband, of Mr. Livingstone, and of a smooth-shaven +little man in gray who was presented as "Mr. Harding." Then she found +herself seated at that wonderful table, while beside her chair stood an +awesome being who laid a printed card before her. With a little ecstatic +sigh she gave Hezekiah her customary signal for the blessing and bowed +her head. + +"There!" exulted Livingstone aloud. "Here we--" He stopped short. From +his left came a deep-toned, reverent voice invoking the divine blessing +upon the place, the food, and the new friends who were so kind to +strangers in a strange land. + +"By Jove!" muttered Livingstone under his breath, as his eyes met those +of Jim across the table. The waiter coughed and turned his back. Then, +the blessing concluded, Hezekiah raised his head and smiled. + +"Well, well, Abby, why don't ye say somethin'?" he asked, breaking the +silence. "Ye hain't said a word. Mr. Livin'stone'll be thinkin' ye don't +like it." + +Mrs. Warden drew a long breath of delight. + +"I can't say anythin', Hezekiah," she faltered. "It's all so beautiful." + +Livingstone waited until the dazed old eyes had become in a measure +accustomed to the surroundings, then he turned a smiling face on +Hezekiah. + +"And now, my friend, what do you propose to do after luncheon?" he +asked. + +"Well, we cal'late ter take in Bunker Hill an' Faneuil Hall sure," +returned the old man with a confidence that told of new courage imbibed +with his tea. "Then we thought mebbe we'd ride in the subway an' hear +one of the big preachers if they happened ter be holdin' meetin's +anywheres this week. Mebbe you can tell us, eh?" + +Across the table the man called Harding choked over his food and +Livingstone frowned. + +"Well," began Livingstone slowly. + +"I think," interrupted Harding, taking a newspaper from his pocket, "I +think there are services there," he finished gravely, pointing to the +glaring advertisement of a ten-cent show, as he handed the paper across +to Livingstone. + +"But what time do the exercises begin?" demanded Hezekiah in a troubled +voice. "Ye see, there's Bunker Hill an'--sugar! Abby, ain't that +pretty?" he broke off delightedly. Before him stood a slender glass into +which the waiter was pouring something red and sparkling. + +The old lady opposite grew white, then pink. "Of course that ain't wine, +Mr. Livingstone?" she asked anxiously. + +"Give yourself no uneasiness, my dear Mrs. Warden," interposed Harding. +"It's lemonade--pink lemonade." + +"Oh," she returned with a relieved sigh. "I ask yer pardon, I'm sure. +You wouldn't have it, 'course, no more'n I would. But, ye see, bein' +pledged so, I didn't want ter make a mistake." + +There was an awkward silence, then Harding raised his glass. + +"Here's to your health, Mrs. Warden!" he cried gayly. "May your trip----" + +"Wait!" she interrupted excitedly, her old eyes alight and her cheeks +flushed. "Let me tell ye first what this trip is ter us, then ye'll have +a right ter wish us good luck." + +Harding lowered his glass and turned upon her a gravely attentive face. + +"'Most fifty years ago we was married, Hezekiah an' me," she began +softly. "We'd saved, both of us, an' we'd planned a honeymoon trip. We +was comin' ter Boston. They didn't have any 'lectric-cars then nor any +steam-cars only half-way. But we was comin' an' we was plannin' on +Bunker Hill an' Faneuil Hall, an' I don't know what all." + +The little lady paused for breath and Harding stirred uneasily in his +chair. Livingstone did not move. His eyes were fixed on a mirror across +the room. Over at the sideboard the waiter vigorously wiped a bottle. + +"Well, we was married," continued the tremulous voice, "an' not half an +hour later mother fell down the cellar stairs an' broke her hip. Of +course that stopped things right short. I took off my weddin' gown an' +put on my old red caliker an' went ter work. Hezekiah came right there +an' run the farm an' I nursed mother an' did the work. 'T was more'n a +year 'fore she was up 'round, an' after that, what with the babies an' +all, there didn't never seem a chance when Hezekiah an' me could take +this trip. + +"If we went anywhere we couldn't seem ter manage ter go tergether, an' +we never stayed fer no sight-seein'. Late years my Jennie an' her +husband seemed ter think we didn't need nothin' but naps an' knittin', +an' somehow we got so we jest couldn't stand it. We wanted ter go +somewhere an' see somethin', so." + +Mrs. Warden paused, drew a long breath, and resumed. Her voice now had a +ring of triumph. + +"Well, last month they got the 'lectric-cars finished down our way. We +hadn't been on 'em, neither of us. Jennie an' Frank didn't seem ter want +us to. They said they was shaky an' noisy an' would tire us all out. But +yesterday, when the folks was gone, Hezekiah an' me got ter talkin' an' +thinkin' how all these years we hadn't never had that honeymoon trip, +an' how by an' by we'd be old--real old, I mean, so's we couldn't take +it--an' all of a sudden we said we'd take it now, right now. An' we did. +We left a note fer the children, an'--an' we're here!" + +There was a long silence. Over at the sideboard the waiter still +polished his bottle. Livingstone did not even turn his head. Finally +Harding raised his glass. + +"We'll drink to honeymoon trips in general and to this one in +particular," he cried, a little constrainedly. + +Mrs. Warden flushed, smiled, and reached for her glass. The pink +lemonade was almost at her lips when Livingstone's arm shot out. Then +came the tinkle of shattered glass and a crimson stain where the wine +trailed across the damask. + +"I beg your pardon!" exclaimed Livingstone, while the other men lowered +their glasses in surprise. "That was an awkward slip of mine, Mrs. +Warden. I must have hit your arm." + +"But, Bill," muttered Harding under his breath, "you don't mean--" + +"But I do," corrected Livingstone quietly, looking straight into +Harding's amazed eyes. + +"Mr. and Mrs. Warden are my guests. They are going to drive to Bunker +Hill with me by and by." + +When the six o'clock accommodation train pulled out from Boston that +night it bore a little old man and a little old woman, gray-haired, +weary, but blissfully content. + +"We've seen 'em all, Hezekiah, ev'ry single one of 'em," Abigail was +saying. "An' wan't Mr. Livingstone good, a-gittin' that carriage an' +takin' us ev'rywhere; an' it bein' open so all 'round the sides, we +didn't miss seein' a single thing!" + +"He was, Abby, he was, an' he wouldn't let me pay one cent!" cried +Hezekiah, taking out his roll of bills and patting it lovingly. "But, +Abby, did ye notice? 'Twas kind o' queer we never got one taste of that +pink lemonade. The waiter-man took it away." + + + + +When Aunt Abby Waked Up + + + +The room was very still. The gaunt figure on the bed lay motionless save +for a slight lifting of the chest at long intervals. The face was turned +toward the wall, leaving a trail of thin gray hair-wisps across the +pillow. Just outside the door two physicians talked together in low +tones, with an occasional troubled glance toward the silent figure on +the bed. + +"If there could be something that would rouse her," murmured one; +"something that would prick her will-power and goad it into action! But +this lethargy--this wholesale giving up!" he finished with a gesture of +despair. + +"I know," frowned the other; "and I've tried--day after day I've tried. +But there's nothing. I've exhausted every means in my power. I didn't +know but you--" He paused questioningly. + +The younger man shook his head. + +"No," he said. "If you can't, I can't. You've been her physician for +years. If anyone knows how to reach her, you should know. I suppose +you've thought of--her son?" + +"Oh, yes. Jed was sent for long ago, but he had gone somewhere into the +interior on a prospecting trip, and was very hard to reach. It is +doubtful if word gets to him at all until--too late. As you know, +perhaps, it is rather an unfortunate case. He has not been home for +years, anyway, and the Nortons--James is Mrs. Darling's nephew--have +been making all the capital they can out of it, and have been +prejudicing her against him--quite unjustly, in my opinion, for I think +it's nothing more nor less than thoughtlessness on the boy's part." + +"Hm-m; too bad, too bad!" murmured the other, as he turned and led the +way to the street door. + +Back in the sick-room the old woman still lay motionless on the bed. She +was wondering--as she had wondered so often before--why it took so long +to die. For days now she had been trying to die, decently and in order. +There was really no particular use in living, so far as she could see. +Ella and Jim were very kind; but, after all, they were not Jed, and Jed +was away--hopelessly away. He did not even want to come back, so Ella +and Jim said. + +There was the money, too. She did not like to think of the money. It +seemed to her that every nickel and dime and quarter that she had +painfully wrested from the cost of keeping soul and body together all +these past years lay now on her breast with a weight that crushed like +lead. She had meant that money for Jed. Ella and Jim were kind, of +course, and she was willing they should have it; yet Jed--but Jed was +away. + +And she was so tired. She had ceased to rouse herself, either for the +medicine or for the watery broths they forced through her lips. It was +so hopelessly dragged out--this dying; yet it must be over soon. She had +heard them tell the neighbors only yesterday that she was unconscious +and that she did not know a thing of what was passing around her; and +she had smiled--but only in her mind. Her lips, she knew, had not moved. + +They were talking now--Ella and Jim--out in the other room. Their +voices, even their words, were quite distinct, and dreamily, +indifferently, she listened. + +"You see," said Jim, "as long as I've got ter go ter town ter-morrer, +anyhow, it seems a pity not ter do it all up at once. I could order the +coffin an' the undertaker--it's only a question of a few hours, anyway, +an' it seems such a pity ter make another trip--jest fer that!" + +In the bedroom the old woman stirred suddenly. Somewhere, away back +behind the consciousness of things, something snapped, and sent the +blood tingling from toes to fingertips. A fierce anger sprang instantly +into life and brushed the cobwebs of lethargy and indifference from her +brain. She turned and opened her eyes, fixing them upon the oblong patch +of light that marked the doorway leading to the room beyond where sat +Ella and Jim. + +"Jest fer that," Jim had said, and "that" was her death. It was not +worth, it seemed, even an extra trip to town! And she had done so +much--so much for those two out there! + +"Let's see; ter-day's Monday," Jim went on. "We might fix the fun'ral +for Saturday, I guess, an' I'll tell the folks at the store ter spread +it. Puttin' it on Sat'day'll give us a leetle extry time if she +shouldn't happen ter go soon's we expect--though there ain't much fear +o' that now, I guess, she's so low. An' it'll save me 'most half a day +ter do it all up this trip. I ain't--what's that?" he broke off sharply. + +From the inner room had seemed to come a choking, inarticulate cry. + +With a smothered ejaculation Jim picked up the lamp, hurried into the +sick-room, and tiptoed to the bed. The gaunt figure lay motionless, face +to the wall, leaving a trail of thin gray hair-wisps across the pillow. + +"Gosh!" muttered the man as he turned away. + +"There's nothin' doin'-but it did give me a start!" + +On the bed the woman smiled grimly--but the man did not see it. + +It was snowing hard when Jim got back from town Tuesday night. He came +blustering into the kitchen with stamping feet and wide-flung arms, +scattering the powdery whiteness in all directions. + +"Whew! It's a reg'lar blizzard," he began, but he stopped short at the +expression on his wife's face. "Why, Ella!" he cried. + +"Jim--Aunt Abby sat up ten minutes in bed ter-day. She called fer toast +an' tea." + +Jim dropped into a chair. His jaw fell open. + +"S-sat up!" he stammered. + +"Yes." + +"But she--hang it all, Herrick's comin' ter-morrer with the coffin!" + +"Oh, Jim!" + +"Well, I can't help it! You know how she was this mornin'," retorted Jim +sharply. "I thought she _was_ dead once. Why, I 'most had Herrick +come back with me ter-night, I was so sure." + +"I know it," shivered Ella, "but you hadn't been gone an hour 'fore she +began to stir an' notice things. I found her lookin' at me first, an' it +give me such a turn I 'most dropped the medicine bottle in my hand. I +was clearin' off the little table by her bed, an' she was followin' me +around with them big gray eyes. 'Slickin' up?' she asks after a minute; +an' I could 'a' dropped right there an' then, 'cause I _was_ +slickin' up, fer her fun'ral. 'Where's Jim?' she asks then. 'Gone ter +town,' says I, kind o' faint-like. 'Umph!' she says, an' snaps her lips +tight shet. After a minute she opens 'em again. 'I think I'll have some +tea and toast,' she says, casual-like, jest as if she'd been callin' fer +victuals ev'ry day fer a month past. An' when I brought it, if she +didn't drag herself up in bed an' call fer a piller to her back, so's +she could set up. An' there she stayed, pantin' an' gaspin', but +_settin' up_--an' she stayed there till the toast an' tea was +gone." + +"Gosh!" groaned Jim. "Who'd 'a' thought it? 'Course 't ain't that I +grudge the old lady's livin'," he added hurriedly, "but jest now it's +so--unhandy, things bein' as they be. We can't very well--" He stopped, +a swift change coming to his face. "Say, Ella," he cried, "mebbe it's +jest a spurt 'fore--'fore the last. Don't it happen sometimes that +way--when folks is dyin'?" + +"I don't know," shuddered Ella. "Sh-h! I thought I heard her." And she +hurried across the hall to the sitting-room and the bedroom beyond. + +It did not snow much through the night, but in the early morning it +began again with increased severity. The wind rose, too, and by the time +Herrick, the undertaker, drove into the yard, the storm had become a +blizzard. + +"I calc'lated if I didn't git this 'ere coffin here purty quick there +wouldn't be no gettin' it here yet awhile," called Herrick cheerfully, +as Jim came to the door. + +Jim flushed and raised a warning hand. + +"Sh-h! Herrick, look out!" he whispered hoarsely. "She ain't dead yet. +You'll have ter go back." + +"Go back!" snorted Herrick. "Why, man alive, 'twas as much as my life's +worth to get here. There won't be no goin' back yet awhile fer me nor no +one else, I calc'late. An' the quicker you get this 'ere coffin in out +of the snow, the better't will be," he went on authoritatively as he +leaped to the ground. + +It was not without talk and a great deal of commotion that the untimely +addition to James Norton's household effects was finally deposited in +the darkened parlor; neither was it accomplished without some echo of +the confusion reaching the sick-room, despite all efforts of +concealment. Jim, perspiring, red-faced, and palpably nervous, was +passing on tiptoe through the sitting-room when a quavering voice from +the bedroom brought him to a halt. + +"Jim, is that you?" + +"Yes, Aunt Abby." + +"Who's come?" + +Jim's face grew white, then red. + +"C-ome?" he stammered. + +"Yes, I heard a sleigh and voices. Who is it?" + +"Why, jest-jest a man on--on business," he flung over his shoulder, as +he fled through the hall. + +Not half an hour later came Ella's turn. In accordance with the sick +woman's orders she had prepared tea, toast, and a boiled egg; but she +had not set the tray on the bed when the old woman turned upon her two +keen eyes. + +"Who's in the kitchen, Ella, with Jim?" + +Ella started guiltily. + +"Why, jest a--a man." + +"Who is it?" + +Ella hesitated; then, knowing that deceit was useless, she stammered out +the truth. + +"Why, er--only Mr. Herrick." + +"Not William Herrick, the undertaker!" There was apparently only pleased +surprise in the old woman's voice. + +"Yes," nodded Ella feverishly, "he had business out this way, and--and +got snowed up," she explained with some haste. + +"Ye don't say," murmured the old woman. "Well, ask him in; I'd like ter +see him." + +"Aunt Abby!"--Ella's teeth fairly chattered with dismay. + +"Yes, I'd like ter see him," repeated the old woman with cordial +interest. "Call him in." + +And Ella could do nothing but obey. + +Herrick, however, did not stay long in the sick-room. The situation was +uncommon for him, and not without its difficulties. As soon as possible +he fled to the kitchen, telling Jim that it gave him "the creeps" to +have her ask him where he'd started for, and if business was good. + +All that day it snowed and all that night; nor did the dawn of Friday +bring clear skies. For hours the wind had swept the snow from roofs and +hilltops, piling it into great drifts that grew moment by moment deeper +and more impassable. + +In the farmhouse Herrick was still a prisoner. + +The sick woman was better. Even Jim knew now that it was no momentary +flare of the candle before it went out. Mrs. Darling was undeniably +improving in health. She had sat up several times in bed, and had begun +to talk of wrappers and slippers. She ate toast, eggs, and jellies, and +hinted at chicken and beefsteak. She was weak, to be sure, but behind +her, supporting and encouraging, there seemed to be a curious +strength--a strength that sent a determined gleam to her eyes, and a +grim tenseness to her lips. + +At noon the sun came out, and the wind died into fitful gusts. The two +men attacked the drifts with a will, and made a path to the gate. They +even attempted to break out the road, and Herrick harnessed his horse +and started for home; but he had not gone ten rods before he was forced +to turn back. + +"'T ain't no use," he grumbled. "I calc'late I'm booked here till the +crack o' doom!" + +"An' ter-morrer's the fun'ral," groaned Jim. "An' I can't git +nowhere--_nowhere_ ter tell 'em not ter come!" + +"Well, it don't look now as if anybody'd come--or go," snapped the +undertaker. + +Saturday dawned fair and cold. Early in the morning the casket was moved +from the parlor to the attic. + +There had been sharp words at the breakfast table, Herrick declaring +that he had made a sale, and refusing to take the casket back to town; +hence the move to the attic; but in spite of their caution, the sick +woman heard the commotion. + +"What ye been cartin' upstairs?" she asked in a mildly curious voice. + +Ella was ready for her. + +"A chair," she explained smoothly; "the one that was broke in the front +room, ye know." And she did not think it was necessary to add that the +chair was not all that had been moved. She winced and changed color, +however, when her aunt observed: + +"Humph! Must be you're expectin' company, Ella." + +It was almost two o'clock when loud voices and the crunch of heavy teams +told that the road-breakers had come. All morning the Nortons had been +hoping against hope that the fateful hour would pass, and the road be +still left in unbroken whiteness. Someone, however, had known his duty +too well--and had done it. + +"I set ter work first thing on this road," said the man triumphantly to +Ella as he stood, shovel in hand, at the door. "The parson's right +behind, an' there's a lot more behind him. Gorry! I was afraid I +wouldn't git here in time, but the fun'ral wan't till two, was it?" + +Ella's dry lips refused to move. She shook her head. + +"There's a mistake," she said faintly. "There ain't no fun'ral. Aunt +Abby's better." + +The man stared, then he whistled softly. + +"Gorry!" he muttered, as he turned away. + +If Jim and Ella had supposed that they could keep their aunt from +attending her own "funeral"--as Herrick persisted in calling it--they +soon found their mistake. Mrs. Darling heard the bells of the first +arrival. + +"I guess mebbe I'll git up an' set up a spell," she announced calmly to +Ella. "I'll have my wrapper an' my slippers, an' I'll set in the big +chair out in the settin'-room. That's Parson Gerry's voice, an' I want +ter see him." + +"But, Aunt Abby--" began Ella, feverishly. + +"Well, I declare, if there ain't another sleigh drivin' in," cried the +old woman excitedly, sitting up in bed and peering through the little +window. "Must be they're givin' us a s'prise party. Now hurry, Ella, an' +git them slippers. I ain't a-goin' to lose none o' the fun!" And Ella, +nervous, perplexed, and thoroughly frightened, did as she was bid. + +In state, in the big rocking-chair, the old woman received her guests. +She said little, it is true, but she was there; and if she noticed that +no guest entered the room without a few whispered words from Ella in the +hall, she made no sign. Neither did she apparently consider it strange +that ten women and six men should have braved the cold to spend fifteen +rather embarrassed minutes in her sitting-room--and for this last both +Ella and Jim were devoutly grateful. They could not help wondering about +it, however, after she had gone to bed, and the house was still. + +"What do ye s'pose she thought?" whispered Jim. + +"I don't know," shivered Ella, "but, Jim, wan't it awful?--Mis' Blair +brought a white wreath--everlastin's!" + +One by one the days passed, and Jim and Ella ceased to tremble every +time the old woman opened her lips. There was still that fearsome thing +in the attic, but the chance of discovery was small now. + +"If she _should_ find out," Ella had said, "'twould be the end of +the money--fer us." + +"But she ain't a-goin' ter find out," Jim had retorted. "She can't last +long, 'course, an' I guess she won't change the will now--unless some +one tells her; an' I'll be plaguy careful there don't no one do that!" + +The "funeral" was a week old when Mrs. Darling came into the +sitting-room one day, fully dressed. + +"I put on all my clo's," she said smilingly, in answer to Ella's shocked +exclamation. "I got restless, somehow, an' sick o' wrappers. Besides, I +wanted to walk around the house a little. I git kind o' tired o' jest +one room." And she limped across the floor to the hall door. + +"But, Aunt Abby, where ye goin' now?" faltered Ella. + +"Jest up in the attic. I wanted ter see--" She stopped in apparent +surprise. Ella and Jim had sprung to their feet. + +"The attic!" they gasped. + +"Yes, I--" + +"But you mustn't!--you ain't strong enough!--you'll fall!--there's +nothin' there!" they exclaimed wildly, talking both together and +hurrying forward. + +"Oh, I guess 't won't kill me," said the old woman; and something in the +tone of her voice made them fall back. They were still staring into each +other's eyes when the hall door closed sharply behind her. + +"It's all--up!" breathed Jim. + +Fully fifteen minutes passed before the old woman came back. She entered +the room quietly, and limped across the floor to the chair by the +window. + +"It's real pretty," she said. "I allers did like gray." + +"Gray?" stammered Ella. + +"Yes!--fer coffins, ye know." Jim made a sudden movement, and started to +speak; but the old woman raised her hand. "You don't need ter say +anythin'," she interposed cheerfully. "I jest wanted ter make sure where +'twas, so I went up. You see, Jed's comin' home, an' I thought he might +feel--queer if he run on to it, casual-like." + +"Jed--comin' home!" + +The old woman smiled oddly. + +"Oh, I didn't tell ye, did I? The doctor had this telegram yesterday, +an' brought it over to me. Ye know he was here last night. Read it." And +she pulled from her pocket a crumpled slip of paper. And Jim read: + +Shall be there the 8th. For God's sake don't let me be too late. + +J. D. DARLING + + + +Wristers for Three + + + +The great chair, sumptuous with satin-damask and soft with springs, +almost engulfed the tiny figure of the little old lady. To the old lady +herself it suddenly seemed the very embodiment of the luxurious ease +against which she was so impotently battling. With a spasmodic movement +she jerked herself to her feet, and stood there motionless save for the +wistful sweep of her eyes about the room. + +A level ray from the setting sun shot through the window, gilding the +silver of her hair and deepening the faint pink of her cheek; on the +opposite wall it threw a sharp silhouette of the alert little +figure--that figure which even the passage of years had been able to +bend so very little to its will. For a moment the lace kerchief folded +across the black gown rose and fell tumultuously; then its wearer +crossed the room and seated herself with uncompromising discomfort in +the only straight-backed chair the room contained. This done, Mrs. Nancy +Wetherby, for the twentieth time, went over in her mind the whole +matter. + +For two weeks, now, she had been a member of her son John's family--two +vain, unprofitable weeks. When before that had the sunset found her +night after night with hands limp from a long day of idleness? When +before that had the sunrise found her morning after morning with a mind +destitute of worthy aim or helpful plan for the coming twelve hours? +When, indeed? + +Not in her girlhood, not even in her childhood, had there been days of +such utter uselessness--rag dolls and mud pies need _some_ care! As +for her married life, there were Eben, the babies, the house, the +church--and how absolutely necessary she had been to each one! + +The babies had quickly grown to stalwart men and sweet-faced women who +had as quickly left the home nest and built new nests of their own. Eben +had died; and the church--strange how long and longer still the walk to +the church had grown each time she had walked it this last year! After +all, perhaps it did not matter; there were new faces at the church, and +young, strong hands that did not falter and tremble over these new ways +of doing things. For a time there had been only the house that needed +her--but how great that need had been! There were the rooms to care for, +there was the linen to air, there were the dear treasures of picture and +toy to cry and laugh over; and outside there were the roses to train and +the pansies to pick. + +Now, even the house was not left. It was October, and son John had told +her that winter was coming on and she must not remain alone. He had +brought her to his own great house and placed her in these beautiful +rooms--indeed, son John was most kind to her! If only she could make +some return, do something, be of some use! + +Her heart failed her as she thought of the grave-faced, preoccupied man +who came each morning into the room with the question, "Well, mother, is +there anything you need to-day?" What possible service could _she_ +render _him_? Her heart failed her again as she thought of John's +pretty, new wife, and of the two big boys, men grown, sons of dear dead +Molly. There was the baby, to be sure; but the baby was always attended +by one, and maybe two, white-capped, white-aproned young women. Madam +Wetherby never felt quite sure of herself when with those young women. +There were other young women, too, in whose presence she felt equally +ill at ease; young women in still prettier white aprons and still +daintier white caps; young women who moved noiselessly in and out of the +halls and parlors and who waited at table each day. + +Was there not some spot, some creature, some thing, in all that place +that needed the touch of her hand, the glance of her eye? Surely the day +had not quite come when she could be of no use, no service to her kind! +Her work must be waiting; she had only to find it. She would seek it +out--and that at once. No more of this slothful waiting for the work to +come to her! "Indeed, no!" she finished aloud, her dim eyes alight, her +breath coming short and quick, and her whole frail self quivering with +courage and excitement. + +It was scarcely nine o'clock the next morning when a quaint little +figure in a huge gingham apron (slyly abstracted from the bottom of a +trunk) slipped out of the rooms given over to the use of John Wetherby's +mother. The little figure tripped softly, almost stealthily, along the +hall and down the wide main staircase. There was some hesitation and +there were a few false moves before the rear stairway leading to the +kitchen was gained; and there was a gasp, half triumphant, half +dismayed, when the kitchen was reached. + +The cook stared, open-mouthed, as though confronted with an apparition. +A maid, hurrying across the room with a loaded tray, almost dropped her +burden to the floor. There was a dazed moment of silence, then Madam +Wetherby took a faltering step forward and spoke. + +"Good-morning! I--I've come to help you." + +"Ma'am!" gasped the cook. + +"To help--to help!" nodded the little old lady briskly, with a sudden +overwhelming joy at the near prospect of the realization of her hopes. +"Pare apples, beat eggs, or--anything!" + +"Indeed, ma'am, I--you--" The cook stopped helplessly, and eyed with +frightened fascination the little old lady as she crossed to the table +and picked up a pan of potatoes. + +"Now a knife, please,--oh, here's one," continued Madam Wetherby +happily. "Go right about something else. I'll sit over there in that +chair, and I'll have these peeled very soon." + +When John Wetherby visited his mother's rooms that morning he found no +one there to greet him. A few sharp inquiries disclosed the little +lady's whereabouts and sent Margaret Wetherby with flaming cheeks and +tightening lips into the kitchen. + +"Mother!" she cried; and at the word the knife dropped from the +trembling, withered old fingers and clattered to the floor. "Why, +mother!" + +"I--I was helping," quavered a deprecatory voice. + +Something in the appealing eyes sent a softer curve to Margaret +Wetherby's lips. + +"Yes, mother; that was very kind of you," said John's wife gently. "But +such work is quite too hard for you, and there's no need of your doing +it. Nora will finish these," she added, lifting the pan of potatoes to +the table, "and you and I will go upstairs to your room. Perhaps we'll +go driving by and by. Who knows?" + +In thinking it over afterwards Nancy Wetherby could find no fault with +her daughter-in-law. Margaret had been goodness itself, insisting only +that such work was not for a moment to be thought of. John's wife was +indeed kind, acknowledged Madam Wetherby to herself, yet two big tears +welled to her eyes and were still moist on her cheeks after she had +fallen asleep. + +It was perhaps three days later that John Wetherby's mother climbed the +long flight of stairs near her sitting-room door, and somewhat timidly +entered one of the airy, sunlit rooms devoted to Master Philip Wetherby. +The young woman in attendance respectfully acknowledged her greeting, +and Madam Wetherby advanced with some show of courage to the middle of +the room. + +"The baby, I--I heard him cry," she faltered. + +"Yes, madam," smiled the nurse. "It is Master Philip's nap hour." + +Louder and louder swelled the wails from the inner room, yet the nurse +did not stir save to reach for her thread. + +"But he's crying--yet!" gasped Madam Wetherby. + +The girl's lips twitched and an expression came to her face which the +little old lady did not in the least understand. + +"Can't you--do something?" demanded baby's grandmother, her voice +shaking. + +"No, madam. I--" began the girl, but she did not finish. The little +figure before her drew itself to the full extent of its diminutive +height. + +"Well, I can," said Madam Wetherby crisply. Then she turned and hurried +into the inner room. + +The nurse sat mute and motionless until a crooning lullaby and the +unmistakable tapping of rockers on a bare floor brought her to her feet +in dismay. With an angry frown she strode across the room, but she +stopped short at the sight that met her eyes. + +In a low chair, her face aglow with the accumulated love of years of +baby-brooding, sat the little old lady, one knotted, wrinkled finger +tightly elapsed within a dimpled fist. The cries had dropped to sobbing +breaths, and the lullaby, feeble and quavering though it was, rose and +swelled triumphant. The anger fled from the girl's face, and a queer +choking came to her throat so that her words were faint and broken. + +"Madam--I beg pardon--I'm sorry, but I must put Master Philip back on +his bed." + +"But he isn't asleep yet," demurred Madam Wetherby softly, her eyes +mutinous. + +"But you must--I can't--that is, Master Philip cannot be rocked," +faltered the girl. + +"Nonsense, my dear!" she said; "babies can always be rocked!" And again +the lullaby rose on the air. + +"But, madam," persisted the girl--she was almost crying now--"don't you +see? I must put Master Philip back. It is Mrs. Wetherby's orders. +They--they don't rock babies so much now." + +For an instant fierce rebellion spoke through flashing eyes, stern-set +lips, and tightly clutched fingers; then all the light died from the +thin old face and the tense muscles relaxed. + +"You may put the baby back," said Madam Wetherby tremulously, yet with a +sudden dignity that set the maid to curtsying. "I--I should not want to +cross my daughter's wishes." + +Nancy Wetherby never rocked her grandson again, but for days she haunted +the nursery, happy if she could but tie the baby's moccasins or hold his +brush or powder-puff; yet a week had scarcely passed when John's wife +said to her: + +"Mother, dear, I wouldn't tire myself so trotting upstairs each day to +the nursery. There isn't a bit of need--Mary and Betty can manage quite +well. You fatigue yourself too much!" And to the old lady's denials +John's wife returned, with a tinge of sharpness: "But, really, mother, +I'd rather you didn't. It frets the nurses and--forgive me--but you know +you _will_ forget and talk to him in 'baby-talk'!" + +The days came and the days went, and Nancy Wetherby stayed more and more +closely to her rooms. She begged one day for the mending-basket, but her +daughter-in-law laughed and kissed her. + +"Tut, tut, mother, dear!" she remonstrated. "As if I'd have you wearing +your eyes and fingers out mending a paltry pair of socks!" + +"Then I--I'll knit new ones!" cried the old lady, with sudden +inspiration. + +"Knit new ones--stockings!" laughed Margaret Wetherby. "Why, dearie, +they never in this world would wear them--and if they would, I couldn't +let you do it," she added gently, as she noted the swift clouding of the +eager face. "Such tiresome work!" + +Again the old eyes filled with tears; and yet--John's wife was kind, so +very kind! + +It was a cheerless, gray December morning that John Wetherby came into +his mother's room and found a sob-shaken little figure in the depths of +the sumptuous, satin-damask chair. "Mother, mother,--why, mother!" +There were amazement and real distress in John Wetherby's voice. + +"There, there, John, I--I didn't mean to--truly I didn't!" quavered the +little old lady. + +John dropped on one knee and caught the fluttering fingers. "Mother, +what is it?" + +"It--it isn't anything; truly it isn't," urged the tremulous voice. + +"Is any one unkind to you?" John's eyes grew stern. "The boys, +or--Margaret?" + +The indignant red mounted to the faded cheek. "John! How can you ask? +Every one is kind, kind, so very kind to me!" + +"Well, then, what is it?" + +There was only a sob in reply. "Come, come," he coaxed gently. + +For a moment Nancy Wetherby's breath was held suspended, then it came in +a burst with a rush of words. + +"Oh, John, John, I'm so useless, so useless, so dreadfully useless! +Don't you see? Not a thing, not a person needs me. The kitchen has the +cook and the maids. The baby has two or three nurses. Not even this room +needs me--there's a girl to dust it each day. Once I slipped out of bed +and did it first--I did, John; but she came in, and when I told her, she +just curtsied and smiled and kept right on, and--she didn't even skip +_one chair_! John, dear John, sometimes it seems as though even my +own self doesn't need me. I--I don't even put on my clothes alone; +there's always some one to help me!" + +"There, there, dear," soothed the man huskily. "I need you, indeed I do, +mother." And he pressed his lips to one, then the other, of the +wrinkled, soft-skinned hands. + +"You don't--you don't!" choked the woman. "There's not one thing I can +do for you! Why, John, only think, I sit with idle hands all day, and +there was so much once for them to do. There was Eben, and the children, +and the house, and the missionary meetings, and--" + +On and on went the sweet old voice, but the man scarcely heard. Only one +phrase rang over and over in his ears, "There's not one thing I can do +for you!" All the interests of now--stocks, bonds, railroads--fell from +his mind and left it blank save for the past. He was a boy again at his +mother's knee. And what had she done for him then? Surely among all the +myriad things there must be one that he might single out and ask her to +do for him now! And yet, as he thought, his heart misgave him. + +There were pies baked, clothes made, bumped foreheads bathed, lost +pencils found; there were--a sudden vision came to him of something warm +and red and very soft--something over which his boyish heart had +exulted. The next moment his face lighted with joy very like that of the +years long ago. + +"Mother!" he cried. "I know what you can do for me. I want a pair of +wristers--red ones, just like those you used to knit!" + + * * * * * + +It must have been a month later that John Wetherby, with his two elder +sons, turned the first corner that carried him out of sight of his +house. Very slowly, and with gentle fingers, he pulled off two bright +red wristers. He folded them, patted them, then tucked them away in an +inner pocket. + +"Bless her dear heart!" he said softly. "You should have seen her eyes +shine when I put them on this morning!" + +"I can imagine it," said one of his sons in a curiously tender voice. +The other one smiled, and said whimsically, "I can hardly wait for +mine!" Yet even as he spoke his eyes grew dim with a sudden moisture. + +Back at the house John's mother was saying to John's wife: "Did you see +them on him, Margaret?--John's wristers? They did look so bright and +pretty! And I'm to make more, too; did you know? Frank and Edward want +some; John said so. He told them about his, and they wanted some right +away. Only think, Margaret," she finished, lifting with both hands the +ball of red worsted and pressing it close to her cheek, "I've got two +whole pairs to make now!" + + + + +The Giving Thanks of Cyrus and Huldah + + + +For two months Cyrus Gregg and his wife Huldah had not spoken to each +other, yet all the while they had lived under the same roof, driven to +church side by side, and attended various festivities and church +prayer-meetings together. + +The cause of the quarrel had been an insignificant something that +speedily lost itself in the torrent of angry words that burst from the +lips of the irate husband and wife, until by night it would have been +difficult for either the man or the woman to tell exactly what had been +the first point of difference. By that time, however, the quarrel had +assumed such proportions that it loomed in their lives larger than +anything else; and each had vowed never to speak to the other until that +other had made the advance. + +On both sides they came of a stubborn race, and from the first it was a +battle royally fought. The night of the quarrel Cyrus betook himself in +solitary state to the "spare-room" over the parlor. After that he slept +on a makeshift bed that he had prepared for himself in the shed-chamber, +hitherto sacred to trunks, dried corn, and cobwebs. + +For a month the two sat opposite to each other and partook of Huldah's +excellent cooking; then one day the woman found at her plate a piece--of +brown paper on which had been scrawled: + +If I ain't worth speakin' to I ain't worth cookin' for. Hereafter I'll +take care of myself. + +A day later came the retort. Cyrus found it tucked under the +shed-chamber door. + +Huldah's note showed her "schooling." It was well written, carefully +spelled, and enclosed in a square white envelope. + +_Sir_ [it ran stiffly]: I shall be obliged if you do not chop any +more wood for me. Hereafter I shall use the oil stove. HULDAH PENDLETON +GREGG. + +Cyrus choked, and peered at the name with suddenly blurred eyes: the +"Huldah Pendleton" was fiercely black and distinct; the "Gregg" was so +faint it could scarcely be discerned. + +"Why, it's 'most like a d'vorce!" he shivered. + +If it had not been so pitiful, it would have been ludicrous--what +followed. Day after day, in one corner of the kitchen, an old man boiled +his potatoes and fried his unappetizing eggs over a dusty, unblacked +stove; in the other corner an old woman baked and brewed over a shining +idol of brass and black enamel--and always the baking and brewing +carried to the nostrils of the hungry man across the room the aroma of +some dainty that was a particular favorite of his own. + +The man whistled, and the woman hummed--at times; but they did not talk, +except when some neighbor came in; and then they both talked very loud +and very fast--to the neighbor. On this one point were Cyrus Gregg and +his wife Huldah agreed; under no circumstances whatever must any +gossiping outsider know. + +One by one the weeks had passed. It was November now, and very cold. +Outdoors a dull gray sky and a dull brown earth combined into a dismal +hopelessness. Indoors the dull monotony of a two-months-old quarrel and +a growing heartache made a combination that carried even less of cheer. + +Huldah never hummed now, and Cyrus seldom whistled; yet neither was one +whit nearer speaking. Each saw this, and, curiously enough, was pleased. +In fact, it was just here that, in spite of the heartache, each found an +odd satisfaction. + +"By sugar--but she's a spunky one!" Cyrus would chuckle admiringly, as +he discovered some new evidence of his wife's shrewdness in obtaining +what she wanted with yet no spoken word. + +"There isn't another man in town who could do it--and stick to it!" +exulted Huldah proudly, her eyes on her husband's form, bent over his +egg-frying at the other side of the room. + +Not only the cause of the quarrel, but almost the quarrel itself, had +now long since been forgotten; in fact, to both Cyrus and his wife it +had come to be a sort of game in which each player watched the other's +progress with fully as much interest as he did his own. And yet, with it +all there was the heartache; for the question came to them at times with +sickening force--just when and how could it possibly end? + +It was at about this time that each began to worry about the other. +Huldah shuddered at the changeless fried eggs and boiled potatoes; and +Cyrus ordered a heavy storm window for the room where Huldah slept +alone. Huldah slyly left a new apple pie almost under her husband's nose +one day, and Cyrus slipped a five-dollar bill beneath his wife's napkin +ring. When both pie and greenback remained untouched, Huldah cried, and +Cyrus said, "Gosh darn it!" three times in succession behind the woodshed +door. + +A week before Thanksgiving a letter came from the married daughter, and +another from the married son. They were good letters, kind and loving; +and each closed with a suggestion that all go home at Thanksgiving for a +family reunion. + +Huldah read the letters eagerly, but at their close she frowned and +looked anxious. In a moment she had passed them to Cyrus with a toss of +her head. Five minutes later Cyrus had flung them back with these words +trailing across one of the envelopes: + + Write um. Tell um we are sick--dead--gone away--anything! Only + don't let um come. A if _we_ wanted to Thanksgive! + +Huldah answered the letters that night. She, too, wrote kindly and +lovingly; but at the end she said that much as she and father would like +to see them, it did not seem wise to undertake to entertain such a +family gathering just now. It would be better to postpone it. + +Both Huldah and Cyrus hoped that this would end the subject of +Thanksgiving; but it did not. The very next day Cyrus encountered +neighbor Wiley in the village store. Wiley's round red face shone like +the full moon. + +"Well, well, Cy, what ye doin' down your way Thanksgivin'--eh?" he +queried. + +Cyrus stiffened; but before he could answer he discovered that Wiley had +asked the question, not for information, but as a mere introduction to a +recital of his own plans. + +"We're doin' great things," announced the man. "Sam an' Jennie an' the +hull kit on 'em's comin' home an' bring all the chicks. Tell ye what, +Cy, we _be_ a-Thanksgivin' this year! Ain't nothin' like a good old +fam'ly reunion, when ye come right down to it." + +"Yes, I know," said Cyrus gloomily. "But we--we ain't doin' much this +year." + +A day later came Huldah's turn. She had taken some calf's-foot jelly to +Mrs. Taylor in the little house at the foot of the hill. The Widow +Taylor was crying. + +"You see, it's Thanksgiving!" she sobbed, in answer to Huldah's dismayed +questions. + +"Thanksgiving!" + +"Yes. And last year I had--_him_!" + +Huldah sighed, and murmured something comforting, appropriate; but +almost at once she stopped, for the woman had turned searching eyes upon +her. + +"Huldah Gregg, do you appreciate Cyrus?" + +Huldah bridled angrily, but there was no time for a reply, for the woman +answered her own question, and hurried on wildly. + +"No. Did I appreciate my husband? No. Does Sally Clark appreciate her +husband? No. And there don't none of us do it till he's +gone--gone--gone!" + +As soon as possible Huldah went home. She was not a little disconcerted. +The "gone--gone--gone" rang unpleasantly in her ears, and before her +eyes rose a hateful vision of unappetizing fried eggs and boiled +potatoes. As to her not appreciating Cyrus--that was all nonsense; she +had always appreciated him, and that, too, far beyond his just deserts, +she told herself angrily. + +There was no escaping Thanksgiving after that for either Huldah or +Cyrus. It looked from every eager eye, and dropped from every joyous +lip, until, of all the world Huldah and Cyrus came to regard themselves +as the most forlorn, and the most abused. + +It was then that to Huldah came her great idea; she would cook for Cyrus +the best Thanksgiving dinner he had ever eaten. Just because he was +obstinate was no reason why he should starve, she told herself; and very +gayly she set about carrying out her plans. First the oil stove, with +the help of a jobman, was removed to the unfinished room over the +kitchen, for the chief charm of the dinner was to be its secret +preparation. Then, with the treasured butter-and-egg money the turkey, +cranberries, nuts, and raisins were bought and smuggled into the house +and upstairs to the chamber of mystery. + +Two days before Thanksgiving Cyrus came home to find a silent and almost +empty kitchen. His heart skipped a beat and his jaw fell open in +frightened amazement; then a step on the floor above sent the blood back +to his face and a new bitterness to his heart. + +"So I ain't even good enough ter stay with!" he muttered. "Fool!--fool!" +he snarled, glaring at the oblong brown paper in his arms. "As if she'd +care for this--now!" he finished, flinging the parcel into the farthest +corner of the room. + +Unhappy Cyrus! To him, also, had come a great idea. Thanksgiving was not +Christmas, to be sure, but if he chose to give presents on that day, +surely it was no one's business but his own, he argued. In the brown +paper parcel at that moment lay the soft, shimmering folds of yards upon +yards of black silk--and Huldah had been longing for a new black silk +gown. Yet it was almost dark when Cyrus stumbled over to the corner, +picked up the parcel, and carried it ruefully away to the shed-chamber. + +Thanksgiving dawned clear and unusually warm. The sun shone, and the air +felt like spring. The sparrows twittered in the treetops as if the +branches were green with leaves. + +To Cyrus, however, it was a world of gloom. Upstairs Huldah was +singing--singing!--and it was Thanksgiving. He could hear her feet +patter, patter on the floor above, and the sound had a cheery +self-reliance that was maddening. Huldah was happy, evidently--and it +was Thanksgiving! Twice he had walked resolutely to the back stairs with +a brown-paper parcel in his arms; and twice a quavering song of triumph +from the room above had sent him back in defeat. As if she could care +for a present of his! + +Suddenly, now, Cyrus sprang forward in his chair, sniffing the air +hungrily. Turkey! Huldah was roasting turkey, while he-- + +The old man dropped back in his seat and turned his eyes disconsolately +on the ill-kept stove--fried eggs and boiled potatoes are not the most +toothsome prospect for a Thanksgiving dinner, particularly when one has +the smell of a New England housewife's turkey in one's nostrils. + +For a time Cyrus sat motionless; then he rose to his feet, shuffled out +of the house, and across the road to the barn. + +In the room above the kitchen, at that moment, something happened. +Perhaps the old hands slipped in their eagerness, or perhaps the old +eyes judged a distance wrongly. Whatever it was, there came a puff of +smoke, a sputter, and a flare of light; then red-yellow flames leaped to +the flimsy shade at the window, and swept on to the century-seasoned +timbers above. + +With a choking cry, Huldah turned and stumbled across the room to the +stairway. Out at the barn door Cyrus, too, saw the flare of light at the +window, and he, too, turned with a choking cry. + +They met at the foot of the stairway. + +"Huldah!" + +"Cyrus!" + +It was as if one voice had spoken, so exactly were the words +simultaneous. Then Cyrus cried: + +"You ain't hurt?" + +"No, no! Quick--the things--we must get them out!" + +Obediently Cyrus turned and began to work; and the first thing that his +arms tenderly bore to safety was an oblong brown-paper parcel. + +From all directions then came the neighbors running. The farming +settlement was miles from a town or a fire-engine. The house was small, +and stood quite by itself; and there was little, after all, that could +be done, except to save the household goods and gods. This was soon +accomplished, and there was nothing to do but to watch the old house +burn. + +Cyrus and Huldah sat hand in hand on an old stone wall, quite apart from +their sympathetic neighbors, and--talked. And about them was a curious +air of elation, a buoyancy as if long-pent forces had suddenly found a +joyous escape. + +"'T ain't as if our things wan't all out," cried Cyrus; his voice was +actually exultant. + +"Or as if we hadn't wanted to build a new one for years," chirruped his +wife. + +"Now you can have that 'ere closet under the front stairs, Huldah!" + +"And you can have the room for your tools where it'll be warm in the +winter!" + +"An' there'll be the bow-winder out of the settin' room, Huldah!" + +"Yes, and a real bathroom, with water coming right out of the wall, same +as the Wileys have!" + +"An' a tub, Huldah--one o' them pretty white chiny ones!" + +"Oh, Cyrus, ain't it almost too good to be true!" sighed Huldah: then +her face changed. "Why, Cyrus, it's gone," she cried with sudden +sharpness. + +"What's gone?" + +"Your dinner--I was cooking such a beautiful turkey and all the fixings +for you." + +A dull red came into the man's face. + +"For--me?" stammered Cyrus. + +"Y-yes," faltered Huldah; then her chin came up defiantly. + +The man laughed; and there was a boyish ring to his voice. + +"Well, Huldah, I didn't have any turkey, but I did have a tidy little +piece o' black silk for yer gown, an' I saved it, too. Mebbe we could +eat that!--eh?" + +It was not until just as they were falling asleep that night in Deacon +Clark's spare bedroom that Mr. and Mrs. Gregg so much as hinted that +there ever had been a quarrel. + +Then, under cover of the dark, Cyrus stammered: + +"Huldah, did ye sense it? Them 'ere words we said at the foot of the +stairs was spoke--exactly--_together_!" + +"Yes, I know, dear," murmured Huldah, with a little break in her voice. +Then: + +"Cyrus, ain't it wonderful--this Thanksgiving, for us?" + +Downstairs the Clarks were talking of poor old Mr. and Mrs. Gregg and +their "sad loss;" but the Clarks did not--know. + + + + +A New England Idol + + + +The Hapgood twins were born in the great square house that set back from +the road just on the outskirts of Fairtown. Their baby eyes had opened +upon a world of faded portraits and somber haircloth furniture, and +their baby hands had eagerly clutched at crystal pendants on brass +candlesticks gleaming out of the sacred darkness that enveloped the +parlor mantel. + +When older grown they had played dolls in the wonderful attic, and made +mud pies in the wilderness of a back yard. The garden had been a +fairyland of delight to their toddling feet, and the apple trees a +fragrant shelter for their first attempts at housekeeping. + +From babyhood to girlhood the charm of the old place grew upon them, so +much so that the thought of leaving it for homes of their own became +distasteful to them, and they looked with scant favor upon the +occasional village youths who sauntered up the path presumably on +courtship bent. + +The Reverend John Hapgood--a man who ruled himself and all about him +with the iron rod of a rigid old-school orthodoxy--died when the twins +were twenty; and the frail little woman who, as his wife, had for thirty +years lived and moved solely because he expected breath and motion of +her, followed soon in his footsteps. And then the twins were left alone +in the great square house on the hill. + +Miss Tabitha and Miss Rachel were not the only children of the family. +There had been a son--the first born, and four years their senior. The +headstrong boy and the iron rule had clashed, and the boy, when sixteen +years old, had fled, leaving no trace behind him. + +If the Reverend John Hapgood grieved for his wayward son the members of +his household knew it not, save as they might place their own +constructions on the added sternness to his eyes and the deepening lines +about his mouth. "Paul," when it designated the graceless runaway, was a +forbidden word in the family, and even the Epistles in the sacred Book, +bearing the prohibited name, came to be avoided by the head of the house +in the daily readings. It was still music in the hearts of the women, +however, though it never passed their lips; and when the little mother +lay dying she remembered and spoke of her boy. The habit of years still +fettered her tongue and kept it from uttering the name. + +"If--he--comes--you know--if he comes, be kind--be good," she murmured, +her breath short and labored. "Don't--punish," she whispered--he was +yet a lad in her disordered vision. "Don't punish--forgive!" + +Years had passed since then--years of peaceful mornings and placid +afternoons, and Paul had never appeared. Each purpling of the lilacs in +the spring and reddening of the apples in the fall took on new shades of +loveliness in the fond eyes of the twins, and every blade of grass and +tiny shrub became sacred to them. + +On the 10th of June, their thirty-fifth birthday, the place never had +looked so lovely. A small table laid with spotless linen and gleaming +silver stood beneath the largest apple-tree, a mute witness that the +ladies were about to celebrate their birthday--the 10th of June being +the only day that the solemn dignity of the dining-room was deserted for +the frivolous freedom of the lawn. + +Rachel came out of the house and sniffed the air joyfully. + +"Delicious!" she murmured. "Somehow, the 10th of June is specially fine +every year." + +In careful, uplifted hands she bore a round frosted cake, always the +chief treasure of the birthday feast. The cake was covered with the tiny +colored candies so dear to the heart of a child. Miss Rachel always +bought those candies at the village store, with the apology:-- + +"I want them for Tabitha's birthday cake, you know. She thinks so much +of pretty things." + +Tabitha invariably made the cake and iced it, and as she dropped the +bits of colored sugar into place, she would explain to Huldy, who +occasionally "helped" in the kitchen:-- + +"I wouldn't miss the candy for the world--my sister thinks so much of +it!" + +So each deceived herself with this pleasant bit of fiction, and yet had +what she herself most wanted. + +Rachel carefully placed the cake in the center of the table, feasted her +eyes on its toothsome loveliness, then turned and hurried back to the +house. The door had scarcely shut behind her when a small, ragged urchin +darted in at the street gate, snatched the cake, and, at a sudden sound +from the house, dashed out of sight behind a shrub close by. + +The sound that had frightened the boy was the tapping of the heels of +Miss Tabitha's shoes along the back porch. The lady descended the steps, +crossed the lawn and placed a saucer of pickles and a plate of dainty +sandwiches on the table. + +"Why, I thought Rachel brought the cake," she said aloud. "It must be in +the house; there's other things to get, anyway. I'll go back." + +Again the click of the door brought the small boy close to the table. +Filling both hands with sandwiches, he slipped behind the shrub just as +the ladies came out of the house together. Rachel carried a small tray +laden with sauce and tarts; Tabitha, one with water and steaming tea. As +they neared the table each almost dropped her burden. + +"Why, where's my cake?" + +"And my sandwiches?" + +"There's the plate it was on!" Rachel's voice was growing in terror. + +"And mine, too!" cried Tabitha, with distended eyes fastened on some +bits of bread and meat--all that the small brown hands had left. + +"It's burglars--robbers!" Rachel looked furtively over her shoulder. + +"And all your lovely cake!" almost sobbed Tabitha. + +"It--it was yours, too," said the other with a catch in her voice. "Oh, +dear! What can have happened to it? I never heard of such a thing--right +in broad daylight!" The sisters had long ago set their trays upon the +ground and were now wringing their hands helplessly. Suddenly a small +figure appeared before them holding out four sadly crushed sandwiches +and half of a crumbling cake. + +"I'm sorry--awful sorry! I didn't think--I was so hungry. I'm afraid +there ain't very much left," he added, with rueful eyes on the +sandwiches. + +"No, I should say not!" vouchsafed Rachel, her voice firm now that the +size of the "burglar" was declared. Tabitha only gasped. + +The small boy placed the food upon the empty plates, and Rachel's lips +twitched as she saw that he clumsily tried to arrange it in an orderly +fashion. + +"There, ma'am,--that looks pretty good!" he finally announced with some +pride. + +Tabitha made an involuntary gesture of aversion. Rachel laughed +outright; then her face grew suddenly stern. + +"Boy, what do you mean by such actions?" she demanded. + +His eyes fell, and his cheeks showed red through the tan. + +"I was hungry." + +"But didn't you know it was stealing?" she asked, her face softening. + +"I didn't stop to think--it looked so good I couldn't help takin' it." +He dug his bare toes in the grass for a moment in silence, then he +raised his head with a jerk and stood squarely on both feet. "I hain't +got any money, but I'll work to pay for it--bringin' wood in, or +somethin'." + +"The dear child!" murmured two voices softly. + +"I've got to find my folks, sometime, but I'll do the work first. Mebbe +an hour'll pay for it--'most!"--He looked hopefully into Miss Rachel's +face. + +"Who are your folks?" she asked huskily. + +By way of answer he handed out a soiled, crumpled envelope for her +inspection on which was written, "Reverend John Hapgood." + +"Why--it's father!" + +"What!" exclaimed Tabitha. + +Her sister tore the note open with shaking fingers. + +"It's from--Paul!" she breathed, hesitating a conscientious moment over +the name. Then she turned her startled eyes on the boy, who was +regarding her with lively interest. + +"Do I belong to you?" he asked anxiously. + +"I--I don't know. Who are you--what's your name?" + +"Ralph Hapgood." + +Tabitha had caught up the note and was devouring it with swift-moving +eyes. + +"It's Paul's boy, Rachel," she broke in, "only think of it--Paul's boy!" +and she dropped the bit of paper and enveloped the lad in a fond but +tearful embrace. + +He squirmed uneasily. + +"I'm sorry I eat up my own folks's things. I'll go to work any time," +he suggested, trying to draw away, and wiping a tear splash from the +back of his hand on his trousers. + +But it was long hours before Ralph Hapgood was allowed to "go to work." +Tears, kisses, embraces, questions, a bath, and clean clothes followed +each other in quick succession--the clothes being some of his own +father's boyhood garments. + +His story was quickly told. His mother was long since dead, and his +father had written on his dying bed the letter that commended the +boy--so soon to be orphaned--to the pity and care of his grandparents. +The sisters trembled and changed color at the story of the boy's +hardships on the way to Fairtown; and they plied him with questions and +sandwiches in about equal proportions after he told of the frequent +dinnerless days and supperless nights of the journey. + +That evening when the boy was safe in bed--clean, full-stomached, and +sleepily content the sisters talked it over. The Reverend John Hapgood, +in his will, had cut off his recreant son with the proverbial shilling, +so, by law, there was little coming to Ralph. This, however, the sisters +overlooked in calm disdain. + +"We must keep him, anyhow," said Rachel with decision. + +"Yes, indeed,--the dear child!" + +"He's twelve, for all he's so small, but he hasn't had much schooling. +We must see to that--we want him well educated," continued Rachel, a +pink spot showing in either cheek. + +"Indeed we do--we'll send him to college! I wonder, now, wouldn't he +like to be a doctor?" + +"Perhaps," admitted the other cautiously, "or a minister." + +"Sure enough--he might like that better; I'm going to ask him!" and she +sprang to her feet and tripped across the room to the parlor-bedroom +door. "Ralph," she called softly, after turning the knob, "are you +asleep?" + +"Huh? N-no, ma'am." The voice nearly gave the lie to the words. + +"Well, dear, we were wondering--would you rather be a minister or a +doctor?" she asked, much as though she were offering for choice a peach +and a pear. + +"A doctor!" came emphatically from out of the dark--there was no sleep +in the voice now. "I've always wanted to be a doctor." + +"You shall, oh, you shall!" promised the woman ecstatically, going back +to her sister; and from that time all their lives were ordered with that +one end in view. + +The Hapgood twins were far from wealthy. They owned the homestead, but +their income was small, and the added mouth to fill--and that a hungry +one--counted. As the years passed, Huldy came less and less frequently +to help in the kitchen, and the sisters' gowns grew more and more rusty +and darned. + +Ralph, boylike, noticed nothing--indeed, half the year he was away at +school; but as the time drew near for the college course and its +attendant expenses, the sisters were sadly troubled. + +"We might sell," suggested Tabitha, a little choke in her voice. + +Rachel started. + +"Why, sister!--sell? Oh, no, we couldn't do that!" she shuddered. + +"But what can we do?" + +"Do?--why lots of things!" Rachel's lips came together with a snap. +"It's coming berry time, and there's our chickens, and the garden did +beautifully last year. Then there's your lace work and my knitting--they +bring something. Sell? Oh--we couldn't do that!" And she abruptly left +the room and went out into the yard. There she lovingly trained a +wayward vine with new shoots going wrong, and gloated over the +rosebushes heavy with crimson buds. + +But as the days and weeks flew by and September drew the nearer, +Rachel's courage failed her. Berries had been scarce, the chickens had +died, the garden had suffered from drought, and but for their lace and +knitting work, their income would have dwindled to a pitiful sum +indeed. Ralph had been gone all summer; he had asked to go camping and +fishing with some of his school friends. He was expected home a week +before the college opened, however. + +Tabitha grew more and more restless every day. Finally she spoke. + +"Rachel, we'll have to sell--there isn't any other way. It would bring a +lot," she continued hurriedly, before her sister could speak, "and we +could find some pretty rooms somewhere. It wouldn't be so very +dreadful!" + +"Don't, Tabitha! Seems as though I couldn't bear even to speak of it. +Sell?--oh, Tabitha!" Then her voice changed from a piteous appeal to one +of forced conviction. + +"We couldn't get anywhere near what it's worth, Tabitha, anyway. No one +here wants it or can afford to buy it for what it ought to bring. It is +really absurd to think of it. Of course, if I had an offer--a good big +one--that would be quite another thing; but there's no hope of that." + +Rachel's lips said "hope," but her heart said "danger," and the latter +was what she really meant. She did not know that but two hours before, a +stranger had said to a Fairtown lawyer: + +"I want a summer home in this locality. You don't happen to know of a +good old treasure of a homestead for sale, do you?" + +"I do not," replied the lawyer. "There's a place on the edge of the +village that would be just the ticket, but I don't suppose it could be +bought for love nor money." + +"Where is it?" asked the man eagerly. "You never know what money can +do--to say nothing of love--till you try." + +The lawyer chuckled softly. + +"It's the Hapgood place. I'll drive you over to-morrow. It's owned by +two old maids, and they worship every stick and stone and blade of grass +that belongs to it. However, I happen to know that cash is rather scarce +with them--and there's ample chance for love, if the money fails," he +added, with a twitching of his lips. + +When the two men drove into the yard that August morning, the Hapgood +twins were picking nasturtiums, and the flaming yellows and scarlets +lighted up their somber gowns, and made patches of brilliant color +against the gray of the house. + +"By Jove, it's a picture!" exclaimed the would-be purchaser. + +The lawyer smiled and sprang to the ground. Introductions swiftly +followed, then he cleared his throat in some embarrassment. + +"Ahem! I've brought Mr. Hazelton up here, ladies, because he was +interested in your beautiful place." + +Miss Rachel smiled--the smile of proud possession; then something within +her seemed to tighten, and she caught her breath sharply. + +"It is fine!" murmured Hazelton; "and the view is grand!" he continued, +his eyes on the distant hills. Then he turned abruptly. "Ladies, I +believe in coming straight to the point. I want a summer home, and--I +want this one. Can I tempt you to part with it?" + +"Indeed, no!" began Rachel almost fiercely. Then her voice sank to a +whisper; "I--I don't think you could." + +"But, sister," interposed Tabitha, her face alight, "you know you +said--that is, there are circumstances--perhaps he would--p-pay +enough--" Her voice stumbled over the hated word, then stopped, while +her face burned scarlet. + +"Pay!--no human mortal could pay for this house!" flashed Rachel +indignantly. Then she turned to Hazelton, her slight form drawn to its +greatest height, and her hands crushing the flowers, she held till the +brittle stems snapped, releasing a fluttering shower of scarlet and +gold. "Mr. Hazelton, to carry out certain wishes very near to our +hearts, we need money. We will show you the place, and--and we will +consider your offer," she finished faintly. It was a dreary journey the +sisters took that morning, though the garden never had seemed lovelier, +nor the rooms more sacredly beautiful. In the end, Hazelton's offer was +so fabulously enormous to their unwilling ears that their conscience +forbade them to refuse it. + +"I'll have the necessary papers ready to sign in a few days," said the +lawyer as the two gentlemen turned to go. And Hazelton added: "If at any +time before that you change your minds and find you cannot give it +up--just let me know and it will be all right. Just think it over till +then," he said kindly, the dumb woe in their eyes appealing to him as +the loudest lamentations could not have done. "But if you don't mind, +I'd like to have an architect, who is in town just now, come up and look +it over with me," he finished. + +"Certainly, sir, certainly," said Rachel, longing for the man to go. But +when he was gone, she wished him back--anything would be better than +this aimless wandering from room to room, and from yard to garden and +back again. + +"I suppose _he_ will sit here," murmured Tabitha, dropping wearily +on to the settee under the apple-trees. + +"I suppose so," her sister assented. "I wonder if _she_ knows how +to grow roses; they'll certainly die if she doesn't!" And Rachel crushed +a worm under her foot with unnecessary vigor. + +"Oh, I hope they'll tend to the vines on the summerhouse, Rachel, and +the pansies--you don't think they'll let them run to seed, do you? Oh, +dear!" And Tabitha sprang nervously to her feet and started back to the +house. + +Mr. Hazelton appeared the next morning with two men--an architect and a +landscape gardener. Rachel was in the summerhouse, and the first she +knew of their presence was the sound of talking outside. + +"You'll want to grade it down there," she heard a strange voice say, +"and fill in that little hollow; clear away all those rubbishy posies, +and mass your flowering shrubs in the background. Those roses are no +particular good, I fancy; we'll move such as are worth anything, and +make a rose-bed on the south side--we'll talk over the varieties you +want, later. Of course these apple-trees and those lilacs will be cut +down, and this summerhouse will be out of the way. You'll be +surprised--a few changes will do wonders, and--" + +He stopped abruptly. A woman, tall, flushed, and angry-eyed, stood +before him in the path. She opened her lips, but no sound came--Mr. +Hazelton was lifting his hat. The flush faded, and her eyes closed as +though to shut out some painful sight; then she bowed her head with a +proud gesture, and sped along the way to the house. + +Once inside, she threw herself, sobbing, upon the bed. Tabitha found her +there an hour later. + +"You poor dear--they've gone now," she comforted. + +Rachel raised her head. + +"They're going to cut down everything--every single thing!" she gasped. + +"I know it," choked Tabitha, "and they're going to tear out lots of +doors inside, and build in windows and things. Oh, Rachel,--what shall +we do?" + +"I don't know, oh, I don't know!" moaned the woman on the bed, diving +into the pillows and hugging them close to her head. + +"We--we might give up selling--he said we could if we wanted to." + +"But there's Ralph!" + +"I know it. Oh, dear--what can we do?" + +Rachel suddenly sat upright. + +"Do? Why, we'll stand it, of course. We just mustn't mind if he turns +the house into a hotel and the yard into a--a pasture!" she said +hysterically. "We must just think of Ralph and of his being a doctor. +Come, let's go to the village and see if we can rent that tenement of +old Mrs. Goddard's." + +With a long sigh and a smothered sob, Tabitha went to get her hat. + +Mrs. Goddard greeted the sisters effusively, and displayed her bits of +rooms and the tiny square of yard with the plainly expressed wish that +the place might be their home. + +The twins said little, but their eyes were troubled. They left with the +promise to think it over and let Mrs. Goddard know. + +"I didn't suppose rooms could be so little," whispered Tabitha, as they +closed the gate behind them. + +"We couldn't grow as much as a sunflower in that yard," faltered Rachel. + +"Well, anyhow, we could have some houseplants!"--Tabitha tried to speak +cheerfully. + +"Indeed we could!" agreed Rachel, rising promptly to her sister's +height; "and, after all, little rooms are lots cheaper to heat than big +ones." And there the matter ended for the time being. + +Mr. Hazelton and the lawyer with the necessary papers appeared a few +days later. As the lawyer took off his hat he handed a letter to Miss +Rachel. + +"I stepped into the office and got your mail," he said genially. + +"Thank you," replied the lady, trying to smile. "It's from +Ralph,"--handing it over for her sister to read. + +Both the ladies were in somber black; a ribbon or a brooch seemed out of +place to them that day. Tabitha broke the seal of the letter, and +retired to the light of the window to read it. + +The papers were spread on the table, and the pen was in Rachel's hand +when a scream from Tabitha shattered the oppressive silence of the room. + +"Stop--stop--oh, stop!" she cried, rushing to her sister and snatching +the pen from her fingers. "We don't have to--see--read!"--pointing to +the postscript written in a round, boyish hand. + +Oh, I say, I've got a surprise for you. You think I've been fishing and +loafing all summer, but I've been working for the hotels here the whole +time. I've got a fine start on my money for college, and I've got a +chance to work for my board all this year by helping Professor Heaton. I +met him here this summer, and he's the right sort--every time. I've +intended all along to help myself a bit when it came to the college +racket, but I didn't mean to tell you until I knew I could do it. But +it's a sure thing now. + +Bye-bye; I'll be home next Saturday. + +Your aff. nephew, + +Ralph. + +Rachel had read this aloud, but her voice ended in a sob instead of in +the boy's name. Hazelton brushed the back of his hand across his eyes, +and the lawyer looked intently out the window. For a moment there was a +silence that could be felt, then Hazelton stepped to the table and +fumbled noisily with the papers. + +"Ladies, I withdraw my offer," he announced. "I can't afford to buy this +house--I can't possibly afford it--it's too expensive." And without +another word he left the room, motioning the lawyer to follow. + +The sisters looked into each other's eyes and drew a long, sobbing +breath. + +"Rachel, is it true?" + +"Oh, Tabitha! Let's--let's go out under the apple-trees and--just know +that they are there!" + +And hand in hand they went. + + +The End + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Across the Years, by Eleanor H. 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