Eben Holden: A Tale of the North Country

  Chapter 20

  We went back to our work again shortly, the sweetness and the bitternessof life fresh in our remembrance. When we came back, 'hook an' line',for another vacation, the fields were aglow with colour, and the roadswhere Dr Bigsby had felt the sting of death that winter day were nowover drifted with meadow-music and the smell of clover. I had creditablytaken examination for college, where I was to begin my course in thefall, with a scholarship. Hope had made remarkable progress in music andwas soon going to Ogdensburg for instruction.

  A year had gone, nearly, since Jed Feary had cautioned me about fallingin love. I had kept enough of my heart about me 'to do business with',but I had continued to feel an uncomfortable absence in the region ofit. Young men at Hillsborough--many of whom, I felt sure, had a smarterlook than I--had bid stubbornly for her favour. I wondered, often, itdid not turn her head--this tribute of rustic admiration. But she seemedto be all unconscious of its cause and went about her work with smallconceit of herself. Many a time they had tried to take her from my armat the church door--a good-natured phase of youthful rivalry there inthose days--but she had always said, laughingly, 'No, thank you,' andclung all the closer to me. Now Jed Feary had no knowledge of the worryit gave me, or of the peril it suggested. I knew that, if I felt freeto tell him all, he would give me other counsel. I was now seventeen andshe a bit older, and had I not heard of many young men and women who hadbeen engaged--aye, even married--at that age? Well, as it happened, aday before she left us, to go to her work in Ogdensburg, where she wasto live with her uncle, I made an end of delay. I considered carefullywhat a man ought to say in the circumstances, and I thought I had nearan accurate notion. We were in the garden--together--the playground ofour childhood.

  'Hope, I have a secret to tell you,' I said.

  'A secret,' she exclaimed eagerly. 'I love secrets.'

  'A great secret,' I repeated, as I felt my face burning.

  'Why--it must be something awful!'

  'Not very,' I stammered. Having missed my cue from the beginning, I wasnow utterly confused.

  'William!' she exclaimed, 'what is the matter of you.'

  'I--I am in love,' said I, very awkwardly.

  'Is that all?' she answered, a trace of humour in her tone. 'I thoughtit was bad news.'

  I stooped to pick a rose and handed it to her.

  'Well,' she remarked soberly, but smiling a little, as she lifted therose to her lips, 'is it anyone I know?'

  I felt it was going badly with me, but caught a sudden inspiration.

  'You have never seen her,' I said.

  If she had suspected the truth I had turned the tables on her, and nowshe was guessing. A quick change came into her face, and, for a moment,it gave me confidence.

  'Is she pretty?' she asked very seriously as she dropped the flower andlooked down crushing it beneath her foot.

  'She is very beautiful--it is you I love, Hope.'

  A flood of colour came into her cheeks then, as she stood a momentlooking down at the flower in silence.

  'I shall keep your secret,' she said tenderly, and hesitating as shespoke, 'and when you are through college--and you are older--and Iam older--and you love me as you do now--I hope--I shall love you,too--as--I do now.'

  Her lips were trembling as she gave me that sweet assurance--dearer tome--far dearer than all else I remember of that golden time--and tearswere coursing down her cheeks. For myself I was in a worse plight ofemotion. I dare say she remembered also the look of my face in thatmoment.

  'Do not speak of it again,' she said, as we walked away together on theshorn sod of the orchard meadow, now sown with apple blossoms, 'until weare older, and, if you never speak again, I shall know you--you do notlove me any longer.'

  The dinner horn sounded. We turned and walked slowly back

  'Do I look all right?' she asked, turning her face to me and smilingsweetly.

  'All right,' I said. 'Nobody would know that anyone loved you--exceptfor your beauty and that one tear track on your cheek.'

  She wiped it away as she laughed.

  'Mother knows anyway,' she said, 'and she has given me good advice.Wait!' she added, stopping and turning to me. 'Your eyes are wet!'

  I felt for my handkerchief.

  'Take mine,' she said.

  Elder Whitmarsh was at the house and they were all sitting down todinner as we came in.

  'Hello!' said Uncle Eb. 'Here's a good-lookin' couple. We've got achicken pie an' a Baptis' minister fer dinner an' both good. Take yerpew nex' t' the minister,' he added as he held the chair for me.

  Then we all bowed our heads and I felt a hearty amen for the elder'swords:

  'O Lord, may all our doing and saying and eating and drinking of thisday be done, as in Thy sight, for our eternal happiness--and for Thyglory. Amen.'