CHAPTER IV
AT THE OLD PLACE
The journey to New England was more than a mere interlude for the girls.It was a distinct pleasure in itself. To watch the low, rich landscapewhich had lain around them from their infancy change imperceptibly toone different and bolder; the broad fields narrowing; the long, rollingswells lifting into clear-cut hills; the forests of beech and oak, withsmooth, sunlighted floors, giving place to woods filled with abewitching tangle of vines and ferns--all this was a constant delight totravellers as fresh and unsated as ours.
"I like the wide, open stretches better," said Kate once, when they werewinding with many turns between the close-set hills. But Esther did notassent to this. It seemed to her that nature had heaped the measure ofher bounty here,--the bounty which is beauty,--not spread it out in evenlevel, and something in her heart responded to the change.
The hills had sharpened to a rugged sternness, the fields were checkeredoff in little plots by lines of gray stone walls, plots in which menwere gathering hay behind oxen instead of horses, when at last theyreached the village of Esterly.
They had passed a succession of such villages, catching just a glimpseof pretty homes and shaded streets, with always a spire or two liftedabove them,--an endless number it seemed to the girls,--but this was thename for which they had been breathlessly waiting, and it was no soonerspoken than they rose unsteadily in their places and turned their facestoward the door.
"They'll be here, of course. I only hope we shall know them," murmuredEsther, anxiously.
She need have had no fear. Aside from some functionaries of the stationthere were but two persons on the platform of the Esterly depot when theWestern train drew in, and these two were unmistakable. One of them wasan old man, leaning eagerly forward, with his hands clasped on the topof his cane; a small, spare man, with clean-shaven face, and a touch ofruddy color in his cheeks, hair but slightly gray, and bright blue eyeswhich searched the faces before him without the aid of spectacles. Theother was a petite young lady, in a stylish dress, with a mist of goldenhair about her face, and a hat, which seemed to belong exactly with theface, tied in a gauzy mesh of something under her chin. She did not lookin the least like a goddess, she was too slight and genteel; but she wasclearly Stella Saxon.
"Grandfather! Stella!" came from the one side in a moment, and "Girls!Girls!" from the other, as the four met and embraced.
"We knew somebody would be here to meet us," said Esther, when they hadtaken another breath and a good look at each other; "but I'd no idea itwould be you, grandfather."
"Hm," said the old gentleman, evidently enjoying her surprise. "Mebbeyou thought I'd be propped up in a big chair waiting for you at thehouse."
"If you knew the state of mind he's been in since morning!" said Stella."We got Uncle Doctor's telegram early, saying you'd be here on thistrain, and grandfather seemed to regard it as a summons to start for youat once. Mother and I had hard work to hold him back at all, and inspite of us he would start an hour before time this afternoon; actuallyhurried his horse to get here, too," she added, glancing with a littlegrimace at the fattest of family horses which was standing before thetwo-seated carriage at the side of the depot. "I shudder to think whatwould have happened to him if you hadn't come."
She was saying this last to Esther privately. The old gentleman hadstarted briskly off with Kate to look after the trunks. These were tofollow to the farm in a spring wagon, and securing them was a matterinvolving so little delay at this quiet station that the four were veryshortly on their way behind the gray nag, which, after receiving anadmonishing "cluck" at starting off, was allowed to settle to his ownjog-trot without further attention. They made a long circuit through themain street of the village, the old gentleman bowing and smiling toevery one he met, and obviously eager to attract attention. But as thehouses grew more scattering he laid the reins across his lap, put on apair of spectacles, and for a full minute gazed through them steadily athis granddaughters.
"You look as your mother did at your age; wonderfully like," he said,with his eyes on Esther's face, "and you, too, but not so much," headded more slowly, turning to Kate. He took off his spectacles andreturned them to an old-fashioned steel case; then asked, with muchdeliberation, "And what do you think of your old grandfather?"
"Why, you look just as I thought you did, only so very much younger,"replied Esther. "I'd no idea you were so strong and active." She pausedan instant, then, with a charming eagerness in her voice, added: "Youmake me think of the 'Farmer of Tilsbury Vale.' You know the poem says,--
"'His bright eyes look brighter, set off by the streak Of the unfaded rose that still blooms on his cheek.'"
The old gentleman made no attempt to conceal his elation. He fairlybeamed; and Stella murmured in Esther's ear: "You've done it! Hisyouthful looks are his particular vanity; and to have a fresh quotationbrought to bear upon the subject!" She lifted her hands as if in despairof expressing the effect on her grandfather, and settled back in herseat. He had turned to Kate and was plainly waiting for her to speaknow.
"Well," said that young lady, regarding him with cheerful scrutiny, "Ican't quote any poetry about it. It's always Esther who puts in the finestrokes with that sort of thing; but I must say I think you look mightyyoung for a man of your age."
In its way this was equally good. Ruel Saxon evidently considered thatshe had used a very strong expression.
"Well," he said with complacence, "I guess there ain't much doubt butwhat I do bear my age better 'n most men at my time of life. I guess I'msome like Moses about that. You know it says, 'his eye was not dim norhis natural force abated,' when he got to be a very old man."
There was such evident surprise on the part of his granddaughters atthis remark that he added: "To be sure, Moses was a good deal older 'n Iam; he was a hundred and twenty years old when that was said of him, andI hain't got to _that_ yet by considerable. But I'm past the time oflife that most men get to, a good deal past. I was born in the yearseventeen hundred and ninety-one, and if I live till the twenty-firstday of next June I shall be eighty-nine years old."
He paused to let the statement take full effect, and Stella remarked:"That's the way grandfather always tells his age. He names that year,away back in the last century, and then he tells what his birthday nextyear will make him. I don't mind his keeping account for himself thatway, but he has the same style of reckoning for the rest of us."
"Well," he said, with a twinkle in his eyes, "the women would forgettheir own ages if it warn't for me and the big Bible. Now Stella herewas born in the year--"
"There," cried the girl, "what did I tell you! And isn't it enough tomake one feel ancient, the way he rolls out the syllables? Never youmind about me, grandfather. Tell the girls when they were born. I'm surethey've forgotten."
They admitted the fact promptly, but he had not yet exhausted thesubject of his own exceptional fortune in withstanding the ravages ofage. It was a theme of which he was never weary, largely no doubt from acertain vanity, which time had spared to him in a somewhat unusualmeasure, along with his physical powers. To have a fresh and interestedaudience was inspiration enough.
"It's a great blessing to retain one's faculties in old age," he saidimpressively. "Now I enjoy life, for aught I know, pretty near as muchas I ever did; but it ain't so with everybody. There was Barzillai, forinstance. He was a younger man, by eight years, than I am, but he musthave been terrible hard of hearing, by his own account, and he'd losthis taste so that there warn't any flavor to him in the victuals he ate;though he seems to have been an active enough man in some ways," headded reflectively.
There was a moment's pause during which Deacon Saxon doubtless musedupon his own mercies, and his granddaughters pondered the question, whothe unfortunate octogenarian whom he had just mentioned might be. Esthercould not remember ever hearing of any relative of that name, and ithardly seemed to have a local flavor. She was glad when Kate, who seldomremained ignorant for want of asking a question,
inquired briskly:--
"Who was this Bar--what's his name, that you're talking about?"
"Who was Barzillai?" cried the old man, turning upon the girl anastonished countenance. "Hain't you never heard of Barzillai, theGileadite, the man who went down to give sustenance to David when he wasfleeing before Absalom? Don't you know about _that_, and how Davidafterwards wanted to take him up to Jerusalem with him, but Barzillaisaid he was too old, and asked the king to let him stay in his ownplace? Hain't you read about _him_? Well, I never!"
He paused as in speechless wonder, then ejaculated: "When your motherwas your age she could have told all about him and anybody else youcould mention out of the Bible. What on airth is she doing that shehain't trained you up to know about it? I hope she hain't stoppedreading the scriptures herself, living out there in the West."
"Oh, dear!" cried Kate, quite overwhelmed by this burst, and in herjealousy for her mother indifferent for the moment to the insinuationagainst her native section. "Mother knows more about the Bible thananybody I ever saw,--except you,--and I've no doubt she told us all aboutthat man when we were little" (she made no attempt now at his name),"but I never could remember those Old Testament folks."
It is doubtful whether Ruel Saxon felt much reassured as to the traininghis daughter had given her children by the cheerful manner in which Katemade the last admission. For himself his delight in those "Old Testamentfolks" was perennial. He had pored over their histories till everyincident of their lives was as familiar to him as that of his ownneighbors. He had entered so intimately into the thoughts andexperiences of those ancient worthies that it was no meaningless phrasewhen, in his daily prayers, he asked that he might "sit down withAbraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven."
Ruel Saxon was a type of that class of men, passing away now even fromthe hills of New England, who from infancy were so steeped in knowledgeof the Bible that its incidents formed the very background of theirdaily thinking, and its language colored their common conversation. Itmust be confessed that in the Old Testament he found his keenestpleasure, but between the covers of the Old or New there was no spotwhich was not to him revered and familiar ground. That all scripture wasgiven by inspiration of God, and was "profitable for doctrine, forreproof, and for instruction in righteousness," was a part of his creedon which no shadow of doubt had ever fallen. The doctrine, according tohis lights, he maintained with unction; the instruction he countedhimself well qualified to give; and the reproof he felt equally calledto administer on all needful occasions.
It was some minutes before he could quite recover from the astonishmentof finding himself the direct progenitor of two young people who knewnothing of that worthy Gileadite whose state in old age formed such astriking contrast to his own. Probably he would have delivered a littlehomily, then and there, on the importance of reading the Bible, had nota turn in the road at the top of a long steep hill brought them suddenlyinto sight of the old Saxon homestead.
"There 'tis! There's the old place! Should you know it?" he demanded ofhis granddaughters.
Esther leaned forward from the back seat where she was sitting withStella and gazed for a moment, almost holding her breath. Then shelifted a pair of moist shining eyes to her grandfather. "I should knowit anywhere," she said, with a thrill in her voice. "It looks just as Ihave dreamed of it all these years."
Indeed it was a picture which might easily hold its place in a lovingmemory; an old white house, with a wide stone chimney rising in themiddle of a square old-fashioned roof, standing in the shelter of acluster of elms, so tall, so noble, and so gracious in their bearingthat the special guardianship of Heaven seemed resting on the spot.
Kate had been looking at it steadily too, but she shook her head as sheglanced away. "No," she said, "I shouldn't know that I'd ever seen itbefore; but if you had handed me the reins, grandfather, and told me tofind it somewhere on this road, I don't think I should have turned in atthe wrong place."
They talked of nothing else as they drove slowly toward it. The motionRuel Saxon had made--a most unusual one--to apply the lash to Dobbin hadbeen checked by Esther, who declared she wanted to take in the detailsone by one, and begged him, with feeling, not to go too fast, a requestwhich threw Stella into a state of inward convulsion from which shebarely recovered in time to prevent the old gentleman from monopolizingthe whole distance with an account of the various improvements he hadmade on the house, notably the last shingling and the raising of thedoor-sills.
"You might tell the girls how you _didn't_ change the windows," she saidslyly; but if he was inclined to do this, Esther's exclamation just thenprevented.
"Oh, those dear little old-fashioned windows!" she cried. "They'reblinking in the sunshine just as they used to. Grandfather dear, I'm soglad you haven't had them changed into something different."
He winced a little at this, and Stella said magnanimously, "It wasreally my mother's idea. She does complain sometimes of the trouble itis to keep all those tiny little window-panes clean, and so grandfatherthought one spring that he'd have some new sashes put in, with a singlepane of glass above and below. They had it all fixed up between them,but I came home just in time to prevent." She gave a shudder, thenadded: "I've always believed in special providences since then. Why, thechange would have been ruinous, simply ruinous! You know if you can'thave a lovely new house with everything graceful and artistic, the nextbest thing is to have one that's old and quaint. I wouldn't have a thingchanged about our house for any consideration. I've set my foot downabout that." (With all her daintiness she looked as if she could do itwith effect.) "But mother and grandfather understand now, and have giventheir solemn promise never to make the smallest alteration withoutconsulting me."
The old gentleman had been listening to this with his mouth pulled downto an expression of resignation which was clearly not natural to him."Well," he said, when she had reached her triumphant conclusion, "I'vealways been of the opinion that it's best to let women-folks have theirway about things in the house. It pacifies 'em, and makes 'em willing tolet the men manage things of more consequence. You know Solomon says 'itis better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious woman.'"
"That's a fact, grandfather," said Stella, cordially; "and there's nodescribing how contentious I should be if you set about changing thisold house."
They had almost reached it now. A minute more carried them under theelms, straight to the door. It was open, and under the latticed porch,covered with honeysuckles on one side and bitter-sweet on the other,stood Aunt Elsie waiting to receive them. She was a delicate-lookingwoman, whose quality, as one read it at first glance, was distinctlythat of a lady. That she was somewhat precise and old-fashioned camenext, in spite of the graceful French twist in her hair and her prettylavender dress. She kept her place under the lattice, the color risingslightly in her thin cheeks as the girls came up, and her manner ofgreeting them, though affectionate, had none of the eager warmth of theearlier meeting.
Aunt Elsie Saxon, beside her vivacious daughter, or her still moresprightly father-in-law, seemed a singularly colorless person, but herquiet unresponsive manner covered a stronger individuality thanappeared. The war had made her a widow at the very beginning of thestruggle. In the bereavement of those first days she had come with herchildren to the old home for the help and comfort she sorely needed, butthe time never came when she could be spared to leave it. And now formany years she had been mistress of the house, bearing with the somewhaterratic humors of Ruel Saxon as a more impulsive woman could hardly havedone, and consoled, no doubt, for much that was trying by the certainknowledge that in his heart he loved and leaned upon her.
There was one other member of the family circle, Tom, thesixteen-year-old boy, but he, it appeared, had some pressing duty in thefield. At least he did not show himself till supper time, and then heslipped in with the hired man, who, as well as himself, was dulyintroduced to the cousins. He was a shy, awkward fellow, with a freckledface, and a pair of shrewd observant eye
s, in whose glance Kate thoughtshe detected a lurking disdain for the society of girls. She wanted tobegin making his acquaintance at once,--by way of punishment, ofcourse,--but his seat was too far from hers at the table, and he was offlike a flash when the meal was over.
It seemed to both the girls that this was the longest day they had everknown, but its hours did not outlast the pleasure they brought. Esthercould not rest till she had rambled about the place to find the oldfamiliar things, and her delight, as she came upon one after another,knew no bounds. There was the cherry tree, almost strangled by thegrape-vine which hung around it in a thick green canopy, under which shehad done miniature housekeeping in those childish days, and a fragmentof old blue china, trodden in the ground, was a find to bring a joy likethat of relic-hunters in Assyrian mounds, when they come upon somemighty treasure.
"It was a part of our best tea-set, Stella," she cried. "Don't youremember how I broke one of grandmother's company plates by accident,and after mourning over it a little in her gentle way, she gave us thepieces to play with, so I shouldn't feel too badly?" She wiped the biton her lace-edged handkerchief and held it for a moment lovingly againsther cheek.
There was the bunch of striped grass, growing still at the corner of thegarden, and she felt a childish impulse to throw herself on the groundbeside it, and hunt, as she used to, for two of the long silky spearswhich would exactly match. She had never quite done it in the old days.Perhaps she could find them now. She peered up into the tallest of theelms and shouted for joy to find the nest of a fire hangbird swingingjust as it used to among the long, lithe branches. She made her waystraight to the tree where the pound sweetings grew, and laughed to findthat it bore them still, large and golden as ever.
And here again a childish memory came back with a rippling delight overthe years that were past. "Do you remember how I tore my dress one day,climbing that tree to get apples?" she appealed to Stella. "I couldnever bring enough down in my pocket, and if I took a basket up it wassure to spill and the chickens to peck the apples before I got down. Oneday I gave my dress a horrible tear going up. It scared me at first, andthen it dawned upon me, What a place for apples! It was a woollen dressand the skirt was lined. I used that hole for a pocket, and filled theskirt full. It's a wonder I wasn't dragged from the tree by the weightof it. The gathers were dragged from the belt, I remember thatperfectly, and how grandmother looked when I went in to share the bootywith her," she added, laughing.
Oh, it was pleasant, this wandering over the old place, the finding andremembering!
It was really inside the house that things were most changed; but this,as Stella explained, was really a return to the way they rightlybelonged. Much of the furniture which Esther remembered as crowding thedusky garret had come down, and some which her grandmother had rejoicedin as new and handsome had taken its place there. The haircloth sofa andchairs over which she had slipped and slidden in her youthful days hadgiven place to an oak settle and chairs which, in spite of theirold-fashioned shape, were roomy and comfortable. One, a delicious oldsleepy hollow, covered with the quaintest of chintz, stood in the cornerwhich had been the grandmother's, and the little, round light-stand wasbeside it, with the leather-covered Bible smooth as glass, and thecandlestick and snuffers, as if she still might sit there of an eveningto read.
"Grandfather himself prefers a lamp," Stella remarked, in passing; "hesays he's got past tallow dips, but out of respect to grandmother'smemory--I impressed that on him strongly--he lets me keep the stand justas she used it."
She certainly had a genius for restoring the old, and doing it with anart which threw all its stiffness into graceful lines. The fireplace inthe sitting room, which had been boarded up in Esther's day, with asheet-iron stove in front of it, was open now, and the old brassandirons shone at the front. The old bricks had been cracked with age,but they had been replaced by some blue Dutch tilings representing Biblescenes, which gave the whole a charmingly quaint effect.
"It came high," Stella said to Esther, who hung on every word ofexplanation, "and I didn't know for a while as I should get what Iwanted. There was a Colonial tile that would have been perfect, butgrandfather wouldn't hear of it. Then all at once I lighted on this in ashop in Boston, and I knew the deed was done. Grandfather fell a victimto my account of the pictures, and I couldn't get them quick enough tosuit him. I consider that fireplace my greatest triumph."
The house was really a succession of them. It was only at the pictureson the walls that the girl's desire to restore the old had stopped. "Ifthere had only been some fine old family portraits!" she saidmournfully. "But there weren't. I suppose our ancestors never had anymoney to spend for that sort of thing. There was positively nothing butsome wretched prints, and one oil painting that grandmother saved heregg-money for months to buy; hideous thing, quite on the order of thosethat are advertised nowadays, 'Picture painted while you wait.' I had tobanish them all. There was no other way. But I found some ofgrandmother's dear old samplers tucked away in the drawers, and I pinnedthem up around to take the edge off the other things."
"The other things" were some of them her own, and they mingled on thewalls with photographs of foreign scenes, and here and there an etchingwith a name pencilled in the corner, to which she called attention asthey passed, with the air of one confident of impressing the beholder.
"Oh, I've picked up a few good things in the course of my travels," shesaid, after one of Esther's bursts of admiration. "I'll defy anybody tomake a better showing than I with the amount I've spent. Mother thinksI've spent too much; but it's my only extravagance, positively my onlyone, and you have to let yourself out in some direction. It's all thatmakes saving worth while."
She seemed to have no vanity about her own work, but there was one bitof it before which Esther paused with a long delight, turning back fromfamous Madonnas again and again to gaze at it.
It was a picture of a sweet old face, framed in a grandmother's cap,very softly done in crayon, and it hung above the little stand in thecorner. Below it, pinned carefully on the wall, was an old, old sampler,and the faded letters at the top spelled, "Roxana Fuller, aged eleven."It was a deft hand, though so young, that had wrought it. There wasexquisite needlework in the flowing border, and in the slender maidensat the centre, clasping hands under a weeping willow, above the lines:--
"When ye summers all are fled, When ye wafting lamp is dead, Where immortal spirits reign, There may we two meet again."
Why these two sweet creatures, evidently in the bloom of life, shouldhave been consoling themselves with this pensive sentiment it was hardto see; but a consolation it may have been to the poor little artist whoachieved them to think of Elysian fields where teachers should ceasefrom troubling and samplers be no more.
It had grown dark in the house, too dark for any more searching of itstreasures, when the two girls at last sat quietly down in the old southdoorway. "If grandmother were only here it would all be perfect," saidEsther, with a long, soft sigh. "Somehow it seems strange that sheshould be gone, and everything else just as it used to be. I had no ideaI should miss her so."
"I always miss her when I sit in this doorway in the evening," saidStella. "It was her favorite place. She was so feeble in those lastyears that she seldom got beyond the threshold, but she said there wasalways some pleasant smell or sound coming in to find her. You ought tohave seen her here in the spring. The door was always boarded up in thewinter, with a bank across the threshold to keep out the cold, and shewas so happy when it was opened. I used to tell her when the frogs beganto peep, and she would listen and smile, and say it seemed to her theirvoices were softer than they used to be. Dear heart, she was so deaf inthose days that I really suppose she only heard them singing in hermemory, but it was all the same to her.
"Yes, it was all the same," she repeated musingly, "and just as real,though grandfather used to argue with her sometimes that a person whocouldn't hear her own name across the room couldn't hear frogs peepingat a quarter of a m
ile. And she would admit it sometimes in a humbleway, but she always forgot it, and enjoyed the singing just the same thenext evening."
"She wasn't a bit like grandfather, was she?" asked Esther. She wantedStella to keep on talking about this sweet old grandmother, whom sheherself had known only in a brief childish way.
"Oh, dear, no," said Stella; "there couldn't be two people more unlike.She never talked of herself, and she never quoted scripture unless itwas one of the promises. Grandfather always lorded it over her in a way,and she was so frail toward the last that he did it more than ever. Ifthe least thing ailed her he thought she was going to die right off, andhe always felt it his duty to tell her that she was a very sick woman,and that it would not be surprising if she were drawing near her end."
She made a soft gurgling in her throat, then went on.
"But that never worried grandmother a bit. She always said she waswilling to go if 'twas the Lord's will; but, do you know, in her heartshe really expected to outlive him! She told me so once confidentially,and explained, in her perfectly sweet way, that she knew how to managehim better than any one else, and she was afraid it would be a littlehard for us to get along with him if she were gone. She said it had beena subject of prayer with her for years, and she had faith that herprayer would be answered."
She paused, and Esther said gravely: "But she did die before him, afterall. I wonder what she thought about her prayer then." Stella shook herhead. "I don't know," she said; "I imagine she didn't think of it atall, but only that God wanted her. It would have been just like her."
Esther did not speak for a minute. She was pondering her grandmother'scase, while the crickets in the grass filled the stillness with theirchirping, and the long, clear call of a whippoorwill sounded from thewoods. Presently she asked, "Did she know at the last that she wasreally going to die?"
"I think she did," said Stella. "I've always felt sure she did, thoughno one else feels just as I do about it."
She clasped her hands about her knees, and a graver note than usualcrept into her musical voice, as she went on. "There was something likea paralytic stroke toward the end, and after that she never got up, butlay in bed, not suffering any pain, but only growing weaker every day. Iwas with her a great deal, and there never was any one easier to takecare of. One morning I was watering the flowers in her window and I sawa cluster of buds, that were almost blown, on her tea rose. She waspassionately fond of flowers, and that rose was a special favorite,though it blossomed so seldom that any one else would have lost allpatience with it. I knew how pleased she would be, so I took it over toher bed. 'Grandmother,' I said, 'there are some buds on your tea rose;it'll be in bloom in a day or two.' If you could have seen how her facelighted up! 'Why, why,' she said, 'my tea rose!' And then she put outher hands all of a tremble, as if she couldn't believe it withouttouching. I guided her dear old fingers, and she moved them over thebush as gently as if it had been a baby's face. 'Oh,' she said, 'it hasblossomed so many times when something beautiful happened! Somehow, itseemed to know. It blossomed when Lucia was married, and the day yourmother came home to live with you children; but I never thought it wouldbe so now. A day or two, did you say; only a day or two more?' And thenshe closed her eyes with such a smile, and I heard her saying softly toherself,--
"'There everlasting spring abides, And never-withering flowers.'
"Her mind wandered a little all that day and the next, and she neveronce spoke of leaving us, but she slipped away at night as quietly asgoing to sleep, and in the morning the rose was in bloom. I toldgrandfather about it afterward, but he didn't attach any significance toit at all. In fact, I think he felt a little mortified, and he said ifshe had realized that she was on the brink of eternity she wouldn't havebeen thinking about a rose."
She was silent a minute, then added: "In one way I don't know butgrandmother's prayer was answered after all, for grandfather seemeddifferent after her death. He has been more considerate of us all, andwe--yes, I guess we've tried harder to be good to him. We couldn't helpit when we remembered how patient she always was."
The chirping of the crickets seemed to grow fuller and gladder in thesummer stillness, and the notes of the whippoorwill came with yetmellower call. It was as if the influence of a sweet, unselfish, lovingspirit filled the place, and somehow it did not seem to Esther Northmoreat that moment a poor or paltry thing to have lived and died one of thecommon throng.