"The moon—the moon, so silver and cold,Her fickle temper has oft been told,Now shady—now bright and sunny—But of all the lunar things that change,The one that shows most fickle and strange,And takes the most eccentric rangeIs the moon—so called—of honey."—Hood.
"My dear, will you kindly pour me a second cup of coffee? Not because I really want it, you know, but entirely for the aesthetic pleasure of seeing your pretty little hands pattering about the cups."
Lennox Sanderson, in a crimson velvet smoking jacket, was regarding Anna with the most undisguised admiration from the other side of the round table, that held their breakfast,—their first honeymoon breakfast, as Anna supposed it to be.
"Anything to please my husband," she answered with a flitting blush.
"Your husband? Ah, say it again; it sounds awfully good from you."
"So you don't really care for any more coffee, but just want to see my hands among the cups. How appreciative you are!" And there was a mischievous twinkle in her eye as she began with great elaboration the pantomimic representation of pouring a cup of coffee, adding sugar and cream; and concluded by handing the empty cup to Sanderson. "It would be such a pity to waste the coffee, Lennie, when you only wanted to see my hands."
"If I am not going to have the coffee, I insist on both the hands," he said, taking them and kissing them repeatedly.
"I suppose I'll have to give it to you on those terms," and she proceeded to fill the cup in earnest this time.
"Let me see. How is it that you like it? One lump of sugar and quite a bit of cream? And tea perfectly clear with nothing at all and toast very crisp and dry. Dear me, how do women ever remember all their husband's likes and dislikes? It's worse than learning a new multiplication table over again," and the most adorable pucker contracted her pretty brows.
"And yet, see how beautifully widows manage it, even taking the thirty-third degree and here you are, complaining before you are initiated, and kindly remember, Mrs. Lennox Sanderson, if I take but one lump of sugar in my coffee, there are other ways of sweetening it." Presumably he got it sweetened to his satisfaction, for the proprietor of the "White Rose," who attended personally to the wants of "Mr. and Mrs. Lennox" had to cough three times before he found it discreet to enter and inquire if everything was satisfactory.
He bowed three times like a disjointed foot rule and then retired to charge up the wear and tear to his backbone under the head of "special attendance."
"H-m-m!" sighed Sanderson, as the door closed on the bowing form of the proprietor, "that fellow's presence reminds me that we are not absolutely alone in the world, and you had almost convinced me that we were, darling, and that by special Providence, this grim old earth had been turned into a second Garden of Eden for our benefit. Aren't you going to kiss me and make me forget in earnest, this time?"
"I'm sure, Lennie, I infinitely prefer the 'White Rose Inn' with you, to the Garden of Paradise with Adam." She not only granted the request, but added an extra one for interest.
"You'll make me horribly vain, Anna, if you persist in preferring me to Adam; but then I dare say, Eve would have preferred him and Paradise to me and the 'White Rose.'"
"But, then, Eve's taste lacked discrimination. She had to take Adam or become the first girl bachelor. With me there might have been alternatives."
"There might have been others, to speak vulgarly?"
"Exactly."
"By Jove, Anna, I don't see how you ever did come to care for me!" The laughter died out of his eyes, his face grew prefer naturally grave, he strode over to the window and looked out on the desolate landscape. For the first time he realized the gravity of his offense. His crime against this girl, who had been guilty of nothing but loving him too deeply stood out, stripped of its trappings of sentiment, in all its foul selfishness. He would right the wrong, confess to her; but no, he dare not, she was not the kind of woman to condone such an offense.
"Needles and pins, needles and pins, when a man's married his trouble begins," quoted Anna gayly, slipping up behind him and, putting her arms about his neck; "one would think the old nursery ballad was true, to look at you, Lennox Sanderson. I never saw such a married-man expression before in my life. You wanted to know why I fell in love with you. I could not help it, because you are YOU."
She nestled her head in his shoulder and he forgot his scruples in the sorcery of her presence.
"Darling," he said; taking her in his arms, with perhaps the most genuine affection he ever felt for her, "I wish we could spend our lives here in this quiet little place, and that there were no troublesome relations or outside world demanding us."
"So do I, dear," she answered, "but it could not last; we are too perfectly happy."
Neither spoke for some minutes. At that time he loved her as deeply as it was possible for him to love anyone. Again the impulse came to tell her, beg for forgiveness and make reparation. He was holding her in his arms, considering. A moment more, and he would have given way to the only unselfish impulse in his life. But again the knock, followed by the discreet cough of the proprietor. And when he entered to tell them that the horses were ready for their drive, "Mrs. Lennox" hastened to put on her jacket and "Mr. Lennox" thanked his stars that he had not spoken.
"Oh! colder than the wind that freezesFounts, that but now in sunshine play'd,Is that congealing pang which seizesThe trusting bosom when betray'd."—Moore.
Four months had elapsed since the honeymoon at the White Rose Tavern, and Anna was living at Waltham with her mother who grew more fretful and complaining every day. The marriage was still the secret of Anna and Sanderson. The honeymoon at the White Rose had been prolonged to a week, but no suspicion had entered the minds of Mrs. Moore or Mrs. Standish Tremont, thanks to Sanderson's skill in sending fictitious telegrams, aided by so skilled an accomplice as the "Rev." John Langdon.
Week after week, Anna had yielded to Sanderson's entreaties and kept her marriage a secret from her mother. At first he had sent her remittances of money with frequent regularity, but, lately, they had begun to fall off, his letters were less frequent, shorter and more reserved in tone, and the burden of it all was crushing the youth out of the girl and breaking her spirit. She had grown to look like some great sorrowful-eyed Madonna, and her beauty had in it more of the spiritual quality of an angel than of a woman. As the spring came on, and the days grew longer she looked like one on whom the hand of death had been laid.
Her friends noticed this, but not her mother, who was so engrossed with her own privations, that she had no time or inclination for anything else.
"Anna, Anna, to think of our coming to this!" she would wail a dozen times a day—or, "Anna, I can't stand it another minute," and she would burst into paroxysms of grief, from which nothing could arouse her, and utterly exhausted by her own emotions, which were chiefly regret and self-pity, she would sink off to sleep. Anna had no difficulty in accounting to her mother for the extra comforts with which Lennox Sanderson's money supplied them. Mrs. Standish Tremont sometimes sent checks and Mrs. Moore never bothered about the source, so long as the luxuries were forthcoming.
"Is there no more Kumyss, Anna?" she asked one day.
"No, mother."
"Then why did you neglect to order it?"
The girl's face grew red. "There was no money to pay for it, mother. I am so sorry."
"And does Frances Tremont neglect us in this way? When we were both girls, it was quite the other way. My father practically adopted Frances Tremont. She was married from our house. But you see, Anna, she made a better marriage than I. Oh, why was your father so reckless? I warned him not to speculate in the rash way he was accustomed to doing, but he would never take my advice. If he had, we would not be as we are now." And again the poor lady was overcome with her own sorrows.
It was not Mrs. Tremont's check that had bought the last Kumyss. In fact, Mrs. Tremont, after the manner of rich relations, troubled her head but little about her poor ones. Sanderson had sent no money for nearly a month, and Anna would have died sooner than have asked for it. He had been to Waltham twice to see Anna, and once she had gone to meet him at the White Rose Tavern. Mrs. Moore, wrapped in gloom at the loss of her own luxury, had no interest in the young man who came down from Boston to call on her daughter.
"You met him at Cousin Frances's, did you say? I don't see how you can ask him here to this abominable little house. A girl should have good surroundings, Anna. Nothing detracts from a girl's beauty so much as cheap surroundings. Oh, my dear, if you had only been settled in life before all this happened, I would not complain." And, as usual, there were more tears.
But the wailings of her mother, over departed luxuries, and the poverty of her surroundings were the lightest of Anna's griefs. At their last meeting—she had gone to him in response to his request—Sanderson's manner had struck dumb terror into the heart of the girl who had sacrificed so much at his bidding. She had been very pale. The strain of facing the terrible position in which she found herself, coupled with her own failing health, had robbed her of the beautiful color he had always so frankly admired. Her eyes were big and hollow looking, and the deep black circles about them only added to her unearthly appearance. There were drawn lines of pain about the mouth, that robbed the Cupid's bow of half its beauty.
"My God, Anna!" he had said to her impatiently. "A man might as well try to love a corpse as a woman who looks like that." He led her over to a mirror, that she might see her wasted charms. There was no need for her to look. She knew well enough, what was reflected there.
"You have no right to let yourself get like this. The only thing a woman has is her looks, and it is a crime if she throws them away worrying and fretting."
"But Lennox," she answered, desperately, "I have told you how matters stand with me, and mother knows nothing—suspects nothing." And the girl broke down and wept as if her heart would break.
"Anna, for Heaven's sake, do stop crying. I hate a scene worse than anything in the world. When a woman cries, it means but one thing, and that is that the man must give in—and in this particular instance I can't give in. It would ruin me with the governor to acknowledge our marriage."
The girl's tears froze at his brutal words. She looked about dazed and hopeless.
Sanderson was standing by the window, drumming a tattoo on the pane. He wheeled about, and said slowly, as if he were feeling his way:
"Anna, suppose I give you a sum of money and you go away till all this business is over. You can tell your mother or not; just as you see fit. As far as I am concerned, it would be impossible for me to acknowledge our marriage as I have said before. If the governor found it out, he would cut me off without a cent."
"But, Lennox, I cannot leave my mother. Her health grows worse daily, and it would kill her."
"Then take her with you. She's got to know, sooner or later, I suppose. Now, don't be a stupid little girl, and everything will turn out well for us." He patted her cheek, but it was done perfunctorily, and Anna knew there was no use in making a further appeal to him.
"Well, my dear," he said, "I have got to take that 4.30 train back to Cambridge. Here is something for you, and let me know just as soon as you make up your mind, when you intend to go and where. There is no use in your staying in Waltham till those old cats begin to talk."
He put a roll of bills in her hand, kissed her and was gone, and Anna turned her tottering steps homeward, sick at heart. She must tell her mother, and the shock of it might kill her. She pressed her hands over her burning eyes to blot out the hideous picture. Could cruel fate offer bitterer dregs to young lips?
She stopped at the postoffice for mail. There was nothing but the daily paper. She took it mechanically and turned into the little side street on which they lived.
The old family servant, who still lived with them, met her at the door, and told her that her mother had been sleeping quietly for more than an hour.
"Good gracious, Miss Anna, but you do look ill. Just step into the parlor and sit down for a minute, and I'll make you a cup of tea."
Anna suffered herself to be led into the little room, smiling gratefully at the old servant as she assisted her to remove her hat and jacket. She took up the paper mechanically and glanced through its contents. Her eyes fell on the following item, which she followed with hypnotic interest: "Harvard Student in Disgrace!" was the headline.
"John Langdon, a Harvard student, was arrested on the complaint of Bertha Harris, a young woman, well known in Boston's gas-light circles, yesterday evening. They had been dining together at a well-known chop house, when the woman, who appeared to be slightly under the influence of liquor, suddenly arose and declared that Langdon was trying to rob her.
"Both were arrested on the charge of creating a disturbance. At the State Street Police Station the woman said that Langdon had performed a mock marriage for a fellow student some four months ago. She had acted as a witness, for which service she was to receive $50. The money had never been paid. She stated further that the young man, whom Langdon is alleged to have married, is the son of a wealthy Boston banker, and the young woman who was thus deceived is a young relative of one of Boston's social leaders.
"Later Bertha Harris withdrew her charges, saying she was intoxicated when she made them. The affair has created a profound sensation."
"Mock marriage!" The words whirled before the girl's eyes in letters of fire. Bertha Harris! Yes, that was the name. It had struck her at the time when Sanderson dropped the ring. Langdon had said "Bertha Harris has found it."
The light of her reason seemed to be going out. From the blackness that engulfed her, the words "mock marriage" rang in her ear like the cry of the drowning.
"God, oh God!" she called and the pent up agony of her wrecked life was in the cry.
They found her senseless a moment later, staring up at the ceiling with glassy eyes, the crumpled paper crushed in her hand.
"She is dead," wailed her mother. The old servant wasted no time in words. She lifted up the fragile form and laid it tenderly on the bed. Then she raised the window and called to the first passerby to run for the nearest doctor.
A mother's love—how sweet the name!What is a mother's love?—A noble, pure and tender flame,Enkindled from above,To bless a heart of earthly mould;The warmest love that can grow cold;That is a mother's love.—James Montgomery.
It took all the medical skill of which the doctor was capable, and the best part of twenty-four hours of hard work to rouse Anna from the death-like lethargy into which she had fallen. Toward morning she opened her eyes and turning to her mother, said appealingly:
"Mother, you believe I am innocent, don't you?"
"Certainly, darling," Mrs. Moore replied, without knowing in the least to what her daughter referred. The doctor, who was present at the time, turned away. He knew more than the mother. It was one of those tragedies of everyday life that meant for the woman the fleeing away from old associations, like a guilty thing, long months of hiding, the facing of death; and, if death was not to be, the beginning of life over again branded with shame. And all this bitter injustice because she had loved much and had faith in the man she loved. The doctor had faced tragedies before in his professional life, but never had he felt his duty so heavily laid upon him as when he begged Mrs. Moore for a few minutes' private conversation in the gray dawn of that early morning.
He felt that the life of his patient depended on his preparing her mother for the worst. The girl, he knew, would probably confess all during her convalescence, and the mother must be prepared, so that the first burst of anguish would have expended itself before the girl should have a chance to pour out the story of her misfortune.
"Tell me, doctor, is she going to die?" the mother asked, as she closed the door of the little sitting-room and they were alone. The poor lady had not thought of her own misfortunes since Anna's illness. The selfishness of the woman of the world was completely obliterated by the anxiety of the mother.
"No, she will not die, Mrs. Moore; that is, if you are able to control your feelings sufficiently, after I have made a most distressing disclosure, to give her the love and sympathy that only you can."
She looked at him with troubled eyes. "Why, doctor, what do you mean? My daughter has always had my love and sympathy, and if of late I have appeared somewhat engrossed by my own troubles, I assure you my daughter is not likely to suffer from it during her illness."
"Her life depends on how you receive what I am going to tell you. Should you upbraid her with her misfortune, or fail to stand by her as only a mother can, I shall not answer for the consequences." Then he told her Anna's secret.
The stricken woman did not cry out in her anguish, nor swoon away. She raised a feebly protesting hand, as if to ward off a cruel blow; then burying her face in her arms, she cowed before him. Not a sob shook the frail, wasted figure. It was as if this most terrible misfortune had dried up the well-springs of grief and robbed her of the blessed gift of tears. The woman who in one brief year had lost everything that life held dear to her—husband, home, wealth, position—everything but this one child, could not believe the terrible sentence that had been pronounced against her. Her Anna—her little girl! Why, she was only a child! Oh, no, it could not be true. She never, never would believe it.
Her brain whirled and seemed to stop. It refused to grasp so hideous a proposition. The doctor was momentarily at a loss to know how to deal with this terrible dry-eyed grief. The set look in her eyes, the terrible calm of her demeanor were so much more alarming than the wildest outpourings of grief would, have been.
"And this seizure, Mrs. Moore. Tell me exactly how it was brought about," thinking to turn the current of her thoughts even for a moment.
She told him how Anna had gone out in the early afternoon, without saying where she was going, and how she had returned to the house about five o'clock, looking so pale and ill, that Hannah, an old family servant who still lived with them, noticed it and begged her to sit down while she went to fetch her a cup of tea. The maid left her sitting by the fire-place reading a paper, and the next thing was the terrible cry that brought them both. They found her lying on the floor unconscious with the crumpled newspaper in her hand.
"See, here is the paper now, doctor," and he stooped to pick up the crumpled sheet from which the girl had read her death warrant. Together they went over it in the hope that it might furnish some clue. Mrs. Moore's eyes were the first to fall on the fatal paragraph. She read it through, then showed it to the doctor.
"That is undoubtedly the cause of the seizure," said the doctor.
"Oh, my poor, poor darling," moaned the mother, and the first tears fell.
In the first bitterness of regret, Mrs. Moore imagined that in selfishly abandoning herself to her own grief, she must have neglected her daughter, and her remorse knew no bounds. Again and again she bitterly denounced herself for giving way to sorrow that now seemed light and trivial, compared to the black hopelessness of the present.
Anna's mind wandered in her delirium, and she would talk of her marriage and beg Sanderson to let her tell her mother all. Then she would fancy that she was again with Mrs. Tremont and she would go through the pros and cons of the whole affair. Should she marry him secretly, as he wished? Yes, it would be better for poor mama, who needed so many comforts, but was it right? And then the passionate appeal to Sanderson. Couldn't he realize her position?——
"Yes, darling, it is all right. Mother understands," the heartbroken woman would repeat over and over again, but the sick girl could not hear.
And so the days wore on, till at last Anna's wandering mind turned back to earth, and again took up the burden of living. There was nothing for her to tell her mother. In her delirium she had told all, and the mother was prepared to bravely face the worst for her daughter's sake.
The terrible blow brought mother and daughter closer together than they had been for years. In their prosperity, the young girl had been busy with her governess and instructors, while her mother had made a fine art of her invalidism and spent the greater part of her time at health resorts, baths and spas.
By mutual consent, they decided that it was better not to attempt to seek redress from Sanderson. Anna's letters, written during her convalescence, had remained unanswered, and any effort to force him, either by persuasion or process of law, to right the terrible wrong he had done, was equally repulsive to both mother and daughter.
Mrs. Standish Tremont was also equally out of the question, as a court of final appeal. She had been so piqued with Anna for interfering with her most cherished plans regarding Sanderson and Grace Tremont, that Anna knew well enough that there would only be further humiliation in seeking mercy from that quarter.
So mother and daughter prepared to face the inevitable alone. To this end, Mrs. Moore sold the last of her jewelry. She had kept it, thinking that Anna would perhaps marry some day and appreciate the heirlooms; but such a contingent was no longer to be considered, and the jewelry, and the last of the family silver, were sent to be sold, together with every bit of furniture with which they could dispense, and mother and daughter left the little cottage in Waltham, and went to the town of Belden, New Hampshire,—a place so inconceivably remote, that there was little chance of any of their former friends being able to trace them, even if they should desire to do so.
As the summer days grew shorter, and the hour of Anna's ordeal grew near, Mrs. Moore had but one prayer in her heart, and that was that her life might be spared till her child's troubles were over. Since Anna's illness in the early spring, she had utterly disregarded herself. No complaint was heard to pass her lips. Her time was spent in one unselfish effort to make her daughter's life less painful. But the strain of it was telling, and she knew that life with her was but the question of weeks, perhaps days. As her physical grasp grew weaker, her mental hold increased proportionately, and she determined to live till she had either closed her child's eyes in death, or left her with something for which to struggle, as she herself was now struggling.
But the poor mother's last wish was not to be granted. In the beginning of September, just when the earth was full of golden promise of autumn, she felt herself going. She felt the icy hand of death at her heart and the grim destroyer whispered in her ear: "Make ready." Oh, the anguish of going just then, when she was needed so sorely by her deceived and deserted child.
"Anna, darling," she called feebly, "I cannot be with you; I am going—I have prayed to stay, but it was not to be. Your child will comfort you, darling. There is nothing like a child's love, Anna, to make a woman forget old sorrows—kiss me, dear——" She was gone.
And so Anna was to go down into the valley of the shadow of death alone, and among strangers.
"Bent o'er her babe, her eyes dissolved in dew,The big drops mingled with the milk he drewGave the sad presage of his future years—The child of misery, baptized in tears."—John Langhorne.
The days of Anna's waiting lagged. She lost all count of time and season. Each day was painfully like its predecessor, a period of time to be gone through with, as best she could. She realized after her mother's death what the gentle companionship had been to her, what a prop the frail mother had become in her hour of need. For a great change had come over the querulous invalid with the beginning of her daughter's troubles, the grievances of the woman of the world were forgotten in the anxiety of the mother, and never by look or word did she chide her daughter, or make her affliction anything but easier to bear by her gentle presence.
Anna, sunk in the stupor of her own grief, did not realize the comfort of her mother's presence until it was too late. She shrank from the strangers with whom they made their little home—a middle aged shopkeeper and his wife, who had been glad enough to rent them two unused rooms in their house at a low figure. They were not lacking in sympathy for young "Mrs. Lennox," but their disposition to ask questions made Anna shun them as she would have an infection. After her mother's death, they tried harder than ever to be kind to her, but the listless girl, who spent her days gazing at nothing, was hardly aware of their comings and goings.
"If you would only try to eat a bit, my dear," said the corpulent Mrs. Smith, bustling into Anna's room. "And land sakes, don't take on so. There you set in that chair all day long. Just rouse yourself, my dear; there ain't no trouble, however bad, but could be wuss."
To this dismal philosophy, Anna would return a wan smile, while she felt her heart almost break within her.
"And, Mrs. Lennox, don't mind what I say to you. I am old enough to be your grandmother, but if you have quarreled with any one, don't be too spunky now about making up. Spunk is all right in its place, but its place ain't at the bedside of a young woman who's got to face the trial of her life. If you have quarreled with any one—your—your husband, say, now is the time to make it up, since your ma is gone."
The old woman looked at her with a strange mixture of motherliness and curiosity. As she said to her husband a dozen times a day, "her heart just ached for that pore young thing upstairs," but this tender solicitude did not prevent her ears from aching, at the same time, to hear Anna's story.
"Thank you very much for your kind interest, Mrs. Smith; but really, you must let me judge of my own affairs." There was a dignity about the girl that brooked no further interference.
"That's right, my dear, and I wouldn't have thought of suggesting it, but you do seem that young—well, I must be going down to put the potatoes on for dinner. If you want anything, just ring your bell."
There was not the least resentment cherished by the corpulent Mrs. Smith. The girl's answer confirmed her opinion from the first. "She would not send for her husband, because there wasn't no husband to send for." She mentioned her convictions to her husband and added she meant to write to sister Eliza that very night.
"Sister Eliza has an uncommon light hand with babies and that pore young thing'll be hard pushed to pay the doctor, let alone a nurse."
These essentially feminine details regarding the talents of Sister Eliza, did not especially interest Smith, who continued his favorite occupation—or rather, joint occupations, of whittling and expectorating. Nevertheless, the letter to Sister Eliza was written, and not a minute sooner than was necessary; for, the little soul that was to bring with it forgetfulness for all the agony through which its mother had lived during that awful year, came very soon after the arrival of Sister Eliza.
Anna had felt in those days of waiting that she could never again be happy; that for her "finis" had been written by the fates. But, as she lay with the dark-haired baby on her breast, she found herself planning for the little girl's future; even happy in the building of those heavenly air-castles that young mothers never weary of building. She felt the necessity of growing strong so that she could work early and late, for baby must have everything, even if mother went without. Sometimes a fleeting likeness to Sanderson would flit across the child's face, and a spasm of pain would clutch at Anna's heart, but she would forget it next moment in one of baby's most heavenly smiles.
She could think of him now without a shudder; even a lingering remnant of tenderness would flare up in her heart when she remembered he was the baby's father. Perhaps he would see the child sometime, and her sweet baby ways would plead to him more eloquently than could all her words to right the wrong he had done, and so the days slipped by and the little mother was happy, after the long drawn out days of waiting and misery. She would sing the baby to sleep in her low contralto voice, and feel that it mattered not whether the world smiled or frowned on her, so long as baby approved.
But this blessed state of affairs was not long to continue. Anna, as she grew stronger, felt the necessity of seeking employment, but to this the baby proved a formidable obstacle. No one would give a young woman, hampered with a child, work. She would come back to the baby at night worn out in mind and body, after a day of fruitless searching. These long trips of the little mother, with the consequent long absence and exhaustion on her return, did not improve the little one's health, and almost before Anna realized it was ailing, the baby sickened and died. It was her cruelest blow. For the child's sake she had taken up her interest in life, made plans; and was ready to work her fingers to the bone, but it was not to be and with the first falling of the clods on the little coffin, Anna felt the last ray of hope extinguished from her heart.
Alas! To-day I would give everythingTo see a friend's face, or hear voiceThat had the slightest tone of comfort in it.—Longfellow.
About two miles from the town of Belden, N. H., stands an irregular farm house that looks more like two dwellings forced to pass as one. One part of it is all gables, and tile, and chimney corners, and antiquity, and the other is square, slated, and of the newest cut, outside and in.
The farm is the property of Squire Amasa Bartlett, a good type of the big man of the small place. He was a contented and would have been a happy man—or at least thought he would have been—if the dearest wish of his life could have been realized. It was that his son, Dave, and his wife's niece, Kate, should marry. Kate was an orphan and the Squire's ward. She owned the adjoining land, that was farmed with the Squire's as one. So that Cupid would not have come to them empty handed; but the young people appeared to have little interest in each other apart from that cousinly affection which young people who are brought together would in all probability feel for each other.
Dave was a handsome, dark-eyed young man, whose silence passed with some for sulkiness; but he was not sulky—only deep and thoughtful, and perhaps a little more devoid of levity than becomes a young man of twenty-five. He had great force of character—you might have seen that from his grave brow, and felt it in his simple speech and manner, that was absolutely free from affectation.
Dave was his mother's idol, but his utter lack of worldliness, his inability to drive a shrewd bargain sometimes annoyed his father, who was a just, but an undeniably hard man, who demanded a hundred cents for his dollar every day in the year.
Kate, whom the family circle hoped would one day be David's wife, was all blonde hair, blue eyes and high spirits, so that the little blind god, aided by the Squire's strategy, propinquity and the universal law of the attraction of opposites, should have had no difficulty in making these young people fall in love—but Destiny, apparently, decided to make them exceptions to all rules.
Kate was fond of going to Boston to visit a schoolmate, and the Squire, who looked with small favor on these visits, was disposed to attribute them to Dave's lack of ardor.
"Confound it, Looizy," he would say to his wife, "if Dave made it more lively for Kate she would not be fer flying off to Boston every time she got a chance."
And Mrs. Bartlett had no answer. Having a woman's doubtful gift of intuition, she was afraid that the wedding would never take place, and also having a woman's tact she never annoyed her husband by saying so.
Kate, who had been in Boston for two months, was coming home about the middle of July, and a little flutter of preparation went all over the farm.
Dave had said at breakfast that he regretted not being able to go to Wakefield to meet Kate, but that he would be busy in the north field all day. Hi Holler, the Bartlett chore boy, had been commissioned to go in his stead, and Hi's toilet, in consequence, had occupied most of the morning.
Mrs. Bartlett was churning in the shadow of the wide porch, the Squire was mending a horse collar with wax thread, and fussing about the heat and the slowness of Hi Holler, who was always punctually fifteen minutes late for everything.
"Confound it, Looizy, what's keeping that boy; the train'll get in before he's started. Here you, Hi, what's keeping you?"
The delinquent stood in the doorway, his broad face rippling with smiles; he had spent time on his toilet, but he felt that the result justified it.
His high collar had already begun to succumb to the day, and the labor involved in greasing his boots, which were much in evidence, owing to the brevity of the white duck trousers that needed but one or two more washings, with the accompanying process of shrinking, to convert them into knickerbockers. Bear's grease had turned his ordinary curling brown hair into a damp, shining mass that dripped in tiny rills, from time to time, down on his coat collar, but Hi was happy. Beau Brummel, at the height of his sartorial fame, never achieved a more self-satisfying toilet.
The Squire adjusted his spectacles. "What are you dressing up like that on a week day for, Hi? Off with you now; and if you ain't in time for them cars you'll catch 'Hail Columbia' when you get back."
"Looizy," said the Squire, as soon as Hi was out of hearing, "why didn't Dave go after Katie? Yes, I know about the hay. Hay is hay, but it ought not to come first in a man's affections."
"You'd better let 'em alone, Amasy; if they're going to marry they will without any help from us; love affairs don't seem to prosper much, when old folks interfere."
"Looizy, it's my opinion that Dave's too shy to make up to women folks. I don't think he'll even get up the courage to ask Kate to marry him."
"Well, I never saw the man yet who was too bashful to propose to the right woman." And a great deal of decision went into the churning that accompanied her words.
"Mebbe so, mebbe so," said the Squire. He felt that the vagaries of the affections was too deep a subject for him. "Anyhow, Looizy, I don't want no old maids and bachelors potterin' round this farm getting cranky notions in their heads. Look at the professor. Why, a good woman would have taken the nonsense out of him years ago."
Mrs. Bartlett did not have to go far to look at the professor. He was flying about her front garden at that very moment in an apparently distracted state, crouching, springing, hiding back of bushes and reappearing with the startling swiftness of magic. The Bartletts were quite used to these antics on the part of their well-paying summer boarder. He was chasing butterflies—a manifestly insane proceeding, of course, but if a man could afford to pay ten dollars a week for summer board in the State of New Hampshire, he could afford to chase butterflies.
Professor Sterling was an old young man who had given up his life to entomology; his collection of butterflies was more vital to him than any living issue; the Bartletts regarded him as a mild order of lunatic, whose madness might have taken a more dangerous form than making up long names for every-day common bugs.
"Look at him, just look at him, Looizy, sweating himself a day like this, over a common dusty miller. It beats all, and with his money."
"Well, it's a harmless amusement," said the kindly Louisa, "there's a heap more harmful things that a man might chase than butterflies."
The stillness of the midsummer day was broken by the sound of far-off singing. It came in full-toned volume across the fields, the high soaring of women's voices blended with the deeper harmony of men.
"What's that?" said the Squire testily, looking in the direction of the strawberry beds, from whence the singing came.
"It's only the berry-pickers, father," said David, coming through the field gate and going over to the well for a drink.
"I wish they'd work more and sing less," said the Squire. "All this singing business is too picturesque for me."
"They've about finished, father. I came for the money to pay them off."
It was characteristic of Dave to uphold the rights of the berry-pickers. They were all friends of his, young men and women who sang in the village choir and who went out among their neighbors' berry patches in summer, and earned a little extra money in picking the fruit. The village thought only the more of them for their thrift, and their singing at the close of their work was generally regarded in the light of a favor. Zeke, Sam, Cynthia and Amelia who formed the quartet, had all fine voices and no social function for miles around Wakefield was complete without their music.
The Squire said no more about the berry-pickers. Dave handed him a paper on which the time of each berry-picker and the amount of his or her wage was marked opposite. The Squire took it and adjusted his glasses with a certain grimness—he was honest to the core, but few things came harder to him than parting with money.
Dave and his mother at the churn exchanged a friendly wink. The extracting of coin from the head of the house was no easy process. Mother and son both enjoyed its accomplishment through an outside agency. It was too hard a process in the home circle to be at all agreeable.
While the Squire was wrestling with his arithmetic, Dave noticed a strange girl pass by the outer gate, pause, go on and then return. He looked at her with deep interest. She was so pale and tired-looking it seemed as if she had not strength enough left to walk to the house. Her long lashes rested wearily on the pale cheeks. She lifted them with an effort, and Dave found himself staring eagerly in a pair of great, sorrowful brown eyes.
The girl came on unsteadily up the walk to where the Squire sat, thumbing his account to the berry-pickers. "Well, girl, who are you?" he said, not as unkindly as the words might imply.
The sound of her own voice, as she tried to answer his question, was like the far-off droning of a river. It did not seem to belong to her. "My name is Moore—Anna Moore—and I thought—I hoped perhaps you might be good enough to give me work." The strange faces spun about her eyes. She tottered and would have fallen if Dave had not caught her.
Dave, the silent, the slow of action, the cool-headed, seemed suddenly bereft of his chilling serenity. "Here, mother, a chair; father, some water, quick." He carried the swooning girl to the shadow of the porch and fanned her tenderly with his broad-brimmed straw hat.
The old people hastened to do his bidding. Dave, excited and issuing orders in that tone, was too unusual to be passed over lightly.
"What were you going to say, Miss Moore?" said the Squire as soon as the brown eyes opened.
"I thought, perhaps, I might find something to do here—I'm looking for work."
"Why, my dear," said Mrs. Bartlett, smoothing the dark curls, "you are not fit to stand, let alone work."
"You could not earn your salt," was the Squire's less sympathetic way of expressing the same sentiment. "Where is your home?"
"I have no home." She looked at them desperately, her dark eyes appealing to one and the other, as if they were the jury that held her life in the balance. Only one pair of eyes seemed to hold out any hope.
"If you would only try me I could soon prove to you that I am not worthless." Unconsciously she held out her hand in entreaty.
"Here we are, here we are, all off for Boston!" The voice was Hi's. He was just turning in at the field gate with Kate beside him. Kate, a ravishing vision, in pink muslin; a smiling, contented vision of happy, rosy girlhood, coming back to the home-nest, where a thousand welcomes awaited her.
"Hello, every one!" she said, running in and kissing them in turn, "how nice it is to be home."
They forgot the homeless stranger and her pleading for shelter in their glad welcome to the daughter of the house. She had shrunk back into the shadow. She had never felt the desolation, the utter loneliness of her position so keenly before.
"Hurrah for Kate!" cried the Squire, and everyone took it up and gave three cheers for Kate Brewster.
The wanderer withdrew into the deepest shadow of the porch, that her alien presence might not mar the joyous home-coming of Kate Brewster. There was no jealousy in her soul for the fair girl who had such a royal welcome back to the home-nest. She would not have robbed her of it if such a thing had been possible, but the sense of her own desolation gripped at the heart like an iron band.
She waited like a mendicant to beg for the chance of earning her bread. That was all she asked—the chance to work, to eat the bread of independence, and yet she knew how slim the chance was. She had been wandering about seeking employment all day, and no one would give it.
Only Dave had not forgotten the stranger is the joy of Kate's home-coming. He had welcomed the flurry of excitement to say a few words to his mother, his sworn ally in all the little domestic plots.
"Mother," he said, "do contrive to keep that girl. It would be nothing short of murder to turn her out on the highway."
A pressure of the motherly hand assured Dave that he could rely on her support.
"Well, well, Katie," said the Squire with his arm around his niece's waist, "the old place has been lonely without you!"
"Uncle, who is that girl on the porch?" she asked in an undertone.
"That we don't know; says her name is Moore, and that she wants work. Kind of sounds like a fairy story, don't it, Kate?"
"Poor thing, poor thing!" was Kate's only answer.
"Amasy," said Mrs. Bartlett, assuming all the courage of a rabbit about to assert itself, "this family is bigger than it was with Kate home and the professor here, and I am not getting younger—I want you to let me keep this young woman to help me about the house."
The Squire set his jaw, always an ominous sign to his family. "I don't like this takin' strangers, folks we know nothing about; it's mighty suspicious to see a young woman tramping around the country, without a home, looking for work. I don't like it."
The girl, who sat apart while these strangers considered taking her in, as if she had been a friendless dog, arose, her eyes were full of unshed tears, her voice quivered, but pride supported her. Turning to the Squire, she said:
"You are suspicious because you are blest with both home and family. My mother died a few months ago, I myself have been ill. I make this explanation not because your kindness warrants it, sir, but because your family would have been willing to take me on faith." She bowed her head in the direction of Mrs. Bartlett and Dave.
"Well," the Squire interrupted, "you need not go away hungry, you can stop here and eat your dinner, and then Hi Holler can take you in the wagon to the place provided for such unfortunate cases, and where you'll have food and shelter."
"The poor farm, do you mean?" the girl said, wildly; "no, no; if you will not give me work I will not take your charity."
"Father!" exclaimed Dave and his mother together.
"Now, now," said Kate, going up to the Squire and putting her hands on his shoulders, "it seems to me as if my uncle's been getting a little hard while I've been away from home, and I don't think it has improved him a bit. The uncle I left here had a heart as big as a house. What has he done with it?"
Here the professor came to Kate's aid. "Squire," said he, "isn't it written that 'If ye do it unto the least of these, ye do it unto me?'"
"Well, well," said the Squire, "when a man's family are against him, there's only one thing for him to do if he wants any peace of mind, and that is to come round to their way, and I ain't never goin' to have it said I went agin theScripter." He went over to Anna and took her pale, thin hand in his great brown one.
"Well, little woman, they want you to stay, and I am not going to interfere. I leave it to you that I won't live to regret it."
This time the tears splashed down the pale cheeks. "Dear sir, I thank you, and I promise you shall never repent this kindness." Then turning to the rest—"I thank you all. I can only repay you by doing my best."
"Well said, well said," and Kate gave her a sisterly pat on the shoulder.
Anna would not listen to Mrs. Bartlett's kind suggestion that she should rest a little while. She went immediately to the house, removed her hat, and returned completely enveloped in a big gingham apron that proved wonderfully becoming to her dark beauty—or was it that the homeless, hunted look had gone out of those sorrowful eyes?
And so Anna Moore had found a home at last, one in which she would have to work early and late to retain a foothold—but still a home, and the word rang in her ears like a soothing song, after the anguish of the last year. Her youth and beauty, she had long since discovered, were only barriers to the surroundings she sought. There had been many who offered to help the friendless girl, but their offers were such that death seemed preferable, by contrast, and Anna had gone from place to place, seeking only the right to earn her bread, and yet, finding only temptation and danger.
Dave, passing out to the barn, stopped for a moment to regard her, as she sat on the lowest step of the porch, with her sleeves rolled above the elbow, working a bowl of butter. He smiled at her encouragingly—it was well that none of his family saw it. Such a smile from the shy, silent Dave might have been a revelation to the home circle.