The Project Gutenberg eBook ofGreen Valley

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofGreen ValleyThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world 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 atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Green ValleyAuthor: Katharine Yirsa ReynoldsIllustrator: Nana French BickfordRelease date: July 10, 2006 [eBook #18801]Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Al Haines*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREEN VALLEY ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world 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 atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Green ValleyAuthor: Katharine Yirsa ReynoldsIllustrator: Nana French BickfordRelease date: July 10, 2006 [eBook #18801]Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Al Haines

Title: Green Valley

Author: Katharine Yirsa ReynoldsIllustrator: Nana French Bickford

Author: Katharine Yirsa Reynolds

Illustrator: Nana French Bickford

Release date: July 10, 2006 [eBook #18801]

Language: English

Credits: E-text prepared by Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREEN VALLEY ***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

They came to her hand in hand and said not a word.[Frontispiece: They came to her hand in hand and said not a word.]

TO ALL THE LITTLE ONE-HORSE TOWNS WHERELIFE IS SWEET AND ROOMY AND OLD-FASHIONED;WHERE THE DAYS ARE FULL OF SUNSHINE ANDRAIN AND WORK; WHERE NEIGHBORS REALLYNEIGHBOR AND MEN AND WOMEN ARE LIFE-SIZE

This book was written to cure a heartache, to ease a very real and bad case of homesickness. I wrote it just for myself when I was very nearly ten thousand miles away from home and knew that I couldn't go back to the U. S. A. for two long years. It is a picture of a little Yankee town, the town I tried so hard to see over ten thousand miles of gray-green ocean.

When I was sailing from New York for South America that sunny June morning in 1913, about the last thing the last friend hurrying down the gangplank said was this:

"Of course you are going to be homesick. But it's worth it."

And I laughed.

But before that long stretch of gray-green ocean was plowed under I knew—oh, I knew—that I was going to be most woefully homesick for the U. S. A.

A certain tall Swede from New Jersey and I discovered that fact about the same minute Fourth of July morning. We were standing on the deck, staring miserably back over the awful miles to where somewhere in that lost north our town lay with flags fluttering, picnic baskets getting into trains and everybody out on their lawns and porches.

We didn't look at each other after that first glance—that Swede and I. And we said the sunlight hurt our eyes.

Three months later I was sitting under the velvet-soft, star-sown night sky of the Argentine cattle country. I had seen volcano-scarred Martinique and had watched the beautiful island of Barbados rising like a fairy dream out of a foamy sea.

I had marveled at the endless beauties of Rio lying so picturesquely in its immense harbor and at the foot of its great, shaggy, sun-splashed, smoke-wreathed mountains. I had tramped through unsanitary Santos and loved it because it looked like Chicago in spite of its mountains and banana trees. I had witnessed a wonderful fiesta in Buenos Aires and had churned two hundred miles up the La Plata when it was bubbling with rain. And I had had a tooth pulled in Paysandu, the second largest city in Uruguay.

All that in three months! And there were still a million wonders to see. I loved and shall always love these radiant, sun-drenched uncrowded lands. But my heart was heavy as lead. For I was homesick. My eyes were tired of alien starshine, of alien, unfamiliar things, and my heart cried out for the little home towns of my own country.

But I could not go back for many, many months. So I learned Spanish and hobnobbed with wonderfully wise and delightful Spanish grandmothers. I grew to love some darling Indian babies. I interviewed interesting South American cowboys and discussed war and socialism with an Argentine navy officer. I exchanged calls and true blue friendships with soft-voiced Englishwomen. And I took tea and dinner aboard the ships of Welsh sea captains from Cardiff.

I had a wonderful time. I filled my notebook, took pictures and collected souvenirs. I laughed and told stories. Folks down there said I was good company.

But oh! In the hush of a rain-splashed night, when the fire in the grate dozed and dreamed and a boat siren somewhere out on the inky La Plata wailed and moaned through the black night, my heart flew back over those gray-green waves to a little town that I knew in the U. S. A. And to ease my longing I wrote Green Valley.

KATHARINE REYNOLDS.

CHAPTERIEAST AND WESTIISPRING IN GREEN VALLEYIIITHE LAST OF THE CHURCHILLSIVA RAINY DAYVCYNTHIA'S SONVIGOSSIPVIITHE WEDDINGVIIILILAC TIMEIXGREEN VALLEY MENXTHE KNOLLXIGETTING ACQUAINTEDXIITHE PATH OF TRUE LOVEXIIIAUTUMN IN GREEN VALLEYXIVTHE CHARMXVINDIAN SUMMERXVITHE HOUSEWARMINGXVIITHE LITTLE SLIPPERXVIIITHE MORNING AFTERXIXA GRAY DAYXXCHRISTMAS BELLSXXIFANNY'S HOURXXIIBEFORE THE DAWNXXIIIFANNY COMES BACKXXIVHOME AGAIN

"Joshua Churchill's dying in California and Nanny Ainslee's leaving to-night for Japan! And there's been a wreck between here and Spring Road!"

Fanny fairly gasped out the astounding news. Then she sank down into Grandma Wentworth's comfortable kitchen rocker and went into details.

"The two telegrams just came through. Uncle Tony's gone down to the wreck. I happened to be standing talking to him when Denny came running out of the station. Isn't it too bad Denny's so bow-legged? Though I don't know as it hinders him from running to any noticeable extent. I had an awful time trying to keep up so's to find out what had happened. I bet you Nan's packing right this minute and just loving it. My—ain't some people born lucky? Think of having the whole world to run around in!"

The telephone tinkled.

"Yes, Nan," Grandma smiled as she answered, "I know. Fanny's just this minute telling me. Yes, of course I can. I'll be over as soon as my bread's done baking. Yes—I'll bring along some of my lavender to pack in with your things."

"Land sakes, Grandma," exclaimed Fanny, "don't stop for the bread. I'll see to that. Just you git that lavender and go. And tell Nanny I'll be at the station to see her off."

Up-stairs in a big sunny room of the Ainslee house Grandma Wentworth looked reproachfully at a flushed, busy girl who was laughing and singing snatches of droll ditties the while she emptied closets and dresser drawers and tucked things into four trunks, two suitcases and a handbag.

"Nanny, are you never going to settle down and stay at home?" sighed Grandma.

"Yes, ma'am," Nanny's eyes danced, "some day when a man makes me fall in love with him and there are no more new places to go to. But so long as I am heartfree and footfree, and there's one alien shore calling, I'll have the wanderlust. I declare, Grandma, if that man doesn't turn up soon there will be no new places left for a honeymoon!"

Grandma smiled in spite of herself. There were things she wanted very much to say and other things she wanted very much to ask; but the trunks had to get down to the station and already the afternoon sun was low.

The two women worked feverishly and almost in silence so that when the packing was done they might get in the little visit both craved before the months of separation.

Nanny finally jumped on the trunks, snapped them shut, locked them and watched the expressman carry them down and out into his waiting dray. Then she sat down with a trembling little laugh.

"There—it's over and I'm really going! I have been to just about every country but Japan. I believe father would rather have skipped off alone this time. It seems to be some suddenly important international crisis that we are going over to settle. That's why we are going East the roundabout way. We must stop at Washington for instructions, then again at London and Paris."

"Nanny," mused Grandma, "there's a good many years difference in our ages but there's only one woman I ever loved as I love you. I think I might have loved your mother but she died the very first year your father brought her here. And she was ailing when she came. The other woman that meant so much to me used to go traveling too. I always helped her with her packing. Then one day she packed and went away, never to come back."

"Was that Cynthia Churchill?" Nan asked gently.

"Yes—Cynthia. She was dearer than a sister to me, and neither of us dreamed that a whole wide world would divide us."

"Why did she go, Grandma?"

"Because a Green Valley man well-nigh broke her heart."

"A Green Valley man did—that? Oh, dear! And here I have been hoping that some day I might marry a Green Valley man myself."

"Nanny, I expect I'm old and foolish but I've been hoping and hoping that you'd marry a home boy and fearing you'd meet up with some one on your travels who would take you away from us forever. It would be hard to see you go."

The last sunbeam had faded away and golden twilight filled the room. Outside little day noises were dying out.

"Grandma dear, don't you worry about me. I intend to marry a Green Valley man if possible. But even if I didn't I'd always come back to Green Valley."

"No, you wouldn't. You couldn't, any more than Cynthia could. Cynthia loved this town better even than you love it. Yet she is lying under strange stars in a foreign land, far from her old home. Her father, they say, is dying in California. I suppose the old Churchill place will go now unless Cynthia's son comes back to take it over. But that isn't likely."

"Why—did Cynthia Churchill leave a son?" wondered Nanny.

"Yes. He must be a few years older than you. He was born and raised in India. 'Tisn't likely he'd come to Green Valley now that he's a man grown. Still, if Joshua Churchill dies out there in California, that boy will come into all his grandfather's property."

"Well," Nanny stood up and walked to the window from which she could see the fine old home of the Churchills, "if any one willed me a lovely old place like that Churchill homestead I'd come from the moon to claim it, let alone India."

"Nanny, are you sure there's no boy now in Green Valley who could keep you from roaming? I thought maybe Max Longman or Ronny Deering—"

"No—no one yet, Grandma. I like them all—but love—no. Love, it seems to me, must be something very different."

"Yes, I know," sighed Grandma.

When Uncle Tony returned from viewing the wreck he assured his townsmen that it was a wreck of such beautiful magnitude that traffic on the Northwestern would be tied up for twenty-four hours. It was feared that Mr. Ainslee would not be able to get his train and would have to drive five miles to the other railroad.

However Uncle Tony was reckoning things from a Green Valley point of view. As a matter of fact the wreckage was sufficiently cleared away so that the eastbound trains were running on time. It was the westbound ones that were stalled. The Los Angeles Limited Pullmans stood right in the Green Valley station. They were still standing there when Nanny and her father came to take the 10:27 east.

Perhaps nothing could explain so well Nanny Ainslee's popularity as the gathering of folks who came to see her off.

Fanny had stopped at the drug store and bought some headache pills.

"This excitement and hurry and you not scarcely eating any supper is apt to give you a bad headache. They'll come handy. And here's some seasick tablets. Martin says they're the newest thing out. And oh, Nanny, when you're seeing all those new places and people just take an extra look for me, seeing as I'll never know the color of the ocean."

Uncle Tony was tending to Nanny's hand luggage and in his heart wishing he could go along, even though he knew that one week spent away from his beloved hardware store would be the death of him.

It was a neighborly crowd that waited for the 10:27. And as it waited Jim Tumley started singing "Auld Lang Syne." He began very softly but soon the melody swelled to a clear sweetness that hushed the laughing chatter and stilled the shuffling feet of the Pullman passengers who crowded the train vestibules or strolled in weary patience along the station platform.

Then the 10:27 swung around the curve and the good-bys began.

"So long, dear folks! I shall write. Don't you dare cry, Grandma. I'll be back next lilac time. Remember, oh, just remember, all you Green Valley folks, that I'll be back when the lilacs bloom again!"

Nanny's voice, husky with laughter and tears, rippled back to the cluster of old neighbors waving hats and handkerchiefs. They watched her standing in the golden light of the car doorway until the train vanished from their sight. Then they drifted away in twos and threes.

From the dimmest corner of the observation platform a man had witnessed the departure of Nanny Ainslee. He had heard Jim's song, had caught the girl's farewells. And now he was delightedly repeating to himself her promise—"I'll be back when the lilacs bloom again."

Then quite suddenly he stepped from the train and made his way to where the magenta-pink and violet lights of Martin's drugstore glowed in the night. He bought a soda and some magazines and asked the druggist an odd question.

"When," asked the stranger, smiling, "will the lilacs bloom again in this town?"

Martin, who for hours had been rushing madly about, waiting on the thirsty crowd of stalled visitors, stopped to stare. But he answered. Something in the mysteriously rich face of the big, brown boy made him eager to answer.

"From the middle of next May on into early June."

The stranger smiled his thanks in a way that made Martin look at his clerk with a mournful eye.

"Jee-rusalem! Now, Eddie, why can't you smile like that? Say, if I hadthatfellow behind this soda counter I'd be doing a rushing business every night."

When the Limited was again winging its way toward the Golden West and train life had settled down to its regular routine, one dining-car waiter was saying to another:

"Yes, sah—the gentleman in Number 7 is sure the mighty-nicest white man I eber did see. And he sure does like rice. Says he comes from India where everybody eats it all the time. I ain' sure but what that man ain' a sure-enough prince."

Traveling men have a poor opinion of it. Ministers of the gospel have been known to despair of it. Socially ambitious matrons move out of it, or, if that is not possible, despise it. Real estate men can not get rich in it. And humorless folk sometimes have a hard, sad time of it in Green Valley.

But Uncle Tony, the slowest man in town but the very first at every fire and accident, says that once, when the Limited was stalled at the Old Roads Corner, a crowd of swells gathered on the observation platform and sized up the town.

One official, who—Uncle Tony says—couldn't have been anything less than a Chicago alderman, said right out loud:

"Great Stars! What peace—and cabbages!"

And another said solemnly, said he, "This is the place to come to when you have lost your last friend." And there was no malice, only a hungry longing in his voice.

The stylish, white-haired woman who, Uncle Tony guessed, must have been the alderman's wife, said, "Oh—John! What healing, lovely gardens!"

There's always a silly little wind fooling around the Old Roads Corners and so you get all the sweet smells from Grandma Wentworth's herb garden and all the heavenly fragrance that the flower gardens of this end of town send out.

Standing there you can look into any number of pretty yards but especially Ella Higgins'. Of course Ella's yard and garden is a wonder. It's been handed down from one old maid relative to another till in Ella's time it does seem as if every wild and home flower that ever bloomed was fairly rooted and represented there. It's in Ella's garden that the first wild violets bloom; where the first spring beauty nods under the bushes of bridal wreath; where the last chrysanthemum glows.

Everybody in town got their lilies-of-the-valley roots and their yellow roses from Ella. Her peonies and roses, pansies and forget-me-nots are known clear over in Bloomingdale and bespoken by flower lovers in Spring Road. And as for her tulips, well—there are little flocks of them everywhere about, looking for all the world like crowds of gayly dressed babies toddling off to play.

The only time that poor Fanny Foster came near making trouble was when she said that of course Ella's place was all right but that it had no style or system, and that you couldn't have a proper garden without a gardener. Ella had scolded Fanny's children for carelessly stripping the lilacs.

Fanny Foster is as wonderful in her way as Ella's garden, though not so beautiful at first sight. Of course Green Valley loves Fanny Foster. Green Valley has reason to. Fanny did Green Valley folks a great service one still spring morning. But strangers just naturally misunderstand Fanny. They see only a tall, sharp-edged wisp of a woman with a mass of faded gold hair carelessly pinned up and two wide-open brown eyes fairly aching with curiosity. You have to know Fanny a long time before the poignant wistfulness of her clutches at your heart, before you can know the singular sweetness of her nature. And even when you come to love her you keep wishing that her collars were pinned on straight and that her skirts were hung evenly at the bottom. There are those who remember the time when Fanny was a beautiful girl, happy-go-lucky but always kind-hearted. Now she is famous for her marvelous instinct for news gathering and her great talent in weaving the odds and ends of commonplace daily living into an interesting, gossipy yarn. Green Valley without Fanny Foster would not be Green Valley, for she is a town institution.

However, before going any further into Green Valley's special characters and institutions it would be well to get a general feel of the town into one's mind. For it is only when you know how cozily Green Valley sets in its hollows, how quaintly its old tree-shaded roads dip and wander about over little sunny hills and through still, deep woods that you can guess the charm of it, can believe in the joyousness of it. For Green Valley is a joyous, sweetly human old town to those who love and understand it.

Take an early spring day when the winter's wreck and rust and deadness seem to be everywhere. Yet here in the Green Valley roads and streets little warm winds are straying, looking for tulip beds and spring borders. The sunshine that elsewhere looks thin and pale drops warmly here into back yards and ripples ever so brightly up and down Rabbit's Hill, where the hedges are turning green and David Allan is plowing.

The willows back of Dell Parsons' house are budding and all aquiver with the wildly glad, full-throated warblings of robins, bluebirds, red-winged blackbirds and bobolinks. While somewhere from the swaying tops of last year's reeds, up from the grassy slopes of Churchill's meadow, comes the sweet, clear call of meadow larks.

In the ditches the cushioning moss is green and through the brown tangled weeds along Silver Creek the new grass is peeping. The sunny clearing back of Petersen's woods will be full of mushrooms as the days deepen. And already there are big golden dandelions in Widow Green's orchard.

In these still, warm noons you can hear through the waiting, echoing air the laughing shouts of playing children and the low-dropping honk of the wild geese that in a scarcely quivering line are sailing northward across the reedy lowlands which the gentle spring rains will turn into soft, violet, misty marshes.

The last bit of frost has thawed out of the old Glen Road and in the young sunshine it seems to laugh goldenly as it climbs up, up to Jim Gray's squatty, weathered little farmhouse. The eastern windows of this little silver-gray house are gay with blossoming house plants and across the back dooryard, flapping gently in the spring breeze, is a line of gayly colored bed quilts. For Martha Gray has begun her house-cleaning.

The woodsy part of Grove Street, the part that was opened up only five years ago and is called Lovers' Lane because it curves and winds mysteriously through a lovely bit of woodland, is already shimmering with the life and beauty of spring.

Down on Fern Avenue, which is a wide, grassy road and no avenue at all, Uncle Roger Allan is carefully painting his chicken coops. Roger Allan is a tall, twinkling, smooth-shaven old man, and he lives in a house as twinkling and as tidy as himself. He is a bachelor, but years ago he took little David from the dead arms of an unhappy, wild young stepsister and has brought him up as his own. People used to know the reasons why Roger Allan had never married but few remember now. Here he is at any rate, painting his chicken coops and standing still every now and then to stare off at Rabbit's Hill where his boy, tall, sturdy David Allan, is plowing the warm, black fields.

Up in a narrow lane, at the side window of a blind-looking little house, sits Mrs. Rosenwinkle. She is German and badly paralyzed and she believes that the earth is flat and that if you walked far enough out beyond Petersen's pasture you would most certainly fall off. She also believes that only Lutherans like herself can go to heaven. But to-day, beside the open window, with a soft, wooing, eiderdown little breeze caressing her face, she is happy and unworried, her eyes busy with the tender world and the two chubby grandchildren tumbling gleefully about in the still lane.

In his little square shoe shop built out from his house Joe Baldwin is arranging his spring stock in his two modest show windows. Joe is a widower with two boys, a gentle voice, a gentle, wondering mind, and a remarkable wart in the very center of his left palm. His shop is a sunny, cheerful room with plenty of benches and chairs. The little shop has a soft gray awning for the hot days and a wide-eyed competent stove for cold ones. Nobody but Grandma Wentworth and such other folks like Roger Allan ever suspect the real reason for all those comfortable sitting-down places in Joe's shop. And Joe never tells a soul that it is just an idea of his for keeping his own two boys and the boys of other men under his eye. In Joe's gentle opinion the hotel and livery barn and blacksmith shop are not exactly the best places for young boys to frequent. But of course Joe never mentions such opinions out loud even to the boys. He just makes his shop as inviting and homelike as possible, keeps the daily papers handy on the counter and a basket of nuts or apples maybe under his workbench. He is never lonely nor does he miss a bit of news though he seldom goes anywhere but to the barber shop on Saturdays and to church on Sundays.

Out on her sunny cellar steps sits Mrs. Jerry Dustin, sorting onion sets and seed potatoes. She is a little, rounded old lady with silvery hair, the softest, smoothest, fairest of complexions, forget-me-not eyes and a smile that is as gladdening as a golden daffodil. Few people know that she has in her heart a longing to see the world, a longing so intense, a life-long wanderlust so great that had she been a man it would have swept her round the globe. But she has never crossed the State line. She has big sons and daughters who all somehow have inherited their father's stay-at-home nature. Her youngest boy, Peter, however, is only seventeen and on him she has built her last hopes. He, like herself, has a gipsy song in his heart and she often dreams of the places they will visit together.

And while she is waiting for Peter to grow up she travels about and around Green Valley. She wanders far up the Glen Road into the deep fairy woods between Green Valley and Spring Road. Here she strays alone for hours, searching for ferns and adventure.

Once a week she rides away to the city where she spends the morning in the gay and crowded stores and the afternoon in the Art Institute. She never wearies of seeing pictures. She never, if she can help it, misses an exhibition, and whenever the day's doings have not tired her too much this little old lady will steal off to the edge of the great lake and dream of what lies in the world beyond its rim. She often wishes she could paint the restless stretch of water but though she knows its every mood and though she is a wonderful judge of pictures she can not reproduce except in words the lovely nooks and beauty spots of her little world.

Perhaps it is this knowledge of her limitations that causes that little strain of wistful sadness to creep into her voice sometimes and that sends her very often out beyond the town, south along Park Lane to the little Green Valley cemetery.

She loves to read on the mossy stones the unchanging little histories, so brief but so eloquent, some of them. The stone that interests her most and that each time seems like a freshly new adventure is the simple shaft that bears no name, no date, just the tenderly sweet and pathetic little message:

"I miss Thee so."

Mrs. Jerry Dustin knows very well for whom that low green bed was made and who has had that little message of lonely love cut into stone. But she longs to know the rest of the story.

Sometimes she has a real adventure. It was here at the cemetery one day that she met Bernard Rollins, the artist. He was out sketching the fields that lie everywhere about, rounding and rolling off toward the horizon with the roofs of homesteads and barns just showing above the swells, with crows circling about the solitary clusters of trees, and men and horses plodding along the furrows.

No artist could have passed Mrs. Jerry Dustin by, for in her face and about her was the beauty that she had for years fed her soul. So Rollins spoke to her that summer day and they are friends now, great friends. She visits his studio frequently and he tells her all about France or Venice or wherever he has spent his busy summer. And she sits and listens happily.

Rollins bought out what used to be in Chicago's young days an old tavern and half-way house. It was a dilapidated old ruin, crumbling away in a shaggy old orchard full of gnarled and ancient apple trees, satin-skinned cherry trunks, some plums and peaches, and tangled shrubs of all kinds.

With the aid of his wife Elizabeth, some dollars and much work, Rollins transformed the old ruin into the sort of a country place that one reads about and imagines only millionaires may have. They say that when Old Skinflint Holden saw the transformation he stood stock-still, then tied his team to the artistic hitching post under the old elms and went in search of Rollins. He found him in the orchard in the laziest of hammocks literally worshipping the flowering trees all about him. Old Skinflint Holden was awed.

"Jehohasaphat! Bern, how did you do it?"

"Oh," smiled the artist, "we cleaned and patched it, put on a new bit here and there and sort of nursed it into shape. Doc Philipps gave us bulbs and seeds and loads of advice and then Elizabeth, I guess, sort of loved it into a home."

"Well—I guess," mused Skinflint Holden. "Must have cost you a pretty penny?"

"Why, no, it didn't. I'm telling you it wasn't a matter of dollars so much as love. If you use plenty of that you can economize on the money somewhat. Of course, it means work but love always means service, you know."

Old Skinflint Holden couldn't understand that sort of talk. It was said that love was one of the things he knew nothing about. His great star was money. He had had a chance to buy the old tavern but had seen no possibilities in it of any kind. So he had passed it up and now a man whose star was love and home had made a paradise of the hopeless ruin.

"And I'll be danged if he didn't have a whole small field of them there blue lilies that the children calls flags, over to one corner looking so darn pretty, like a chunk of sky had dropped there. I'd a never believed it if I hadn't saw it. I guess Doc Philipps didn't give him them."

Rollins is a great crony of Doc Philipps who almost any day of the year may be caught burrowing in the ground. For Doc Philipps is a tree maniac and father to every little green growing thing. He knows trees as a mother knows her children and he never sets foot outside his front gate without having tucked somewhere into the many pockets about his big person a stout trowel, some choice apple seeds, peach and cherry stones or seedlings of trees and shrubs. In every ramble, and he is a great walker, he searches for a spot where a tree seedling might grow to maturity and the minute he finds such a place off comes his coat, back goes his broad-rimmed hat and out comes the trowel and seed. Travelers driving along the road and catching sight of the big man on his knees say to each other, "There's Doc Philipps, planting another tree."

Up in the big, prim old Howe house sits Madam Howe. She is called Madam to distinguish her from her daughter-in-law, Mrs. George Howe. She is a regal old lady of eighty-three and spends most of her time in her room up-stairs where are gathered the wonderful heirlooms,—older, far older than she.

There is the mellow brown spinning wheel, and armchairs nearly two hundred years old and a walnut table that was mixed up in countless weddings and a beautifully carved old chest and a brocade-covered settee. There are old, old books and family portraits and there is the wonderful Madam herself, regal and silver-haired. If she likes you she will take you to her great room and tell you about the Revolutionary War as it happened in and to her family; and about her great ride westward in the prairie schooner; about the Indians and the babyhood of great cities, and the lovely wild flowers of the virgin prairie; about the wild animals, the snakes, the pioneer men and women of what is now only the Middle West.

She will take from out that age-darkened, beautiful chest dresses and bits of lace and samplers like the one that hangs framed above her writing desk and tells how it was stitched by one,

ABIGAIL WINSLOW PAGE,Age 13.

There is one thing you must always remember if you wish to stand in Madam's good graces. You must never sit down on the brocade-covered settee with the beautiful rose wreath hand-carved on its gracefully curving walnut back. Some day when she gets to know you very well she will tell you of the wonderful love stories that were enacted on that settee. She will begin away, away back with some great-great-grandmother or some great-grand-aunt and come gradually down to her own time and history; and as she tells of the young years of her life, her eyes will go dreaming off into the past and she will forget you entirely. And you will slip away from that great room and leave her sitting there, regal and silver haired, her face mellow and sweet with the golden memories of far, by-gone days.

You can wander in this happy, aimless fashion all about Green Valley, go in and out its deep-rooted old homes, stroll through its tree-guarded old streets, and at every turn taste romance and adventure, revel in beauty of some sort. Even the old, red-brick creamery, ugly in itself, is a thing of beauty when seen against a sunset sky.

The people who pass you on the streets all smile and nod, stranger though you are. And if you happen to be at the little undistinguished depot just as the 6:10 pulls in, you will see pouring joyously out of it the Green Valley men, those who every day go to the great city to work and every night come thankfully back to their little home town to live.

They hurry along in twos and threes, waving newspaper and hand greetings to the home folks and the store proprietors who stand in their doorways to watch them go by.

There is a fragrant smell of supper in the air and a slight feel of coming rain. Here and there a mother calls a belated child. Doors slam, dogs bark and a baby frets loudly somewhere. In somebody's chicken coop a frightened, dozing hen gargles its throat and then goes to sleep again. The frogs along Silver Creek and in Wimple's pond are going full blast, and in her fragrant herb garden stands Grandma Wentworth. She is looking at the gold-smudged western sky and watching the sweet, spring night sift softly down on Green Valley.

She stands there a long time sensing the great tide of new life that is flushing the world into a new, tingling beauty. She sees the lacy loveliness of the birches, the budding green glory of her garden. Then she smiles as she tells herself:

"It won't be long now till the lilacs bloom again. Nanny will be here soon now. And who knows! Cynthia's boy may come back to live in his mother's old home."

Even in beautiful Los Angeles days can be rainy and full of gnawing cold and gloom.

On such a day Joshua Churchill lay dying. He could have died days before had he cared to let himself do so. But he was holding on grimly to the life he no longer valued and held off as grimly the death he really craved. He was waiting for the coming of the boy who was so soon to be the last of the Churchills.

He meant, this grim old man, to live long enough to greet the boy whom he remembered first as a baby, then as a little chap of ten, and later as a shy boy of seventeen.

Joshua Churchill had been to India several times. But he had never stayed long. He said that no man who had spent the greater part of his life in Green Valley could ever be happy or feel at home anywhere else.

Joshua Churchill went to India to see his daughter and grandson; but mostly to coax that daughter's wonderful husband to give up his fanatically zealous work among the heathen of the Orient and come and live in peace and plenty in a little Yankee town where there was a drug store and a post office and a mossy gray old stone church with a mellow bell in its steeple.

The wonderful and big son-in-law always listened respectfully to his big Yankee father-in-law. Then he would smile and point to the little brown babies lying sick in their mothers' arms.

"Somebody," he would say gently, "must help and heal and neighbor with these people."

As there was no answer that could be made to this the Yankee father-in-law said nothing. But the very last time he was in India he looked sharply at his daughter and then said wearily and bitterly:

"Sinner and saint—we men are all alike. We each in our own way kill the women we love. Cynthia is dying for a sight of Green Valley and Green Valley folks."

At that Cynthia's husband cried out. But Joshua Churchill did not stay to argue. He went away and never came back. He wanted of course to go back to Green Valley. But he could not bear to live alone in the big house where he had once been so happy. So he went instead into exile. And now he was dying in California.

As for Cynthia's husband, he discovered when it was too late to do any good that while he had been saving the souls and the children of alien women and men he had let the woman who was dearer to him than life die slowly and unnoticed. Saints have always done that and they always will.

Joshua Churchill meant to stay alive long enough to explain the shortcomings of both saints and sinners to the boy who was the last of the Churchills. He had half a mind to exact a promise from the boy. He meant too to tell him a long and a rather strange story and implore him to beware of a number of things.

But when Cynthia's son,—tall, bronzed and serene, smiled down on the old man who even in death had the look of a master, the warnings, the bitterness melted away and Joshua Churchill smiled back and sighed gratefully.

"Well, son,—I don't know as that saint father of yours and your sinning granddad made such a mess of things after all. It's something to give the world a man. Go back home to Green Valley and marry a Green Valley girl."

And without bothering to say another word Joshua Churchill died.

Nanny came back to her valley town when the budded lilacs dripped with rain and the wooded hillsides were blurred with spring mists.

But Green Valley rain never bothered Nanny Ainslee. Those who were not out to greet her telephoned as soon as they heard she was back home again.

And just as she had gone to help pack, Grandma Wentworth came to help unpack. There were three trunks besides those Nanny had taken, from Green Valley. Nanny laughed and chuckled as she explained.

"The joke's on father. We met up with a nice American chap on our travels. He was so likable that father, who was pretty homesick by that time and would have loved anything American, fell in love with him. I can't quite understand why I didn't lose my head too. I came mighty near it once or twice. But the minute I'd think of that boy here in Green Valley I'd grow cool and calm. That's all that saved me, I believe. But father was quite taken with him and being a man he felt sure that I must be. He was so sure that my maiden days were over that he dared to be funny. One day he sent up these three brand new trunks to the hotel. Said I might as well get my trousseau while I was gadding about this time. Well—I was pretty mad for a minute. But I concluded that father wasn't the only one in our family who is fond of a joke. So I just blushed properly and went off shopping. And I tell you, Grandma, Green Valley will just grow cross-eyed looking at the pretties that I have in these treasure chests. I showed Dad every mortal thing I bought and asked his advice and was oh, so shy—and wondered if he justcouldlet me spend so much; and Dad just laughed and said he guessed an only daughter could be a bit extravagant, and to just go ahead. So I smiled again shyly and demurely and went ahead. And when not so much as a bit of ribbon or a chiffon veil could be squeezed in anywhere I shut those trunks and sat on them and swung my feet and bet Dad that I wouldn't marry that boy after all. And he was so sure that he was rid of me at last and that he could start out on his next trip blissfully free and alone that he bet me Jim Gray's Gunshot that I'd be married in six months to the gentleman in question. Of course it was a disgraceful business, the two of us betting on a thing like that, but somehow we never thought of that, we were so busy teasing each other. Well, of course Dad lost. I refused that nice chap three times in one week. And here I am, heart-free still, with three trunks of booty and the finest, blackest, and swiftest little horse in the county—mine. This has certainly been a profitable trip! Poor Dad, he's so delightfully old-fashioned. He does so believe in early marriages and husbands and wedding veils. And he thinks that twenty-three is absolutely a grewsome age. Poor Dad! And he says too that for what I have done to him in this trunk deal I shall be duly punished. That the good Lord who looks after the fathers of willful, old-maidish daughters will see to that. Why, he has gone so far as to say that he wouldn't be surprised if I wound up by marrying some weird country minister. Fancy that! Why, that from father is almost a curse. And he's worried sick about my riding Gunshot. But I shall manage. So expect to see me dash up to your gate in great style any day now."

"Nanny," warned Grandma, "I don't trust that horse either. You'd better be mighty careful. That horse isn't mean but it's young and scary."

Nan however laughed at fear and rode all about and around Green Valley town. And then one evening when she was least watchful and tired from the long day's sport, a glaring red motor came honking unexpectedly around the corner. So sudden was its appearance, so startling its body in the sunset light, so shrill its screeching siren, that the young horse reared. And Nan, caught unprepared, was helpless.

From the various groups of people standing about figures detached themselves and shot across the square. But before any one could reach her or even see how it happened, a tall stranger was holding the daring girl close against his breast with one arm, and the quivering young horse with the other.

He was reassuring the frightened animal and looking quietly down at the girl's face against his breast. Under that quiet look Nan's blue-white lips flushed with life and she tried to smile gratefully. When he smiled back and said, "So youdidget back by lilac time," Nan was well enough to wonder what he meant. And the little crowd of rescuers arrived only just in time to hear Nanny thanking him.

But when he asked her where in Green Valley town Mary Wentworth lived everybody stared and listened. Even Nan came near staring. But after the puzzled look her face broke into a smile.

"Oh—you mean Grandma Wentworth?"

He smiled too and said, "Perhaps. I am a stranger in Green Valley. But my mother was a Green Valley girl. She was Cynthia Churchill and Mary Wentworth was her dearest friend."

"Then you are—why, you must be—" stammered Nanny.

"I am Cynthia Churchill's son."

"From India?" questioned Nan.

"From India," he said quietly.

From out the group of Green Valley folks, now dim in the May twilight, a voice spoke.

"You may come from India but if you are Cynthia Churchill's son you are a Green Valley man and this is home. So I say—welcome home."

Roger Allan, straight and tall and speaking with a sweetness in his voice those listening had never heard before, stepped up to the young man with outstretched hand.

The young stranger looked for a moment at the dimming streets, into the kindly faces about him, and then shook hands gladly.

"It is good to be home," he said, "but I wish I had mother here with me."

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