CHAPTER IITHE FARM-HOUSE

At the sight of us the girl, who was gathering flowers, disappeared, and only Mrs. Parks came forward to meet me, her good-humored face beaming, and her large, helpful hands stretched out to relieve me of my bag and umbrella.

“So you brought her?” she said to Sam. “Wall, I’m glad you was there. I was afraid the ’bus wouldn’t go this time of day, and I kinder hoped the McPherson carriage might happen to go down, as I heard they was expectin’ another visitor up to the house, but nobody went by but Mr. Travers on hossback. Come right in. Your room is all ready for you when Charlotte Ann gets a few more flowers. Put up your money. Sam don’t want no pay.”

This last was said because I was opening my purse with a view to ask how much I was indebted to the young man, who shook his head and nodding a good-by drove off, after a wistful look at a blue skirt visible among the rose-bushes in the garden. Then I began to look around me at the quaint old house, with big rooms, wide hall, low ceilings, and open fireplaces,with pleasant views from every window, of wooded hills, and grassy valleys, and the pine-grove, with Nannie’s Well, which was beginning to interest me so much. But the object which attracted me most was the stone house on the hill—the McPherson place. Would the young people, Reginald Travers and Irene Burdick, ever come together? and how much truth was there in the story Sam had told me? I would ask Mrs. Parks when I knew her better, I thought. She was bustling about my room, a large, airy chamber, with four windows, a high-post bedstead, surmounted with what she called a “teaster” and surrounded with what she called a “balance.” Everything was old-fashioned, but scrupulously clean and comfortable to the last degree.

“You might like the south room across the hall the best,” she said, “and I’d give it to you, only it jines another, and I’m hopin’ to have two girls who’ll take the two rooms. Nobody sleeps with nobody nowadays; everybody must be separate; different from what it was when I was young, and three sometimes slep’ together if ’twas necessary; but Charlotte Ann says the world moves, and I s’pose it does. I’ve had a letter from them girls askin’ about ’em—the rooms, I mean.”

I assured her I wanted nothing better than theroom I had, with the eastern sunshine in the morning and its cool north breeze all the day.

“Charlotte Ann, Charlotte Ann! Is that you? Miss Bennett’s come. Sam brought her, but he didn’t stop,” Mrs. Parks called over the balustrade, and a young girl came up the stairs with her hands full of roses, and cheeks which rivalled them in color, while her eyes at the mention of Sam had in them a look which reminded me of the boy when I asked him who Lottie was.

She was very pretty, and within a week we became great friends and as intimate as a woman of forty often is with a girl of seventeen. I knew all about Sam, for whom Lottie cared more than for the half-dozen other boys whom she called kids and who annoyed her with attentions. I knew, too, about Sam’s father, Ephraim Walker, who had quarrelled with her mother about a line fence and claimed two feet more land than belonged to him, to say nothing of his hens, which were always getting into Mrs. Parks’ garden, until Mr. Walker built a high board fence which shut out the hens and a view of his premises as well.

“Mother gave up the two feet for the sake of getting rid of the hens, and she has never spoken to him since,” Lottie said, with a snap in her eyes which toldher opinion of Sam’s father, who, she added, “hates me like pisen.”

“Hates you! For what?” I asked, and after some hesitancy she replied, “I don’t mind telling you that Sam is carrying me now more than the other boys.”

I did not quite know what carrying her meant, but ventured to guess in my mind, and she went on—“and he comes here pretty often, and his father don’t like it and is crosser than a bear when Sam takes me out with Black Beauty, and once, when he found us in the McPherson pines sitting on a log he threatened to horsewhip Sam if he found him there again philandering with me. Sam squared up to him and said, ‘Come on and try it, if you dare.’ He didn’t dare; I should think not! He whip Sam! I’d laugh!”

She did laugh a little bitterly, and, reminded, by her mention of the McPherson pines of Nannie’s Well, I asked her about it and heard much the same story Sam had told me, with a few more details concerning the superstition attaching to the well, and the number of young people who had tried the trick at noonday—some with success, they pretended, and more with none.

“I don’t believe in it, of course,” Lottie said, “but sometime I mean to try it just for fun. Ifthose two girls come maybe they’ll try it, too. I don’t s’pose you’d care to, you are too——”

She stopped abruptly, not wishing to say “You are too old,” but I understood her and answered, “Yes, too old to be looking into a well at noon to find my future husband.” Then I questioned her about the girls who might be my neighbors.

“They are cousins,” she said, “and their name is Burdick; one of them, we suppose, is the girl old Sandy McPherson wanted Mr. Reginald Travers to marry. It is the same name and she lives in New York with her aunt Mrs. Graham, and has just got home from Europe, and when mother asked Mr. McPherson if it wasn’t the one, he said he wouldn’t wonder, and laughed. I can’t imagine why she is coming here unless she wants to see what kind of man Mr. Travers is. I should suppose she’d let him go after her, wouldn’t you?”

I did not express an opinion, but began to feel a good deal of interest in the romance likely to go on around me. Mr. Travers was a great swell, Lottie said, and as that was what Sam had called him, I was anxious to see him. I did see him the next Sunday in the little church which, with Mrs. Parks and Lottie, I attended in the village. It was one of the oldest churches on the coast, Mrs. Parks said, and it looked its full age. There were not many Episcopaliansin town; few of them had much money, except Colin McPherson, who paid three-fourths of the rector’s salary and left the rest of the expense to the other parishioners and summer visitors. The windows were high, with small panes of glass; the carpet was faded; the backs of the pews were low; the seats were narrow and hard, and the small organ was frightfully out of tune. Accustomed as I was to city churches, I began to feel homesick in this shabby place, where the people looked nearly as forlorn as their surroundings. The organ had just commenced what was intended as a voluntary, which set my nerves on edge, when there was a stir near the door, and the sexton in his creaky boots tiptoed up the aisle to a square pew with red cushions, which I had singled out as the McPherson pew. Nearly every one turned his head, and I with the rest, to look at the white-haired man carrying himself very erect, with his gold-bowed glasses on his nose and his big prayer-book held tightly in his hand. “Stiff, with a good face,” was my mental comment, and then I scanned curiously the young man who walked behind him, with aristocracy and polish and city stamped all over him from his collar and necktie to the shape of his shoes. I couldn’t see the latter, it is true, but I felt sure of them, and that his trousers were creased as they should be and were of thelatest fashion. He had a pale, refined face, with clearly cut features, a mouth which told of firmness rather than sweetness, and eyes which I was certain seldom brightened at a joke because they didn’t see it. And yet there was about him something which I liked. He might be proud and probably was, but his presence seemed to brighten the little church wonderfully, so that I forgot its shabbiness in watching him, and nearly forgot the service, which the rector tried to intone, and the harsh notes of the organ and the discords of the soprano.

What did he think of it all? I wondered. He was certainly very devout and only once gave any sign of annoyance, and that was when the organ was galloping madly through the Te Deum and the soprano was trying to keep up with the alto, and the bass and tenor were in full pursuit of the soprano. Then he shrugged his shoulders very slightly and turned toward the organ loft so that, for an instant our eyes met. In his I fancied there was a look of surprise and half wonder, a second searching glance, and then he turned to his book more devoutly than ever, and I heard a full, rich baritone joining with the organ and soprano and leading them steadily on to the end of the grand anthem. As he sat down he looked at me again with something like inquiry in his eyes. Could it be that he had heard of the expected arrivalof Irene Burdick at Mrs. Parks’ and wondered if I were she? If so, I knew he was thinking what his decision in the matter would be. He couldn’t marry his grandmother.

Mrs. Parks was one who meant to do her duty by her boarders, and was a little proud of her acquaintance with Colin McPherson and liked to show it. As we left the church she managed to get herself and myself very near to him, and after asking how he was and telling him she was pretty well and it was a fine day she introduced me to him as Miss Rose Bennett from Albany, while her eyes rested upon Mr. Travers standing close to him. Mr. McPherson took the hint and presented him after asking my name, which he had not quite caught, as he was rather deaf.

“Miss Benton! oh, yes, Miss Benton; good first-class name! Any relation to the Colonel? Mr. Travers, this is Mrs. Parks and Miss Benton,” he said, while Mrs. Parks grasped the young man’s hand effusively and said she was glad to know him and hoped he would call, and that she was expecting two young ladies, the Miss Burdicks, from New York.

Then over the cold, proud, pale face there broke a smile which changed its expression altogether and made it very attractive. “If he smiles like that onIrene she’ll not go back on him,” I thought, as I walked away after hearing him say something about being pleased to meet me and call.

That afternoon when dinner was over I went with Lottie to the pine-woods and saw Nannie’s Well and the little mirror which Lottie took from its box in the hollow trunk of the tree and showed to me, saying it was the very one into which poor Nannie had looked. It had been sold by the Wilkes family and bought and sold again and again until some one gave it to the young people of the town.

“It would be easy for two faces to be seen in it,” she said. “I wonder if there’s anything in it. I don’t believe so, but I shall try it to-morrow, if it’s a bright day. Don’t tell mother. She says it’s all humbug, but owns that she tried it once.”

I promised, and the next day about twenty minutes before twelve I saw Lottie going down the lane in the direction of the pine-woods, and felt a little curiosity as to the result of her experiment. I had been a week in the family and had learned their habits pretty well, while they had learned mine, and knew that I liked quiet and regular meals because, as Mrs. Parks said, my “digester was out of kilter and needed toning up,” and it was my digester which she used as one argument to hurry up the delinquent Lottie, when she stood on the rail fence, calling:“Charlotte Ann! Charlotte Ann! Charlotte Ann Parks! Where be you?”

It was nearly half-past twelve when Lottie returned, looking flushed and excited. Like Sam, I believed the whole thing rot, but was anxious to hear what she had to tell me.

“Did you see Sam?” I asked, when we were alone.

“Yes, bodily,” she answered with a laugh. “He saw me on the way to the woods and followed, and just as a shadow was beginning to come on the glass, or I thought it was, he seized me round my shoulders and said, ‘Let me see how our faces look together!’ I came near falling into the well, and should have done so, if he had not held me back. He just spoiled it, but I mean to try again after the young ladies are here. They are coming to-morrow. Mother has a letter. Here it is.”

She handed it to me and I read as follows:

“New York, July —, 18—.

“Mrs. Parks,

“Madam:—You may expect me on Wednesday, with my cousin Rena.

“Yours, Miss Irene Burdick.”

The note sounded stiff anduppish, as Lottie said, and I at once conceived a dislike for Miss Irene, anda kind of sympathy for Rena, who was probably a poor relation and would act in the capacity of maid. Irene, who wrote the note, was of course the Miss Burdick, and the large corner room across the hall from mine was assigned to her. It had four windows and a fireplace, an ingrain carpet and Boston rocker, a high-post bedstead with “teaster and balance” like mine. It had a terrible daub of Beatrice Cenci on the wall, taken there from the parlor because Miss Burdick had been abroad and would feel more at home with a picture of the old masters, Mrs. Parks said, looking admiringly at the yellow-haired creation which bore but little resemblance to the original. There was a washstand in the room, with a hole on the top for the bowl to rest in, a piece of castile soap, and three towels on a line above the stand. There was a round cherry table which Mrs. Parks said was her grandmother’s and which she could have sold for a big price to some relic hunter, but Lottie wouldn’t let her, so she kept it, but didn’t see why there was such a craze for old things. The room adjoining Irene’s was long and narrow, with no fireplace. It had a rag carpet and single bedstead without “teaster” or “balance.” Its bureau of three drawers served as a washstand, and there were two towels on a line instead of three. But everything was clean and comfortable, and on Wednesdaywe filled the rooms with flowers, especially the one intended for Miss Irene. It was Mrs. Parks’ idea to put the most there and the best vases. Rena had broken-nosed pitchers and bowls, and flowers a little faded, until there came from the McPherson place a quantity of hot-house roses and lilies for the Misses Burdick and Miss Bennett. Nixon, who brought them, further said that the McPherson carriage would meet the young ladies at the station if Mrs. Parks would tell him on what train they were expected. She didn’t know, but it would probably be at four o’clock, and she nearly lost her head over the attention from Colin McPherson to her guests, and wondered how under the sun and moon he knew they were coming that day.

A young man and friend of Mr. Travers had arrived at the house the night before, Nixon said, and I began to think we might have some gay times with four city people in close proximity to each other. Mrs. Parks had taken possession of the flowers, and after giving me what she thought I ought to have, she put the larger proportion of the remainder in Irene’s room, saying it was quite proper for her to have the most from the greenhouse which would probably be hers. A few roses and lilies were accorded to Rena and put in a large tumbler which Mrs. Parks said had been used by her grandfatherto mix toddy in when the minister called. I was not satisfied with the allotment to Rena, for whom my sympathy kept growing; and reserving for myself a single half-opened rose and one or two lilies, I took the rest to her room, putting them wherever I could find a place and in whatever I could find to put them. This done, the rooms were ready, and we waited with what patience we could for the train which was to bring the Burdicks. At half-past three we saw the McPherson carriage go by with Nixon. Half an hour later we heard the whistle of the train in the distance, and fifteen minutes later the McPherson carriage stopped at the gate, and while Lottie and I looked cautiously from my window, Mrs. Parks, in a flutter of pleasure and pride, went down the walk to meet the occupants of the carriage. The Burdicks had come.

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