The Abandoned Farm
The Abandoned Farm
The Abandoned Farm
The Abandoned Farm
Breakfast was late at the Marsh’s. It was usually late, and this morning it was later than usual. Alex. Marsh, his sister Amy and cousin Ruth had been to the opera the night before, and to Delmonico’s after it was over, so that it was one o’clock before they were home and in bed. And it was much later before Alex. was asleep. He did not care for operas, or music of any kind; a good play suited him better, and he had only gone to escort his sister and cousin and their friend, Miss Ross. Opera music had no charm for him, and he was feeling bored and wishing he was at home, and was listlessly looking over the house and counting the familiar faces by way of passing the time, when his attention was attracted to a box opposite the one in which he was sitting. It was occupied by a plain, old-fashioned looking couple, whom he had sometimes seen in the park, driving in a turnout as plain and old-fashioned as they were,—a covered buggy, with the top thrown back, and a white horse minus a checkrein, and sporting a tail such as nature intended a horse to have, instead of a short stub, telling of cruel pain in the past and inconvenience when flies and gnats are clamoring for horse flesh. The couple seemed out of place in the park, and they seemed quite as much out of place in this box, whose price for an evening Alex. knew.
“I wonder who the old duffers are and if they enjoy this sort of thing,” he was thinking, when a young girl came hurrying in and changed the aspect of the “duffers” at once.
It would seem as if she had dropped something and stepped back to find it, for she held towards the woman a light, thin scarf with a smile and a nod, then, winding it around her neck, she sat down and began to look about her with an eagerness and curiosity which made Alex. think she was new to operas and probably to the city.
“Some country cousin, I dare say,” he thought, as he watched her, fascinated by her fresh, young face, which one moment he decided was only rather pretty, and the next thought beautiful, with the smiles and dimples and bright brown eyes, which seemed to be taking in everything and to be delighted with it. The ladies in his box were in evening dress, too low in the neck and too high on the arms to suit his ideas. “I’ll speak to Amy and have her piece her gown up and down both before she wears it again,” he thought, as he looked at her, and then turned a second time to the girl.
Her dress was of some dark stuff, high necked andlong sleeved, with nothing airy or festive about it except the light lace scarf she had knotted around her neck. But there was something about her which attracted him, and he watched her all through the first act, of which he did not hear a word; and saw her evident pleasure in and appreciation of what seemed to him so tiresome. How could she be pleased with that screeching and the talk which no sane people ever talked in real life. Amy and Ruth pretended to be delighted with that sort of thing, but he fancied it was a good deal of pretence, because it was fashionable. And yet this girl evidently liked it, and her face shone and her eyes sparkled, and her dimples came and went, while he looked at her through his glass, bringing her so close to him that he could see how fair she was without powder, such as Amy and his mother kept on their toilet tables. She did not glance at him, but kept her eyes upon the stage, turning but once to the woman beside her, who was nodding in her chair.
“Good, sensible old lady! I’d like to go to sleep myself,” he thought, as he saw the laugh on the girl’s face, and the hand she laid on the arm of the sleeping woman, who started up, and, bracing herself stiff and straight, gave her attention to the play until the close of the first act, when there came a diversion which nearly startled Alex. from his seat.
“By all the saints, if there isn’t Craig Saltus shaking hands with the duffers, and,—yes,—with the girl, too!” he said, under his breath, as a young man entered the opposite box and, after greeting its occupants,sat down by the girl and began talking to her as if he had known her all his life, while she did not seem in the least elated because one of the most fastidious young men in New York was beside her. Money, family, polished manners and an unspotted reputation,—all belonged to Craig Saltus, who had but one drawback. A fall when a child had resulted in a lameness which debarred him from most of the amusements in which young men delight. He could not ride,—he could not row,—he could not dance,—and at evening entertainments, which he rarely attended, he was obliged either to stand, which was rather painful, if he stood any length of time, or sit beside some dowager listening to her tiresome talk. And yet, cripple as he was, he could have his choice of almost any girl of his acquaintance; and he knew it, but treated them all alike, with a courteous attention which meant nothing. And here he was with these plain people, staying through the second act and looking more at the girl than at the actors, until Alex., forgetting his own delinquencies in that direction, began to be vexed and wonder why, when a fellow came to the opera, he didn’t feel enough interest to pay attention to it, and not be watching an unsophisticated girl to see how she took it.
When the curtain went down a second time, Craig rose and, shaking hands again with the “duffers” and the girl, left them, and a few moments later appeared at the entrance of the box where the Marshes were sitting. Instantly there was a flutter of excitement among the ladies, who had failed to see him in theopposite box. Amy, who had her own views with regard to him and did not think his lameness a very great drawback when pitted against his millions and position, was delighted to meet him, and asked where he had kept himself that they had seen so little of him recently.
“I have been in the country, where mother and Rose stayed later than usual,—it is so delightful there when the leaves begin to change,” he replied, adding: “We only came to town yesterday, and to-morrow morning we are off for Europe on theEtruria, which sails so early that we must be on board to-night. How long we shall stay abroad is uncertain. It will depend on mother’s health. We go for her. And now I must say good-by, as I have other calls to make.”
He turned to go, when Alex. detained him a moment.
“Who were the people you were with just now,—the old couple and the girl?”
Amy and Ruth were both talking to Craig, who answered, hurriedly and very low:
“Why, don’t you know Joel Pledger and his wife? I thought everybody knew him. The girl is their grand-niece, come to see the city for a few days;—beautiful, isn’t she?—and now I really must go. Good-by again.”
He was gone, and Alex. sat down, disappointed and annoyed that he had learned so little. Craig had said Joel Pledger, but Alex. understood himOldPledger, and he repeated to himself “Old Pledger! as if that would tell me who he is, or as if I cared. It’s the girlwhose name I want. Why couldn’t he have told it instead of saying their grand-niece from the country and that she was beautiful? Of course she is. Anybody can see that. Old Pledger! That’s a good name for him; I don’t believe though, that the girl is a Pledger. The name don’t suit her. I wonder how I can find out who she is, and why need Craig have been in such an awful hurry. Old Pledger! That don’t sound as if he thought a great deal of him. Well, he’s only her great-uncle.”
By this time the opera was beginning to have some interest for Alex. The prima donna was excelling herself, and the house was ringing with applause, the girl clapping with the rest, and actually making Old Pledger move his cane up and down a little briskly, while the old lady only showed occasional signs of nodding and was promptly pulled up by the girl. For the remainder of the evening Alex. paid pretty good attention to the play, turning his eyes occasionally to the girl, whose interest never flagged, and whose cheeks were like roses and whose eyes were shining with excitement when the performance was over. Alex. had a glimpse of Old Pledger’s stooping shoulders and Mrs. Pledger’s three-years-old bonnet and big-sleeved sacque, and the girl with her wrap on her arm, and then he went out into the crowd, which jostled and surged and pushed him until he found himself close to the Pledgers, and saw the girl in her golf cape, with the high collar drawn up around her ears, for the wintry night was cold. His ladies wore soft, fur-lined opera cloaks, and he did not supposethey owned a golf cape, or would wear one on such an occasion if they did. Well, it didn’t matter what they wore. A golf cape looked well on the slim, straight figure, which was finally lost in the throng.
“Going home in a street car or on the elevated. I’d give a good deal to know where they live. I’ll find out if I can,” he thought, as he followed his party to their carriage and was driven to Delmonico’s.
Here he met several acquaintances, and in the talk and excitement he forgot Old Pledger and the girl until he was home and in bed, when they came back to him with a persistency which kept him wakeful as he wondered who the deuce the Pledgers were and how he could find out.
CHAPTER IIALEX.’S LETTERS
After waiting an hour for her young people, Mrs. Marsh sat down to breakfast alone, and was finishing her coffee when Alex. came in. He had thought of the Pledgers while dressing, and laughed at himself for being so interested in a strange girl. “I don’t quite understand it, although it is like me to be attracted by every new face if it is at all out of the common,” he thought, “and she was rather uncommon in that expensive box with Old Pledger and his wife, who looked like a muff, and the girl so fair, and without the flumadiddles Amy and Ruth and the rest of ’em wear to such places. And then she had a striking face, though I might not know it again if I saw it.”
He was dressed by this time, and, going to the dining-room, kissed his mother, and, seating himself at the table, looked at the letters lying by his plate. There were two,—one a bill from his tailor, which gave him no concern, as he had money enough to pay it.
“Ball is in a hurry for his cash. I must see to it to-day,” he said, and took up the second letter, which bore in a corner the address of Sanders & Brown, Attorneys, Denver. “I don’t know Sanders & Brown,nor any one else in Denver,” he said, breaking the seal and beginning to read:
“Denver,December 18, 18—.
“Denver,December 18, 18—.
“Denver,December 18, 18—.
“Denver,December 18, 18—.
“Mr. Alexander Marsh—Dear Sir: It is our duty to inform you that your great-uncle, Amos Marsh, for many years our client, died suddenly at his ranch two weeks ago.”
Here Alex. stopped reading and said: “Great-uncle, Amos Marsh! I didn’t know I had one. Have I or had I a great-uncle Amos?”
He was speaking to his mother, who had torn off the envelope of a Denver paper received with Alex.’s letter, and was intent upon a marked column, which read as follows:
“It is with keen regret that we record the death of our old and highly esteemed citizen, Amos Marsh, who was found dead in his bedroom at his ranch, where he was spending a few days. Heart failure was the cause of his death.”
The article then went on to enumerate the many virtues of the deceased, who was noted for his kindness to every one and his charities to the poor, and his great activity for one of his age. A few of his peculiarities were mentioned, and among them his living alone when in town, with no other company than a dog and a cat, and no one to care for him but a Chinaman. His reticence with his friends and his habit of talking to himself were spoken of, and the notice closed with a second eulogy upon him as a good and upright man, who would be greatly missed.
Mrs. Marsh read the article through before she replied to her son.
“Yes, you did have an uncle Amos, but he is dead.There is quite a long obituary of him in this paper.”
She held it toward Alex. But he did not take it. He had run his eyes rapidly over the rest of the letter, which made him hold his breath with surprise. After announcing the death of their client, the lawyer, Mr. Brown, went on to say that for a long time they had urged Mr. Marsh to make his will, but he always refused, giving as a reason that if he made it he must explain some things he would rather not explain to the world. He would leave the explanation in writing to the proper person. That Alex. was the person intended was proven by the fact that when Mr. Marsh was found dead in his bedroom there was on the table before him a partially written page of foolscap, addressed to Alex., which Mr. Brown enclosed in the letter. It had slipped to the floor, but Alex. did not notice it, and read on:
“He told us that his nearest of kin lived in New York, naming you and your sister, and that his property would go to you as the children of his nephew, Henry Marsh, and he always talked as if he expected you to have a farm, or, at least, live on it for a while. He did not leave a large fortune,—he spent so freely for the good of others. There are several thousand dollars in banks and railroad stocks, the interest of which he never cared to use. He was saving it for a particular purpose, he said. He owned quite a valuable ranch, the income from which supported him as his wants were very few. He had a house in town, and an abandoned farm in New Hampshire, among the White Mountains, where he lived a long time, but which he left years ago and came to Denver. For a while it was rented, but so many repairs were demanded and he had so much trouble with his tenants, that he decided to close the house and let the farm run. He went East two years ago, visited the old place, and when he came back he seemed brighter and happier than we had ever seen him, andtalked more about you having the farm, or, at least, living there for a time.
“‘I’ve made it right,’ he said, ‘and Alex. will see to it,’ though what he meant we do not know. He was always a little obscure in his talk. Queer, or luny, people called him, but he was a good man. Please write us with regard to your wishes, or come to Denver, if possible, and look into the matter.”
Alex. read the letter through twice to himself and once aloud to his mother and to Amy and Ruth. The young ladies had come into the breakfast room languid and tired, until Alex. began to read the letter, when they became alive and interested at once, Amy looking over her brother’s shoulder as he read, and making sundry comments.
“A ranch in Colorado and an abandoned farm in New Hampshire! How delightful and romantic, and we the heirs! It is like a romance. What is this paper on the floor? Isn’t it the one they found on his table?”
She picked up the half sheet of foolscap and handed it to Alex., who unfolded it reverently, as if he felt the touch of the fingers, which must have stiffened in death in the act of writing. There was no date, and the writing was cramped and quite illegible and not very plain in its meaning. But Alex. deciphered it and read aloud:
“Nephew Alexander: That was your grandfather’s name, and a good one. They say you are honest, with fewer tricks than most young men in the city. I inquired two years ago. I was there and saw your house, but it wasn’t for me to go in. I’ve kept track of my family, what there is left; nobody now but you and your sister. When your father was a boy he came to the farm in New Hampshire and staid a week, but he found me poorcompany and never came again. If he had and was older, I was going to——; but no matter, I’ve fixed it, and leave it for you to do right for me. Something tells me you will. I am too old to face it, God knows, and he has forgiven me. I am an old man. The doctors say I am not long for this world. I am ninety now, and sitting here alone with no soul in the house; things come back plainer,—folks I knew years ago, and one is standing by the door and looking at me as if he was not satisfied the way I’ve fixed it, and wants me to put it down again, but I can’t to-night, my head is so queer. My candle is nearly out, and I can’t see. To-morrow I’ll try and write again and tell you why you must go to the farm and do right.”
Here there was evidently an effort to write a word with a pen which had no ink in it, and then the hand must have grown powerless and dropped, clasping the side of the table as they found it, and the old man was dead. Alex.’s voice shook as he read this letter, while even the loquacious Amy was silent, wondering what it all meant.
“There’s something on the other side of the sheet,—some words,” she said at last, and turning the paper over, Alex. saw, written very plainly, the name “Crosby,” and after it another name he could not make out, except that the first was “Joel.”
“Can you tell me what that last name is?” he asked his sister.
She could not, and Ruth next tried her skill.
“The first letter is certainly ‘P,’ though a very queer one,” she said. “Can it be ‘Pleasure’?”
“‘Pleasure’? No. There’s a ‘g,’ or a ‘y’ in it. Try again,” Alex. said, and Ruth tried again with better success.
“It must be ‘Pledges,’” she suggested.
“‘Pledges,’” Alex. repeated, and taking the paper from Ruth, he made “Pledgers” distinctly from the irregular letters. “‘Pledgers,’ that’s funny,” he said, with a thought of Old Pledger and the girl.
Neither Amy nor Ruth saw anything funny in the names. They were too much absorbed in what the old man had written, and asked Mrs. Marsh what she knew of him. She knew very little, except that he once lived on a farm among the New Hampshire hills, and her husband, when a boy, had spent a week with him, but was glad to get away.
“Since your father died I have scarcely given the man a thought,” she added. “I did hear, in a roundabout way, that he had gone West; I fancied him dead long ago. He was said to be very eccentric,—half crazy, or something.”
She was not one to care much for people not in her sphere, and Amos Marsh evidently was not, or had not been while living. Now, however, he became an object of importance. He had left her children his money, and although they were not in need of it, as the Marsh fortune was a large one, she was glad for the addition, and, with Amy, began to wonder how much there was in the banks and how much the ranch and house in Denver were worth. She scarcely thought of the farm, which was uppermost in Alex.’s mind, as he sat looking at the papers in his hand.
“Heard I was honest, with fewer tricks than most city young men! I am much obliged to his informant. Who was it, I wonder?” he thought, then, as his eyes fell upon the last words his uncle had written,he said aloud: “It looks as if he had done some wrong which I am to right; but how can I, when I don’t know what it is?”
“Probably nothing but a whim,” Ruth said. “Evidently hewashalf crazy as people thought. Think of his fancying some one standing in the door as he wrote and seeing things at the farm! It makes one feel creepy. Maybe the old house is haunted.”
“Oh, how delightful!” Amy cried. “I hope it is. A family ghost adds so muchéclatto one.”
Alex. did not reply. He was thinking of the two names, Crosby and Joel Pledger. Where did they live, if still alive? Possibly in New York, as his uncle was there so recently. “I’ll look in the directory,” he thought. “Joel Pledger is not a common name, and if I find it I’ll follow it up and see if he ever heard of Amos Marsh. Jolly, what if it should be Old Pledger in the box? I’ve had queer feelings about him ever since I saw him and about the girl.”
An hour later Alex. was poring over a city directory, going through the list of Crosbys and Pledgers and marvelling to find so many, especially Pledgers. He had only expected to find a few, but it seemed to him there was a legion. There were Toms and Johns and Henrys and Elis, and at last Joel,—the only one so far as he could see in the list,—and he lived far down town in a most unfashionable part of the city, where Alex. had not been in years. But he was going there now, and, telling his mother not to wait lunch if he happened to be late, he left the house and, walking to Sixth Avenue, took a down-town car in pursuit of Joel Pledger and the girl!
CHAPTER IIIALEX. AND THE PLEDGERS
He had no difficulty in finding the place, and was rather surprised that the street was so clean and well kept. He had an idea that the side streets down town must be untidy, with a second-class air about them. This street was decidedly clean, with a kind of old-time look, as if old-fashioned but highly respectable people lived there,—not people like his mother and Amy and Ruth, but nice people such as the Pledgers and the girl who was visiting them from the country. He guessed there might be boarding-houses there, for occasionally he caught a whiff from a basement of something cooking, which confirmed him in his belief. In the centre of the block was the number he was looking for, and to make sure he was right he ran up the steps and read upon a brass plate, “Joel Pledger.” The house was three-storied, with a brick front and an air of great respectability, although very different from the tall, brown stone building far up the avenue where Alex. lived.
“This is the place, and I don’t believe it is a boarding-house either,” he said; “but what reason have I to think this Joel Pledger ever knew Uncle Amos? None whatever, and I don’t know why I came here.” Then he thought of the girl, and knew that in someway she was connected with his interest in the Pledgers. “I’m a fool, but I’ll follow it up now I have commenced,” he said, as he retraced his steps towards his own home, which he reached just in time for lunch.
The day was fine and warm for winter, and after lunch he proposed a drive in the park, but there was an afternoon tea on hand for the ladies, and he decided to go alone and drive himself in his light buggy behind his thoroughbred bay, with high check and bobtail. The sun was so bright and the air so balmy that it seemed to him everybody was out, and he met many of his acquaintances in their elegant turnouts, and was thinking what a gay scene it was, when suddenly, at a bend in the road, he came upon Whitey, and behind him Old Pledger and the girl, her eyes shining and her face fresh and bright with the cool air blowing upon it.
“By George, this is luck!” Alex. thought, involuntarily pulling the reins of his horse as if to stop her.
Then, remembering himself, he kept on until he reached a convenient place to turn round, and letting the bay mare have her head, he soon overtook Whitey, jogging on always at the same pace and caring as little for the high steppers around him as did his master. To keep behind the slow vehicle was not an easy matter, for the bay fretted and tossed her head, and would have whisked her tail if she had one to whisk. But Alex. kept her well in hand and followed on, wondering if the “old duffer” would never leavethe park. He did leave it at last, and Alex. left it, too, and drove down Fifth Avenue and into Sixth, and still on into a cross street, where Whitey stopped before the respectable looking house with a brick front, a brass plate and “Joel Pledger” upon it. Alex. had been sure he would stop there, and was glad, for the bay mare was getting restless and pulling hard at the bit, and the moment she felt the reins loosened she dashed on over the rough pavement with a clatter, scarcely allowing Alex. time to turn his head and make sure that the girl was going up the steps. He knew now where she was stopping and where Joel Pledger lived, but was it the Joel his uncle Amos knew?
“I’ll find out to-morrow, and if it isn’t, maybe I’ll see the girl,” he thought; and the next morning about eleven o’clock he was ringing the bell at No. 28, noticing, while he stood waiting, how clean everything was around the door and the narrow windows on the sides. “It takes ’em a long time to get here. They must have a mighty lazy maid,” he thought, giving a second pull at the old-fashioned bell.
He was taking out his card for the servant girl, when the door opened and he was confronted by Mrs. Pledger herself, a tall and portly woman of sixty-five, her lips shut tightly together and a look as if she scented a peddler or an agent, both her abominations. But Alex.’s face and manner disarmed her. He was neither an agent nor a peddler, and her lips relaxed a little of their tightness, and in response to his interrogatory, “Mrs. Pledger?” she replied:
“Yes, I am Mrs. Pledger; walk in and take a chair.”
He walked in and took a chair in what he was sure was the best room, and at which he looked curiously, contrasting it with the grand rooms at home, where one article of furniture must have cost nearly as much as every article here would sell for. And yet there was an air of comfort about it, with its cushioned easy-chairs, its wide sofa, its footstools and rugs, made by hand he was sure, and the centre-table, with some books and a vase, with a few roses filling the room with perfume. Somebody liked flowers. Probably the girl and not Mrs. Pledger, whose personal appearance did not bear much relation to hot-house roses, and who was habited in a dark calico with a wide apron, suggestive of the kitchen, from which she had come in answer to Alex.’s summons. She was the most indulgent of mistresses, and her maid of all work went and came about as she pleased. On this particular occasion she had gone to see her cousin off by steamer, and Mrs. Pledger, in the basement, was preparing their twelve o’clock dinner when Alex.’s ring called her upstairs.
“Did you want to see me or Joel?” she asked, as Alex. sat wondering what he was to say and why he was there.
It seemed such a flimsy reason, but he must say something, and he began:
“You will do as well as your husband, and I really think I ought to apologize for intruding upon you, an entire stranger, who may not be the one I want at all.”
“Suppose you tell me what you do want, and not beat around the bush. We can get at it better,” Mrs. Pledger said, her lips beginning to tighten.
Alex. braced up at once and began:
“I want to know if you ever knew my great-uncle Amos Marsh? I’ve had a letter from him, and he’s dead.”
“Dead! How you talk! Amos Marsh dead! That beats me! When did he die, and what ailed him?” Mrs. Pledger exclaimed.
She knew him then, and Alex. hastened to explain, saying nothing at first of the property, but speaking of the letter to himself, in which Mr. Joel Pledger was mentioned.
“Yes, yes,” Mrs. Pledger said, with emotion. “Remembered us, the dear old man. I knew he would. What did he say?”
This was more than Alex. had reckoned on. Uncle Amos had merely written Joel Pledger’s name, but the woman expected something more, and Alex. wished awfully to lie and say something complimentary, but he didn’t. He said hurriedly:
“He wrote such a nice letter that it made me wish to find you and a Mr. Crosby. Do you know him, and do you know anything about the farm where Uncle Amos used to live? I believe it belongs to me and my sister now that he is dead.”
“I rather think I do know something about it. I don’t know who would if I don’t. I was there a great deal when I was a little girl. Eli Crosby was my half brother, twenty years old when I was born.I am sixty-five; he’d be eighty-five if living. We are a long-lived race,” was Mrs. Pledger’s reply.
She was warming to the subject, and Alex. tried to follow her as she told rapidly that Amos Marsh, who lived near the farm, spent half his time there,—he and Mr. Crosby were such fast friends and both such good men,—not an enemy in the world. Then she told how surprised people were when her brother sold his farm to Mr. Marsh, who went there at once to live, and how shocked was the whole community when, not long after the sale, Mr. Crosby was killed on the railroad.
“Mr. Marsh lived on alone,” she said, “and naturally he grew a little queer,—used to talk to himself, and the neighbors said he was off. He talked a good deal to my brother, Mr. Crosby, when nobody was near him, and they say he did this till he died. At last he rented the place and went to Denver, and we saw no more of him till two years ago, when he spent a few days in New York and stopped with us. He was straight enough then in his mind, but kept talking about the time he lived on the farm. He asked about your family, of which he’d kept track, but we couldn’t tell him much, being we are in different spheres,—you in the smart set and we just plain folks, living in the house we bought when we was married. We was quite up town then compared to what we be now, but I’ve never cared to change. I like it here; folks know me, and I know folks. There is Miss Walker next door, has lived here just as long as we have, and Miss Brown the other side. Joel was firstin a bank, then he wasthebank, then he got into Wall Street, was lucky always, till we are forehanded enough and could live up town in a brown stone if we wanted to. But, land sake, I’m happier here. Everybody knows us, or leastwise Joel. He frequently lends money on good security, you know.”
“Yes,” Alex. interposed, not caring to hear more of her family history, and anxious to ask an important question. “Yes, but about Uncle Amos, who lived on the farm. Wasn’t he a good man?”
“One of the best the Lord ever made. No one ever said a word against him,” was the hearty response, which lifted a load from Alex.’s mind.
There was no wrong of any account he was to right. It was all a fancy of a morbid old man, who, from living alone, had dwelt upon and magnified some trivial circumstance, making a mountain of a mole hill. If he ever found a wrong he should right it, of course, but he should not hunt for or advertise it, and he was glad, for he hated trouble and didn’t know how to right wrongs, and he now began to think of thegirl, and wonder how he could manage to see her.
Suddenly from the basement below there came a faint odor of something burning, and stepping to the door, Mrs. Pledger called:
“Sherry, Sherry, won’t you go down to the kitchen and shove back the chicken stew? It is bilin’ over.”
“Yes, auntie,” came in a clear, young voice, and Alex. heard the swish of a gown on the stairs and through the hall down to the basement.
He did not sit where he could see the girl, but hearose as if to go, and, stepping near the door, waited for her to come back. But she didn’t come back, and as Mrs. Pledger, too, arose, as if expecting him to go, he left the house, forgetting to inquire for any Crosbys who might be living and would be her relatives and friends of Amos Marsh.
“Well, no matter,” he thought. “They have nothing to do with it. I’ve found that Uncle Amos was a good man, who never could have done anything really wrong, and I’ve learned that her name is ‘Sherry.’ Pretty, but odd for a girl. I wish I could have seen her.”
If Alex. had looked back in time he might have seen a girl’s face close against the window of the dining-room, where Sherry was trying to get a glimpse of him, while Mrs. Pledger was saying: “A very nice mannered young man, but I don’t see why under the sun and moon he was so anxious to know if we ever knew Amos Marsh, and if he was a good man. Good indeed! The Lord never made a better!”
CHAPTER IVTHE ABANDONED FARM
There are many of them scattered through New England, some on hillsides, some in valleys, some on public highways and some among the mountains, where rocks and ferns seem the only products of the soil. There are houses with slanting roofs, big chimneys, high window stools and small panes of glass; houses whose owners lived their quiet, monotonous lives, with no thought of change for themselves. They were content to till their barren fields, with only an occasional thought of the far West and the capabilities it held for them if they were younger and could get there. Their sons did get there when the fathers and mothers were laid away to rest, and the old homesteads and farms were left for other and distant fields. A few of the houses are in a fair state of preservation, but they look desolate and dreary, with no sign of life around or in them, except the rats or the squirrels, which, finding ingress through some broken window, make themselves a nest in the garret, where they hold high carnival through the winter until the warm sunshine of spring calls them back to their woodland home. After a lapse of time the strongest built house begins to show signs of decay, and nowhere was this more apparent than in the house to which Alex. cameon a February day, a few weeks after his receipt of Amos Marsh’s letter. He had been to Denver and consulted with the lawyers, had visited the ranch and the house where his uncle had lived when in town, and had appropriated the Scotch collie, who had been his uncle’s companion since he was a puppy. He was a fine specimen of canines, with his intelligent face, his long wool and shaggy mane, and Alex., who was fond of dogs, fancied him at once. “Laddie” was his name, but Alex. rechristened him “Sherry,” greatly to the disgust of Chinaman Lee, who had been Mr. Marsh’s servant, and who said, “Sherry bad name; he not come for Sherry; he no like wine.”
Alex. laughed and patted the big fellow, who took kindly to him, and if he did not answer at once to Sherry, he soon learned the whistle with which his new master called him. Alex. would like to have taken the cat, but as that was impracticable he left it for Lee, with many injunctions that it should be well cared for, and with his dog started for home, turning aside from the main route to see the farm, about which he had a great deal of curiosity. At the station, which was a mile from the house, he took the only available conveyance, a box sleigh, drawn by a spavined horse and driven by a loquacious man, who informed him that his name was Bowles—“a carpenter by trade in the summer and a jack-at-all-trades in the winter, when folks didn’t have much tinkerin’ of houses to do.”
“Know the Marsh place? You bet,” he said, slapping the reins on Spavin’s back with an injunction to“ca-dap.” “I used to tinker there by odd spells before the old gent went away, and he left me to look after things,—kind of an agent. Nice man? Wall, I guess he was ’bout as good as they make ’em; never heard a breath against him. Little queer sometimes, and talked to himself a good deal; but, land sakes, there was nobody else to talk to half the time, he lived alone so much. It beats all how curis some folks is about an old house,—real old like this one which must have heard the thunder of the Revolution, if it had thundered this way. The grandees who come to the mountains in the summer drive up here, rafts of ’em, and, oh, my suz, what a time the women make over the old place, and how they want to buy things if they was for sale. Why, I could have sold an old chest in the garret a dozen times. It’s full of clothes, women’s clothes, and when I told ’em that they was crazy to see ’em. But I said no;—they wasn’t mine to sell, nor to show. I’ve been a faithful steward, I have. And you are goin’ to take the place? Well, I’m glad to have somebody see to it besides me. It’s a sin the way things has gone on sence he quit rentin’ it square. Old mother Chase and her brood squatted on it one winter. I let ’em in, to be sure, at a nominal rent, but, land sakes, I never got a cent, and they split up the back room floor for wood and half the suller stairs, and then decamped in the night. Farmer Jones kept his cows there in the summer, and somebody else their horses,—in the pasture, I mean,—and I can’t collect a cent. ’Twas the finest farm in these parts once, and might be again with a little care. Going to farm it yourself?”
Bowles glanced sidewise at the young man beside him, wrapped in a fur-lined coat, and thought how unlike he looked to a farmer.
“I don’t know,” Alex. said. “Is the house greatly out of repair?”
“Well, I’d laugh,” was the reply, as Bowles slapped Spavin’s back again and told him to “ca-dap!” “Out of repair? What can you expect of a house standin’ empty for years? It wants shinglin’ all over; leaks like a sieve; suller wall cavin’ in in two or three places; jice rotted here and another there; cistern gone; conductor pipes bust; eaves rotted; two chimneys down, tother ready to tumble; door-jams settled; winder lights smashed, and some frames tetotally gone; roof sagged in, the middle pillars on piazza ready to fall, and floors givin’ away, and——”
“Oh, please stop,” Alex. exclaimed. “You horrify me. It will take thousands to bring it up.”
“No, sir-ee,” Bowles replied, beginning to see a chance for himself. “Lumber is cheap here, and labor, too. I’m a carpenter, I told you, and I’ll take the job reasonable. You’ll have to have it shingled, though, and a suller wall built and a cistern and jice and jams and winders.”
He was going on with the list of needs again, when Alex. stopped him a second time by asking, “Is that the place?” as they came in sight of a great square house, standing on a rise of ground a little back from the road.
“Yes, yes, that’s it! Here we be,” Bowles said,reining up before the gate, or rather where the gate used to be.
It lay on the ground now, covered with snow, as was everything as far as the eye could reach, and Alex. involuntarily thought of the lines he had learned when a boy,
“On Linden, when the sun was low,All bloodless lay the untrodden snow.”
“On Linden, when the sun was low,All bloodless lay the untrodden snow.”
“On Linden, when the sun was low,All bloodless lay the untrodden snow.”
“On Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow.”
The snow around him was certainly bloodless and lay white and glistening in the wintry sunshine, glints of which were falling on Mount Washington in the distance and on the hills and tree tops nearer by.
“It’s a beautiful view and must be lovely here in summer,” Alex. thought, as he went up the walk and the ricketty steps on to the piazza, where a board gave way under him and he came near falling.
“Take care, or you will break your neck. I come nigh breakin’ my laig on one of them rotten boards,” Bowles said, putting out a hand to steady the young man.
There was neither lock nor bolt to the door, and they soon stood in the long, wide hall, with a fireplace in a corner, a door at the farther end opening on to another piazza and stairs which led straight to the upper hall, where there was a scampering of little feet as of many animals running over the floor.
“Rats or squirrels,” Bowles said. “The house is full of ’em.”
It was a chilly, grewsome kind of place, and Alex. shivered as he went through room after room,—twelvedownstairs and as many more upstairs, besides the attic. They visited that last, and saw where the rats had been and where the squirrels lived, and Alex. sat down near a big chest pushed into a corner and looked about him. Scattered through the garret, which was very large, were piles of old furniture, which would delight relic hunters, and he did not wonder that guests from the hotels had tried to buy them.
“There used to be some pillers here and blankets and things loose,” Bowles said; “but, my land, old mother Chase took ’em. Wonder she didn’t bust open that chist. Guess ’twas too strong for her. That is the one I told you some of the quality wanted to buy.”
Alex. glanced at it now, and saw that it was one of those old-fashioned cedar chests in which housewives of years ago kept their linen and parts of their wardrobe.
“It’s full of things,” Bowles went on; “women’s clothes, all flowered like and silky. He aired ’em when he was here and took as much pains with ’em as if the woman who used to wear ’em was alive,—Mr. Marsh, I mean.”
“Oh, yes,—my uncle. He came here, did he?” Alex. asked, and Bowles replied:
“Yes, and stopped two days with me, but stayed over here most of the day time and wrote letters or something in that chamber where there is a chair and table. That was his sleeping-room when he lived here, and he looked sorry when he went through it, and said, ‘The vandals haven’t left me much.’ Wall, there wasn’t much to leave after the auction. Yousee, he had a vendue before he left and sold a good deal. What he didn’t sell was put up here, and some has been stole, but there are piles left. This chist is too heavy to carry off, and I’ve kept a sharp look out, too, bein’ here every week. He was in here a good deal airin’ things, and when I ast him whose flowered gown that was on the line, he said, ‘Miss Crosby’s, who used to live here.’”
“Crosby,” Alex. repeated; “that’s the man who first owned the farm?”
“Yes, before I was born, I guess,” Bowles said, “and he and his wife are buried acrost the road. There’s a big monument to their memory,—put up by Mr. Marsh. Mabby you didn’t notice it as we drove up,” and then thinking he heard some one below he started down, followed by Alex., glad to escape from the cold garret, which affected him unpleasantly.
The place was certainly frightfully run down. “But it had great capables, and might be made a first-class summer house,” Bowles said, as they drove back to the station. Some such idea was in Alex.’s mind, and kept growing until, by the time he reached home, it was a fixed fact that he would try the “capables.” He was very fond of the country, and would like to live there half his time, and he meant to bring up the farm to what it used to be, and make over and modernize and add to the house, if necessary, until it could accommodate twenty or more people. He would call it “Maplehurst,” because of the maples which skirted the road leading to it, and he would fill it with his friends and his mother’s and Amy’s and Ruth’s forone summer, at least, and see how it worked. Some should be invited for a week, some for two, some for four and some for the entire season. In short, it was to be a grand house party, such as the English had, only it was to last longer. It would cost a great deal, of course, but he guessed he could stand it for once, and he was planning drives and picnics and excursions to Mount Washington when his train stopped at the Central Station, and he hurried home, full of his scheme, of which his mother and Amy did not at first approve. Their preference was for Saratoga and Newport and similar places, rather than a house in the country miles from anywhere. But his enthusiasm conquered their scruples, and they began at last to look forward with a good deal of interest to the summer they were to spend at Maplehurst when Alex.’s plans were perfected.