THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 

 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 V 
 
 3ITY OF -CALIFORNIA 
 LIBRA 
 
 ANGELRS. CAUFJ
 
 A WHITE HERON 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 BY_ 
 
 ORNE JEWETT' 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 (be tfiiicrsiDe press Cambridge
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1886, BY SARAM ORNE JEWETT 
 COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY MARY R. JEWETT 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 To 
 MY DEAR SISTER MARY,
 
 One of these stories, " Fanner Finch." is reprinted 
 from " Harper's Magazine ; " two are new. and the 
 rest were published in the " Atlantic Monthly " and 
 other periodicals.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 A WHITE HERON . . ...... 1 
 
 ^y. 
 
 ,THE GRAY MAN . ...... 23 
 
 FARMER FINCH . . ...... 36 
 
 t J MARSH ROSEMARY ....... 86 
 
 THE DULHAM LADIES ...... 124 
 
 A BUSINESS MAN ....... 151 
 
 MARTHA ....... 180 
 
 NEWS FROM PETERSHAM .... 198 
 
 Two BROWNS ....... 211 
 
 V 
 
 A-
 
 A WHITE HEKON. 
 
 THE woods were already filled with shadows 
 one June evening, just before eight o'clock, 
 though a bright sunset still glimmered faintly 
 among the trunks of the trees. A little girl 
 was driving home her cow, a plodding, dila- 
 tory, provoking creature in her behavior, but 
 a valued companion for all that. They were 
 going away from whatever light there was, and 
 striking deep into the woods, but their feet 
 were familiar with the path, and it was no 
 matter whether their eyes could see it or not. 
 
 There was hardly a night the summer 
 through when the old cow could be found 
 waiting at the pasture bars ; on the contrary, it 
 was her greatest pleasure to hide herself away 
 among the huckleberry bushes, and though 
 she wore a loud bell she had made the discov- 
 ery that if one stood perfectly still it would 
 not ring. So Sylvia had to hunt for her until
 
 2 A WHITE HERON. 
 
 she found her, and call Co' ! Co' ! with never 
 an answering Moo, until her childish patience 
 was quite spent. If the creature had not given 
 good milk and plenty of it, the case would 
 have seemed very different to her owners. 
 Besides, Sylvia had all the time there was, 
 and very little use to make of it. Sometimes 
 in pleasant weather it was a consolation to 
 look upon the cow's pranks as an intelligent 
 attempt to play hide and seek, and as the child 
 had no playmates she lent herself to this 
 amusement with a good deal of zest. Though 
 this chase had been so long that the wary ani- 
 mal herself had given an unusual signal of her 
 whereabouts, Sylvia had only laughed when 
 she came upon Mistress Moolly at the swamp- 
 side, and urged her affectionately homeward 
 with a twig of birch leaves. The old cow was 
 not inclined to wander farther, she even turned 
 in the right direction for once as they left the 
 pasture, and stepped along the road at a good 
 pace. She was quite ready to be milked now, 
 and seldom stopped to browse. Sylvia won- 
 dered what her grandmother would say because 
 they were so late. It was a great while since 
 she had left home at half -past live o clock, but
 
 A WHITE HERON. 3 
 
 everybody knew the difficulty of making this 
 errand a short one. Mrs. Tilley had chased 
 the horned torment too many summer even- 
 ings herself to blame any one else for linger- 
 ing, and was only thankful as she waited that 
 she had Sylvia, nowadays, to give such valua- 
 ble assistance. The good woman suspected 
 that Sylvia loitered occasionally on her own 
 account ; there never was such a child for 
 straying about out-of-doors since the world 
 was made ! Everybody said that it was a 
 good change for a little maid who had tried to 
 grow for eight years in a crowded manufactur- 
 ing town, but, as for Sylvia herself, it seemed 
 as if she never had been alive at all before she 
 came to live at the farm. She thought often 
 with wistful compassion, of a wretched gera- 
 nium that belonged to a town neighbor, 
 
 " ' Afraid of folks/ " old Mrs. Tilley said to 
 herself, with a smile, after she had made the 
 unlikely choice of Sylvia from her daughter's 
 houseful of children, and was returning to the 
 farm. " ' Afraid of folks,' they said ! I guess 
 she won't be troubled no great with 'em up to 
 the old place ! " When they reached the door 
 of the lonely house and stopped to unlock it,
 
 4 A WHITE HERON. 
 
 and the cat came to purr loudly, and rub 
 against them, a deserted pussy, indeed, but 
 fat with young robins, Sylvia whispered that 
 this was a beautiful place to live in, and she 
 never should wish to go home. 
 
 The companions followed the shady wood- 
 road, the cow taking slow steps and the child 
 very fast ones. The cow stopped long at the 
 brook to drink, as if the pasture were not half 
 a swamp, and Sylvia stood still and waited, 
 letting her bare feet cool themselves in the 
 shoal water, while the great twilight moths 
 struck softly against her. She waded on 
 through the brook as the cow moved away, and 
 listened to the thrushes with a heart that beat 
 fast with pleasure. There was a stirring in 
 the great boughs overhead. They were full of 
 little birds and beasts that seemed to be wide 
 awake, and going about their world, or else 
 saying good-night to each other in sleepy twit- 
 ters. Sylvia herself felt sleepy as she walked 
 along. However, it was not much farther to the 
 house, and the air was soft and sweet. She was 
 not often in the woods so late as this, and it 
 maje her f eel_asif she were a part of the gray
 
 A WHITE HEROfr. 5 
 
 shadows and the moving leaves. She was just 
 thinking how long it seemed since she first 
 came to the farm a year ago, and wondering if 
 everything went on in the noisy town just the 
 same as when she was there ; the thought of 
 the great red-faced boy who used to chase and 
 frighten her made her hurry along the path 
 to escape from the shadow of the trees. 
 
 Suddenly this little woods-girl is horror- 
 stricken to hear a clear whistle not very far 
 away. Not a bird's-whistle, which would have 
 a sort of friendliness, but a boy's whistle, de- 
 termined, and somewhat aggressive. Sylvia 
 left the cow to whatever sad fate might await 
 her, and stepped discreetly aside into the 
 bushes, but she was just too late. The enemy 
 had discovered her, and called out in a very 
 cheerful and persuasive tone, " Halloa, little 
 girl, how far is it to the road ? " and trem- 
 bling Sylvia answered almost inaudibly, "A 
 good ways." 
 
 She did not dare to look boldly at the tall 
 young man, who carried a gun over his shoul- 
 der, but she came out of her bush and again 
 followed the cow, while he walked alongside. 
 
 " I have been hunting for some birds," the
 
 6 A WHITE HERON. 
 
 stranger said kindly, "and I have lost my 
 way, and need a friend very much. Don't be 
 afraid," he added gallantly. " Speak up and 
 tell me what your name is, and whether you 
 think I can spend the night at your house, and 
 go out gunning early in the morning." 
 
 Sylvia was more alarmed than before. 
 Would not her grandmother consider her much 
 to blame ? But who could have foreseen such 
 an accident as ffcis ? It did not seem to be her 
 fault, and she hung her head as if the stem 
 of it were broken, but managed to answer 
 " Sylvy," with much effort when her compan- 
 ion again asked her name. 
 
 Mrs. Tilley was standing in the doorway 
 when the trio came into view. The cow gave 
 a loud moo by way of explanation. 
 
 " Yes, you 'd better speak up for yourself, 
 you old trial! Where 'd she tucked herself 
 away this time, Sylvy?" But Sylvia kept 
 an awed silence ; she knew by instinct that 
 her grandmother did not comprehend the grav- 
 ity of the situation. She must be mistaking 
 the stranger for one of the farmer-lads of the 
 region. 
 
 The young man stood his gun beside the
 
 A WHITE HERON. 1 
 
 door, and dropped a lumpy game-bag beside 
 it; then he bade Mrs. Tilley good -evening, 
 and repeated his wayfarer's story, and asked 
 if he could have a night's lodging. 
 
 " Put me anywhere you like," he said. " I 
 must be off early in the morning, before day ; 
 but I am very hungry, indeed. You can give 
 me some milk at any rate, that 's plain." 
 
 " Dear sakes, yes," responded the hostess, 
 whose long slumbering hospitality seemed to 
 be easily awakened. " You might fare better 
 if you went out to the main road a mile or so, 
 but you 're welcome to what we Ve got. I '11 
 milk right off, and you make yourself at home. 
 You can sleep on husks or feathers," she prof- 
 fered graciously. " I raised them all myself. 
 There 's good pasturing for geese just below 
 here towards the ma'sh. Now step round and 
 set a plate for the gentleman, Sylvy ! " And 
 Sylvia promptly stepped. She was glad to have 
 something to do, and she was hungry herself. 
 
 It was a surprise to find so clean and com-, 
 fortable a little dwelling in this New England 
 wilderness. The young man had known the 
 horrors of its most primitive housekeeping, and 
 the dreary squalor of that level of society
 
 8 A WHITE HERON. 
 
 which does not rebel at the companionship of 
 hens. This was the best thrift of an old-fash- 
 ioned farmstead, though on such a small scale 
 that it seemed like a hermitage. He listened 
 eagerly to the old woman's quaint talk, he 
 watched Sylvia's pale face and shining gray 
 eyes with ever growing enthusiasm, and in- 
 sisted that this was the best supper he had 
 eaten for a month, and afterward the new- 
 made friends sat down in the door-way to- 
 gether while the moon came up. 
 
 ^ Soon it would be berry-time, and Sylvia was 
 
 , I -* a great help at picking. The cow was a good 
 
 ^ milker, though a plaguy thing to keep track 
 of, the hostess gossiped frankly, adding pres- 
 ently that she had buried four children, so 
 Sylvia's mother, and a son (who might be 
 dead) in California were all the children she 
 had left. ! " Dan, my boy, was a great hand to 
 ^ " >J " g giumhig*" she explained sadly. " I never 
 * - , wanted for pa'tridges or gray squer'ls while 
 "3^ he was to home. H^ 's been a great wand'rer, 
 . ^ i I expect, and he 's no hand to write letters. 
 ; -f-^ There, I don't blame him, I 'd ha' seen the 
 world myself if it had been so I could." 
 
 " Sylvy takes after him," the grandmother
 
 A WHITE HERON. 9 
 
 continued affectionately, after a minute's pause. 
 " There ain't a foot o' ground she don't know 
 her way over, and the wild ereaturs counts her 
 one o' themselves. Squer'ls she '11 tame to 
 come an' feed right out o' her hands, and all 
 sorts o' birds. Last winter she got the jay- 
 birds to bangeing here, and I believe she 'd 'a' 
 scanted herself of her own meals to have 
 plenty to throw out amongst 'em, if I had n't 
 kep' watch. Anything but crows, I tell her, 
 I 'm willin' to help support though Dan he 
 had a tamed one o' them that did seem to have 
 reason same as folks. It was round here a good 
 spell after he went awayJ Dan an' his father 
 they did n't hitch, but he never held up his 
 head ag'in after Dan had dared him an' gone 
 off." 
 
 The guest did not notice this hint of family 
 sorrows in his eager interest in something else. 
 
 " So Sylvy knows all about birds, does she ? " 
 he exclaimed, as he looked round at the little 
 girl who sat, very demure but increasingly 
 sleepy, in the moonlight. " I am making a 
 collection of birds myself. I have been at it 
 ever since I was a boy." (Mrs. Tilley smiled.) 
 " There are two or three very rare ones I have
 
 10 A WHITE HERON. 
 
 been hunting for these five years. I mean to 
 get them on my own ground if they can be 
 found." 
 
 " Do you cage 'em up ? " asked Mrs. Tilley 
 doubtfully, in response to this enthusiastic an- 
 nouncement. 
 
 " Oh no, they 're stuffed and preserved, 
 dozens and dozens of them," said the ornithol- 
 ogist, " and I have shot or snared every one 
 myself. I caught a glimpse of a white heron 
 a few miles from here on Saturday, and I have 
 followed it in this direction. They have never 
 been found in this district at all. The little 
 white heron, it is," and he turned again to 
 look at Sylvia with the hope of discovering that 
 the rare bird was one of her acquaintances. 
 
 But Sylvia was watching a hop-toad in the 
 narrow footpath. 
 
 " You would know the heron if you saw it," 
 the stranger continued eagerly. " A queer tall 
 white bird with soft feathers and long thin 
 legs. And it would have a nest perhaps in 
 the top of a high tree, made of sticks, some- 
 thing like a hawk's nest." 
 
 Sylvia's heart gave a wild beat ; she knew 
 that strange white bird, and had once stolen
 
 A WHITE HERON. 11 
 
 softly near where it stood in some bright green 
 swamp grass, away over at the other side of 
 fche woods. There was an open place where 
 the sunshine always seemed strangely yellow 
 and hot, where tall, nodding rushes grew, and 
 her grandmother had warned her that she 
 might sink in the soft black mud underneath 
 and never be heard of more. Not far beyond 
 were the salt marshes just this side the sea 
 itself, which Sylvia wondered and dreamed 
 much about, but never had seen, whose great 
 voice could sometimes be heard above the noise 
 of the woods on stormy uights. 
 
 " I can't think of anything I should like so 
 much as to find that heron's nest," the hand- 
 some stranger was saying. " I would give ten 
 dollars to anybody who could show it to me," 
 he added desperately, " and I mean to spend 
 my whole vacation hunting for it if need be. 
 Perhaps it was only migrating, or had been 
 chased out of its own region by some bird of 
 prey." ~, 
 
 Mrs. Tilley gave amazed attention to all this, | 
 but Sylvia still watched the toad, not divining. 
 as she might have done at some calmer time, 
 that the creature wished to get to its hole un-
 
 12 A WHITE HERON. 
 
 der the door-step, aiid was much hindered by 
 the unusual spectators at that hour of the even- 
 / ing. No amount of thought, that night, could 
 decide how many wished-for treasures the ten 
 dollars, so lightly spoken of, would buy. 
 
 The next day the young sportsman hovered 
 about the woods, and Sylvia kept him company, 
 having lost her first fear of the friendly lad, 
 who proved to be most kind and sympathetic. 
 He told her many things about the birds and 
 what they knew and where they lived and what 
 they did with themselves. And he gfave her a 
 jack-knife, which she thought as great a treas/^ 
 urejis if she were a desert-islander." AU day 
 long he did not once make her troubled or 
 afraid except when he brought down some un- 
 suspecting singing creature from its bough. 
 Sylvia would have liked him vastly better with- 
 out his gun ; she could not understand why 
 he killed the very birds he seemed to like so 
 much. But as the day waned, Sylvia still 
 watched the young man with loving admiration. 
 She had never seen anybody so charming and 
 delightful ; the woman's heart, asleep in the 
 shild, was vaguely thrilled by a dream of love
 
 A WHITE HERON. 13 
 
 Some premonition of that great power stirred 
 and swayed these young creatures who trav- 
 ersed the solemn woodlands with soft-footed 
 silent care. They stopped to listen to a bird's 
 song; they pressed forward again eagerly, 
 parting the branches speaking to each other 
 rarely and in whispers ; the young man going 
 first and Sylvia following, fascinated, a few 
 steps behind, with her gray eyes dark with ex- 
 citement. 
 
 She grieved because the longed-for white 
 heron was elusive, but she did not lead^ the 
 guest, she only followed, and there was no 
 such thing as speaking first. The sound of 
 her own unquestioned voice would have terri- 
 fied her it was hard enough to answer yes 
 or no when there was need of that. At last 
 evening began to fall, and they drove the cow 
 home together, and Sylvia smiled with pleasure 
 when they came to the place where she heard 
 the whistle and was afraid only the night 
 before.
 
 14 A WHITE HERON. 
 
 n. 
 
 Half a mile from home, at the farther edge 
 of the woods, where the land was highest, a 
 great pine-tree stood, the last of its generation. 
 Whether it was left for a boundary mark, OP 
 for what reason, no one could say ; the wood- 
 choppers who had felled its mates were dead 
 and gone long ago, and a whole forest of 
 sturdy trees, pines and oaks and maples, had 
 grown again. But the stately head of this old 
 pine towered above them all and made a land- 
 mark for sea and shore miles and miles away. 
 Sylvia knew it well. She had always believed 
 that whoever climbed to the top of it couldljee 
 the ocean ; and the little girl had often laid her 
 hand on the great rough trunk and looked up 
 wistfully at those dark boughs that the wind 
 always stirred, no matter how hot and still the 
 air might be below. Now she thought of the 
 tree with a new excitement, for why, if one 
 climbed it at break of day could not one see all 
 the world, and easily discover from whence the 
 white heron flew, and mark the place, and find 
 the hidden nest ?
 
 A WHITE HERON. 15 
 
 What a spirit of adventure, what wild am- 
 bition ! What fancied triumph and delight 
 and glory for the later morning when she 
 could make known the secret ! It was almost 
 too real and too great for the childish heart 
 to bear. 
 
 All night the door of the little house stood 
 open and the whippoorwills came and sang 
 upon the very step. The young sportsman 
 and his old hostess were sound asleep, but 
 Sylvia's great design kept her broad awake 
 and watching. She forgot to think of sleep. 
 The short summer night seemed as long as the 
 winter darkness, and at last when the whip- 
 poorwills ceased, and she was afraid the morn- 
 ing would after all come too soon, she stole out 
 of the house and followed the pasture path 
 through the woods, hastening toward the open 
 ground beyond, listening with a sense of com- 
 fort and companionship to the drowsy twitter 
 of a half -awakened bird, whose perch she had 
 jarred in passing. Alas, if the g^reat wavj^of , 
 human interest which flooded for the first time 
 this dull little life should sweep away the satis- 
 factions of an existence heart to heart with 
 nature and the dumb life of the forest !
 
 16 A WHITE HERON. 
 
 There was the huge tree, asleep yet in the 
 paling moonlight, and small and silly Sylvia 
 began with utmost bravery to mount to the top 
 of it, with tingling, eager blood coursing the 
 channels of her whole frame, with her bare 
 feet and fingers, that pinched^and held like 
 bird's claws to the monstrous ladder reaching 
 up,up, almost foffce skyHiseTf. First she must 
 mount the white oak tree that grew alongside, 
 where she was almost lost among the dark 
 branches and the green leaves heavy and wet 
 with dew ; a bird fluttered off its nest, and a red 
 squirrel ran to and fro and scolded pettishly at 
 the harmless housebreaker. Sylvia felt her way 
 easily. She had often climbed there, and knew 
 that higher still one of the oak's upper branches 
 chafed against the pine trunk, just where its 
 lower boughs were set close together. There, 
 when she made the dangerous pass from one 
 tree to the other, the great enterprise would 
 really begin. 
 
 She crept out along the swaying oak limb 
 at last, and took the daring step across into 
 the old pine-tree. The way was harder than 
 she thought ; she must reach far and hold fast, 
 the sharp dry twigs caught and held her and
 
 A WHITE HERON. 17 
 
 scratched her like angry talons, the pitch made 
 her thin little fingers clumsy and stiff as she 
 went round and round the tree's great stem, 
 higher and higher upward. The sparrows and 
 robins in the woods below were beginning to 
 wake and twitter to the dawn, yet it seemed 
 much lighter there aloft in the pine-tree, and 
 the child knew she must hurry if her project 
 were to be of any use. 
 
 The tree seemed to lengthen itself out as she 
 went up, and to reach farther and farther up- 
 ward. It_was like a great main-mast to the__ 
 voyaging earth ; it must truly have been 
 amazed that morning through all its ponder- 
 ous frame as it felt this determined spark of 
 human spirit wending* its way irom higher' 
 branch to branch. Who^knows how steadily 
 the_Jeast twigs held themselves to advantage 
 this light, weak creature on her way ! The old 
 pine must have loved his new dependent. More 
 than all the hawks, and bats, and moths, and 
 even the sweet voiced thrushes, was the brave, 
 beating heart of the solitary gray-eyed child. 
 And the tree stood still and frowned away the 
 winds that June morning while the dawn grew 
 bright in the east.
 
 18 A WHITE HERON 
 
 Sylvia's face was like a pale star, if one had 
 seen it from the ground, when the last thorny 
 bough was past, and she stood trembling and 
 tired but wholly triumphant, high in the tree- 
 top. Yes, there was the sea with the dawning 
 sun making a golden dazzle over it, and to- 
 ward that glorious east flew two hawks with 
 slow-moving pinions. How low they looked in 
 the air from that height when one had only 
 seen them before far up, and dark against the 
 blue sky. Their gray feathers were as soft as 
 moths ; they seemed only a little way from the 
 tree, and Sylvia felt as if she too could go 
 flying away among the clouds. Westward, the 
 woodlands and farms reached miles and miles 
 into the distance ; here and there were church 
 steeples, and white villages, truly it was a vast 
 and awesome world ! 
 
 The birds sang louder and louder. At last 
 the sun came up bewilderingly bright. Sylvia 
 could see the white sails of ships out at sea, 
 and the clouds that were purple and rose-col- 
 ored and yellow at first began to fade away. 
 Where was the white heron's nest in the sea 
 of green branches, and was this wonderful 
 sight and pageant of the world the only re-
 
 A WHITE HERON. 19 
 
 ward for having climbed to such a giddy 
 height ? Now look down again, Sylvia, where 
 the green marsh is set among the shining 
 birches and dark hemlocks ; there where you 
 saw the white heron once you will see him 
 again ; look, look ! a white spot of him like a 
 single floating feather comes up from the dead 
 hemlock and grows larger, and rises, and comes 
 close at last, and goes by the landmark pine 
 with steady sweep of wing and outstretched 
 slender neck and crested head. And wait ! 
 wait ! do not move a foot or a finger, little 
 girl, do not send an arrow of light and con- 
 sciousness from your two eager eyes, for the 
 heron has perched on a pine bough not far be- 
 yond yours, and cries back to his mate on the 
 nest and plumes his feathers for the new day ! 
 The child gives a long sigh a minute later 
 when a company of shouting cat-birds comes 
 also to the tree, and vexed by their fluttering 
 and lawlessness the solemn heron goes away. 
 She knows his secret now, the wild, light I jslen- 
 4er bird that floats and wavers, and goes back 
 like an arrow presently to his home in the 
 green world beneath. Then Sylvia, well satis- 
 fied,makes her penJous^way down" again, not
 
 20 A WHITE HERON. 
 
 daring to look far below the branch she stands 
 on, ready to cry sometimes because her fingers 
 ache and her lamed feet slip. Wondering over 
 and over again what the stranger would say to 
 her, and what he would think when she told 
 him how to find his way straight to the heron's 
 nest. 
 
 " Sylvy, Sylvy ! " called the busy old grand- 
 mother again and again, but nobody answered, 
 and the small husk bed was empty and Sylvia 
 had disappeared. 
 
 The guest waked from a dream, and remem- 
 bering his day's pleasure hurried to dress him- 
 self that might it sooner begin. He was sure 
 from the way the shy little girl looked once or 
 twice yesterday that she had at least seen the 
 white heron, and now she must really be made 
 to tell. Here she comes now, paler than ever, 
 and her worn old frock is torn and tattered, 
 and smeared with pine pitch. The grand- 
 mother and the sportsman stand in the door 
 together and question her, and the splendid 
 moment has come to speak of the dead hem- 
 lock-tree by the green marsh. 
 
 But Sylvia does not speak after all, though
 
 A WHITE HERON. 21 
 
 the old grandmother fretfully rebukes her, and 
 the young man's kind, appealing eyes are look- 
 ing straight in her own. ' He can make them 
 rich with money; he has promised it, and they 
 are poor now. He is so well worth making 
 happy, and he waits to hear the story she can 
 tell. 
 
 No, she must keep silence ! What is it that |T 5L XN 
 suddenly forbids her and makes her dumb? 
 Has she been nine years growing and now, ? f 1 " ' 
 when the great world for the first time puts out v ff" > 
 a hand to her, must she thrust it aside for a 
 bird's sake ? The murmur of the pine's green 
 branches is in her ears, she remembers how the 
 white heron came flying through the golden 
 air and how they watched the sea and the 
 morning together, and Sylvia cannot speak ; 
 she cannot tell the heron's secret and give its 
 life away. 
 
 Pear loyalty, {that suffered a sharp pang 
 as tneT guesT went away disappointed later 
 in the day, that could have served and fol- 
 lowed him and loved him as a dog loves ! 
 Iflany a night Sylvia heard the echo of his 
 whistle haunting the pasture path as she came
 
 22 A WHITE HERON. 
 
 home with the loitering cow. She forgot even 
 her sorrow at the sharp report of his gun and 
 the sight of thrushes and sparrows dropping 
 silent to the ground, their songs hushed and 
 their pretty feathers stained and wet with 
 blood. Were the birds better friends than 
 their hunter might have been, who can tell ? 
 Whatever treasures were lost to her, wood- 
 lands and summer-time, remember! Bring 
 your gifts and graces and tell your secrets to 
 this lonely country child !
 
 THE GKAY MAN. 
 
 HIGH on the southern 'slope of Agamenticus 
 there may still be seen the remnant of an old 
 farm. Frost-shaken stone walls surround a 
 fast-narrowing expanse of smooth turf which 
 the forest is overgrowing on every side. The 
 cellar is nearly filled up, never having been 
 either wide or deep, and the fruit of a few 
 mossy apple-trees drops ungathered to the 
 ground. Along one side of the forsaken gar- 
 den is a thicket of seedling cherry-treek to 
 which the shouting robins come year after year 
 in busy flights ; the caterpillars' nests are un- 
 assailed and populous in this untended hedge. 
 At night, perhaps, when summer twilights are 
 late in drawing their brown curtain of dusk 
 over the great rural scene, at night an owl 
 may sit in the hemlocks near by and hoot and 
 shriek until the far echoes answer back again. 
 As for the few men and women who pass this 
 deserted spot, most will be repulsed by such
 
 24 THE GRAY MAN. 
 
 loneliness, will even grow impatient with those 
 mistaken fellow -beings who choose to live 
 in solitude, away from neighbors and from 
 schools, yes, even from gossip and petty 
 care of self or knowledge of the trivial fash- 
 ions of a narrow life. 
 
 Now and then one looks out from this eyrie, 
 across the wide-spread country, who turns to 
 look at the sea or toward the shining foreheads 
 of the mountains that guard the inland hori- 
 zon, who will remember the place long after- 
 ward. A peaceful vision will come, full of 
 rest and benediction into busy and troubled 
 hours, to those who understand why some one 
 came to live in this place so near the sky, so 
 silent, so full of sweet air and woodland fra- 
 grance; so beaten and buffeted by winter 
 storms and garlanded with summer greenery ; 
 where the birds are nearest neighbors and a 
 clear spring the only wine-cellar, and trees of 
 the forest a choir of singers who rejoice and 
 sing aloud by day and night as the winds 
 sweep over. Under the cherry thicket or at 
 the edge of the woods you may find a stray- 
 away blossom, some half -savage, slender grand- 
 child of the old flower-plots, that you gather
 
 THE GRAY MAN. 25 
 
 gladly to take away, and every year in June a 
 red rose blooms toward which the wild pink 
 roses and the pale sweet briars turn wonder- 
 ing faces as if a queen had shown her noble 
 face suddenly at a peasant's festival. 
 
 There is everywhere a token of remem- 
 brance, of silence and secrecy. Some stronger 
 nature once ruled these neglected trees and 
 this fallow ground. They will wait the re- 
 turn of their master as long as roots can creep 
 through mould, and the mould make way for 
 them. The stories of strange lives have been 
 whispered to the earth, their thoughts have 
 burned themselves into the cold rocks. As 
 one looks from the lower country toward the 
 long slope of the great hillside, this old abid- 
 ing-place marks the dark covering of trees like 
 a scar. There is nothing to hide either the 
 sunrise or the sunset. The low lands reach out 
 of sight into the west and the sea fills all the 
 east. 
 
 The first owner of the farm was a seafaring 
 man who had through freak or fancy come 
 ashore and cast himself upon the bounty of 
 nature for support in his later years, though 
 tradition keeps a suspicion of buried treasure
 
 26 THE GRAY MAN. 
 
 and of a dark history. He cleared his land 
 and built his house, but save the fact that he 
 was a Scotsman no one knew to whom he be- 
 longed, and when he died the state inherited 
 the unclaimed property. The only piece of 
 woodland that was worth anything was sold and 
 added to another farm, and the dwelling-place 
 was left to the sunshine and the rain, to the 
 birds that built their nests in the chimney or 
 under the eaves. Sometimes a strolling com- 
 pany of country boys would find themselves 
 near the house on a holiday afternoon, but the 
 more dilapidated the small structure became, 
 the more they believed that some uncanny ex- 
 istence possessed the lonely place, and the path 
 that led toward the clearing at last became 
 almost impassable. 
 
 Once a number of officers and men in the em- 
 ploy of the Coast Survey were encamped at the 
 top of the mountain, and they smoothed the 
 rough track that led down to the spring that 
 bubbled from under a sheltering edge. One 
 day a laughing fellow, not content with peering 
 in at the small windows of the house, put his 
 shoulder against the rain-blackened door and 
 broke the simple fastening. He hardly knew
 
 THE GRAY MAN. 27 
 
 that he was afraid as he first stood within the 
 single spacious room, so complete a curiosity 
 took possession of him. The place was clean 
 and bare, the empty cupboard doors stood open, 
 and yet the sound of his companions' voices out- 
 side seemed far away, and an awful sense that 
 some unseen inhabitant followed his footsteps 
 made him hurry out again pale and breathless 
 to the fresh air and sunshine. Was this really 
 a dwelling : place of spirits, as had been already 
 hinted? The story grew more fearful, and 
 spread quickly like a mist of terror among the 
 lowland farms. For years the tale of the coast- 
 surveyor's adventure in the haunted house was 
 slowly magnified and told to strangers or to 
 wide-eyed children by the dim firelight. The 
 former owner was supposed to linger still 
 about his old home, and was held accountable 
 for deep offense in choosing for the scene of his 
 unsuccessful husbandry a place that escaped 
 the proprieties and restraints of life upon 
 lower levels. His grave was concealed by the 
 new growth of oaks and beeches, and many a 
 lad and full-grown man beside has taken to 
 his heels at the flicker of light from across a 
 swamp or under a decaying tree in that neigh-
 
 28 THE GRAY MAN. 
 
 borhood. As the world in some respects grew 
 wiser, the good people near the mountain un- 
 derstood less and less the causes of these sim- 
 ple effects, and as they became familiar with 
 the visible world, grew more shy of the unseen 
 and more sensitive to unexplained foreboding. 
 
 One day a stranger was noticed in the town, 
 as a stranger is sure to be who goes his way 
 with quick, furtive steps straight through a 
 small village or along a country road. This 
 man was tall and had just passed middle age. 
 He was well made and vigorous, but there was 
 an unusual pallor in his face, a grayish look, 
 as if he had been startled by bad news. His 
 clothes were somewhat peculiar, as if they had 
 been made in another country, yet they suited 
 the chilly weather, being homespun of undyed 
 wools, just the color of his hair, and only a 
 little darker than his face or hands. Some one 
 observed in one brief glance as he and this 
 gray man met and passed each other, that his 
 eyes had a strange faded look ; they might, 
 however, flash and be coal-black in a moment 
 of rage. Two or three persons stepped for- 
 ward to watch the wayfarer as he went along
 
 THE GRAY MAN. 29 
 
 the road with long, even strides, like one tak- 
 ing a journey on foot, but he quickly reached 
 a turn of the way and was out of sight. They 
 wondered who he was ; one recalled some re- 
 cent advertisement of an escaped criminal, and 
 another the appearance of a native of the town 
 who was supposed to be long ago lost at sea, 
 but one surmiser knew as little as the next. 
 If they had followed fast enough they might 
 have tracked the mysterious man straight 
 across the country, threading the by-ways, 
 the shorter paths that led across the fields 
 where the road was roundabout and hinder- 
 ing. At last he disappeared in the leafless, 
 trackless woods that skirted the mountain. 
 
 That night there was for the first time in 
 many years a twinkling light in the window of 
 the haunted house, high on the hill's great 
 shoulder ; one farmer's wife and another looked 
 up curiously, while they wondered what dar- 
 ing human being had chosen that awesome 
 spot of all others for his home or for even a 
 transient shelter. The sky was already heavy 
 with snow ; he might be a fugitive from jus- 
 tice, and the startled people looked to the fast- 
 ening of their doors unwontedly that night, 
 and waked often from a troubled sleep.
 
 30 THE GRAY MAN. 
 
 An instinctive curiosity and alarm possessed 
 the country men and women for a while, but 
 soon faded out and disappeared. The new- 
 comer was by no means a hermit ; he tried to 
 be friendly, and inclined toward a certain 
 kindliness and familiarity. He bought a com- 
 fortable store of winter provisions from his 
 new acquaintances, giving every one his price, 
 and spoke more at length, as time went on, 
 of current events, of politics and the weather, 
 and the town's own news and concerns. There 
 was a sober cheerfulness about the man, as if 
 he had known trouble and perplexity, and was 
 fulfilling some mission that gave him pain ; 
 yet he saw some gain and reward beyond ; 
 therefore he could be contented with his life 
 and such strange surroundings. He was more 
 and more eager to form brotherly relations 
 with the farmers near his home. There was al- 
 most a pleading look in his kind face at times, 
 as if he feared the later prejudice of his asso- 
 ciates. Surely this was no common or uned- 
 ucated person, for in every way he left the 
 stamp of his character and influence upon 
 men and things. His reasonable words of ad- 
 vice and warning are current as sterling coins
 
 THE GRAY MAN. 31 
 
 in that region yet ; to one man he taught a 
 new rotation of crops, to another he gave some 
 priceless cures for devastating diseases of cat- 
 tle. The lonely women of those remote coun- 
 try homes learned of him how to achieve their 
 household toil with less labor and drudgery, 
 and here and there he singled out promis- 
 ing children and kept watch of their growth, 
 giving freely a most affectionate companion- 
 ship, and a fair start in the journey of life. 
 He taught those who were guardians of such 
 children to recognize and further the true 
 directions and purposes of existence ; and the 
 easily warped natures grew strong and well- 
 established under his thoughtful care. No 
 wonder that some people were filled with 
 amazement, and thought his wisdom supernat- 
 ural, from so many proofs that his horizon was 
 wider than their own. 
 
 Perhaps some envious soul, or one aggrieved 
 by being caught in treachery or deception, was 
 the first to find fault with the stranger. The 
 prejudice against his dwelling-place, and the 
 superstition which had become linked to him 
 in consequence, may have led back to the first 
 suspicious attitude of the community. The
 
 32 THE GRAY MAN. 
 
 whisper of distrust soon started on an evil 
 way. If he were not a criminal, his past was 
 surely a hidden one, and shocking to his re- 
 membrance, but the true foundation of all dis- 
 like was the fact that the gray man who went 
 to and fro, living his simple, harmless life 
 among them, never was seen to smile. Per- 
 sons who remember him speak of this with a 
 shudder, for nothing is more evident than that 
 his peculiarity became at length intolerable to 
 those whose minds lent themselves readily to 
 suspicion. At first, blinded by the gentle 
 good fellowship of the stranger, the change- 
 less expression of his face was scarcely ob- 
 served, but as the winter wore away he was 
 watched with renewed disbelief and dismay. 
 
 After the first few attempts at gayety no- 
 body tried to tell a merry story in his pres* 
 ence. The most conspicuous of a joker's au- 
 dience does a deep-rankling injustice if he sits 
 with unconscious, unamused face at the receipt 
 of raillery. What a chilling moment when 
 the gray man softly opened the door of a 
 farmhouse kitchen, and seated himself like a 
 skeleton at the feast of walnuts and roasted 
 apples beside the glowing fire ! The children
 
 THE GRAY MAN. 33 
 
 whom he treated so lovingly, to whom he ever 
 gave his best, though they were won at first 
 by his gentleness, when they began to prattle 
 and play with him would raise their innocent 
 eyes to his face and hush their voices and 
 creep away out of his sight. Once only he 
 was bidden to a wedding, but never afterward, 
 for a gloom was quickly spread through the 
 boisterous company ; the man who never smiled 
 had no place at such a festival. The wedding 
 guests looked over their shoulders again and 
 again in strange foreboding, while he was in 
 the house, and were burdened with a sense of 
 coming woe for the newly-married pair. As 
 one caught sight of his, among the faces of 
 the rural folk, the gray man was like a som- 
 bre mask, and at last the bridegroom flung 
 open the door with a meaning gesture, and the 
 stranger went out like a hunted creature, into 
 the bitter coldness and silence of the winter 
 night. 
 
 Through the long days of the next summer 
 the outcast of the wedding, forbidden, at 
 length, all the once-proffered hospitality, was 
 hardly seen from one week's end to another's. 
 He cultivated his poor estate with patient
 
 34 THE GRAY MAN. 
 
 care, and the successive crops of his small 
 garden, the fruits and berries of the wilder- 
 ness, were food enough. He seemed unchange- 
 able, and was always ready when he even 
 guessed at a chance to be of use. If he were 
 repulsed, he only turned away and went back 
 to his solitary home. Those persons who by 
 chance visited him there tell wonderful tales 
 of the wild birds which had been tamed to 
 come at his call and cluster about him, of the 
 orderliness and delicacy of his simple life. 
 The once-neglected house was covered with 
 vines that he had brought from the woods, 
 and planted about the splintering, decaying 
 walls. There were three or four books in 
 worn bindings on a shelf above the fire-place ; 
 one longs to know what volumes this mysteri- 
 ous exile had chosen to keep him company ! 
 
 There may have been a deeper reason for 
 the withdrawal of friendliness ; there are vague 
 rumors of the gray man's possession of strange 
 powers. Some say that he was gifted with 
 amazing strength, and once when some belated 
 hunters found shelter at his fireside, they told 
 eager listeners afterward that he did not sleep 
 but sat by the fire reading gravely while they
 
 THE GRAY MAN 35 
 
 slumbered uneasily on his own bed of boughs. 
 And in the dead of night an empty chair 
 glided silently toward him across the floor as 
 he softly turned his pages in the flickering 
 light. 
 
 But such stories are too vague, and in that 
 neighborhood too common to weigh against the 
 true dignity and bravery of the man. At the 
 beginning of the war of the rebellion he seemed 
 strangely troubled and disturbed, and pres- 
 ently disappeared, leaving his house key with 
 a neighbor as if for a few days' absence. He 
 was last seen striding rapidly through the vil- 
 lage a few miles away, going back along the 
 road by which he had come a year or two be- 
 fore. No, not last seen either ; for in one of 
 the first battles of the war, as the smoke sud- 
 denly lifted, a farmer's boy, reared in the 
 shadow of the mountain, opened his languid 
 pain-dulled eyes as he lay among the wounded, 
 and saw the gray man riding by on a tall 
 horse. At that moment the poor lad thought 
 in his faintness and fear that Death himself 
 rode by in the gray man's likeness ; unsmiling 
 Death who tries to teach and serve mankind 
 so that he may at the last win welcome as a 
 faithful friend !
 
 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 IT was as bleak and sad a day as one could 
 well imagine. The time of year was early in 
 December, and the daylight was already fad- 
 ing, though it was only a little past the middle 
 of the afternoon. John Finch was driving to- 
 ward his farm, which he had left early in the 
 morning to go to town ; but to judge from his 
 face one might have been sure that his busi- 
 ness had not been successful. He looked 
 pinched and discouraged with something besides 
 the cold, and he hardly noticed the faithful 
 red horse which carefully made its way over 
 the frozen ruts of the familiar road. 
 
 There had lately been a few days of mild 
 weather, when the ground had had time to 
 thaw, but with a sudden blast of cold this deep 
 mud had become like iron, rough and ragged, 
 and jarring the people and horses cruelly who 
 tried to travel over it. The road lay through 
 the bleak country side of the salt-marshes
 
 FARMER FItiCH. 37 
 
 which stretched themselves away toward the 
 sea, dotted here and there with hay-cocks, and 
 crossed in wavering lines by the inlets and 
 ditches, filled now with grayish ice, that was 
 sinking and cracking as the tide ran out. The 
 marsh-grass was wind-swept and beaten until 
 it looked as soft and brown as fur ; the wind 
 had free course over it, and it looked like a 
 deserted bit of the world ; the battered and 
 dingy flat-bottomed boats were fastened se- 
 curely in their tiny harbors, or pulled far 
 ashore as if their usefulness was over, not only 
 for that season but for all time. In some late 
 autumn weather one feels as if summer were 
 over with forever, and as if no resurrection 
 could follow such unmistakable and hopeless 
 death. 
 
 Where the land was higher it looked rocky 
 and rough, and behind the marshes there were 
 some low hills looking as if they were solid 
 stone to their cores, and sparingly overgrown 
 with black and rigid cedars. These stood erect 
 from the least to the greatest, a most unbend- 
 ing and heartless family, which meant to give 
 neither shade in summer nor shelter in winter. 
 No wind could overturn them, for their roots
 
 38 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 went down like wires into the ledges, and no 
 drought could dry away the inmost channels of 
 vigorous though scanty sap that ran soberly 
 through their tough, unfruitful branches. 
 
 In one place the hills formed an amphithe* 
 atre open on the side toward the sea, and here 
 on this bleak day it seemed as if some dismal 
 ceremony were going forward. As one caught 
 sight of the solemn audience of black and 
 gloomy cedars that seemed to have come to- 
 gether to stand on the curving hillsides, one 
 instinctively looked down at the level arena of 
 marsh-land below, half fearing to see some 
 awful sacrificial rite or silent combat. It 
 might be an angry company of hamadryads 
 who had taken the shape of cedar-trees on this 
 day of revenge and terror. It was difficult to 
 believe that one would ever see them again, 
 and that the summer and winter days alike 
 would find them looking down at the grave 
 business which was invisible to the rest of the 
 world. The little trees stood beside their 
 elders in families, solemn and stern, and some 
 miserable men may have heard the secret as 
 they stumbled through the snow praying for 
 shelter, lost and frozen on a winter night.
 
 FARMER FINCH. 39 
 
 If you lie down along the rough grass in the 
 slender shadow of a cedar and look off to sea, 
 in a summer afternoon, you only hear a whis- 
 per like " Hush ! hush ! " as the wind comes 
 through the stiff branches. The boughs reach 
 straight upward; you cannot lie underneath 
 and look through them at the sky ; the tree all 
 reaches away from the ground as if it had a 
 horror of it, and shrank from even the breeze 
 and the sunshine. 
 
 On this December day, as the blasts of wind 
 struck them, they gave one stiff, unwilling 
 bend, and then stood erect again. The road 
 wound along between the sea-meadows and the 
 hills, and poor John Finch seemed to be the 
 only traveler. He was lost in thought, and the 
 horse still went plodding on. The worn buf- 
 falo-robe was dragging from one side of the 
 wagon, and had slipped down off the driver's 
 knees. He hardly knew that he held the reins. 
 He was in no hurry to get home, cold as it was, 
 for he had only bad news to tell. 
 
 Polly Finch, his only daughter, was coming 
 toward home from the opposite direction, and 
 with her also things had gone wrong. She was 
 a bright, good-natured girl of about twenty,
 
 40 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 but she looked old and care-worn that day. 
 She was dressed in her best clothes, as if she 
 had been away on some important affair, per- 
 haps to a funeral, and she was shivering and 
 wholly chilled in spite of the shawl which her 
 mother had insisted upon her carrying. It had 
 been a not uncomfortable morning for that 
 time of year, and she had flouted the extra 
 wrap at first, but now she hugged it close, and 
 half buried her face in its folds. The sky was 
 gray and heavy, except in the west, where it 
 was a clear, cold shade of yellow. All the leaf- 
 less bushes and fluffy brown tops of the dead 
 asters and golden-rods stood out in exqui- 
 sitely delicate silhouettes against the sky on 
 the high road-sides, while some tattered bits of 
 blackberry vine held still a dull glow of color. 
 As Polly passed a barberry bush that grew 
 above her she was forced to stop, for, gray and 
 winterish as it had been on her approach, when 
 she looked at it from the other side it seemed 
 to be glowing with rubies. The sun was shin- 
 ing out pleasantly now that it had sunk below 
 the clouds, and in these late golden rays the 
 barberry bush had taken on a great splendor. 
 It gave Polly a start, and it cheered her not a
 
 FARMER FINCH. 41 
 
 little, this sudden transformation, and she even 
 went back along the road a little way to see it 
 again as she had at first in its look of misery. 
 The berries that still clung to its thorny 
 branches looked dry and spoiled, but a few 
 steps forward again made them shine out, and 
 take on a beauty that neither summer nor 
 autumn had given them, and Polly gave her 
 head a little shake. " There are two ways of 
 looking at more things than barberry bushes/' 
 she said, aloud, and went off with brisker steps 
 down the road. 
 
 At home in the farm-house Mrs. Finch had 
 been waiting for her husband and daughter to 
 come, until she had grown tired and hungry 
 and almost frightened. Perhaps the day had 
 been longer and harder to her than to any one 
 else. She had thought of so many cautions 
 and suggestions that she might have given 
 them both, and though the father's errand was 
 a much more important one, still she had built 
 much hope on the possibility of Polly's en- 
 counter with the school committee proving suc- 
 cessful. Things had been growing very dark 
 in Mr. Finch's business affairs, and they had 
 all looked with great eagerness toward her
 
 42 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 securing a situation as teacher of one of the 
 town schools. It was at no great distance, so 
 that Polly could easily board at home, and 
 many things seemed to depend upon it, even 
 if the bank business turned out better than 
 was feared. Our heroine had in her childhood 
 been much praised for her good scholarship, 
 and stood at the head of the district school, 
 and it had been urged upon her father and 
 mother by her teachers, and by other friends 
 more or less wise, that she should have what 
 they called an education. It had been a hard 
 thing both for her father to find the money, 
 and for her mother to get on without her help 
 in the house-work, but they had both managed 
 to get along, and Polly had acquitted herself 
 nobly in the ranks of a neighboring academy, 
 and for the last year had been a pupil in the 
 normal school. She had been very happy in 
 her school life, and very popular both with 
 scholars and teachers. She was friendly and 
 social by nature, and it had been very pleasant 
 to her to be among so many young people. 
 The routine and petty ceremony of her years 
 of study did not fret her, for she was too 
 strong and good-natured even to be worn upon
 
 FARMER FINCH. 43 
 
 or much tired with the unwholesome life she 
 lived. It was easy enough for her to get her 
 lessons, and so she went through with flying 
 colors, and cried a little when the last day ar- 
 rived ; but she felt less regret than most of 
 the girls who were turned out then upon the 
 world, some of them claiming truthfully that 
 they had finished their education, since they 
 had not wit enough to learn anything more, 
 either with school-books in their hands or 
 without them. 
 
 It came to Polly's mind as she stood in a 
 row with the rest of the girls, while the old 
 minister who was chief of the trustees gave 
 them their diplomas, and some very good ad- 
 vice besides : " I wonder why we all made up 
 our minds to be teachers ? I wonder if we 
 are going to be good ones, and if I should n't 
 have liked something else a great deal bet- 
 ter?" 
 
 Certainly she had met with a disappoint- 
 ment at the beginning of her own career, for 
 she had seen that it was necessary for her to 
 be within reach of home, and it seemed as if 
 every school of the better class had been pro- 
 vided with a teacher. She had been so confi
 
 44 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 dent of her powers and mindful of her high 
 standing at the normal school that it seemed 
 at first that a fine position ought to be hers 
 for the asking. But one after another her 
 plans had fallen to the ground, until this last 
 one, which had just been decided against her 
 also. It had never occurred to her at first as 
 a possible thing that she should apply for the 
 small town school in her own district ; to tell 
 the truth, it was a great downfall of pride to 
 the family, but they had said to each other 
 that it would be well for Polly to have the 
 winter at home, and in spring she could suit 
 herself exactly. But everybody had felt the 
 impossibility of her remaining idle, and no 
 wonder her heart sank as she went toward 
 home, knowing that she must tell them that 
 another had been chosen to fill the place. 
 
 Mrs. Finch looked at the fire, and looked 
 out of the window down the road, and took up 
 the stocking she was knitting and tried to 
 work at it ; but every half -hour that went by 
 doubled her uneasiness, and she looked out of 
 the window altogether at last, until the fire 
 Was almost burned out, and the knitting lay 
 untouched in her lap. She was a tall, fine*
 
 FARMER FINCH. 45 
 
 looking woman, with a worn, well-featured 
 face, and thimrish hair that had once been 
 light brown, but was much faded and not a 
 little gray in these later years. It had been 
 thought a pity that she married John Finch, 
 who had not half so much force as she, and 
 with all her wisdom and affection and econ- 
 omy, every year had seemed to take away 
 something from them, leaving few gifts and 
 gains in exchange. At first her pride and 
 ambition, which were reasonable enough, al- 
 ways clung to her husband's plans and pur- 
 poses ; but as she saw year after year that he 
 stayed exactly in the same place, making little 
 headway either in farming or anything else, 
 she began to live more and more in her daugh- 
 ter's life, and looked eagerly to see her win 
 her way and gain an honorable place, first in 
 her school life, and afterward as a teacher. 
 She had never dreamed beforehand of the dif- 
 ficulties that had assailed Polly since she came 
 home the head of her class in June. She had 
 supposed that it would be an easy thing for 
 her now to find a good situation in a high or 
 private school, with a capital salary. She 
 hated to think there was nothing for her but
 
 46 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 to hold sway over the few scholars in the little 
 unpainted school-house half a mile down the 
 road, even though the girl, who was the very 
 delight of her heart, should be with her so 
 much more than they had expected at first. 
 She was a kind, simple-hearted, good woman, 
 this elder Mary Finch, and she had borne her 
 failing fortunes with perfect bravery ; she had 
 been the sunshine and inspiration of the some- 
 what melancholy house for many years. 
 
 At last she saw her husband coming along 
 the road, and even that far-away first glimpse 
 of him told her that she would hear no good 
 news. He pulled up the fallen buffalo-robe 
 over his lap, and sat erect, and tried to look 
 unconcerned as he drove into the yard, but it 
 was some time before he came into the house. 
 He unharnessed the horse with stiff and shak- 
 ing hands, and gave him his supper, and turned 
 the old wagon and backed it into its place be- 
 fore he came in. Polly had come home also 
 by that time, and was sitting by the window, 
 and did not turn to speak to him. His wife 
 looked old, and her face was grayish, and the 
 lines of it were hard and drawn in strange 
 angles.
 
 FARMER FINCB. 47 
 
 " You had better sit right down by the fire, 
 John," she told him, " and I '11 get you and 
 Polly a good hot supper right away. I think, 
 like 's not, you did n't get a mouthful of din- 
 ner." 
 
 " I 've no need to tell you I Ve got bad 
 news," he said. " The bank 's failed, and 
 they won't pay more 'n ten cents on a dollar, 
 if they make out to do that. It 's worse than 
 we ever thought it could be. The cashier got 
 speculating, and he's made 'way with about 
 everything." 
 
 It seemed to him as if he had known this 
 for years, it was such an old, sad story al- 
 ready, and he almost wondered at the surprise 
 and anger that his wife and Polly showed at 
 once. It made him a little impatient that 
 they would ask him so many eager questions. 
 This was the worst piece of misfortune that 
 had ever come to him. Although they had 
 heard the day before that the bank would pass 
 its dividend, and had been much concerned 
 and troubled, and had listened incredulously 
 . to worse stories of the condition of the bank's 
 finances, they had looked for nothing like this. 
 
 There was little to be said, but everything
 
 48 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 to be thought and feared. They had put en- 
 tire confidence in this bank's security, and the 
 money which had belonged to John Finch's 
 father had always been left there to draw a 
 good yearly interest. The farm was not very 
 productive, and they had depended upon this 
 dividend for a large part of their ready money. 
 Much of their other property had dwindled 
 away. If ever there had been a prospect of 
 making much off the farm, something had in- 
 terfered. One year a piece of woodland had 
 been cleared at considerable expense, and on 
 the day before its unlucky owner was to begin 
 to haul the great stacks of fire-wood down to 
 the little wharf in the marshes, from whence 
 they could be carried away to market by 
 schooners, the fire got in, and the flames of 
 the fallen pines made a torch that lighted all 
 that part of the country for more nights than 
 one. There was no insurance and no remedy, 
 and, as an old neighbor told the unhappy 
 owner, " the woods would not grow again in 
 his time." John Finch was a cheerful man 
 naturally, and very sure of the success of his 
 plans ; it was rare to see him so entirely down- 
 hearted and discouraged, but lately he had
 
 FARMER FINCH. 49 
 
 seemed to his wife somebody to be protected 
 and looked after even more than Polly. She 
 sometimes felt the weight of the years she had 
 lived, and as if she must be already very old, 
 but he was the same boyish person to her as 
 when she had married him; it often seemed 
 possible that he should have his life still be- 
 fore him. She could not believe until very 
 lately that it was too late for him to start out 
 on any enterprise. Time had, indeed, touched 
 him more lightly than it had herself, though 
 he had the face and something of the manner 
 and faults of an elderly and unsuccessful man. 
 They sat together in the kitchen, which had 
 suddenly grown dark. Mary Finch was as 
 cold as either of her companions, and was an- 
 gry with herself for her shivering and want of 
 courage. She was almost afraid to speak at 
 last for fear of crying ; she felt strangely un- 
 strung and weak. The two women had told 
 John of Polly's disappointment, that the agent 
 for the district had given the school to his c/wn 
 niece, a young girl from Salem, who was to 
 board at his house, and help his wife as much 
 as she could with the house- work out of school- 
 hours. " It 's all of a piece to-day," groaned 
 the farmer. " I 'm sorry for ye, Polly."
 
 50 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 " She may hear of something yet," said Mrs. 
 Finch, making a great effort to speak cheer- 
 fully. " You know they have her name at the 
 normal school ; people are always sending there 
 for teachers, and oftentimes one fails at the last 
 minute through sickness, and I should n't won- 
 der if Polly found a good place yet in that way." 
 
 " I declare I don't know how we shall get 
 along," moaned Polly's father, to whom his 
 daughter's trouble seemed only a small part of 
 the general misfortunes. " Here 's winter com- 
 ing, and I 'm likely to be laid up any day with 
 my rheumatics, and I don't see how we can 
 afford even to take a boy to work for his board 
 and clothes. I 've got a few trees I can cut, 
 and one cow I can sell; but there are the 
 taxes to pay, and the minister, and money to 
 lay out on fences, come spring. The farm ran 
 behind last year, too." 
 
 Polly rose impatiently and took down a 
 lamp from the high chimney-shelf, knocking 
 down the match-box as she did so, which was, 
 after all, a good deal of relief. She put the 
 light on the floor while she picked up the 
 scattered matches, and her mother took a goo^ 
 look at her, and was somehow made to feel 
 stronger at the sight of Polly's face.
 
 FARMER FINCH. 61 
 
 " I guess we 'd all better have some supper," 
 said the girl. " I never should feel so dis- 
 couraged if I was n't hungry. And now I 'm 
 going to tell you what I mean to do. I 'm 
 going to put right to and go to work out-doors 
 and in, and I 'm going to help father same as 
 if I were a boy. I believe I should like farm- 
 ing now twice as well as teaching, and make a 
 good deal more money at it. I have n't a gift 
 for teaching, and I know it, but I don't mean 
 that what I learned shall be thrown away. 
 Now we 've got hay for the stock, plenty of it, 
 and we 've got potatoes and apples and turnips 
 and cider in the cellar, and a good pig to kill, 
 and so there 's no danger that we shall starve. 
 I 'm just as strong as I can be, and I am going 
 right to work, at any rate until I get a school 
 with a first-rate salary that '11 be worth more 
 than my help will here." 
 
 " I 'm sure I dcn't want you to throw away 
 such a good education as you Ve had, for us," 
 said Mrs. Finch, sorrowfully. " I want you to 
 be somebody, Polly, and take your right place 
 in the world." 
 
 But Polly answered stoutly that she was n't 
 sure it was a good education until she saw
 
 52 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 whether it was any use to her. There were 
 too many second-rate teachers already, and she 
 had n't any reason to suppose she would be a 
 first-rate one. She believed that people had 
 better learn to do the things they were sure to 
 have to do. She would rather be a boy, and 
 farm it, than teach any school she ever saw, 
 and for this year, at any rate, she was going to 
 see whether her book-learning was n't going to 
 be some help at home. " I did the best I could 
 at school," she said, " and it was easy enough 
 to get my lessons, but now I Ve come against 
 a dead-wall. I don't see but you both need 
 me, and I 'm well and strong as anybody alive. 
 I 'd a good deal rather work at home a while 
 than be penned up with a lot of children, and 
 none of us more than half know what we 're 
 about. I want to think a good deal more 
 about teaching school before I begin to try in 
 earnest." 
 
 " I shall be glad to have you help your 
 mother," said John Finch, disconsolately, 
 " and we '11 manage to get along somehow." 
 
 " Don't be afraid, father," responded Polly, 
 in really cheerful tones, as if she assumed her 
 new situation formally at that moment. She
 
 FARMER FINCH. 53 
 
 went slowly down cellar with the lamp, leav- 
 ing her parents in darkness ; but by this time 
 the tea-kettle had begun to sing, and a great 
 glow of coals showed through the front slide 
 of the stove. 
 
 Mr. Finch lifted himself out of his chair, 
 and stumbled about to get the lantern and 
 light it, and then went out to feed the cattle. 
 He still looked chilled, and as if all happiness 
 had forsaken him. It was some little time be- 
 fore he returned, and the table was already set, 
 and supper was nearly cooked and ready to be 
 eaten. Polly had made a pot of coffee, and 
 drank her first cup with great satisfaction, and 
 almost without taking breath ; but her father 
 tasted his and did not seem to care for it, eat- 
 ing only a little food with evident effort. 
 
 " Now I thought you would relish a good 
 cup of coffee," said his wife, with much con- 
 cern; but the man answered sadly that he 
 could n't eat ; he felt all broken down. 
 
 " It was a perishing day for you to take that 
 long ride. It 's the bleakest road round here, 
 that marsh road is, and you hardly ate a 
 mouthful of breakfast. I wish you had got 
 something to warm you up before you started
 
 54 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 to come back," said his wife, looking at him 
 anxiously. " I believe I '11 get you something 
 now," and she went to find a treasured bottle, 
 long stored away to be used in case of chill or 
 illness, for John Finch was a temperate man. 
 
 " I declare I forgot to milk," he said, hope- 
 lessly. " I don't know 's such a thing ever 
 happened to me before. I thought there was 
 something else when I was out to the barn, 
 and I sat down on the grin'-stone frame and 
 tried to think what it was, but I could n't." 
 
 " I '11 milk," said Polly j and she whisked 
 up-stairs and replaced her best dress, which had 
 been already turned up and well aproned, by 
 a worn old frock which she had used on days 
 of cleaning, or washing, or other rough work, 
 when she had lent a hand to help her mother. 
 It was nothing new for her, a farmer's 
 daughter born and bred, to undertake this 
 work, but she made a distinct change of di- 
 rection that night, and as she sat milking in 
 the cold barn by the dull light of the lantern 
 a certain pleasure stole over her. She was 
 not without her ambitions, but they had never 
 flown with free wings up an imaginary career 
 of school-teaching. " I do believe mother and
 
 FARMER FINCH. 55 
 
 1 can earn money enough to take care of us," 
 she said to herself, " and next spring I ? m going 
 to set out as much land as father will let me 
 have with strawberries." Her thoughts never 
 were busier than that night. The two cows 
 looked round at her with surprise, and seemed 
 to value her good-natured words and hurried 
 pats as she left them. She disturbed a sleepy 
 row of hens perched on the rail of the hay 
 cart, and thought it was a pity there was not a 
 better place for them, and that they should be 
 straying about. " I 'm going to read up some 
 of the old numbers of the Agriculturist" she 
 said, "and see what I can do about having 
 eggs to sell." It more was evident that Polly 
 was fired with a great enthusiasm, but she re- 
 membered suddenly another new great interest 
 which was a secret as yet even from her mother. 
 This remembrance gave her a little uneasiness. 
 It was still early when the supper table had 
 been cleared away, and the milk strained and 
 set aside in the pantry. John Finch had 
 drawn his chair close to the stove, and when 
 his wife and daughter sat down also, ready 
 to begin the evening which showed so little 
 promise of hilarity, they saw that he was 
 crvinfr.
 
 56 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 "Why, father!" Polly exclaimed, half 
 frightened, for this was something she did not 
 remember ever seeing since she was a child. 
 And his wife said nothing, but came and stood 
 beside him and watched him as if the vague 
 sense of coming trouble which had haunted her 
 all day was going to explain itself by some 
 terrible crisis. 
 
 " I 'm all broken down," the poor man 
 sobbed. " I used to think I was going to be 
 somebody, and get ahead, and nothing has 
 gone as I wanted it to. I 'm in debt more 
 than you think, and I don't know which way 
 to look. The farm don't yield me as it used 
 to, and I don't grudge what we 've done for 
 the girl, but it 's been all we could carry, and 
 here she 's failed of getting a place to teach. 
 Everything seems to go against us." 
 
 This was really most sad and death-like ; it 
 truly seemed as if the wheels of existence had 
 stopped ; there seemed to be nothing to fol- 
 low this unhappy day but disgrace and de- 
 spair. But Polly was the first to speak, and 
 her cheeks grew very red : " Father, I don't 
 think you have any right to speak so. If we 
 ean't make our living one way, we will another.
 
 FARMER FINCH 57 
 
 Losing that money in the bank is n't the worst 
 thing that could have happened to us, and now 
 I am going to take hold with you right here 
 at home, as I said before supper. You think 
 there is n't much that a woman can do, but 
 we '11 see. How much do you owe ? " 
 
 But John Finch shook his head sadly, and 
 at first refused to tell. " It would have been 
 nothing if I had had my bonds to help me 
 out," he finally confessed, " but now I don't 
 see how I ever can pay three hundred dollars." 
 
 In a little while he rose wearily, though it 
 was only a little past six, and said that he 
 must go to bed, and his wife followed him to 
 his room as if he were a child. This break- 
 ing down was truly a most painful and fright- 
 ful thing, and Polly was not surprised to be 
 wakened from her uneasy sleep a few hours 
 later, for she had worried and lain awake in a 
 way that rarely happened, fearing that her fa- 
 ther would be ill, and wondering what plans it 
 would be best to make for his assistance in the 
 coming year. She believed that they could do 
 much better with the farm, and she made up 
 her mind to be son and daughter both. 
 
 Later Mrs. Finch called her, hurriedly com-
 
 58 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 ing half-way up the staircase Tvith a light 
 " Your father is sick," she said, anxiously. 
 " I don't know whether it is more than a chill, 
 but he 's in great pain, and I wish we could 
 get the doctor. Can't you wrap up warm and 
 go over to Minton's and see if they can't send 
 somebody ? " 
 
 " There 's nobody there," said Polly ; " the 
 boys are both away. I '11 go myself, and get 
 back before you begin to miss me ; " and she 
 was already dressing as fast as she could. In 
 that quiet neighborhood she had no thought of 
 fear ; it was not like Polly to be afraid, at any 
 rate ; and after a few words to her father, and 
 making a bright fire in the little fire-place of the 
 bed-room, she put on her warm old hood and 
 mittens, and her mother's great plaid shawl, 
 and scurried away up the road. It was a mile 
 and a half to the doctor's house, and with every 
 step she grew more eager to reach it. The 
 clouds had broken away somewhat, and the 
 stars' bright rays came darting like glistening 
 needles at one's eyes, so keen and piercing they 
 were. The wind had gone down, and a heavy 
 coldness had fallen upon the earth, as if the 
 air, like water, had frozen and become denser,
 
 FARMER FINCH. 59 
 
 It seemed another world altogether, and the 
 old dog, that had left his snug corner behind 
 the kitchen stove to follow Polly, kept close at 
 her side, as if he lacked his usual courage. On 
 the ridges the cedar-trees stood up thinner and 
 blacker than ever ; the northern lights were 
 making the sky white and strange with their 
 mysterious light. Polly ran and walked by 
 turns, feeling warmed and quickened by the 
 exercise. She was not averse to the long walk 
 at that time of night ; she had a comfortable 
 sense of the strong young life that was hers to 
 use and command. 
 
 Suddenly she heard the sound of other foot- 
 steps besides her own on the frozen ground, 
 and stopped, feeling for the first time anything 
 like fear. Her first impulse was to hide, but 
 the road was wide and unsheltered, and there 
 was nothing to do but to go on. She thought 
 next that it might be somebocty whom she could 
 send the rest of the way, and in another min- 
 ute she heard a familiar whistle, and called 
 out, not without relief, " Is that you, Jerry ? " 
 
 The figure stopped, and answered nothing, 
 and Polly hurried nearer, and spoke again. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, what sends you out this
 
 60 FARMER FINCH, 
 
 time o' night ? " asked the young man, almost 
 impatiently ; and Polly in her turn became a 
 little angry with him, she could not have told 
 why. 
 
 " I 'm not out for pleasure," she answered, 
 with some spirit. " Father is taken very sick ; 
 we are afraid it is pneumonia ; and I 'in going 
 for the doctor. There was nobody to send." 
 
 " I was coming up from Portsmouth to-day," 
 said the young man, " and I lost the last train, 
 so I came on a freight train with some fellows 
 I know, and I thought I 'd foot it over from 
 the depot. We were delayed a good while or 
 it would n't have been so late. There was a 
 car off the track at Beverly." 
 
 He had turned, and was walking beside 
 Polly, who wondered that he had not sense 
 enough to offer to call the doctor for her. She 
 did not like his gallantry, and was in no mood 
 for friendliness. She noticed that he had been 
 drinking, but he seemed perfectly sober ; it 
 was between Jerry Minton and herself that 
 something almost like love-making had showed 
 itself not long before, but somehow any ten- 
 derness she had suspected herself of cherishing 
 for him had suddenly vanished from her heart 
 and mind.
 
 FARMER FINCH. 61 
 
 " I was all knocked of a heap in Salem this 
 morning to hear that the bank had failed. Our 
 folks will lose something, but I suppose it '11 
 about ruin your father. Seems to affect him a 
 good deal, don't it ? " 
 
 " It has n't quite ruined us," said Polly, 
 angrily, and walked faster and faster. 
 
 " I 've been turning it over in my mind to- 
 day a good deal," said Jerry. " I hope you 
 will call on me for anything I can do, 'specially 
 now your father 's going to be laid up." 
 
 " Thank you," said Polly, stiffly ; and pres- 
 ently she stopped in the road, and turned and 
 looked at him in a sharp and not very admir- 
 ing way. 
 
 " You might as well go home," she told him, 
 not unkindly. " I 've got to the village now, 
 and I shall ride home with the doctor ; there 's 
 no need for you to come back out of your 
 way." And Jerry, after a feeble remonstrance, 
 obeyed. 
 
 The doctor was used to being summoned at 
 such hours, and when he found it was Polly 
 Finch he dressed hurriedly, and came down, 
 brimful of kindness and sympathy, to let her
 
 62 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 He listened almost in silence to what Polly 
 had to say of the case, and then, taking a 
 bottle here and there from his stores in the lit- 
 tle room that served him as his office, he fast- 
 ened his great-coat, and pulled down the fur 
 cap that had been a valiant helmet against the 
 blows of many winter storms, and they went 
 out together to the stable. The doctor was an 
 elderly man and lame, and he was delighted 
 with the brisk way in which his young com- 
 panion stepped forward and helped him. The 
 lantern that hung in the warm little stable was 
 not very bright, but she quickly found her way 
 about, and the horse was soon harnessed. She 
 found that the harness needed tightening, the 
 doctor having used it that day for another car- 
 riage, and as he saw her try it and rebuckle it, 
 he felt a warm glow of admiration, and said to 
 himself that not one woman in a hundred 
 would have done such a thing. They wrapped 
 themselves in the heavy blankets and buffalo- 
 skins, and set forth, the doctor saying that 
 they could not go much faster than a walk. 
 
 He was still a little sleepy, and Polly did 
 not have much to say at first, except in answer 
 to one or two questions which he asked about
 
 FARMER FINCH. 63 
 
 her father's condition ; but at last she told him 
 of her own accord of the troubles that had 
 fallen upon them that day. It already seemed 
 a week to her since the morning ; she felt as if 
 she had grown years older instead of hours. 
 
 " Your father has a bad trouble about the 
 heart," said the doctor, hesitatingly. " I think 
 it is just as well you should know it, and if this 
 is pneumonia, it may go very hard with him. 
 And if he pulls through, as I hope he will if 
 we catch him in time, you must see to it that 
 he is very careful all the rest of the winter, and 
 does n't expose himself in bad weather. He 
 must n't go into the woods chopping, or any- 
 thing of that sort." 
 
 u I 'm much obliged to you for telling me," 
 said Polly, bravely. " I have made up my 
 mind to stay right at home. I was in hopes to 
 get a school, but I could n't do it, and now I 
 can see it was meant that I should n't, for 
 mother could n't get along without me if fa 
 ther 's going to be sick. I keep wishing I had 
 been a boy," and she gave a shaky little 
 laugh that had a very sad tone in it, " for it 
 seems as if father needed my help on the farm 
 more than mother does in the house, and I
 
 64 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 don't see why he should n't have it," she con* 
 fessed, filled with the courage of her new opin- 
 ion. " I believe that it is the only thing for 
 me to do. I always had a great knack at mak- 
 ing things grow, and I never should be so 
 happy anywhere as working out-doors and 
 handling a piece of land. I 'd rather work 
 with a hoe than a ferule any day," and she 
 gave the queer little laugh again. Nobody 
 would have suspected she found it so hard id 
 bear the doctor's bad news. 
 
 " But what is it you mean to do ? " asked 
 the doctor, in a most respectful tone, though 
 he was inwardly much amused. 
 
 Polly hesitated. " I have been thinking that 
 we might raise a good many more early vegeta- 
 bles, and ever so much more poultry. Some of 
 our land is so sheltered that it is very early, 
 you know, and it 's first-rate light loam. We 
 always get peas and potatoes and beans long 
 before the Mintons and the rest of the people 
 down our way, and there 's no trouble about a 
 market." 
 
 " But you '11 have to hire help," the doctor 
 suggested. 
 
 And Polly answered that she had thought
 
 FARMER FINCH. 65 
 
 of that, but she knew she could manage some- 
 how. " It 's a new thing, you see, doctor," she 
 said, much encouraged by his evident interest, 
 " but I mean to work my way through it. 
 Father has sold wood and sold hay, and if we 
 had too much butter or too many eggs, and 
 more early potatoes than we wanted, he would 
 sell those; but it seemed as if the farm was 
 there only to feed us, and now I believe I can 
 make it feed a good many other people be- 
 sides ; and we must get money somehow. 
 People let girls younger than I get married, 
 and nobody thinks it is any risk to let them 
 try housekeeping. I 'm going to try farm- 
 keeping." 
 
 The old doctor laughed. " You 've got a 
 wise head for such a young one," he said, 
 " and now I '11 help you every way I can. I 'm 
 not a rich man, but I 'm comfortably off for a 
 country doctor, and I 've got more money put 
 away than I am likely to use ; so, if you fall 
 short at any time, you just come and tell me, 
 and nobody shall know anything about it, and 
 you can take your own time to pay it back. I 
 know more about doctoring than I do about 
 farming, or I 'd give you plenty of advice. 
 But you go ahead, Polly."
 
 68 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 Polly nestled down into the buffaloes, feel- 
 ing already that she had become a business 
 woman. The old wagon bumped and shook 
 as they went along, and in the dim light Polly 
 caught sight of the barberry bush only a 
 darker shadow on the high bank at the side of 
 the road and she thought of it affectionately 
 as if it were a friend. Young Minton, whom 
 they overtook at last, called out loudly some 
 good wish that they might find Mr. Finch bet- 
 ter, and the doctor asked sharply who he was, 
 as they drove by. Polly told him, not without 
 a feeling of embarrassment, which was very 
 provoking to her. 
 
 " I must say I never liked that tribe," said 
 the doctor, hastily. "I always hate to have 
 them send for me." 
 
 When they reached the farm, Polly urged 
 the doctor to go into the house at once. There 
 was a bright light in the kitchen and in the 
 bedroom that opened out of it, and the girl 
 was almost afraid to go in after she had led 
 the horse into the barn and covered him with 
 the blanket. The old sorrel was within easy 
 reach of the overhanging edge of the haymow, 
 and she left him munching comfortably. As
 
 FARMER FINCH. 67 
 
 she opened the inner door of the kitchen she 
 heard her father's voice, weak and sharp, and 
 the doctor speaking in assuring tones with 
 hearty strength, but the contrast of the two 
 voices sounded very sad to Polly. It seemed 
 to her as if she had been gone a great while, 
 and she feared to look at her father lest he 
 might have changed sadly. As she came to 
 the bedroom door, the sight of her rosy-cheeked 
 and eager, sorry face seemed to please him, and 
 his own face brightened. 
 
 " YOU 're a good girl, Polly," said he. " I 'm 
 sorry you had such a bad time." He looked 
 very ill already, and Polly could not say any- 
 thing in answer. She rebuilt the fire, and 
 then went to stand by the table, as she used 
 when she was a little child, to see the doctor 
 take out his doses of medicine. 
 
 Very early in the morning Jerry Minton's 
 mother came knocking at the door, which Polly 
 had locked after the doctor had gone away in 
 the night. She had pushed the bolt with un- 
 wonted care, as if she wished to bar the en- 
 trance to any further trouble that might be ly- 
 ing in wait for them outside. Mrs. Minton 
 was ready with her expressions of sympathy,
 
 68 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 but somehow Polly wished she would go away. 
 She took a look at the sick man, who was 
 sleeping after the suffering and wakefulness 
 of the night, and shook her head ominously, 
 for which Polly could have struck her. She 
 was an unpleasant, croaking sort of woman, 
 and carried in her whole manner a conscious- 
 ness of the altered fortunes of the Finches; 
 and she even condoled with Polly on her dis- 
 appointment about the school. 
 
 " Jerry spoke about meeting you going for 
 the doctor," she said in conclusion. " I told 
 him I did n't know what you would think 
 about catching him out so late at night ; but 
 he was to Portsmouth, and mistook the time 
 of the train. I 've been joking him for some 
 time past. I 've about made up my mind 
 there 's some attraction to Portsmouth. He 
 was terrible took with that Miss Hallett who 
 was stopping to the minister's in the summer." 
 
 This was more than Polly could bear, for it 
 was only a short time since Mrs. Minton had 
 been paying her great attention, and wishing 
 that she and Jerry would make a match of it, 
 as the farms joined, and the farm-work was 
 growing too heavy for her as she became older.
 
 FARMER FINCH. 69 
 
 " If you mean Mary Hallett, she was mar- 
 ried in September to a young man in Boston, 
 partner in a commission firm," said Polly ; and 
 Mrs. Minton, for that time at any rate, was 
 routed horse and foot. 
 
 " I hate that woman ! " she said, angrily, as 
 she shut the door, not very gently, after her. 
 
 It was a long, hard illness that followed, and 
 the younger and the elder Mary Finch were 
 both tired and worn out before it ended in a 
 slow convalescence that in its dangers and 
 troubles was almost as bad as the illness itself. 
 The doctor was most kind and helpful in other 
 ways than with his medicines. It was a most 
 cheerful and kindly presence, and more than 
 once Polly drove back to the village with him, 
 or went with her own horse to bring him to 
 the farm, and they became fast friends. The 
 girl knew without being told that it would be 
 a long time before her father would grow 
 strong again, if that time ever came at all. 
 They had got on very well without help, she 
 and her mother. Some of the neighbors had 
 offered their services in-doors and out, but 
 these latter offers were only occasionally ac- 
 cepted.
 
 70 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 The oxen had been hired by a man who was 
 hauling salt hay to town, and Polly had taken 
 care of the horse and the two cows. She had 
 split the firewood and brought it in, and had 
 done what little rough work had to be attended 
 to in these weeks in spite of her mother's un- 
 willingness. To tell the truth, she enjoyed it 
 after the heat and stillness of the house, and 
 when she could take the time to run out for 
 a little while, it was always to take a look at 
 some part of the farm, and though many of 
 her projects proved to be castles in the air, she 
 found almost her only pleasure in these sad 
 winter days in building them and thinking 
 them over. 
 
 Before her father's illness she would have 
 turned most naturally to Jerry Minton for 
 help and sympathy, for he had made himself 
 very kind and pleasant to her then. Polly had 
 been thought a good match, since she was an 
 only child, and it was everywhere known that 
 John Finch and his wife had both inherited 
 money. Besides, it gave the more dignity to 
 her position that she had been so long away 
 at school, and such good accounts of her stand- 
 ing there had reached her native place; and
 
 FARMER FINCH. 71 
 
 Polly was uncommonly good-looking, if the 
 truth must be told, which Jerry Minton's eyes 
 had been quick to notice. Though it was 
 known at once through the town what a plight 
 the Finches' affairs were in, Jerry had come 
 at first, apparently unconscious of his mother's 
 withdrawal of his attentions, with great show 
 of sympathy and friendliness, to offer to watch 
 with the sick man by night, or to be of any use 
 by day, and he had been much mortified and 
 surprised at Polly's unmistakable repulse. Her 
 quick instinct had detected an assumption of 
 condescension and patronage on his part as 
 well as his mother's, and the growing fondness 
 which she had felt earlier in that season turned 
 to a dislike that grew much faster in the win- 
 ter days. Her mother noticed the change in 
 her manner, and one night as they sat together 
 in the kitchen Mrs. Finch whispered a gentle 
 warning to her daughter. " I thought one 
 time that there might be something between 
 you and Jerry," she said. " I hope you won't 
 let your duty to your father and me stand in 
 the way of your settling yourself comfortably. 
 I should n't like to think we were going to 
 leave you alone. A woman 's better to have 
 a home of her own."
 
 72 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 Polly turned so red that her mother conld 
 see the color even in the dim light by which 
 they watched. 
 
 " Don't you worry about me," said the girl, 
 " This is my home, and I would n't marry 
 Jerry Minton if he were the President." 
 
 That was a black and snowless winter until 
 late in January. There, near the sea, such 
 seasons are not so uncommon as they are far- 
 ther inland ; but the desolation of the land- 
 scape struck Polly Finch all the more forcibly 
 since it was answered to by the anxiety and 
 trouble that had fallen into her life. She had 
 not been at home in midwinter for several 
 years before, and in those earlier days she had 
 never noticed the outward world as she had 
 learned to do as she grew older. The farm 
 was a pleasant group of fields in summer, ly- 
 ing among the low hills that kept away both 
 the winds from the sea and the still keener 
 and bitterer northwest wind. Yet the plain, 
 warm, story-and-a-half house, with its square 
 front yard, with lilac and rose bushes, and the 
 open side yard with its close green turf, and 
 the barns and outbuildings beyond, was only a 
 little way from the marshes. From Polly's
 
 FARMER FINCH. 73 
 
 own upper window there was an outlook that 
 way over a low slope of one of the pasture 
 hills, and sometimes when she felt tired and 
 dreary, and looked out there, it seemed to her 
 as if the half-dozen black cedars were stand- 
 ing there watching the house, and waiting for 
 a still greater sorrow and evil fortune to go in 
 at the door. Our heroine's life was not a lit- 
 tle lonely, and it would have been much worse 
 if she had not been so busy and so full of care. 
 She missed the girls who had been her com- 
 panions at school, and from having her duties 
 marked out for her by her teachers, and noth- 
 ing to do but to follow set tasks, and do certain 
 things at certain hours, it was a great change 
 to being her own mistress, charged with not 
 only her own but other people's welfare. 
 
 The women from the few neighboring houses 
 who came in to pay friendly visits, or to help 
 with the housework, said very good things 
 about Polly afterward. It had been expected 
 that she would put on at least a few fine airs, 
 but she was so dutiful, and worked so hard and 
 so sensibly, and with such manifest willing- 
 ness and interest, that no one could help prais- 
 ing her. A very old neighbor, who was still
 
 74 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 mindful of the proprieties of life, though she 
 had become too feeble to be of much practical 
 use in the event of a friend's illness, came one 
 afternoon to pay a visit. She was terribly 
 fatigued after the walk which had been so long 
 for her, and Polly waited upon her kindly, and 
 brought her some refreshments, all in the 
 middle of one of her busiest afternoons. Poor 
 old Mrs. Wall ! she made her little call upon 
 the sick man, who was almost too weak to even 
 show his gratitude that she had made so great 
 an effort to keep up the friendly custom, and 
 after saying sadly that she used to be a great 
 hand to tend the sick, but her day was over, 
 she returned to the kitchen, when Polly drew 
 the big rocking-chair to the warmest corner, 
 and entertained her to the best of her power. 
 The, old woman's eye fell upon a great pile of 
 newspapers. 
 
 " I suppose you are a great hand to read, 
 after all your schooling ? " and Polly answered 
 that she did like to read very much, and 
 added : " Those are old numbers of the Agri- 
 culturist. Father has taken it a good many 
 years, and I 've taken to studying farming." 
 
 Mrs. Wall noticed the little blush that fot
 
 FARMER FINCH. 75 
 
 lowed this announcement, and did not question 
 its seriousness and truthfulness. 
 
 " I 'm going to help father carry on the 
 farm," said Polly, suddenly, fearing that her 
 guest might think she meant to marry, and 
 only take the in-door part of the farm's busi- 
 ness. 
 
 " Well, two heads are better than one," said 
 the old lady, after a minute's reflection ; " only 
 an old horse and a young one don't always 
 pull well together. But I can see, if my eyes 
 are n't what they used to be, that you are a 
 good smart girl, with some snap to ye. I guess 
 you 've got power enough to turn 'most any kind 
 of a mill. There was my own first cousin Se- 
 rena Allen, her husband was killed in the last 
 war, and she was left with two children when 
 she was n't a great deal older than you be, and 
 she run the farm, and lived well, and laid up a 
 handsome property. She was some years older 
 than I, but she has n't been dead a great many 
 years. She 'd plow a piece of ground as well 
 as a man. They used to call her Farmer Al- 
 len. She was as nice a woman as I ever knew." 
 
 Polly laughed more heartily than she had 
 {or a good while, and it did her father good to
 
 76 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 hear her ; but later, when the visitor had gone, 
 in spite of Polly's offer to drive her home a 
 little later when another neighbor returned 
 the horse, our friend watched her go away with 
 feeble steps, a bent, decrepit figure, almost 
 worn out with spending so many years in a 
 world of hard work. She might have stood 
 for a picture of old age, and Polly felt it as 
 she stood at the window. It had never come 
 home to her thoroughly before, the inevitable- 
 ness of growing old, and of the limitation of 
 this present life ; how soon the body loses its 
 power, and the strength of the mind wanes 
 with it. All that old Mrs. Wall could do in 
 this world was done, and her account was vir- 
 tually closed. " Here I am just starting out," 
 said unlucky John Finch's only daughter. " I 
 did think I might be going to have a great 
 career sometimes when I was at school, and 
 here I am settling down just like everybody 
 else, and only one wave, after all, instead of 
 being a whole tide. And it is n't going to be 
 a great while before I have as hard work to 
 get up that little hill as old Mrs. Wall. But 
 I 'm going to beat even her cousin Serena 
 Allen. I am going to be renowned as Farmer 
 Finch."
 
 FARMER FINCH. 77 
 
 Polly found it very hard to wait until it 
 should be time to make her garden and plant 
 it, and every day made her more impatient, 
 while she plied her father with questions, and 
 asked his opinion so many times as to the 
 merits of different crops, that he was tired of 
 the subject altogether. Through many seasons 
 he had tried these same experiments, with not 
 very great success, and he could not imagine 
 the keen interest and enthusiasm with which 
 Polly's soul was fired. She had never known 
 such a late spring, and the scurries of snow 
 in March and early April filled her with dis- 
 may, as if each had blighted and frost-bitten 
 her whole harvest. The day the garden was 
 plowed was warm and spring-like, and John 
 Finch crept out slowly, with his stick held fast 
 in a pale and withered-looking hand, to see the 
 work go on. He groaned when he saw what a 
 great piece of ground was marked out by the 
 long first furrows, and felt a new sense of 
 his defeated and weak condition. He began 
 to protest angrily at what he believed to be his 
 daughter's imprudent nonsense, but the thought 
 struck him that Polly might know what she 
 was about better than he did, and he fell back
 
 78 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 contentedly upon his confidence in her, and 
 leaned on the fence in the sun, feeling very 
 grateful that somebody else had taken things 
 in charge, he was so dull and unequal to mak- 
 ing any effort. "Polly's got power," he told 
 himself several times that day, with great 
 pride and satisfaction. 
 
 As the summer went on, and early potatoes 
 from the Finch farm were first in the mar- 
 ket, though everybody who saw them planted 
 had believed they would freeze and never 
 grow, and the other crops had sometimes 
 failed, but for the most part flourished fa- 
 mously, Polly began to attract a good deal 
 of attention, for she manifested uncommon 
 shrewdness and business talent, and her enter- 
 prise, held in check by her father's experience, 
 wrought wonders in the garden and fields. 
 Over and over John Finch said, admiringly, 
 to his wife, " How Polly does take hold of 
 things ! " and while he was quick to see the 
 objections to her plans, and had failed in his 
 own life affairs because he was afraid to take 
 risk, he was easily persuaded into thinking it 
 was worth while to do the old work in new 
 tfays. It was lucky that Polly had a grand
 
 FARMER FINCH. 79 
 
 capital of strength to live upon, for she gave 
 herself little rest all summer long ; she was up 
 early every morning and hard at work, and 
 only wished that the days were twice as long. 
 She minded neither heat nor rain, and having 
 seen her way clear to employ a strong country 
 boy whom the doctor had met in his rounds and 
 recommended, she took care of the great gar- 
 den with his help ; and when she had occasion 
 to do battle with the market-men who came 
 foraging that way, she came off victorious in 
 the matter of fair prices. 
 
 Now that so much has been said about the 
 days and the thoughts that led to the carrying 
 out of so bold a scheme, it is a pity there is not 
 time enough to give a history of the struggles 
 and successes of that first summer. There never 
 was a young man just " out of his time " and re- 
 joicing in his freedom, who went to work more 
 diligently and eagerly than Polly Finch, and 
 few have set their wits at work on a New 
 England farm half so intelligently. She 
 managed a great flock of poultry with admir- 
 able skill. Her geese walked in a stately pro- 
 cession all that summer to and from their 
 pleasure-ground at the edge of the marsh, and
 
 80 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 not a hen that stole her nest but was tracked 
 to earth like a fox and cooped triumphantly. 
 She tinkered the rickety bee-hives that stood 
 in a long and unremunerative row in the gar- 
 den until the bees became good housekeepers 
 and excellent providers for very shame. She 
 gathered more than one of the swarms herself 
 without a sting, and by infinite diligence she 
 waged war successfully on the currant worms, 
 with the result that she had a great crop of 
 currants when everybody else's came to grief. 
 She wondered why the butter that she and her 
 mother made brought only a third-rate price, 
 and bought a pound of the very best for a 
 pattern, and afterward was sparing of salt, 
 and careful to churn while the cream was 
 sweet and fresh. She sold the oxen, and 
 bought another horse instead for the lighter 
 team, which would serve her purpose better, 
 and every morning, after the crops began to 
 yield, a wagon-load of something or other 
 went from the farm to market. 
 
 She was as happy as a queen, and as well 
 and strong as girls ought to be ; and though 
 some people laughed a good deal, and thought 
 she ought to be ashamed to work on the farm
 
 FARMER FINCH. 81 
 
 like a man, they were forced to like her all the 
 better when they saw her ; and when she came 
 into church on Sunday, nobody could have said 
 that she had become unwomanly and rough. 
 Her hands grew to need a larger pair of gloves 
 than she was used to wearing, but that did not 
 trouble her ; and she liked a story-book, or a 
 book with more lessons in it still, better than 
 ever she had. Two girls who had been her 
 best friends at school came in the course of the 
 summer to visit her, and were asked out into 
 the garden, after the early breakfast, because 
 she must weed the beets, and after sitting still 
 for a while on a garden bench, they began to 
 help her, and both got headaches ; but at the 
 end of the week, having caught the spirit and 
 something of the enjoyment of her life, they 
 would have been glad to spend the rest of the 
 summer with her. There is something delight- 
 ful in keeping so close to growing things, and 
 one gets a great sympathy with the life that is 
 in nature, with the flourishing of some plants 
 and the hindered life of others, with the fruit- 
 fulness and the ripening and the gathering-in 
 that may be watched an tended and counted 
 on one small piece of ground.
 
 82 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 Everything seemed to grow that she touched, 
 and it was as if the strength of her own nature 
 was like a brook that made everything green 
 where it went. She had her failures and disap- 
 pointments, and she reaped little in some places 
 where she had looked for great harvests. The 
 hay was partly spoiled by some wet weather, 
 but there was still enough for their own stock, 
 and they sold the poultry for double the usual 
 money. The old doctor was Polly's firm friend, 
 and he grew as fond of her as if she were his 
 own daughter, and could hardly force himself 
 to take the money she brought back in pay- 
 ment of a loan she had been forced to ask of 
 him, unknown even to her mother, once when 
 things went hard against her enterprise late in 
 the spring. 
 
 John Finch gained strength slowly all that 
 summer, but his heart grew lighter day by day, 
 and he and Polly made enthusiastic plans in 
 the summer evenings for increased sheep-rais- 
 ing on their wide-spread pasture-land, and for 
 a great poultry-yard, which was to bring them 
 not a little wealth. And on Thanksgiving-day, 
 when our farmer counted up her gains finally, 
 she was out of debt, and more than satisfied
 
 FARMER FINCH. 83 
 
 and contented. She said over and over again 
 that she never should be happier than she had 
 been that summer. But more than one short- 
 sighted towns-woman wondered that she should 
 make nothing of herself when she had had a 
 good education, and many spoke as if Polly 
 would have been more admirable and respect- 
 able if she had succeeded in getting the little 
 town school teachership. She said herself that 
 she was thankful for everything she had 
 learned at school that had helped her about 
 her farming and gardening, but she was not 
 meant for a teacher. "Unless folks take a 
 lesson from your example," said the doctor. 
 " I 've seen a good deal of human nature in 
 my day, and I have found that people who 
 look at things as they are, and not as they 
 wish them to be, are the ones who succeed. 
 And when you see that a thing ought to be 
 done, either do it yourself or be sure you get it 
 done. ' Here I 've no school to teach, and fa- 
 ther has lost his money and his health. We Ve 
 got the farm ; but I 'm only a girl. The land 
 won't support us if we let it on the halves. 
 That 's what you might have said, and sat 
 down and cried. But I liked the way you un*
 
 84 FARMER FINCH. 
 
 dertook things. The farm was going to be 
 worked and made to pay; you were going 
 to do it; and you did do it. I saw you 
 mending up a bit of fence here and there, and 
 I saw you busy when other folks were lazy. 
 You 're a good girl, Polly Finch, and I wish 
 there were more like you," the doctor con- 
 cluded. "You take hold of life in the right 
 way. There 's plenty of luck for you in the 
 world. And now I 'm going to let you have 
 some capital this next spring, at a fair inter- 
 est, or none, and you can put yourself in a 
 way to make something handsome." 
 
 This is only a story of a girl whom fate and 
 fortune seemed to baffle ; a glimpse of the way 
 in which she made the best of things, and con- 
 quered circumstances, instead of being what 
 cowards call the victim of circumstances. 
 Whether she will live and die as Farmer 
 Finch, nobody can say, but it is not very 
 likely. One thing is certain : her own charac- 
 ter had made as good a summer's growth as 
 anything on her farm, and she was ashamed 
 to remember that she had ever thought seri- 
 ously of loving Jerry Minton. It will be a 
 much better man than he whom she falls in
 
 FARMER FINCH. 85 
 
 love with next. And whatever may fall to her 
 lot later, she will always be glad to think that 
 in that sad emergency she had been able to 
 save her father and mother from anxiety and 
 despair, and that she had turned so eagerly and 
 readily to the work that was useful and possi- 
 ble when her own plans had proved impossible, 
 and her father's strength had failed. 
 
 All that is left to be said of this chapter of 
 her story is that one day when she was walking 
 to the village on one of her rare and happy 
 holidays she discovered that, in widening a bit 
 of the highway, her friend the little barberry 
 bush was to be uprooted and killed. And she 
 took a spade that was lying idle, the workmen 
 having gone down the road a short distance, 
 and dug carefully around the roots, and put 
 her treasure in a safe place by the wall. 
 When she returned, later in the day, she 
 shouldered it, thorns and all, and carried it 
 home, and planted it in an excellent situation 
 by the orchard fence ; and there it still grows 
 and flourishes. I suppose she will say to her- 
 self as long as she lives, when things look ugly 
 and troublesome, " I '11 see if the other side is 
 any better, like my barberry bush."
 
 MARSH KOSEMAEY. 
 I. 
 
 ONE hot afternoon in August, a single mov- 
 ing figure might have been seen following a 
 straight road that crossed the salt marshes of 
 Walpole. Everybody else had either stayed 
 at home or crept into such shade as could be 
 found near at hand. The thermometer marked 
 at least ninety degrees. There was hardly 
 a fishing - boat to be seen on the glistening 
 sea, only far away on the hazy horizon two 
 or three coasting schooners looked like ghostly 
 flying Dutchmen, becalmed for once and mo- 
 tionless. 
 
 Ashore, the flaring light of the sun brought 
 out the fine, clear colors of the level landscape. 
 The marsh grasses were a more vivid green 
 than usual, the brown tops of those that were 
 beginning to go to seed looked almost red, and 
 the soil at the edges of the tide inlets seemed 
 to be melting into a black, pitchy substanca
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 87 
 
 like the dark pigments on a painter's palette. 
 Where the land was higher the hot air flick- 
 ered above it dizzily. This was not an after- 
 noon that one would naturally choose for a long 
 walk, yet Mr. Jerry Lane stepped briskly for- 
 ward, and appeared to have more than usual 
 energy. His big boots trod down the soft car- 
 pet of pussy-clover that bordered the dusty, 
 whitish road. He struck at the stationary pro- 
 cession of thistles with a little stick as he went 
 by. Flight after flight of yellow butterflies 
 fluttered up as he passed, and then settled 
 down again to their thistle flowers, while on the 
 shiny cambric back of Jerry's Sunday waist- 
 coat basked at least eight large green-headed 
 flies in complete security. 
 
 It was difficult to decide why the Sunday 
 waistcoat should have been put on that Satur- 
 day afternoon. Jerry had not thought it im- 
 portant to wear his best boots or best trousers, 
 and had left his coat at home altogether. He 
 smiled as he walked along, and once when he 
 took off his hat, as a light breeze came that 
 way, he waved it triumphantly before he put 
 it on again. Evidently this was no common 
 errand that led him due west, and made him
 
 88 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 forget the hot weather, and caused him to 
 shade his eyes with his hand, as he looked ea- 
 gerly at a clump of trees and the chimney of a 
 small house a little way beyond the boundary of 
 the marshes, where the higher ground began. 
 
 Miss Ann Floyd sat by her favorite window, 
 sewing, twitching her thread less decidedly 
 than usual, and casting a wistful glance now 
 and then down the road or at the bees in 
 her gay little garden outside. There was a 
 grim expression overshadowing her firmly-set, 
 angular face, and the frown that always ap- 
 peared on her forehead when she sewed or read 
 the newspaper was deeper and straighter than 
 usual. She did not look as if she were con- 
 scious of the heat, though she had dressed her- 
 self in an old-fashioned skirt of sprigged lawn 
 and a loose jacket of thin white dimity with 
 out-of-date flowing sleeves. Her sandy hair 
 was smoothly brushed; one lock betrayed a 
 slight crinkle at its edge, but it owed nothing 
 to any encouragement of Nancy Floyd's. A 
 hard, honest, kindly face this was, of a woman 
 whom everybody trusted, who might be ex* 
 pected to give of whatever she had to give,
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 89 
 
 good measure, pressed down and running over. 
 She was a lonely soul ; she had no near rela- 
 tives in the world. It seemed always as if 
 nature had been mistaken in not planting her 
 somewhere in a large and busy household. 
 
 The little square room, kitchen in winter 
 and sitting-room in summer, was as clean and 
 bare and thrifty as one would expect the dwell- 
 ing-place of such a woman to be. She sat in a 
 straight-backed, splint-bottomed kitchen chair, 
 and always put back her spool with a click on 
 the very same spot on the window-sill. You 
 would think she had done with youth and with 
 love affairs, yet you might as well expect the 
 ancient cherry-tree in the corner of her yard 
 to cease adventuring its white blossoms when 
 the May sun shone ! No woman in Walpole 
 had more bravely and patiently borne the bur- 
 den of loneliness and lack of love. Even now 
 her outward behavior gave no hint of the new 
 excitement and delight that filled her heart. 
 
 " Land sakes alive ! " she says to herself 
 presently, " there comes Jerry Lane. I expect, 
 if he sees me settin' to the winder, he '11 come 
 in an' dawdle round till supper time ! " But
 
 90 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 good Nancy Floyd smooths her hair hastily as 
 she rises and drops her work, and steps back 
 toward the middle of the room, watching the 
 gate anxiously all the time. Now, Jerry, with 
 a crestfallen look at the vacant window, makes 
 believe that he is going by, and takes a loiter- 
 ing step or two onward, and then stops short ; 
 with a somewhat sheepish smile he leans over 
 the neat picket fence and examines the blue 
 and white and pink larkspur that covers most 
 of the space in the little garden. He takes off 
 his hat again to cool his forehead, and replaces 
 it, without a grand gesture this time, and looks 
 again at the window hopefully. 
 
 There is a pause. The woman knows that 
 the man is sure she is there ; a little blush col- 
 ors her thin cheeks as she comes boldly to the 
 wide-open front door. 
 
 " What do you think of this kind of weath- 
 er ? " asks Jerry Lane, complacently, as he 
 leans over the fence, and surrounds himself 
 with an air of self-sacrifice. 
 
 " I call it hot," responds the Juliet from her 
 balcony, with deliberate assurance, " but the 
 corn needs sun, everybody says. I should n't 
 have wanted to toil up from the shore under
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 91 
 
 such a glare, if I had been you. Better come 
 in and set a while, and cool off," she added, 
 without any apparent enthusiasm. Jerry was 
 sure to come, any way. She would rather 
 make the suggestion than have him. 
 
 Mr. Lane sauntered in, and seated himself 
 opposite his hostess, beside the other small win- 
 dow, and watched her admiringly as she took 
 up her sewing and worked at it with great 
 spirit and purpose. He clasped his hands to- 
 gether and leaned forward a little. The shaded 
 kitchen was very comfortable, after the glaring 
 light outside, and the clean orderliness of the 
 few chairs and the braided rugs and the table 
 under the clock, with some larkspur and aspar- 
 agus in a china vase for decoration, seemed to 
 please him unexpectedly. " Now just see what 
 ways you women folks have of fixing things up 
 smart ! " he ventured gallantly. 
 
 Nancy's countenance did not forbid further 
 compliment ; she looked at the flowers herself, 
 quickly, and explained that she had gathered 
 them a while ago to send to the minister's 
 sister, who kept house for him. " I saw him 
 going by, and expected he 'd be back this same 
 road. Mis' Elton 's be'n havin' another o' her
 
 92 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 dyin' spells this noon, and the deacon went by 
 after him hot foot. I 'd souse her well with 
 stone-cold water. She never sent for me to set 
 up with her; she knows better. Poor man, 
 't was likely he was right into the middle of to- 
 morrow's sermon. 'T ain't considerate of the 
 deacon, and when he knows he 's got a fool for 
 a wife, he need n't go round persuading other 
 folks she 's so suffering as she makes out. 
 They ain't got no larkspur this year to the 
 parsonage, and I was going to let the minister 
 take this over to Amandy ; but I see his wagon 
 over on the other road, going towards the vil- 
 lage, about an hour after he went by here." 
 
 It seemed to be a relief to tell somebody 
 all these things after such a season of forced 
 repression, and Jerry listened with gratifying 
 interest. " How you do see through folks ! " 
 he exclaimed in a mild voice. Jerry could 
 be very soft spoken if he thought best. 
 " Mis' Elton 's a die-away lookin' creatur'. I 
 heard of her saying last Sunday, comin' out o' 
 meetin', that she made an effort to git there 
 once more, but she expected 't would be the 
 last time. Looks as if she eat well, don't 
 she ? " he concluded, in a meditative tone.
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 93 
 
 " Eat ! " exclaimed the hostess, with snap- 
 ping eyes. " There ain't no woman in town, 
 sick or well, can lay aside the food that she 
 does. 'T ain't to the table afore folks, but she 
 goes seeking round in the cupboards half a 
 dozen times a day. An' I 've heard her re- 
 mark 't was the last time she ever expected to 
 visit the sanctuary as much as a dozen times 
 within five years." 
 
 " Some places I 've sailed to they 'd have hit 
 her over the head with a club long ago," said 
 Jerry, with an utter lack of sympathy that was 
 startling. "Well, I must be gettin' back 
 again. Talkin' of eatin' makes us think o' 
 supper time. Must be past five, ain't it ? I 
 thought I 'd just step up to see if there wa'n't 
 anything I could lend a hand about, this hot 
 day." 
 
 Sensible Ann Floyd folded her hands over 
 her sewing, as it lay in her lap, and looked 
 straight before her without seeing the pleading 
 face of the guest. This moment was a great 
 crisis in her life. She was conscious of it, and 
 knew well enough that upon her next words 
 would depend the course of future events. 
 The man who waited to hear what she had
 
 94 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 to say was indeed many years younger than 
 she, was shiftless and vacillating. He had 
 drifted to Walpole from nobody knew where, 
 and possessed many qualities which she had 
 openly rebuked and despised in other men. 
 True enough, he was good-looking, but that 
 did not atone for the lacks of his character 
 and reputation. Yet she knew herself to be 
 the better man of the two, and since she had 
 surmounted many obstacles already she was 
 confident that, with a push here and a pull 
 there to steady him, she could keep him in 
 good trim. The winters were so long and 
 lonely ; her life was in many ways hungry and 
 desolate in spite of its thrift and conformity. 
 She had laughed scornfully when he stopped, 
 one day in the spring, and offered to help her 
 weed her garden ; she had even joked with one 
 of the neighbors about it. Jerry had been 
 growing more and more friendly and pleasant 
 ever since. His ease-loving careless nature 
 was like a comfortable cushion for hers, with 
 its angles, its melancholy anticipations and self- 
 questionings. But Jerry liked her, and if she 
 liked him and married him, and took him 
 home, it was nobody's business ; and in that
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 95 
 
 moment of surrender to Jerry's cause she ar- 
 rayed herself at his right hand against the rest 
 of the world, ready for warfare with any and 
 all of its opinions. 
 
 She was suddenly aware of the sunburnt 
 face and light, curling hair of her undeclared 
 lover, at the other end of the painted table 
 with its folded leaf. She smiled at him va- 
 cantly across the larkspur ; then she gave a 
 little start, and was afraid that her thoughts 
 had wandered longer than was seemly. The 
 kitchen clock was ticking faster than usual, as 
 if it were trying to attract attention. 
 
 " I guess I '11 be getting home," repeated 
 the visitor ruefully, and rose from his chair, 
 but hesitated again at an unfamiliar expres- 
 sion upon his companion's face. 
 
 " I don't know as I 've got anything extra 
 for supper, but you stop," she said, " an' take 
 what there is. I would n't go back across 
 them marshes right in this heat." 
 
 Jerry Lane had a lively sense of humor, 
 and a queer feeling of merriment stole over 
 him now, as he watched the mistress of the 
 house. She had risen, too ; she looked so 
 simple and so frankly sentimental, there was
 
 96 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 such an incongruous coyness added to her 
 usually straightforward, angular appearance, 
 that his instinctive laughter nearly got the 
 better of him, and might have lost him the 
 prize for which he had been waiting these 
 many months. But Jerry behaved like a man : 
 he stepped forward and kissed Ann Floyd ; he 
 held her fast with one arm as he stood beside 
 her, and kissed her again and again. She was 
 a dear good woman. She had a fresh young 
 heart, in spite of the straight wrinkle in her 
 forehead and her work-worn hands. She had 
 waited all her days for this joy of having a 
 lover. 
 
 II. 
 
 Even Mrs. Elton revived for a day or two 
 under the tonic of such a piece of news. That 
 was what Jerry Lane had hung round for all 
 summer, everybody knew at last. Now he 
 would strike work and live at his ease, the 
 men grumbled to each other ; but all the 
 women of Walpole deplored most the weak- 
 ness and foolishness of the elderly bride. Ann 
 Floyd was comfortably off, and had something
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 97 
 
 laid by for a rainy day ; she would have done 
 vastly better to deny herself such an expen- 
 sive and utterly worthless luxury as the kind 
 of husband Jerry Lane would make. He had 
 idled away his life. He earned a little money 
 now and then in seafaring pursuits, but was 
 too lazy, in the shore parlance, to tend lobster- 
 pots. What was energetic Ann Floyd going 
 to do with him ? She was always at work, 
 always equal to emergencies, and entirely op- 
 posed to dullness and idleness and even pla- 
 cidity. She liked people who had some snap 
 to them, she often avowed scornfully, and now 
 she had chosen for a husband the laziest man 
 in Walpole. " Dear sakes," one woman said 
 to another, as they heard the news, " there 's 
 no fool like an old fool ! " 
 
 The days went quickly by, while Miss Ann 
 made her plain wedding clothes. If people 
 expected her to put on airs of youth they were 
 disappointed. Her wedding bonnet was the 
 same sort of bonnet she had worn for a dozen 
 years, and one disappointed critic deplored the 
 fact that she had spruced up so little, and kept 
 on dressing old enough to look like Jerry 
 Lane's mother. As her acquaintances met
 
 98 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 her they looked at her with close scrutiny, 
 expecting to see some outward trace of such 
 a silly, uncharacteristic departure from good 
 sense and discretion. But Miss Floyd, while 
 she was still Miss Floyd, displayed no silliness 
 and behaved with dignity, while on the Sun- 
 day after a quiet marriage at the parsonage 
 she and Jerry Lane walked up the side aisle to 
 their pew, the picture of middle-aged sobriety 
 and respectability. Their fellow parishoners, 
 having recovered from their first astonishment 
 and amusement, settled down to the belief that 
 the newly married pair understood their own 
 business best, and that if anybody could make 
 the best of Jerry and get any work out of him, 
 it was his capable wife. 
 
 " And if she undertakes to drive him too 
 hard he can slip off to sea, and they '11 be rid 
 of each other," commented one of Jerry's 
 'longshore companions, as if it were only rea- 
 sonable that some refuge should be afforded 
 to those who make mistakes in matrimony. 
 
 There did not seem to be any mistake at 
 first, or for a good many months afterward. 
 The husband liked the comfort that came from
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 99 
 
 such good housekeeping, and enjoyed a deep 
 sense of having made a good anchorage in a 
 well-sheltered harbor, after many years of 
 thriftless improvidence and drifting to and 
 fro. There were some hindrances to perfect 
 happiness : he had to forego long seasons of 
 gossip with his particular friends, and the out- 
 door work which was expected of him, though 
 by no means heavy for a person of his strength, 
 fettered his freedom not a little. To chop 
 wood, and take care of a cow, and bring a pail 
 of water now and then, did not weary him so 
 much as it made him practically understand 
 the truth of weakly Sister Elton's remark that 
 life was a constant chore. And when poor 
 Jerry, for lack of other interest, fancied that 
 his health was giving way mysteriously, and 
 brought home a bottle of strong liquor to be 
 used in case of sickness, and placed it conve- 
 niently in the shed, Mrs. Lane locked it up in 
 the small chimney cupboard where she kept 
 her camphor bottie and her opodeldoc and the 
 other family medicines. She was not harsh 
 with her husband. She cherished him ten- 
 derly, and worked diligently at her trade of 
 tailoress, singing her hymns gayly in summer
 
 100 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 weather ; for she never had been so happy as 
 now, when there was somebody to please be- 
 side herself, to cook for and sew for, and to 
 live with and love. But Jerry complained 
 more and more in his inmost heart that his 
 wife expected too much of him. Presently he 
 resumed an old habit of resorting to the least 
 respected of the two country stores of that 
 neighborhood, and sat in the row of loafers on 
 the outer steps. " Sakes alive," said a shrewd 
 observer one day, " the fools set there and talk 
 and talk about what they went through when 
 they follered the sea, till when the women- 
 folks comes tradin' they are obleeged to climb 
 right over 'em." 
 
 But things grew worse and worse, until one 
 day Jerry Lane came home a little late to din- 
 ner, and found his wife unusually grim-faced 
 and impatient. He took his seat with an ami- 
 able smile, and showed in every way his de- 
 termination not to lose his temper because 
 somebody else had. It was one of the days 
 when he looked almost boyish and entirely ir- 
 responsible. His hair was handsome and curly 
 from the dampness of the east wind, and his 
 wife was forced to remember how, in the days
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 101 
 
 of their courtship, she used to wish that she 
 could pull one of the curling locks straight, for 
 the pleasure of seeing it fly back. She felt 
 old and tired, and was hurt in her very soul by 
 the contrast between herself and her husband. 
 " No wonder I am aging, having to lug every- 
 thing on my shoulders," she thought. .Jerry 
 had forgotten to do whatever she had asked 
 him for a day or two. He had started out 
 that morning to go lobstering, but he had re- 
 turned from the direction of the village. 
 
 "Nancy," he said pleasantly, after he had 
 begun his dinner, a silent and solitary meal, 
 while his wife stitched busily by the window, 
 and refused to look at him, " Nancy, I 've 
 been thinking a good deal about a project." 
 
 " I hope it ain't going to cost so much and 
 bring in so little as your other notions have, 
 then," she responded, quickly; though some- 
 how a memory of the hot day when Jerry came 
 and stood outside the fence, and kissed her 
 when it was settled he should stay to supper, 
 a memory of that day would keep fading 
 and brightening in her mind. 
 
 " Yes," said Jerry, humbly, " I ain't done 
 right, Nancy. I ain't done my part for OUT
 
 102 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 livin'. I Ve let it sag right on to you, most 
 ever since we was married. There was that 
 spell when I was kind of weakly, and had a 
 pain acrost me. I tell you what it is : I never 
 was good for nothin' ashore, but now I Ve got 
 my strength up I 'm going to show ye what I 
 can do. I 'm promised to ship with Cap'n 
 Low's brother, Skipper Nathan, that sails 
 out o' Eastport in the coasting trade, lumber 
 and so on. I shall get good wages, and you 
 shall keep the whole on 't 'cept what I need 
 for clothes." 
 
 " You need n't be so plaintive," said Ann, 
 in a sharp voice. " You can go if you want 
 to. I have always been able to take care of 
 myself, but when it comes to maintainin' two, 
 't ain't so easy. When be you goin' ? " 
 
 " I expected you would be sorry," mourned 
 Jerry, his face falling at this outbreak. 
 " Nancy, you need n't be so quick. 'T ain't as 
 if I had n't always set everything by ye, if I 
 be wuthless." 
 
 Nancy's eyes flashed fire as she turned hastily 
 away. Hardly knowing where she went, she 
 passed through the open doorway, and crossed 
 the clean green turf of the narrow side yard
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 103 
 
 and leaned over the garden fence. The young 
 cabbages and cucumbers were nearly buried 
 in weeds, and the currant bushes were fast be- 
 ing turned into skeletons by the ravaging 
 worms. Jerry had forgotten to sprinkle them 
 with hellebore, after all, though she had put 
 the watering-pot into his very hand the even- 
 ing before. She did not like to have the whole 
 town laugh at her for hiring a man to do his 
 work ; she was busy from early morning until 
 late night, but she could not do everything 
 herself. She had been a fool to marry this 
 man, she told herself at last, and a sullen dis- 
 content and rage that had been of slow but 
 certain growth made her long to free herself 
 from this unprofitable hindrance for a time, at 
 any rate. Go to sea ? Yes, that was the best 
 thing that could happen. Perhaps when he 
 had worked hard a while on schooner fare, he 
 would come home and be good for something ! 
 Jerry finished his dinner in the course of 
 time, and then sought his wife. It was not 
 like her to go away in this silent fashion. Of 
 late her gift of speech had been proved suffi- 
 ciently formidable, and yet she had never 
 looked so resolutely angry as to-day.
 
 104 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 " Nancy," he began, " Nancy, girl ! I 
 ain't goin' off to leave you, if your heart 's set 
 against it. I '11 spudge up and take right 
 holt." 
 
 But the wife turned slowly from the fence 
 and faced him. Her eyes looked as if she had 
 been crying. " You need n't stay on my ac- 
 count," she said. " I '11 go right to work an' 
 fit ye out. I 'm sick of your meechin' talk, 
 and I don't want to hear no more of it. Ef 1 
 was a man " 
 
 Jerry Lane looked crestfallen for a minute 
 or two ; but when his stern partner in life had 
 disappeared within the house, he slunk away 
 among the apple-trees of the little orchard, and 
 sat down on the grass in a shady spot. It was 
 getting to be warm weather, but he would go 
 round and hoe the old girl's garden stuff by 
 and by. There would be something goin' on 
 aboard the schooner, and with delicious antici- 
 pation of future pleasure this delinquent Jerry 
 struck his knee with his hand, as if he were 
 clapping a crony on the shoulder. He also 
 winked several times at the same fancied com- 
 panion. Then, with a comfortable chuckle, he 
 laid himself down, and pulled his old hat over
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 105 
 
 his eyes, and went to sleep, while the weeds 
 grew at their own sweet will, and the currant 
 worms went looping and devouring from twig 
 to twig. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Summer went by, and winter began, and 
 Mr. Jerry Lane did not reappear. He had 
 promised to return in September, when he 
 parted from his wife early in June, for Nancy 
 had relented a little at the last, and sorrowed 
 at the prospect of so long a separation. She 
 had already learned the vacillations and un- 
 certainties of her husband's character; but 
 though she accepted the truth that her mar- 
 riage had been in every way a piece of foolish- 
 ness, she still clung affectionately to his as- 
 sumed fondness for her. She could not believe 
 that his marriage was only one of his make- 
 shifts, and that as soon as he grew tired of the 
 constraint he was ready to throw the benefits 
 of respectable home life to the four winds. A 
 little sentimental speech-making and a few 
 kisses the morning he went away, and the 
 gratitude he might well have shown for her
 
 106 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 generous care-taking and provision for his voy- 
 age won her soft heart back again, and made 
 poor, elderly, simple-hearted Nancy watch him 
 cross the marshes with tears and foreboding. 
 If she could have called him back that day, she 
 would have done so and been thankful. And 
 all summer and winter, whenever the wind 
 blew and thrashed the drooping elm boughs 
 against the low roof over her head, she was as 
 full of fears and anxieties as if Jerry were her 
 only son and making his first voyage at sea. 
 The neighbors pitied her for her disappoint- 
 ment. They liked Nancy ; but they could not 
 help saying, " I told you so." It would have 
 been impossible not to respect the brave way 
 in which she met the world's eye, and carried 
 herself with innocent unconsciousness of hav- 
 ing committed so laughable and unrewarding 
 a folly. The loafers on the store steps had 
 been unwontedly diverted one day, when Jerry, 
 who was their chief wit and spokesman, rose 
 slowly from his place, and said in pious tones, 
 " Boys, I must go this minute. Grandma will 
 keep dinner waiting." Mrs. Ann Lane did 
 not show in her aging face how young her 
 heart was, and after the schooner Susan Barnes
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 107 
 
 had departed she seemed to pass swiftly from 
 middle life and an almost youthful vigor to 
 early age and a look of spent strength and dis- 
 satisfaction. " I suppose he did find it dull," 
 she assured herself, with wistful yearning for 
 his rough words of praise, when she sat down 
 alone to her dinner, or looked up sadly from, 
 her work, and missed the amusing though un- 
 edifying conversation he was wont to offer occa- 
 sionally on stormy winter nights. How much 
 of his adventuring was true she never cared to 
 ask. He had come and gone, and she forgave 
 him his shortcomings, and longed for his so- 
 ciety with a heavy heart. 
 
 One spring day there was news in the Bos- 
 ton paper of the loss of the schooner Susan 
 Barnes with all on board, and Nancy Lane's 
 best friends shook their sage heads, and de- 
 clared that as far as regarded Jerry Lane, that 
 idle vagabond, it was all for the best. Nobody 
 was interested in any other member of the 
 crew, so the misfortune of the Susan Barnes 
 seemed of but slight consequence in Walpole, 
 she having passed out of her former owners' 
 hands the autumn before. Jerry had stuck by 
 the ship ; at least, so he had sent word then to
 
 108 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 his wife by Skipper Nathan Low. The Susan 
 Barnes was to sail regularly between Shecliac 
 and Newfoundland, and Jerry sent five dollars 
 to Nancy, and promised to pay her a visit soon. 
 " Tell her I 'm layin' up somethin' handsome," 
 he told the skipper with a grin, " and I 've got 
 some folks in Newfoundland I '11 visit with on 
 this voyage, and then I '11 come ashore for good 
 and farm it." 
 
 Mrs. Lane took the five dollars from the 
 skipper as proudly as if Jerry had done the 
 same thing so many times before that she 
 hardly noticed it. The skipper gave the mes- 
 sages from Jerry, and felt that he had done 
 the proper thing. When the news came long 
 afterward that the schooner was lost, that was 
 the next thing that Nancy knew about her 
 wandering mate ; and after the minister had 
 come solemnly to inform her of her bereave- 
 ment, and had gone away again, and she sat 
 down and looked her widowhood in the face, 
 there was not a sadder nor a lonelier woman 
 in the town of Walpole. 
 
 All the neighbors came to condole with our 
 heroine, and, though nobody was aware of it, 
 from that time she was really happier and bet-
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 109 
 
 ter satisfied with life than she had ever been 
 before. Now she had an ideal Jerry Lane to 
 mourn over and think about, to cherish and 
 admire ; she was day by day slowly forgetting 
 the trouble he had been and the bitter shame 
 of him, and exalting his memory to something 
 near saintliness. " He meant well," she told 
 herself again and again. She thought nobody 
 could tell so good a story ; she felt that with 
 her own bustling, capable ways he had no 
 chance to do much that he might have done. 
 She had been too quick with him, and alas, 
 alas ! how much better she would know how 
 to treat him if she only could see him again ! 
 A sense of relief at his absence made her con- 
 tinually assure herself of her great loss, and, 
 false even to herself, she mourned her some- 
 time lover diligently, and tried to think her- 
 self a broken-hearted woman. It was thought 
 among those who knew Nancy Lane best that 
 she would recover her spirits in time, but 
 Jerry's wildest anticipations of a proper re- 
 spect to his memory were more than realized 
 in the first two years after the schooner Susan 
 Barnes went to the bottom of the sea. She 
 mourned for the man he ought to have been,
 
 110 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 not for the real Jerry, but she had loved him 
 in the beginning enough to make her own love 
 a precious possession for all time to come. It 
 did not matter much, after all, what manner of 
 man he was ; she had found in him something 
 on which to spend her hoarded affection. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Nancy Lane was a peaceable woman and a 
 good neighbor, but she never had been able to 
 get on with one fellow townswoman, and that 
 was Mrs. Deacon Elton. They managed to 
 keep each other provoked and teased from one 
 year's end to the other, and each good soul felt 
 herself under a moral microscope, and under- 
 stood that she was judged by a not very lenient 
 criticism and discussion. Mrs. Lane clad her- 
 self in simple black after the news came of her 
 husband's timely death, and Mrs. Elton made 
 one of her farewell pilgrimages to church to 
 see the new-made widow walk up the aisle. 
 
 " She need n't tell me she lays that affliction 
 so much to heart," the deacon's wife sniffed 
 faintly, after her exhaustion had been met by
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. Ill 
 
 proper treatment of camphor and a glass of 
 currant wine, at the parsonage, where she 
 rested a while after service. " Nancy Floyd 
 knows she 's well over with such a piece of 
 nonsense. If I had had my health, I should 
 have spoken with her and urged her not to 
 take the step in the first place. She has n't 
 spoken six beholden words to me since that 
 vagabond come to Walpole. I dare say she 
 may have heard something I said at the time 
 she married. I declare for 't, I never was so 
 outdone as I was when the deacon came home 
 and told me Nancy Floyd was going to be mar- 
 ried. She let herself down too low to ever 
 hold the place again that she used to have in 
 folks' minds. And it 's my opinion," said the 
 sharp-eyed little woman, " she ain't got through 
 with her pay yet." 
 
 But Mrs. Elton did not know with what un- 
 conscious prophecy her words were freighted. 
 
 The months passed by : summer and winter 
 came and went, and even those few persons 
 who were misled by Nancy Lane's stern visage 
 and forbidding exterior into forgetting her 
 kind heart were at last won over to friendli-
 
 112 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 ness by her renewed devotion to the sick and 
 old people of the rural community. She was 
 so tender to little children that they all loved 
 her dearly. She was ready to go to any house- 
 hold that needed help, and in spite of her 
 ceaseless industry with her needle she found 
 many a chance to do good, and help her neigh- 
 bors to lift and carry the burdens of their lives. 
 She blossomed out suddenly into a lovely, 
 painstaking eagerness to be of use ; it seemed 
 as if her affectionate heart, once made gener- 
 ous, must go on spending its wealth wherever 
 it could find an excuse. Even Mrs. Elton her- 
 self was touched by her old enemy's evident 
 wish to be friends, and said nothing more about 
 poor Nancy's looking as savage as a hawk. 
 The only thing to admit was the truth that her 
 affliction had proved a blessing to her. And 
 it was in a truly kind and compassionate spirit 
 that, after hearing an awful piece of news, the 
 deacon's hysterical wife forbore to spread it far 
 and wide through the town first, and went 
 down to the Widow Lane's one September 
 afternoon. Nancy was stitching busily upon 
 the deacon's new coat, and looked up with a 
 friendly smile as her guest came in, in spite of'
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 113 
 
 an instinctive shrug as she had seen her com- 
 ing up the yard. The dislike of the poor souls 
 for each other was deeper than their philoso- 
 phy could reach. 
 
 Mrs. Elton spent some minutes in the un- 
 necessary endeavor to regain her breath, and 
 to her surprise found she must make a real 
 effort before she could tell her unwelcome 
 news. She had been so full of it all the way 
 from home that she had rehearsed the whole 
 interview ; now she hardly knew how to begin. 
 Nancy looked serener than usual, but there 
 was something wistful about her face as she 
 glanced across the room, presently, as if to 
 understand the reason of the long pause. The 
 clock ticked loudly ; the kitten clattered a 
 spool against the table-leg, and had begun to 
 snarl the thread around her busy paws, and 
 Nancy looked down and saw her ; then the in- 
 stant consciousness of there being some un- 
 happy reason for Mrs. Elton's call made her 
 forget the creature's mischief, and anxiously 
 lay down her work to listen. 
 
 " Skipper Nathan Low was to our house to 
 dinner," the guest began. " He 's bargaining 
 with the deacon about some hay. He 's got a
 
 114 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 new schooner, Skipper Nathan has, and is go- 
 ing to build up a regular business of freight- 
 ing hay to Boston by sea. There 's no market 
 to speak of about here, unless you haul it way 
 over to Downer, and you can't make but one 
 turn a day." 
 
 " 'T would be a good thing," replied Nancy, 
 trying to think that this was all, and perhaps 
 the deacon wanted to hire her own field an- 
 other year. He had underpaid her once, and 
 they had not been on particularly good terms 
 ever since. She would make her own bargains 
 with Skipper Nathan, she thanked him and his 
 wife ! 
 
 " He 's been down to the provinces these 
 two or three years back, you know," the whin- 
 ing voice went on, and straightforward Ann 
 Lane felt the old animosity rising within her. 
 " At dinner time I was n't able to eat much 
 of anything, and so I was talking with Cap'n 
 Nathan, and asking him some questions about 
 them parts ; and I spoke something about the 
 mercy 't was his life should ha' been spared 
 when that schooner, the Susan Barnes, was lost 
 so quick after he sold out his part of her. And 
 I put in a word, bein' 's we were neighbors,
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 115 
 
 about how edifyin' your course had be'n under 
 affliction. I noticed then he 'd looked sort 
 o' queer whilst I was talkin', but there was all 
 the folks to the table, and you know he 's a 
 very cautious man, so he spoke of somethin' 
 else. 'T wa'n't half an hour after dinner, I 
 was comin' in with some plates and cups, try- 
 in' to help what my stren'th would let me, and 
 says he, ' Step out a little ways into the piece 
 with me, Mis' Elton. I want to have a word 
 with ye.' I went, too, spite o' my neuralgy, 
 for I saw he 'd got somethin' on his mind. 
 ' Look here,' says he, ' I gathered from the 
 way you spoke that Jerry Lane's wife expects 
 he 's dead.' Certain, says I, his name was in 
 the list o' the Susan Barnes's crew, and we 
 read it in the paper. 4 No,' says he to me, 4 he 
 ran away the day they sailed ; he was n't 
 aboard, and he 's livin' with another woman 
 down to Shediac.' Them was his very words." 
 Nancy Lane sank back in her chair, and 
 covered her horror - stricken eyes with her 
 hands. " 'T ain't pleasant news to have to 
 tell," Sister Elton went on mildly, yet with ev- 
 ident relish and full command of the occasion. 
 " He said he seen Jerry the morning he came
 
 116 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 away. I thought you ought to know it. I '11 
 tell you one thing, Nancy : I told the skipper 
 to keep still about it, and now I 've told you, 
 I won't spread it no further to set folks a-talk- 
 ing. I '11 keep it secret till you say the word. 
 There ain't much trafficking betwixt here and 
 there, and he 's dead to you, certain, as much 
 as if he laid up here in the bury ing-ground." 
 
 Nancy had bowed her head upon the table ; 
 the thin sandy hair was streaked with gray. 
 She did not answer one word ; this was the 
 hardest blow of all. 
 
 "I'm much obliged to you for being so 
 friendly," she said after a few minutes, look- 
 ing straight before her now in a dazed sort of 
 way, and lifting the new coat from the floor, 
 where it had fallen. " Yes, he 's dead to me, 
 worse than dead, a good deal," and her lip 
 quivered. " I can't seem to bring my thoughts 
 to bear. I Ve got so used to thinkin' No, 
 don't you say nothin' to the folks, yet. I 'd do 
 as much for you." And Mrs. Elton knew that 
 the smitten fellow-creature before her spoke 
 the truth, and forebore. 
 
 Two or three days came and went, and with
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 117 
 
 every hour the quiet, simple - hearted woman 
 felt more grieved and unsteady in mind and 
 body. Such a shattering thunderbolt of news 
 rarely falls into a human life. She could not 
 sleep ; she wandered to and fro in the little 
 house, and cried until she could cry no longer. 
 Then a great rage spurred and excited her. 
 She would go to Shediac, and call Jerry Lane 
 to account. She would accuse him face to 
 face ; and the woman whom he was deceiving, 
 as perhaps he had deceived her, should know 
 the baseness and cowardice of this miserable 
 man. So, dressed in her respectable Sunday 
 clothes, in the gray bonnet and shawl that 
 never had known any journeys except to meet- 
 ing, or to a country funeral or quiet holiday- 
 making, Nancy Lane trusted herself for the 
 first time to the bewildering railway, to the 
 temptations and dangers of the wide world 
 outside the bounds of Walpole. 
 
 Two or three days later still, the quaint, thin 
 figure familiar in Walpole highways flitted 
 down the street of a provincial town. In the 
 most primitive region of China this woman 
 could hardly have felt a greater sense of for- 
 eign life and strangeness. At another time
 
 118 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 her native good sense and shrewd observation 
 would have delighted in the experiences of this 
 first week of travel, but she was too sternly 
 angry and aggrieved, too deeply plunged in a 
 survey of her own calamity, to take much no- 
 tice of what was going on about her. Later 
 she condemned the unworthy folly of the whole 
 errand, but in these days the impulse to seek 
 the culprit and confront him was irresistible. 
 
 The innkeeper's wife, a kindly creature, had 
 urged this puzzling guest to wait and rest and 
 eat some supper, but Nancy refused, and with- 
 out asking her way left the brightly lighted, 
 flaring little public room, where curious eyes 
 already offended her, and went out into the 
 damp twilight. The voices of the street boys 
 sounded outlandish, and she felt more and 
 more lonely. She longed for Jerry to appear 
 for protection's sake ; she forgot why she sought 
 him, and was eager to shelter herself behind 
 the flimsy bulwark of his manhood. She re- 
 buked herself presently with terrible bitterness 
 for a womanish wonder whether he would say, 
 " Why, Nancy, girl ! " and be glad to see her. 
 Poor woman, it was a work-laden, serious girl- 
 hood that had been hers, at any rate. The
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 119 
 
 power of giving her whole self in unselfish, en- 
 thusiastic, patient devotion had not belonged to 
 her youth only ; it had sprung fresh and blos- 
 soming in her heart as every new year came 
 and went. 
 
 One might have seen her stealing through the 
 shadows, skirting the edge of a lumber-yard, 
 stepping among the refuse of the harbor side, 
 asking a question timidly now and then of 
 some passer-by. Yes, they knew Jerry Lane, 
 his house was only a little way off ; and one 
 curious and compassionate Scotchman, divin- 
 ing by some inner sense the exciting nature of 
 the errand, turned back, and offered fruitlessly 
 to go with the stranger. " You know the 
 man ? " he asked. " He is his own enemy, 
 but doing better now that he is married. He 
 minds his work, I know that well ; but he 's 
 taken a good wife." Nancy's heart beat faster 
 with honest pride for a moment, until the 
 shadow of the ugly truth and reality made it 
 sink back to heaviness, and the fire of her 
 smouldering rage was again kindled. She 
 would speak to Jerry face to face before she 
 slept, and a horrible contempt and scorn were 
 ready for him, as with a glance either way
 
 120 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 along the road she entered the narrow yard, 
 and went noiselessly toward the window of a 
 low, poor-looking house, from whence a bright 
 light was shining out into the night. 
 
 Yes, there was Jerry, and it seemed as if 
 she must faint and fall at the sight of him. 
 How young he looked still ! The thought 
 smote her like a blow. They never were 
 mates for each other, Jerry and she. Her 
 own life was waning ; she was an old woman. 
 
 He never had been so thrifty and respect- 
 able before ; the other woman ought to know 
 the savage truth about him, for all that ! But 
 at that moment the other woman stooped be- 
 side the supper table, and lifted a baby from 
 its cradle, and put the dear, live little thing 
 into its father's arms. The baby was wide 
 awake, and laughed at Jerry, who laughed 
 back again, and it reached up to catch at a 
 handful of the curly hair which had been poor 
 Nancy's delight. 
 
 The other woman stood there looking at 
 them, full of pride and love. She was young, 
 and trig, and neat. She looked a brisk, effi- 
 cient little creature. Perhaps Jerry would 
 make something of himself now; he always
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 121 
 
 had it in him. The tears were running down 
 Nancy's cheeks ; the rain, too, had begun to 
 fall. She stood there watching the little house- 
 hold sit down to supper, and noticed with 
 eager envy how well cooked the food was, and 
 how hungrily the master of the house ate what 
 was put before him. All thoughts of ending 
 the new wife's sin and folly vanished away. 
 She could not enter in and break another 
 heart ; hers was broken already, and it would 
 not matter. And Nancy Lane, a widow in- 
 deed, crept away again, as silently as she had 
 come, to think what was best to be done, to 
 find alternate woe and comfort in the memory 
 of the sight she had seen. 
 
 The little house at the edge of the Walpole 
 marshes seemed full of blessed shelter and 
 comfort the evening that its forsaken mistress 
 came back to it. Her strength was spent ; she 
 felt much more desolate now that she had seen 
 with her own eyes that Jerry Lane was alive 
 than when he was counted among the dead. 
 An uncharacteristic disregard of the laws of 
 the land filled this good woman's mind. Jerry 
 had his life to live, and she wished him no
 
 122 MARSH ROSEMARY. 
 
 harm. She wondered often how the baby 
 grew. She fancied sometimes the changes 
 and conditions of the far - away household. 
 Alas ! she knew only too well the weakness 
 of the man, and once, in a grim outburst of 
 impatience, she exclaimed, " I J d rather she 
 should have to cope with him than me ! " 
 
 But that evening, when she came back from 
 Shediac, and sat in the dark for a long time, 
 lest Mrs. Elton should see the light and risk 
 her life in the evening air to bring unwelcome 
 sympathy, that evening, I say, came the 
 hardest moment of all, when the Ann Floyd, 
 tailoress, of so many virtuous, self-respecting 
 years, whose idol had turned to clay, who was 
 shamed, disgraced, and wronged, sat down 
 alone to supper in the little kitchen. 
 
 She had put one cup and saucer on the ta- 
 ble ; she looked at them through bitter tears. 
 Somehow a consciousness of her solitary age, 
 her uncompanioned future, rushed through her 
 mind ; this failure of her best earthly hope 
 was enough to break a stronger woman's 
 heart. 
 
 Who can laugh at my Marsh Rosemary, or 
 who can cry, for that matter ? The gray prim.
 
 MARSH ROSEMARY. 123 
 
 ness of the plant is made up of a hundred col- 
 ors, if you look close enough to find them. 
 This same Marsh Kosemary stands in her own 
 place, and holds her dry leaves and tiny blos- 
 soms steadily toward the same sun that the 
 pink lotus blooms for, and the white rose.
 
 THE DULHAM LADIES. 
 
 To be leaders of society in the town of Dul- 
 ham was as satisfactory to Miss Dobin and 
 Miss Lucinda Dobin as if Dulham were Lon- 
 don itself. Of late years, though they would 
 not allow themselves to suspect such treason, 
 the most ill-bred of the younger people in the 
 village made fun of them behind their backs, 
 and laughed at their treasured summer man- 
 tillas, their mincing steps, and the shape of 
 their parasols. 
 
 They were always conscious of the fact that 
 they were the daughters of a once eminent 
 Dulham minister ; but beside this unanswer- 
 able claim to the respect of the First Parish, 
 they were aware that their mother's social po- 
 sition was one of superior altitude. Madam 
 Dobin's grandmother was a Greenaple, of Bos- 
 ton. In her younger days she had often vis- 
 ited her relatives, the Greenaples and High- 
 trees, and in seasons of festivity she could
 
 THE DULHAM LADIES. 125 
 
 relate to a select and properly excited audience 
 her delightful experiences of town life. Noth- 
 ing could be finer than her account of having 
 taken tea at Governor Clovenfoot's on Beacon 
 Street in company with an English lord, who 
 was indulging himself in a brief vacation from 
 his arduous duties at the Court of St. James. 
 
 " He exclaimed that he had seldom seen in 
 England so beautiful and intelligent a com- 
 pany of ladies," Madam Dobin would always 
 say in conclusion. "He was decorated with 
 the blue ribbon of the Knights of the Garter." 
 Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda thought for 
 many years that this famous blue ribbon was 
 tied about the noble gentleman's leg. One 
 day they even discussed the question openly ; 
 Miss Dobin placing the decoration at his knee, 
 and Miss Lucinda locating it much lower 
 down, according to the length of the short 
 gray socks with which she was familiar. 
 
 " You have no imagination, Lucinda," the 
 elder sister replied impatiently. " Of course, 
 those were the days of small-clothes and long 
 silk stockings ! " whereat Miss Lucinda was 
 rebuked, but not persuaded. 
 
 " I wish that my dear girls could have the
 
 126 THE DULHAM LADIES. 
 
 outlook upon society which fell to my por- 
 tion," Madam Dobin sighed, after she had set 
 these ignorant minds to rights, and enriched 
 them by communicating the final truth about 
 the blue ribbon. " I must not chide you for 
 the absence of opportunities, but if our cousin 
 Harriet Greenaple were only living you would 
 not lack enjoyment or social education." 
 
 Madam Dobin had now been dead a great 
 many years. She seemed an elderly woman 
 to her daughters some time before she left 
 them ; later they thought that she had really 
 died comparatively young, since their own 
 years had come to equal the record of hers. 
 When they visited her tall white tombstone in 
 the orderly Dulham burying-ground, it was a 
 strange thought to both the daughters that 
 they were older women than their mother had 
 been when she died. To be sure, it was the 
 fashion to appear older in her day, they 
 could remember the sober effect of really 
 youthful married persons in cap and frisette ; 
 but, whether they owed it to the changed times 
 or to their own qualities, they felt no older 
 themselves than ever they had. Beside up-
 
 THE DULHAM LADIES. 127 
 
 holding the ministerial dignity of their father, 
 they were obliged to give a lenient sanction to 
 the ways of the world for their mother's sake; 
 and they combined the two duties with rever- 
 ence and impartiality. 
 
 Madam Dobin was, in her prime, a walking 
 example of refinements and courtesies. If she 
 erred in any way, it was by keeping too strict 
 watch and rule over her small kingdom. She 
 acted with great dignity in all matters of so- 
 cial administration and etiquette, but, while it 
 must be owned that the parishioners felt a 
 sense of freedom for a time after her death, 
 in their later years they praised and valued 
 her more and more, and often lamented her 
 generously and sincerely. 
 
 Several of her distinguished relatives at- 
 tended Madam Dobin' s funeral, which was 
 long considered the most dignified and elegant 
 pageant of that sort which had ever taken 
 place in Dulham. It seemed to mark the 
 close of a famous epoch in Dulham history, 
 and it was increasingly difficult forever after- 
 ward to keep the tone of society up to the old 
 standard. Somehow, the distinguished rela- 
 tives had one by one disappeared, though they
 
 128 THE DULHAM LADIES. 
 
 all had excellent reasons for the discontinu- 
 ance of their visits. A few had left this world 
 altogether, and the family circle of the Green- 
 aples and Hightrees was greatly reduced in 
 circumference. Sometimes, in summer, a stray 
 connection drifted Dulham-ward, and was dis- 
 played to the townspeople (not to say, pa- 
 raded) by the gratified hostesses. It was a 
 disappointment if the guest could not be per- 
 suaded to remain over Sunday and appear at 
 church. When household antiquities became 
 fashionable, the ladies remarked a surprising 
 interest in their corner cupboard and best 
 chairs, and some distant relatives revived their 
 almost forgotten custom of paying a summer 
 visit to Dulham. They were not long in find- 
 ing out with what desperate affection Miss 
 Dobin and Miss Lucinda clung to their moth- 
 er's wedding china and other inheritances, and 
 were allowed to depart without a single tea- 
 cup. One graceless descendant of the High- 
 trees prowled from garret to cellar, and ad- 
 mired the household belongings diligently, but 
 she was not asked to accept even the dislo- 
 cated cherry-wood footstool that she had dis- 
 covered in the far corner of the parsonage 
 pew.
 
 THE DULHAM LADIES. 129 
 
 Some of the Dulham friends had long sus- 
 pected that Madam Dobin made a social mis- 
 step when she chose the Reverend Edward 
 Dobin for her husband. She was no longer 
 young when she married, and though she had 
 gone through the wood and picked up a 
 cropked stick at last, it made a great differ- 
 ence that her stick possessed an ecclesiastical 
 bark. The Reverend Edward was, moreover, 
 a respectable graduate of Harvard College, 
 and to a woman of her standards a clergyman 
 was by no means insignificant. It was impos- 
 sible not to respect his office, at any rate, and 
 she must have treated him with proper vener- 
 ation for the sake of that, if for no other rea- 
 son, though his early advantages had been in- 
 sufficient, and he was quite insensible to the 
 claims of the Greenaple pedigree, and pre- 
 ferred an Indian pudding to pie crust that 
 was, without exaggeration, half a quarter high. 
 The delicacy of Madam Dobin's touch and 
 preference in everything, from hymns to cook- 
 ery, was quite lost upon this respected 
 preacher, yet he was not without pride or 
 complete confidence in his own decisions. 
 
 The Reverend Mr. Dobin was never very
 
 130 THE DULHAM LADIES. 
 
 enlightening in his discourses, and was prov- 
 identially stopped short by a stroke of paraly- 
 sis in the middle of his clerical career. He 
 lived on and on through many dreary years, 
 but his children never accepted the fact that 
 he was a tyrant, and served him humbly and 
 patiently. He fell at last into a condition of 
 great incapacity and chronic trembling, but 
 was able for nearly a quarter of a century to 
 be carried to the meeting-house from time to 
 time to pronounce farewell discourses. On 
 high days of the church he was always placed 
 in the pulpit, and held up his shaking hands 
 when the benediction was pronounced, as if 
 the divine gift were exclusively his own, and 
 the other minister did but say empty words. 
 Afterward, he was usually tired and displeased 
 and hard to cope with, but there was always a 
 proper notice taken of these too often recur- 
 ring events. For old times' and for pity's 
 sake and from natural goodness of heart, the 
 elder parishioners rallied manfully about the 
 Reverend Mr. Dobin ; and whoever his suc- 
 cessor or colleague might be, the Dobins were 
 always called the minister's folks, while the 
 active laborer in that vineyard was only Mr.
 
 THE DULHAM LADIES. 131 
 
 Smith or Mr. Jones, as the case might be. At 
 last the poor old man died, to everybody's re- 
 lief and astonishment ; and after he was prop- 
 erly preached about and lamented, his daugh- 
 ters, Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda, took a 
 good look at life from a new standpoint, and 
 decided that now they were no longer con- 
 strained by home duties they must make them- 
 selves a great deal more used to the town. 
 
 Sometimes there is such a household as this 
 (which has been perhaps too minutely de- 
 scribed), where the parents linger until their 
 children are far past middle age, and always 
 keep them in a too childish and unworthy state 
 of subjection. The Misses Dobin' s characters 
 were much influenced by such an unnatural 
 prolongation of the filial relationship, and they 
 were amazingly slow to suspect that they were 
 not so young as they used to be. There was 
 nothing to measure themselves by but Dulham 
 people and things. The elm-trees were grow- 
 ing yet, and many of the ladies of the First 
 Parish were older than they, and called them, 
 with pleasant familiarity, the Dobin girls. 
 These elderly persons seemed really to be 
 growing old, and Miss Lucinda frequently la-
 
 132 THE DULHAM LADIES. 
 
 merited the change in society ; she thought it 
 a freak of nature and too sudden blighting of 
 earthly hopes that several charming old friends 
 of her mother's were no longer living. They 
 were advanced in age when Miss Lucinda was 
 a young girl, though time and space are but 
 relative, after all. 
 
 Their influence upon society would have 
 made a great difference in many ways. Cer- 
 tainly, the new parishioners, who had often 
 enough been instructed to pronounce their 
 pastor's name as if it were spelled with one 
 " b," would not have boldly returned again 
 and again to their obnoxious habit of saying 
 Dobbin. Miss Lucinda might carefully speak 
 to the neighbor and new-comers of " my sister, 
 Miss Do-bin ; " only the select company of in- 
 timates followed her lead, and at last there was 
 something humiliating about it, even though 
 many persons spoke of them only as " the 
 ladies." 
 
 " The name was originally D'Aubigne, we 
 think," Miss Lucinda would say coldly and 
 patiently, as if she had already explained this 
 foolish mistake a thousand times too often. 
 It was like the sorrows in many a provincial
 
 THE DULHAM LADIES. 133 
 
 chateau in the Reign of Terror. The ladies 
 looked on with increasing dismay at the retro- 
 gression in society. They felt as if they were 
 a feeble garrison, to whose lot it had fallen to 
 repulse a noisy, irreverent mob, an increasing 
 band of marauders who would overthrow all 
 land-marks of the past, all etiquette and social 
 rank. The new minister himself was a round- 
 faced, unspiritual-looking young man, whom 
 they would have instinctively ignored if he had 
 not been a minister. The new people who 
 came to Dulham were not like the older resi- 
 dents, and they had no desire to be taught bet- 
 ter. Little they cared about the Greenaples 
 or the Hightrees ; and once, when Miss Dobin 
 essayed to speak of some detail of her mother's 
 brilliant opportunities in Boston high life, she 
 was interrupted, and the new-comer who sat 
 next her at the parish sewing society began to 
 talk about something else. We cannot believe 
 that it could have been the tea-party at Gov- 
 ernor Clovenfoot's which the rude creature so 
 disrespectfully ignored, but some persons are 
 capable of showing any lack of good taste. 
 
 The ladies had an unusual and most painful 
 sense of failure, as they went home together
 
 134 THE DULHAM LADIES. 
 
 that evening. " I have always made it my ob- 
 ject to improve and interest the people at such 
 times ; it would seem so possible to elevate 
 their thoughts and direct them into higher 
 channels," said Miss Dobin sadly. " But as 
 for that Woolden woman, there is no use in 
 casting pearls before swine ! " 
 
 Miss Lucinda murmured an indignant as- 
 sent. She had a secret suspicion that the 
 Woolden woman had heard the story in ques- 
 tion oftener than had pleased her. She was 
 but an ignorant creature ; though she had lived 
 in Dulham twelve or thirteen years, she was no 
 better than when she came. The mistake was 
 in treating sister Harriet as if she were on a 
 level with the rest of the company. Miss Lu- 
 cinda had observed more than once, lately, that 
 her sister sometimes repeated herself, uncon- 
 sciously, a little oftener than was agreeable. 
 Perhaps they were getting a trifle dull ; toward 
 spring it might be well to pass a few days with 
 some of their friends, and have a change. 
 
 " If I have tried to do anything," said Miss 
 Dobin in an icy tone, " it has been to stand 
 firm in my lot and place, and to hold the stan- 
 dard of cultivated mind and elegant manners
 
 THE DULHAM LADIES. 135 
 
 as high as possible. You would think it had 
 been a hundred years since our mother's death, 
 so completely has the effect of her good breed- 
 ing and exquisite hospitality been lost sight of, 
 here in Dulham. I could wish that our father 
 had chosen to settle in a larger and more ap- 
 preciative place. They would like to put us 
 on the shelf, too. I can see that plainly." 
 
 " I am sure we have our friends," said Miss 
 Lucinda anxiously, but with a choking voice. 
 " We must not let them think we do not mean 
 to keep up with the times, as we always have. 
 I do feel as if perhaps our hair " 
 
 And the sad secret was out at last. Each 
 of the sisters drew a long breath of relief at 
 this beginning of a confession. 
 
 It was certain that they must take some steps 
 to retrieve their lost ascendency. Public at- 
 tention had that evening been called to their 
 fast-disappearing locks, poor ladies ; and Miss 
 Lucinda felt the discomfort most, for she had 
 been the inheritor of the Hightree hair, long 
 and curly, and chestnut in color. There used 
 to be a waviness about it, and sometimes pretty 
 escaping curls, but these were gone long ago. 
 Miss Dobin resembled her father, and her hair
 
 136 THE DULHAM LADIES. 
 
 had not been luxuriant, so that she was less 
 changed by its absence than one might sup- 
 pose. The straightness and thinness had in- 
 creased so gradually that neither sister had 
 quite accepted the thought that other persons 
 would particularly notice their altered appear- 
 ance. 
 
 They had shrunk, with the reticence born of 
 close family association, from speaking of the 
 cause even to each other, when they made 
 themselves pretty little lace and dotted muslin 
 caps. Breakfast caps, they called them, and 
 explained that these were universally worn in 
 town ; the young Princess of Wales originated 
 them, or at any rate adopted them. The ladies 
 offered no apology for keeping the breakfast 
 caps on until bedtime, and in spite of them a 
 forward child had just spoken, loud and shrill, 
 an untimely question in the ears of the for 
 once silent sewing society. " Do Miss Dob- 
 binses wear them great caps because their bare 
 heads is cold ? " the little beast had said ; and 
 everybody was startled and dismayed. 
 
 Miss Dobin had never shown better her good 
 breeding and valor, the younger sister thought 
 
 " No, little girl," replied the stately Harriet^
 
 THE DULHAM LADIES. 137 
 
 with a chilly smile. " I helieve that our head- 
 dresses are quite in the fashion for ladies of 
 all ages. And you must remember that it is 
 never polite to make such personal remarks.'* 
 It was after this that Miss Dobin had been re- 
 minded of Madam Somebody's unusual head- 
 gear at the evening entertainment in Boston. 
 Nobody but the Woolden woman could have 
 interrupted her under such trying circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Miss Lucinda, however, was certain that the 
 time had come for making some effort to re- 
 place her lost adornment. The child had told 
 an unwelcome truth, but had paved the way 
 for further action, and now was the time to 
 suggest something that had slowly been taking 
 shape in Miss Lucinda's mind. A young 
 grand-nephew of their mother and his bride 
 had passed a few days with them, two or three 
 summers before, and the sisters had been quite 
 shocked to find that the pretty young woman 
 wore a row of frizzes, not originally her own, 
 over her smooth forehead. At the time, Miss 
 Dobin and Miss Lucinda had spoken severely 
 with each other of such bad taste, but now it 
 made a great difference that the wearer of the
 
 138 THE DULHAM LADIES. 
 
 frizzes was not only a relative by marriage and 
 used to good society, but also that she came 
 from town, and might be supposed to know 
 what was proper in the way of toilet. 
 
 " I really think, sister, that we had better 
 see about having some arrangements, next 
 time we go anywhere," Miss Dobin said unex- 
 pectedly, with a slight tremble in her voice, 
 just as they reached their own door. " There 
 seems to be quite a fashion for them nowadays. 
 For the parish's sake we ought to recognize " 
 and Miss Lucinda responded with instant 
 satisfaction. She did not like to complain, 
 but she had been troubled with neuralgic pains 
 in her forehead on suddenly meeting the cold 
 air. The sisters felt a new bond of sympathy 
 in keeping this secret with and for each other ; 
 they took pains to say to several acquaintances 
 that they were thinking of going to the next 
 large town to do a few errands for Christmas. 
 
 A bright, sunny morning seemed to wish the 
 ladies good-fortune. Old Hetty Downs, their 
 faithful maid-servant and protector, looked 
 after them in affectionate foreboding. " Dear 
 sakes, what devil's wiles may be played on 
 them blessed innocents afore they 're safe
 
 THE DULHAM LADIES. 139 
 
 home again ! " she murmured, as they van- 
 ished round the corner of the street that led to 
 the railway station. 
 
 Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda paced dis- 
 creetly side by side down the main street of 
 Westbury. It was nothing like Boston, of 
 course, but the noise was slightly confusing, 
 and the passers-by sometimes roughly pushed 
 against them. "Westbury was a consequential 
 manufacturing town, but a great convenience 
 at times like this. The trifling Christmas 
 gifts for their old neighbors and Sunday-school 
 scholars were purchased and stowed away in 
 their neat Fayal basket before the serious com- 
 mission of the day was attended to. Here and 
 there, in the shops, disreputable frizzes were 
 displayed in unblushing effrontery, but no such 
 vulgar shopkeeper merited the patronage of 
 the Misses Dobin. They pretended not to 
 observe the unattractive goods, and went their 
 way to a low, one-storied building on a side 
 street, where an old tradesman lived. He had 
 been useful to the minister while he still re- 
 mained upon the earth and had need of a wig, 
 sandy in hue and increasingly sprinkled with 
 gray, as if it kept pace with other changes of
 
 140 THE DULHAM LADIES. 
 
 existence. But old Paley's shutters were up, 
 and a bar of rough wood was nailed firmly 
 across the one that had lost its fastening and 
 would rack its feeble hinges in the wind. Old 
 Paley had always been polite and bland ; they 
 really had looked forward to a little chat with 
 him ; they had heard a year or two before of 
 his wife's death, and meant to offer sympathy. 
 His business of hair-dressing had been carried 
 on with that of parasol and umbrella mending, 
 and the condemned umbrella which was his 
 sign cracked and swung in the rising wind, a 
 tattered skeleton before the closed door. The 
 ladies sighed and turned away ; they were be- 
 ginning to feel tired ; the day was long, and 
 they had not met with any pleasures yet. " We 
 might walk up the street a little farther," sug- 
 gested Miss Lucinda ; " that is, if you are not 
 tired," as they stood hesitating on the corner 
 after they had finished a short discussion of 
 Mr. Paley's disappearance. Happily it was 
 only a few minutes before they came to a stop 
 together in front of a new, shining shop, where 
 smirking waxen heads all in a row were decked 
 with the latest fashions of wigs and frizzes. 
 One smiling fragment of a gentleman stared
 
 THE DULHAM LADIES. 141 
 
 so straight at Miss Lucinda with his black eyes 
 that she felt quite coy and embarrassed, and 
 was obliged to feign not to be conscious of his 
 admiration. But Miss Dobin, after a brief 
 delay, boldly opened the door and entered ; it 
 was better to be sheltered in the shop than ex- 
 posed to public remark as they gazed in at the 
 windows. Miss Lucinda felt her heart beat 
 and her courage give out; she, coward like, 
 left the transaction of their business to her 
 sister, and turned to contemplate the back of 
 the handsome model. It was a slight shock to 
 find that he was not so attractive from this 
 point of view. The wig he wore was well 
 made all round, but his shoulders were roughly 
 finished in a substance that looked like plain 
 plaster of Paris. 
 
 " What can I have ze pleasure of showing 
 you, young ladees ? " asked a person who ad- 
 vanced ; and Miss Lucinda faced about to dis- 
 cover a smiling, middle-aged Frenchman, who 
 rubbed his hands together and looked at his 
 customers, first one and then the other, with 
 delightful deference. He seemed a very civil, 
 nice person, the young ladies thought. 
 
 " My sister and I were thinking of buying
 
 142 THE DULHAM LADIES. 
 
 some little arrangements to wear above the 
 forehead." Miss Dobin explained, with pa- 
 thetic dignity ; but the Frenchman spared her 
 any further words. He looked with eager in- 
 terest at the bonnets, as if no lack had attracted 
 his notice before. " Ah, yes. Je comprends ; 
 ze high foreheads are not now ze mode. Je 
 prefer them, moi, yes, yes, but ze ladies must 
 accept ze fashion ; zay must now cover ze fore- 
 head with ze frizzes, ze bangs, you say. As 
 you wis', as you wis' ! " and the tactful little 
 man, with many shrugs and merry gestures at 
 such girlish fancies, pulled down one box af- 
 ter another. 
 
 It was a great relief to find that this was no 
 worse, to say the least, than any other shop- 
 ping, though the solemnity and secrecy of 
 the occasion were infringed upon by the great 
 supply of " arrangements " and the loud, dis- 
 cussion of the color of some crimps a noisy girl 
 was buying from a young saleswoman the other 
 side of the shop. 
 
 Miss Dobin waved aside the wares which 
 were being displayed for her approval 
 "Something more simple, if you please," 
 she did not like to say " older."
 
 THE DULHAM LADIES. 143 
 
 " But these are tres simple" protested the 
 Frenchman. " We have nothing younger ; " 
 and Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda blushed, 
 and said no more. The Frenchman had his 
 own way ; he persuaded them that nothing was 
 so suitable as some conspicuous forelocks that 
 matched their hair as it used to be. They 
 would have given anything rather than leave 
 their breakfast caps at home, if they had 
 known that their proper winter bonnets must 
 come off. They hardly listened to the wig 
 merchant's glib voice as Miss Dobin stood re- 
 vealed before the merciless mirror at the back 
 of the shop. 
 
 He made everything as easy as possible, the 
 friendly creature, and the ladies were grateful 
 to him. Beside, now that the bonnet was on 
 again there was a great improvement in Miss 
 Dobin's appearance. She turned to Miss 
 Lucinda, and saw a gleam of delight in her 
 eager countenance. " It really is very becom- 
 ing. I like the way it parts over your fore- 
 head," said the younger sister, " but if it were 
 long enough to go behind the ears " " Non, 
 uon" entreated the Frenchman. " To make 
 her the old woman at once would be cruelty ! "
 
 144 THE DULHAM LADIES. 
 
 And Lucinda who was wondering how well 
 she would look in her turn, succumbed 
 promptly to such protestations. Yes, there 
 was no use in being old before their time. 
 Dulham was not quite keeping pace with the 
 rest of the world in these days, but they need 
 not drag behind everybody else, just because 
 they lived there. 
 
 The price of the little arrangements was 
 much less than the sisters expected, and the 
 uncomfortable expense of their reverend fa- 
 ther's wigs had been, it was proved, a thing 
 of the past. Miss Dobin treated her polite 
 Frenchman with great courtesy ; indeed, Miss 
 Lucinda had more than once whispered to her 
 to talk French, and as they were bowed out of 
 the shop the gracious Bong-sure of the elder 
 lady seemed to act like the string of a shower- 
 bath, and bring down an awesome torrent of 
 foreign words upon the two guileless heads. 
 It was impossible to reply ; the ladies bowed 
 again, however, and Miss Lucinda caught a 
 last smile from the handsome wax countenance 
 in the window. He appeared to regard her 
 with fresh approval, and she departed down 
 the street with mincing steps.
 
 THE DULHAM LADIES. 145 
 
 " I feel as if anybody might look at me now, 
 sister," said gentle Miss Lucinda. " I confess, 
 I have really suffered sometimes, since I knew 
 I looked so distressed." 
 
 " Yours is lighter than I thought it was in 
 the shop," remarked Miss Dobin, doubtfully, 
 but she quickly added that perhaps it would 
 change a little. She was so perfectly satisfied 
 with her own appearance that she could not 
 bear to dim the pleasure of any one else. The 
 truth remained that she never would have let 
 Lucinda choose that particular arrangement if 
 she had seen it first in a good light. And 
 Lucinda was thinking exactly the same of her 
 companion. 
 
 " I am sure we shall have no more neural- 
 gia," said Miss Dobin. " I am sorry we waited 
 so long, dear," and they tripped down the main 
 street of Westbury, confident that nobody 
 would suspect them of being over thirty. In- 
 deed, they felt quite girlish, and unconsciously 
 looked sideways as they went along, to see their 
 satisfying reflections in the windows. The 
 great panes made excellent mirrors, with not 
 too clear or lasting pictures of these comforted 
 passers-by.
 
 146 THE DULHAM LADIES. 
 
 The Frenchman in the shop was making 
 merry with his assistants. The two great fris- 
 ettes had long been out of fashion ; he had been 
 lying in wait with them for two unsuspecting 
 country ladies, who could be cajoled into such 
 a purchase. 
 
 "Sister," Miss Lucinda was saying, "you 
 know there is still an hour to wait before our 
 train goes. Suppose we take a little longer 
 walk down the other side of the way ; " and 
 they strolled slowly back again. In fact, 
 they nearly missed the train, naughty girls ! 
 Hetty would have been so worried, they as- 
 sured each other, but they reached the station 
 just in time. 
 
 " Lutie," said Miss Dobin, " put up your 
 hand and part it from your forehead ; it seems 
 to be getting out of place a little ; " and Miss 
 Lucinda, who had just got breath enough to 
 speak, returned the information that Miss 
 Dobin's was almost covering her eyebrows. 
 They might have to trim them a little shorter; 
 of course it could be done. The darkness was 
 falling ; they had taken an early dinner before 
 they started, and now they were tired and hun- 
 gry after the exertion of the afternoon, but the
 
 THE DULHAM LADIES. 147 
 
 spirit of youth flamed afresh in their hearts, 
 and they were very happy. If one's heart re- 
 mains young, it is a sore trial to have the out- 
 ward appearance entirely at variance. It was 
 the ladies' nature to be girlish, and they found 
 it impossible not to be grateful to the flimsy, 
 ineffectual disguise which seemed to set them 
 right with the world. The old conductor, who 
 had known them for many years, looked hard 
 at them as he took their tickets, and, being a 
 man of humor and compassion, affected not to 
 notice anything remarkable in their appear- 
 ance. " You ladies never mean to grow old, 
 like the rest of us," he said gallantly, and the 
 sisters fairly quaked with joy. 
 
 " Bless us ! " the obnoxious Mrs. Woolden 
 was saying, at the other end of the car. 
 " There 's the old maid Dobbinses, and they 
 Ve bought 'em some bangs. I expect they 
 wanted to get thatched in a little before real 
 cold weather ; but don't they look just like a 
 pair o' poodle dogs." 
 
 The little ladies descended wearily from the 
 train. Somehow they did not enjoy a day's 
 shopping as much as they used. They were 
 certainly much obliged to Hetty for sending
 
 148 THE DULHAM LADIES. 
 
 her niece's boy to meet them, with a lantern ; 
 also for having a good warm supper ready 
 when they came in. Hetty took a quick look 
 at her mistresses, and returned to the kitchen. 
 " I knew somebody would be foolin' of 'em," 
 she assured herself angrily, but she had to 
 laugh. Their dear, kind faces were wrinkled 
 and pale, and the great frizzes had lost their 
 pretty curliness, and were hanging down, al- 
 most straight and very ugly, into the ladies' 
 eyes. They could not tuck them up under their 
 caps, as they were sure might be done. 
 
 Then came a succession of rainy days, and 
 nobody visited the rejuvenated household. The 
 frisettes looked very bright chestnut by the 
 light of day, and it must be confessed that 
 Miss Dobin took the scissors and shortened 
 Miss Lucinda's half an inch, and Miss Lucinda 
 returned the compliment quite secretly, be- 
 cause each thought her sister's forehead lower 
 than her own. Their dear gray eyebrows were 
 honestly displayed, as if it were the fashion 
 not to have them match with wigs. Hetty at 
 last spoke out, and begged her mistresses, as 
 they sat at breakfast, to let her take the frizzes 
 back and change them. Her sister's daugh-
 
 THE DULHAM LADIES. 149 
 
 ter worked in that very shop, and, though in 
 the work-room, would be able to oblige them, 
 Hetty was sure. 
 
 But the ladies looked at each other in pleased 
 assurance, and then turned together to look at 
 Hetty, who stood already a little apprehensive 
 near the table, where she had just put down 
 a plateful of smoking drop-cakes. The good 
 creature really began to look old. 
 
 " They are worn very much in town," said 
 Miss Dobin. " We think it was quite fortu- 
 nate that the fashion came in just as our hair 
 was growing a trifle thin. I dare say we may 
 choose those that are a shade duller in color 
 when these are a little past. Oh, we shall not 
 want tea this evening, you remember, Hetty. 
 I am glad there is likely to be such a good 
 night for the sewing circle." And Miss Dobin 
 and Miss Lucinda nodded and smiled. 
 
 " Oh, my sakes alive ! " the troubled hand- 
 maiden groaned. " Going to the circle, be 
 they, to be snickered at ! Well, the Dobbin 
 girls they was born, and the Dobbin girls they 
 will remain till they die ; but if they ain't in- 
 nocent Christian babes to those that knows 'em 
 well, mark me down for an idjit myself ! They
 
 150 THE DULHAM LADIES. 
 
 believe them front-pieces has set the clock back 
 forty year or more, but if they 're pleased to 
 think so, let 'em ! " 
 
 Away paced the Dulham ladies, late in the 
 afternoon, to grace the parish occasion, and 
 face the amused scrutiny of their neighbors. 
 " I think we owe it to society to observe the 
 fashions of the day," said Miss Lucinda. "A 
 lady cannot afford to be unattractive. I feel 
 now as if we were prepared for anything ! "
 
 A BUSINESS MAN. 
 
 IF a man chooses a profession it is, or ought 
 to be, with other desires than that of growing 
 rich. He may wish to be skillful and learned 
 as a means of self-development and helping 
 his fellow-men, and if he is successful nobody 
 has a right to sneer at him because he does not 
 make a fortune. But when most men enter 
 a mercantile life it is with the acknowledged 
 purpose of making money. The world has a 
 right, too, to look on with interest to find 
 what they do with their money afterward. 
 Dollars are of primary consideration to the 
 standing of a business man, and are only sec- 
 ondary to a clergyman or a doctor that is, 
 when one judges by public rather than private 
 conditions and indications of success. Yet the 
 money-getter may win great wealth, and fail 
 completely of reaching his highest value, and 
 reward, and satisfaction as a human being.
 
 152 A BUSINESS MAN. 
 
 People often said that there was something 
 in the blood of the Cravens (their true name 
 shall be a secret) which hungered for posses- 
 sion and was always seeking to gratify its love 
 of acquisition. John Craven, the proud inner* 
 itor of a name already well known in business 
 circles, certainly loved the thought of his 
 thousands and hundred thousands. He felt a 
 vast pleasure in letting his eyes glance down 
 the columns of figures in his private account- 
 book a gratified sense of security and abun- 
 dance which none of the fruits of his wealth 
 had power to bestow. The fine house in which 
 he lived, his handsome young children, all 
 failed to be so completely rewarding to his eye 
 and heart as the special page or two where 
 the chief items of his property were repre- 
 sented by straight-stemmed fours and ones 
 and delicately-curved threes and sixes and 
 nines. He was a man who never directly 
 wronged any one, but who was determined to 
 succeed and to make money. He thought lit- 
 tle of his personal relation to society, and still 
 less of his relation to the next world. All his 
 mind was bent upon making a splendid finan- 
 cial success, and though early in life this end
 
 A BUSINESS MAN. 153 
 
 was gained, he still went on planning great 
 gains and glories, and looked upon himself as 
 one of the younger business men of his city, 
 until long after he was a grandfather. 
 
 Then the tide of satisfaction seemed at last 
 to turn. One thing after another forced him 
 to waver and to hesitate in these great manip- 
 ulations of his capital. Mr. Craven was keen 
 and quick to grasp his business opportunities, 
 but little things annoyed him, and he became 
 sensitive where once he had been indifferent. 
 He was just transferring his chief office and 
 warehouse to a noble new building, when for 
 the first time in his life he became seriously 
 ill, and from necessity his eldest son was pro- 
 moted temporarily to the head of the business. 
 
 It was a strange surprise when the family 
 physician told him that he could no longer bear 
 what he could once ; that a man of his years 
 must favor himself ; and finally advised that 
 a few months in Europe would do him the 
 much needed good. John Craven was start- 
 led and angry at first ; he had always looked 
 forward to such a holiday, and had already 
 enjoyed foreign sights by proxy, since his fam- 
 Uy had crossed the ocean repeatedly, like other
 
 154 A BUSINESS MAN. 
 
 families of their social station. But this 
 seemed to mean only that the girls v;;shed to 
 go again, and at first he emphatically refused 
 to be made the victim of such a conspiracy. 
 
 When he visited his place of business, how- 
 ever, after his illness, he was made somewhat 
 low spirited. The new warehouse was occu- 
 pied now, and it was fatiguingly large and 
 noisy. Young John was getting on very well ; 
 he might be all the more use by and by if he 
 had the chance of trying his hand now. He 
 could not do much mischief, the elder man 
 thought, as he sank into his great cushioned 
 chair with a little sigh. He had meant to 
 give orders that his familiar desk and wooden 
 armchair should be brought from the old 
 counting-room, but it was too late now, and to 
 be sure they would be quite out of place in all 
 this magnificence of plate glass and mahogany. 
 Yes, Jack was right ; this new office was in 
 keeping with the position of the firm, and the 
 senior partner looked into his new safe with 
 pride and approval, and complimented his son 
 upon the way he had managed things. The 
 old grandfather who had trained him used to 
 sit on a high stool, and wear a green baize
 
 A BUSINESS MAN. 155 
 
 jacket, in the first dingy counting-room. " He 
 started us he started us," said. John Craven 
 to himself ; then he felt a little shaky and sat 
 down again, saying that he would not go 
 through the house until next day, perhaps. 
 He had hardly got back his strength, but Jack 
 might bring the statements. There were a 
 number of new clerks even in the inner office, 
 and one had a crafty, small face. " I don't 
 like that fellow's looks," he muttered. " Who 
 got him here, I should like to know ! " But 
 Jack responded, with wounded pride, that this 
 was the smartest book-keeper in New York ; 
 he had been trying to get him into their em- 
 ploy for a year. 
 
 Somehow, for the first time John Craven 'j 
 was conscious that he was getting to be old. | 
 He grumbled something about the boys pull- 
 ing and hauling him and his affairs, and wish- 
 ing him out of their way. The pomp of the 
 new counting-room, the self-sufficiency of Jack, 
 dazzled and angered him not a little. He had 
 thought it indispensable to the welfare of this 
 great business that he should not miss a day 
 at his desk, all through the busiest times of 
 the year, But here was the establishment
 
 156 A BUSINESS MAN. 
 
 running along on its manifold and ponderous 
 track, just as well as if he had been at the 
 post of guidance. Well, not every man had 
 given his affairs such a good momentum ; he 
 had only followed out the founder's principles, 
 too, and he thought again of the sturdy grand- 
 father in the baize jacket. After all, it was 
 good for the son and successor; he would 
 stand well in the row of John Cravens. Jack 
 was married and settled. He had as hand- 
 some a house as his father's, a block higher up 
 the avenue. The rascal had even grown a 
 little patronizing of late, but John Craven, 
 the elder, had no intention of being called an 
 old man yet. 
 
 There were some questions to ask about the 
 real estate investments that day, but Jack 
 could not answer for these. Walter had been 
 looking after that part of the property, and 
 Walter was out of town. " So they had di- 
 vided the responsibility between them, had 
 they ? " the father grumbled ; but Jack brought 
 a great handful of cheques and papers to be 
 signed, and the two men lunched and joked 
 together. The firm was already larger than 
 the senior partner approved. It was no use
 
 A BUSINESS MAN. 157 
 
 to talk about adding another member. But 
 Jack took advantage of his father's smiles to 
 suggest the admission of a brother-in-law, the 
 husband of the youngest daughter. " I '11 
 think it over," replied the chief, turning to 
 look for his penholder. "No, his capital is 
 no inducement. We 're carrying sail enough 
 for the present, unless times change for the 
 better." 
 
 Jack went back to his own desk a little an- 
 noyed. He did not like to give up his author- 
 ity. Was it only a month since the old gentle- 
 man had been away ? It seemed like a year. 
 
 II. 
 
 John Craven took the doctor's advice, after 
 all, and went to Europe. He had felt strangely 
 weak and unequal to much effort ever since his 
 illness, and he grasped at the promised re- 
 newal of his health. There was great satisfac- 
 tion at meeting some of his old correspondents 
 on the other side ; he wholly enjoyed his jour- 
 neyings, and was satisfied with the careful re- 
 ports from home. He was proud, too, of some
 
 158 A BUSINESS MAN. 
 
 new outlooks and connections which he suc- 
 ceeded in forming. " In a business way," he 
 was fond of saying to his wife, " the time had 
 been well spent." But Mrs. Craven lost no 
 chance of urging her husband to give up the 
 business to the boys. He had overworked him- 
 self, she pleaded over and over again, it was 
 no use to break down his health altogether. He 
 knew very well now that he could not bear what 
 he could once. The truth was, the ways of do- 
 ing business were changing these submarine 
 telegraphs were doing as much harm as good. 
 The time had gone by when a man could get 
 private advices of a rise in values, and quickly 
 increase his stock to control the market. Now, 
 what one knew the rest knew, and it was simply 
 a question of who could sell cheapest. John 
 Craven talked it over again and again with 
 idling merchants like himself. 
 
 Not long after their return the great sorrow 
 of his life came to him in his wife's death. It 
 was harder to bear the loss then than it ever 
 could have been before, They had loved each 
 other with a sober, undemonstrative affection, 
 which was as permanent and unquestioned as 
 the air they breathed. In the earlier years,
 
 A BUSINESS MAN. 159 
 
 while he was immersed, as he often said, in 
 business cares, and the good woman was careful 
 and troubled about many things, her grow- 
 ing children, her household, and her social rela- 
 tions, they had gone their separate ways 
 without much reference to each other, satisfied 
 with a mutual confidence and inspiration. For 
 the first time in these later months they had 
 sometimes spent all the hours of the days to- 
 gether, and had been more lover-like and affec- 
 tionate than ever before. They sometimes 
 talked in the long twilights of the English 
 lakes or the soft sunshine of Italy about what 
 they would do together when they reached 
 home ; and John Craven felt less annoyance at 
 the thought of his boys' business capacity. He 
 would have more time at home than ever be- 
 fore; he even grew interested in his wife's 
 small charitable enterprises, and lent a willing 
 ear to her confidences, and knew at last what 
 good his generous cheques had done in pub- 
 lic and private needs. He had never found 
 time to think much of these things. But alas, 
 good Mrs. Craven died after a short illness, 
 within a week or two of their arrival home, 
 and the great house with its unpacked treas-
 
 160 A BUSINESS MAN. 
 
 ures, which they had chosen together, was left 
 desolate. 
 
 It was harder than ever for this business 
 man to assure himself that a man need not be 
 old at his age ; but somehow he had let go his 
 active oversight of affairs, while he could sum- 
 mon no interest to fill the place of that to which 
 he had given all his time and thought. He 
 cared nothing for books or for art, or, saddest 
 of all, his fashionable daughter thought, for 
 society. He had given away much money be- 
 cause others expected it, but he had never 
 given himself with his dollars. He was some- 
 times angry with the boys, and sometimes 
 thankful to give up his responsibility, but he 
 wished such relinquishment to be voluntary ; 
 it should not be taken for granted. His daugh- 
 ters were eager to have their share of his favor ; 
 they came to him with stories of the boys' as- 
 sumption of authority and precedence. They 
 were all dependent upon him in one way or an- 
 other, and John Craven told himself more than 
 once that he should like to see one of the crowd 
 who had made his own way in the world. They 
 were all respectful and affectionate. The girls 
 told him again and again that they were so
 
 A BUSINESS MAN. 161 
 
 glad that their husbands were able to relieve 
 him of care, and were men he could trust. Yes, 
 he surely had a great deal to be thankful for ; 
 it seemed to be nobody's fault that he was laid 
 on the shelf. Jack was sometimes overbearing 
 and self-confident about the business. It was 
 amazing that he himself, who had been counted 
 one of the most daring, far-sighted, and enter- 
 prising men of his day, should be constantly 
 made to feel that he was an old fogy and fast 
 drifting astern of the times. Who should un- 
 derstand the times if not a man of his experi- 
 ence ? As the long months went by, the days 
 when he did not go to his office were of more 
 and more frequent occurrence. The chief value 
 of his presence seemed to be for the subscrip- 
 tion lists, which by no means passed him by, 
 and one day there was a vehement outbreak of 
 anger against young Jack, who had ventured 
 to suggest the propriety of a smaller sum than 
 his father had seen fit to bestow. " You may 
 be making money, but whose money are you 
 making it with," the old man demanded, while 
 Jack spoke soothingly and glanced round at 
 the other desks. He did not look as if he 
 would like to knock his father down, as he
 
 162 A BUSINESS MAN. 
 
 used in case of differences when they both were 
 younger, and the senior partner was injured by 
 this slighting of their present equality. " You 
 treat me as if I were an old woman," he said, 
 and went away. Jack was such an insufferable 
 prig, and there was Jack's boy, who ought to 
 be at a desk, already parading about the park 
 with his dog cart and saddle-horses a good- 
 for-nothing dandy. Times had changed in- 
 deed! 
 
 m. 
 
 When Mr. Craven did not go down town in 
 the morning he sometimes took his stick and 
 walked eastward along the street that made a 
 right angle with the avenue nearest his house. 
 He did not like to meet his acquaintances, 
 even ladies, in business hours, but he found it 
 amusing to watch the progress of some build- 
 ings not a great distance away. The contrast 
 between this district and the region of his own 
 home was very striking, though he found him- 
 self by no means in the most squalid portion 
 of his native city. On the contrary, there was 
 even a sort of thriftiness. John Craven had
 
 A BUSINESS MAN. 163 
 
 more than once complimented the good land- 
 lord, whoever he might be, of one long row of 
 small brick houses. The occupants were evi- 
 dently people of small means, but most re- 
 spectable and orderly, and at the end of the 
 block was a shop or two a druggist's, and a 
 gay little place which held out inducements to 
 womankind, of thread and needles, neckties, 
 and even letter-paper and calico prints. " Good 
 thing, good thing," the rich ex-merchant would 
 say approvingly, " if only the women don't 
 waste their time, and travel way down to Stew- 
 art's for every spool of cotton." 
 
 It happened that John Craven walked slowly 
 by one morning just as the owner of this place 
 of business was opening his shutters. He was 
 a bright-faced young man of two or three and 
 twenty, and the elderly gentleman hesitated, 
 then stopped and said good- morning. 
 
 The young man looked around cheerfully. 
 " Good-day, sir," he answered ; " can I do any- 
 thing for you in my line ? " And Mr. Craven 
 smiled benignantly, without committing him- 
 self to any definite reply. " You are on time, 
 I see," he said presently, tapping the pave- 
 ment with his cane as the proprietor fastened
 
 164 A BUSINESS MAN. 
 
 the shutter back with a sufficient snap. There 
 was only one window to the little store, but its 
 contents were most alluringly arranged. " Yes, 
 sir, time 's money," answered the admiring 
 owner of the trifling wares. " I should be glad 
 to have you step inside," and with a glance 
 along the street toward the avenue, Mr. Craven 
 accepted the invitation. It was still early in 
 the morning, he had not been sleeping well of 
 late, and his luxurious household was hardly 
 astir. His eldest daughter had come home 
 with her family to keep the house for him after 
 her mother's death. Her husband was the least 
 prosperous of the sons or sons-in-law, and to 
 tell the truth John Craven was not at all fond 
 of him, and never had been. 
 
 There was something delightfully cordial 
 and sincere in the younger merchant's hospi- 
 tality. At any rate it was stronger than his 
 guest's reasons for not accepting it, and Mr. 
 Craven bowed gravely and went in at the door. 
 He took no notice of anything in particular. 
 The cheap goods did not invite his attention 
 in detail, but he seated himself on one of the 
 two light stools which were provided for the 
 comfort of possible customers, and asked, look-
 
 A BUSINESS MAN. 165 
 
 ing about him in an interested way, how long 
 the business had been established. 
 
 " Only a month or two," answered the young 
 man, and a boyish color spread quickly over 
 his face. " I hope there 's a good chance here ! 
 I don't see why I should n't do well. I seem 
 to have the good-will of the neighborhood, so 
 far. There are some dressmakers near by 
 who do a pile of work : one of them does 
 stitching and finishing for Madame Blanc, and 
 has all she can carry. I fill any orders, you 
 know, for goods I don't carry in stock. I hope 
 I shall do well here, and I don't mind saying 
 I shall sell out the business when it gets to be 
 worth anything, and strike for something bet- 
 ter. I wish I was a little nearer the avenue. 
 I know a fellow who keeps a first-rate class of 
 goods up in Thirtieth Street that 's getting 
 rich. You see the seamstresses in some of the 
 big houses give him all their trade, and about 
 keep him going." 
 
 Mr. Craven returned the hopeful smile of 
 his entertainer, and slowly unfastened his over- 
 coat. He felt a little tired and lonely that 
 morning, and did not wear the look of a pros- 
 perous man. The coat itself was a comfort-
 
 166 A BUSINESS MAN. 
 
 able old one he had insisted upon keeping 
 when his daughter had suggested the presenta- 
 tion of it to a deserving German mother to 
 make over for her children. Somehow Mr. 
 Craven liked to wear it in these morning walks 
 away from the avenue. The buttons were 
 loose, and one of them actually came off at this 
 moment and rolled behind some boxes that 
 were piled at the end of the counter. William 
 Chellis the shopkeeper looked after it, but 
 some instinct that he could hardly explain led 
 him to ignore the trivial accident. The old 
 gentleman looked as if he had seen better days. 
 The button-holes of the coat were frayed, and 
 a bit of the lining was hanging. Chellis had 
 often seen the old fellow go by about this time 
 in the morning, stopping once in a while to 
 speak to some children, or to exchange greet- 
 ings with the bricklayers who were .tending 
 the great mortar-box in front of the new block. 
 They talked together for a few minutes in a 
 friendly way. Chellis was arranging his wares, 
 and when the visitor rose to go he darted for- 
 ward to open the door for him. " I should be 
 pleased to have you drop in any time, sir," he 
 said, with pleasant deference. " I hope you '11
 
 A BUSINESS MAN. 167 
 
 remember to mention the store if you have 
 any ladies at home. My goods are mostly in 
 their line." 
 
 " Do you keep pins? " asked Mr. Craven, 
 turning back with evident pleasure, to make 
 an investment in four papers. He could find 
 somebody to give them to, and there was a 
 satisfaction in putting the little package in his 
 pocket. He was used to writing cheques for 
 his purchases, and was a little uncertain, as he 
 took some change from his waistcoat pocket, 
 about the state of his present finances. 
 
 " There never is much doing this time in the 
 morning," explained the proprietor. " My cus- 
 tomers either come toward night, or run over 
 here at noon time. I ought to have somebody 
 to help me, for I shut up now when I go down 
 town to fill my orders. I want to get on as 
 cheap as I can, though, for the present. All 
 great things must have a beginning," he added 
 as he opened the door the second time. There 
 was something delightfully fresh and energetic 
 about the young man. John Craven sighed to 
 remember that there was a time when his own 
 future lay all before him. The winter wind 
 had risen and was whirling the dust and bits
 
 168 A BUSINESS MAN. 
 
 of paper along the bare pavement, and as he 
 went away toward the avenue, he had to stop 
 more than once and turn his back to the un- 
 wholesome gale. He happened to be just op- 
 posite a window at one time, where a sweet- 
 faced young girl sat sewing busily. There were 
 some half -finished garments on the table beside 
 her ; a very pretty girl she was, and she looked 
 frankly up at the elderly man, and even gave 
 him a bright smile of unconscious sympathy 
 and friendliness. 
 
 The whole day afterward, while the wind 
 blew and the weather was cold, and a few flakes 
 of snow clicked against the windows, John 
 Craven sat by the library fire trying to read 
 newspapers and dozing and meditating by 
 turns. He tried once or twice to allure his 
 younger grandchildren down to keep him com- 
 pany, but they were needed up-stairs to prac- 
 tice for a famous fancy ball in aid of some chil- 
 dren's hospital. They were to have fine cos- 
 tumes and be prominent in the dances, and 
 could only chatter to him of these things if 
 they stayed. Their mother had rebuked him 
 for staying out of doors so long on a chilly 
 morning. He was late to breakfast, and she
 
 A BUSINESS MAN. 169 
 
 reproached him for making her uneasy. He 
 might have a fall any day, or be knocked over 
 by the passing carts. 
 
 " I should like to have my liberty," the old 
 man answered, with more severity than was 
 usual with him. He did not feel so old as 
 other people seemed to consider him life was 
 not very amusing of late. But certainly he 
 was much interested in his new acquaintance 
 of the side street. " I '11 watch that lad," Mr. 
 Craven assured himself, " and by and by, if 
 he does well, I '11 let him have some capital." 
 While, with rare sentiment, he also wondered 
 if the nice girl who sewed by the window and 
 the brisk young merchant were aware of each 
 other's existence. 
 
 The question was answered no later than 
 the next morning but one. Between the two 
 interviews a serious trial came to our hero. 
 He had been vastly punctual at the fortnightly 
 meetings of a certain notable company, of 
 which he had been chief originator, and had 
 clung more and more of late to this one of the 
 last of his active business duties. He felt un- 
 usually clear and capable as he entered the 
 directors' room, but being early he was adroit-
 
 170 A BUSINESS MAN. 
 
 ly tendered a suggestion that he should resign 
 his place on the board in favor of his son Jack. 
 He could find no fault with the delicate man- 
 ner in which this suggestion was made. There 
 was a troublesome, decrepit old fellow, who 
 had been in the way for half a dozen years, 
 and it was proposed that the two senior direc- 
 tors should be put on a sort of retired list. The 
 friend who spoke alluded to the annoyance 
 Mr. Craven must receive from his feeling of 
 obligation to attend the meetings now that he 
 had shaken off so entirely the cares of business. 
 He held so large an interest in the property 
 that it would not have done to remove him 
 from a part in its active control, except 
 through his own agency, and John Craven, 
 who was a proud man, told himself with a flash 
 of anger that this was some of Jack's doings, 
 and quietly acquiesced. " They knock the old 
 folks on the head in the South Sea Islands," 
 he grumbled next day, when he saw a too 
 prompt series of resolutions on his retirement 
 included in the financial report of his com- 
 pany. He wondered if his wife knew how 
 lonely he was, and counted up with surprise 
 the months since she had been taken away 
 from him.
 
 A BUSINESS MAN. 171 
 
 The morning afterward was clear and spring- 
 like, and he went out earlier than usual. The 
 pleasant weather was in itself a comfort, and 
 he found himself taking quicker steps than 
 usual toward the little store. It was already 
 open, and there was a customer who turned a 
 not unfamiliar face toward the door as Mr. 
 Craven opened it. The two young people 
 were talking eagerly, and both blushed a little 
 in a pretty, conscious way, and said good- 
 morning, as if the new-comer were an old 
 friend. " This is a pleasanter day than when 
 I had to come to a halt next your window," 
 said the old gentleman, gallantly. He had 
 been hurrying, and was glad to accept the seat 
 which the younger man pushed toward him. 
 
 " There were a few little things I thought 
 they could make use of at the house," said Mr. 
 Craven presently, to explain his appearance 
 but he did not look about for the necessary 
 goods. " How are you getting on ? " he asked, 
 in a benevolent and paternal fashion, and they 
 turned to acquaint this friendly stranger with 
 an assurance of their excellent prospects* 
 Evidently the young people had a very partic- 
 ular interest in each other, and Mr. Craven
 
 172 A BUSINESS MAN. 
 
 became sure that their marriage depended 
 upon young Chellis's future income. There 
 was a debt of a few hundred dollars on the 
 stock ; it had been a tremendous venture for 
 the fellow, and the wise old business man 
 shook his head, as he was made to understand 
 the position of affairs. "If you could only 
 pay off those accounts now," he said soberly, 
 " so that you could be handling for yourself 
 the money that is coming in." And young 
 Chellis looked wistful and determined as he 
 nodded his head in assent. 
 
 There was a painful silence of a moment or 
 two which Chellis himself broke. " You lost 
 a button off your coat when you were in day 
 before yesterday morning, sir. I found it after- 
 ward and laid it by. Miss Brooks has got a 
 needle with her now, I dare say, and she '11 
 sew it on for you if you will let her ; " and 
 John Craven looked from one face to the other 
 with pleased surprise. He would have been 
 amused if he had known that they had talked 
 about him several times, and had made up 
 their minds that he was a bachelor who boarded 
 somewhere in that region a man who had 
 seen better days, and was now poor and friend-
 
 A BUSINESS MAN. 173 
 
 less. Miss Brooks had ventured to wish that 
 he might have a little money which he would 
 like to put into such a thriving and rising busi- 
 ness venture as her lover's. But the lover had 
 replied with deeper wisdom that the elderly 
 stranger did not wear the look of a prosper- 
 ous man. Poor John Craven, with his houses 
 and lands, his blocks of buildings, and his in- 
 terest in a line of steamers, his manufactories, 
 and his mortgages, and bank stocks, and rail- 
 road stocks, and his luxurious children, whom 
 he had housed in palaces! He felt poorer, 
 after all, than these young creatures, who still 
 had their fortunes to make, and whose best 
 capital was their love for each other. 
 
 But in the last few dragging years nothing 
 had given him such a hearty pleasure as his 
 new interest in this little enterprise of the fancy 
 goods store on East Number Street. His cau- 
 tious business instinct made him very careful 
 to know his ground. Then one day, to young 
 Chellis's great delight, when he was beginning 
 to fear his creditors and look older and more 
 troubled than usual, the kindly guest counted 
 out a sum of money as if it were all he had in 
 the world, and begged to go into partnership,
 
 174 A BUSINESS MAN. 
 
 waiving all formalities. The two men sat 
 down together as if they were alike twenty-two, 
 and embarked upon courageous plans for future 
 gains. Sometimes of late, Mr. Craven who 
 let himself be called Mr. Brown, though his 
 honest heart revolted from the deception 
 postponed his visit until after the late break- 
 fast and spent as much of the day as he chose 
 with his new friend. What sagacity of advice 
 the old merchant imparted to the new one time 
 would fail for describing. Chellis had long 
 ago made up his mind that his benefactor 
 must have had an unusual business career and 
 been wrecked in some great financial crisis. 
 
 The situation was not without its dangers. 
 Even the walk along East Number Street was 
 beset with fears, and John Craven varied his 
 line of approach from day to day. Once he 
 beheld with dismay the entrance of one of his 
 own housemaids upon his new place of busi- 
 ness, as he stood behind the high desk casting 
 up a column of figures. Luckily there was an 
 inner room, to which he stealthily retreated 
 with beating heart, and listened there to the 
 loud, unmannerly tones of the woman who was 
 at home a most soft-spoken and servile crea- 
 ture. But this accident did not happen again,
 
 A BUSINESS MAN. 175 
 
 and he felt more and more secure in the com- 
 panionship of his young partner. It was sur- 
 prising how his youthful zest and ambition 
 seemed, for a time, to return ; how pleased he 
 was when an uncommonly good day's trade 
 was reported. He shook his head when the 
 young folks asked him to come to their wed- 
 ding, but he slipped as large a bill as he dared 
 into the bride's work-roughened little hand 
 and stole away toward his own house. It had 
 made him desolate to see the rooms the lov- 
 ers were to live in. They had asked their ben- 
 efactor to visit their new home in such a way 
 that he could not refuse, and they told him 
 they never could have got on so well without 
 his help. Little Miss Brooks was not going 
 to give up her sewing at present. She would 
 take care of their tiny housekeeping and earn 
 all she could in the spare time, just as she had 
 always done. They did not seem like city 
 people at all; they had the simple ways of 
 country folks. And John Craven thought of 
 them with deep affection as he sat at the head 
 of his glittering dinner-table that night, and 
 lifted a glass of his best wine in a shaking 
 hand to drink secretly Mr. and Mrs. William 
 Chellis's health and prosperity.
 
 176 A BUSINESS MAN. 
 
 At last there came a time, late one spring, 
 when the old business man seemed much fee- 
 bler than he had ever before. He hardly ever 
 went down to the great office now, and was 
 even glad when the rare expedition was safely 
 over with. Once or twice he took his seat at 
 some assembly, but he was an inefficient figure- 
 head, and was more annoyed than otherwise 
 with the empty show of deference from his in- 
 feriors in office. Every day when it was pos- 
 sible, however, he paid an early visit to his 
 young friends in East Number Street, and on 
 many a morning when there were few custom- 
 ers coming in, he gave the ambitious proprie- 
 tor warnings and suggestions. There was a 
 young boy added to the force of this mercan- 
 tile experiment, a lad from Vermont, whose 
 bright face seemed to please the old gentle- 
 man, and on one of the last visits Chellis sent 
 him home with Mr. Craven. It caused a good 
 deal of curiosity and interest when the adven- 
 ture was recounted, for he had helped the infirm 
 guest up the high steps of one of the best ave- 
 nue houses. But the morning calls were nearly 
 done. Mr. Craven only appeared once more, 
 and then when the owner of the little shop had
 
 A BUSINESS MAN. 177 
 
 gone down town. He and his young wife 
 talked a great deal that night about their ben- 
 efactor. " He 's been the making of me," said 
 Chellis to himself, sadly, as the days went by 
 after that and his friend did not come again. 
 
 For a long time Mr. Craven's daughter had 
 said proudly that her father was able to take 
 an hour or two's walk early every morning ; in 
 these late spring days she had complained fret- 
 fully that he used up all his strength in doing 
 so much, and that he was fit for nothing all the 
 rest of the day. At length John Craven was 
 taken away to his country place, and before the 
 summer was over he died. The poor rich man 
 had almost ceased to care anything for even 
 the dolls' shopkeeping, as he had often fondly 
 called it, though he was still grateful for the 
 pleasure that came to him as he dreamed of 
 and planned for the future fortune of the hap- 
 py young people in East Number Street. 
 
 His will was made some months before, and 
 was as just to his own family and to public needs 
 as all his dealings had been. There was one 
 codicil which surprised his family entirely, he 
 left five thousand dollars to one William Chel- 
 lis, in East Number Street, and among the
 
 178 A BUSINESS MAN. 
 
 latest of his private papers was a note to this 
 legatee written in a trembling hand, which con- 
 trasted strangely with his former clear signa- 
 tures. 
 
 " I have left something for you as a remenis 
 brance," Mr. Craven said. " I have no doubt 
 that you will make your way in the world by 
 its help and your own exertions, and I owe you 
 something for your kindness and respect to an 
 old man. Remember that getting money may 
 make you poor as it has me, and can leave you 
 at last a beggar for a little friendliness, and 
 sympathy, and occupation. There are other 
 things which a man needs beside wealth to 
 make him happy. I am your grateful friend, 
 "JOHN CRAVEN." 
 
 The young man's eyes were strangely dimmed 
 as he read. " Good heavens ! " he said, awed 
 and astonished. " I used to think sometimes 
 that he was n't the broken-down old fellow we 
 took him for at first ; but there he was all the 
 time, one of the richest men in the city ! How 
 pleased he used to be some days to help be- 
 hind the counter when two or three customers
 
 A BUSINESS MAN. 179 
 
 came in together. So that was old John 
 Craven ! " 
 
 " Perhaps our place made him think of old 
 times, when he was just beginning, himself," 
 hopefully answered the little wife. " I remem- 
 ber the first time I saw him, one windy morn- 
 ing when the dust blew in his face and he turned 
 round and looked right in at the window. He 
 made me feel real bad, he looked so lonesome 
 and wishful. I never thought he was going to 
 give us such a lot of money." 
 
 " He 's given me something better than that, 
 too," said young Chellis, solemnly ; and when 
 the woman beside him looked up to ask what 
 he meant, he only kissed her and went away. 
 There were truly many gains to be had in the 
 world beside money, even if one's heart was 
 set upon being, first of all, A Business Man.
 
 MARY AND MARTHA. 
 
 THE two sisters the old Miss Deans, as 
 people had begun to call them had always 
 lived together, and what had happened to one 
 happened to the other. They often said that 
 what one knew the other knew ; and since they 
 had spent their years very quietly, the things 
 that each sister thought best worth saying had 
 been said many times over. For all this, they 
 were as different as they could be. Mary 
 was Mary-like a little too easy and loving- 
 hearted ; and Martha was Martha-like a lit- 
 tle too impatient with foolish folks, and for- 
 getting to be affectionate while she tried to be 
 what she called just. Sometimes she thought 
 her younger sister visionary and sentimental ; 
 for Martha was, before all things, practical 
 and straightforward, and there lurked a little 
 pride in her heart because she did not see how 
 Mary could get on without her own forethought 
 and provision for their needs.
 
 MARY AND MARTHA. 181 
 
 The two sisters were very much respected in 
 the village where they lived. They sewed for 
 their living; they were tailoresses by trade, 
 and though they did not make so many suits 
 of clothes since their neighbors found the 
 ready-made clothing shops so cheap and con- 
 venient, they made little boys' first suits and 
 stray jackets and trousers whenever they could. 
 They mended them, too, for one or two busy 
 neighbors who could afford to pay them. You 
 might hear it said twenty times a year, " How 
 should we ever get along without Mary and 
 Martha Dean ! " And more than once it had 
 been questioned who could take their places if 
 anything happened to the good women. Mar- 
 tha was usually strong and vigorous, short and 
 thick-set in appearance, and a little given to 
 bustling if anything particular were going on. 
 She was an excellent hand to make over a 
 carpet ; she was an extremely judicious and 
 sensible person. It was Martha who had been 
 called upon to go and keep house for her 
 townspeople when they went away. But more 
 than one neighbor had dearly liked to have 
 Mary Dean in the sick-room, she was so gentle 
 and quiet, and did not insist upon doing some-
 
 182 MARY AND MARTHA. 
 
 thing when there was nothing to do, as hei 
 good, anxious, willing sister did once in a while. 
 Yet everybody called Martha a splendid nurse ; 
 she was so capable, they said ; and most people 
 liked to hear her talk to the sick, and tell them 
 they were nervous and notional, and there 
 was n't anything great the matter with them, 
 and she had seen folks twice as bad off. There 
 was no gainsaying the fact that this treatment 
 occasionally did good ; for one thing, many 
 friends had as much confidence in Martha Dean 
 as in the doctor, and it was good for them that 
 she rallied their hopes ; " where there 's a will 
 there 's a way " being as often true about get- 
 ting well as it is about getting rich. But when 
 tall, thin Mary, with her pleased, absent- 
 minded look, stole into a bedroom on a dreary 
 day and said nothing but " How do you do ? " 
 or " I thought perhaps you 'd like to have com- 
 pany," and laid on the counterpane a very 
 small tea-rose which was known to have 
 bloomed on a little bush that had been tended 
 like a baby, and brought through the winter 
 only by the greatest care when Mary Dean 
 did this, it might be thought that she was too 
 wistful and unreviving for a sick-room. Yet
 
 MARY AND MARTHA. 183 
 
 many a patient wished more than ever to get 
 well again, if only to do something for this 
 kind nurse in return. They were both useful 
 in their way. It must be confessed that Mar- 
 tha made a great deal the best gruel ; but some- 
 times you wanted one and sometimes the other, 
 and meant no disrespect to the slighted sister. 
 They lived together on a hilltop just outside 
 the village. The faded yellow story-and-a-half 
 house looked as if it had strayed away a little 
 to be by itself. Perhaps somebody was in- 
 fluenced to build it there so that it would be 
 all ready for Mary Dean, who loved quiet more 
 and more as she grew older. Martha often 
 fretted, and wished that she were in the vil- 
 lage. She thought the half a mile a longish 
 walk in bad weather, and was sure they would 
 get more to do if they were right among folks. 
 You would do twenty-five cents' worth your- 
 self many a time rather than rig all up in a 
 rainstorm to lug it up a long hill ! If there 
 had been more land with the little house, Mar- 
 tha was sure they could sell it to advantage ; 
 but whenever she talked about that, as she 
 would sometimes, in a most fierce way, her sis- 
 ter provoked her a little by not consenting to
 
 184 MARY AND MARTHA. 
 
 see the advantage. Mary would only say, 
 " Perhaps you know best," or, " Do you think 
 we could find just the right house ? " but she 
 always looked utterly miserable, and bright- 
 ened up when, after a season of gloomy silence, 
 her more energetic sister would speak about 
 something else. Mary loved every blade of 
 grass on their fifth part of an acre ; she loved 
 even the great ledge that took up part of their 
 small domain, and made the rest scorched and 
 dry in midsummer. It seemed to her, if she 
 had to leave the house, that she must give up, 
 not only seeing the sunsets, but the memory of 
 all the sunsets she could remember. The good 
 women were growing old. Martha was rheu- 
 matic in cold weather, and it was Martha who 
 went oftenest to the village and upon whom 
 most of the inconvenience came. " I expect to 
 live and die here," she said, one day, to a new 
 customer, who asked them if they had always 
 lived in the old house ; " that is, provided I 
 don't die on the road goin' and cominV 
 
 One day, about the middle of November, the 
 sisters were both at home, and sat each by her 
 chosen window, stitching busily. Sometimes 
 Mary would stop for a minute or two, and look
 
 MATCf AND MARTHA. 185 
 
 out across the country, as if she really took 
 pleasure in seeing the leafless trees against the 
 gray sky, and the band of pale yellow in the 
 southwest, the soft pale brown of the fields 
 and pastures, and a bronzed oak here and 
 there against the blackish-green pine woods. 
 Martha thought it a very bleak, miserable sort 
 of day ; her window overlooked the road to 
 the village, and hardly anybody had gone by 
 all the afternoon. 
 
 " I believe the only thing that would make 
 it worth while to live 'way out here," she said, 
 energetically, " would be a sewing-machine. I 
 could take regular work then from Torby's 
 shop, as some of the folks are goin' to do, and 
 then we could have something to depend upon. 
 You ain't able to go out all weathers, and never 
 was, and 't was all I could do to get through 
 last winter. One time don't you rec'lect ? 
 we was shut up here four days, and could n't 
 have got to the village, to save us, in that big 
 storm. It makes a great difference about the 
 passing since they cut that new cross-road. 
 And I should like to live where I could be rea- 
 sonably certain of meetin' privileges ; it did 
 seem good to go to Friday evenin' meetin' last
 
 186 MARY AND MARTHA. 
 
 week when I was to the Ellis's. I can't feel 
 right to go away and leave you alone, and folks 
 ain't likely to want us both to once, as they 
 used to a good deal." 
 
 Mary sighed a little. She knew all these 
 arguments well; she knew that what they 
 wanted was steady work at home in winter. 
 They had only a little money in the bank, for, 
 thrifty as they were, they were unfortunate 
 too, and had lost by a railroad failure a few 
 years ago almost all their lifetime's savings. 
 They could not go out to work much longer, 
 Mary knew that well. Martha need not say it 
 over so many times ; and she looked up at 
 Martha, and was surprised, as if it were the 
 first time she had ever noticed it, to see that 
 she was almost an old woman. Never quite 
 that ! The brisk, red - cheeked girl who had 
 been her childish pride and admiration could 
 never be anything else, in spite of the disguises 
 and changes with which time had masked her 
 faded countenance. Martha had a lover, too, 
 in the days of the red cheeks ; sometimes 
 Mary wondered at her bravery in being so 
 cheerful and happy ; for the elder sister had 
 taken her life as it came, with such resigna-
 
 MARY AND MARTHA. 187 
 
 tion and uncomplainingness. Perhaps Mary 
 felt the loss of the lover more than Martha 
 herself, who had suffered at first, but the grief 
 had grown vague years ago. They had not 
 been engaged very long, and she had hardly 
 grown used to her new relationship before his 
 sudden death came. She had often told herself 
 that it was all for the best, and in spite of that 
 liked to have people know that she was not ex- 
 actly like other unmarried women who never 
 had been urged to change their situation. But 
 when Martha had been sitting in silence, lost 
 in thought, and Mary's tender sympathies had 
 woven many happy dreams for her, she was 
 apt to shatter the dreams at last by some very 
 unsentimental remark about the jacket they 
 were making, or the price of tea. No doubt 
 she often had her own sad thoughts, for all 
 that. 
 
 There was just such a silence in this No- 
 vember afternoon, and Mary, as usual, humbly 
 wondered if her sister were lonely and troubled, 
 and if she herself were half so good and ten- 
 der as she ought to be to one so dear and kind. 
 At last Martha said, in a business-like way: 
 " Next week we shall be getting ready for
 
 188 MARY AND MARTHA. 
 
 Thanksgiving. I don't expect we shall do so 
 much as usual ; I don't see where the money 's 
 comin' from. We had better get along with- 
 out a chicken, anyways ; they 're goin' to bring 
 a high price, and ours must pay for the wood 
 as far as they '11 go." 
 
 " I 'm thankful as I can be every day," said 
 Mary, softly. "I don't know what I should 
 do without you, sister. I hope the Lord 
 won't part us ; " and her lip quivered as she 
 spoke. " You thought we never should pull 
 through this year," she resumed, in a more 
 commonplace tone ; " but here we are, after 
 all, and we 've done well, and been fed, and 
 kept warm." 
 
 " The next year we ought to shingle the 
 house and set the fences into some kind of 
 shape. I wish we could sew up things out- 
 doors well 's we can in ; " and Martha smiled 
 grimly. 
 
 " We do, don't we ? " and the younger sis- 
 ter laughed outright. " I wish we did have a 
 sewing-machine. I dare say by and by they '11 
 get cheaper. I declare it does n't seem five 
 years since the war was over." 
 
 " There 's John Whitefield," said Martha,
 
 MARY AND MARTHA. 189 
 
 angrily; and Mary looked frightened. She 
 was always so sorry when this topic was 
 started. " He never gives a thought to what 
 our folks did for him. I should n't know him 
 if I was to see him, and we are all the own 
 cousins he 's got on his father's side. It does 
 seem as if he might take some interest in us 
 now we 're all growing old together. He must 
 have read our names in the list of those that 
 lost in the railroad, and have known 't was all 
 we 'd got." 
 
 " Perhaps he thinks we don't take any in- 
 terest in him," ventured Mary, timidly. "I 
 have sometimes thought about him, and won- 
 dered if he supposed we were set against him. 
 There was so much hard feelin' between the 
 families when we were all young, and we would 
 n't speak to him when we were girls. A 3 7 oung 
 man would be cut by that as much as any- 
 thing" 
 
 " I would n't speak to him now, either," and 
 Martha's voice and her linen thread snapped 
 together. " Everybody said they treated our 
 folks outrageously. You need n't expect me 
 to go meechin' after such thankless and un- 
 principled creaturs."
 
 190 MARY AND MARTHA. 
 
 Mary hardly knew what gave her such cour- 
 age. " I don't want to vex you, I 'm sure," 
 she said, simply. " If he did n't answer or 
 did n't treat us well any way, I should think as 
 you do ; but I should like to ask him to come 
 and spend Thanksgiving Day with us, and 
 show him a forgivin' spirit. He ain't so well 
 off that he need think we 've got low motives ; 
 and " taking courage " you know this '11 
 be the first Thanksgiving since his wife died 
 if 't was his wife we saw mentioned in the 
 paper." 
 
 "I must say you are consistent with our 
 havin' nothin' for dinner," smiled Miss Mar- 
 tha, grimly, clicketing together her big needle 
 and her steel thimble without any top. " I 
 won't lend myself to any such notions, and 
 there 's an end to it." 
 
 She rose and disappeared angrily into the 
 pantry, and began to assail the pots and pans 
 as if she had to begin the preparations for 
 Thanksgiving at that very moment. But Miss 
 Mary Dean, whom everybody thought a little 
 flighty and unpractical, went on sewing as long 
 as the pale daylight lasted. She did not know 
 why she was so disappointed about not inviting
 
 MAR Y AND MARTHA. 191 
 
 their unknown cousin. She had not thought 
 of him very often ; but she had always been 
 a little ashamed and sorry about the family 
 quarrel that had made everybody so bitter and 
 unforgiving when she was a girl. Her father 
 thought that this cousin's father cheated him 
 of his rights in the old home farm. 
 
 At least three days afterward Sister Martha 
 was discovered to be very silent and unreason- 
 able; and, in spite of previous experiences, 
 Miss Mary was entirely surprised to be told 
 late in the evening, just as they were going to 
 bed, that a letter had been sent that day to 
 Cousin John asking him to come to spend 
 Thanksgiving with them on the hilltop. 
 " You 'd never have been satisfied without it, 
 I suppose," the good woman said, grudgingly, 
 as she went hurling about the room ; and 
 gentle Mary was filled with fear. She knew 
 that it would be a trouble to her sister, and an 
 unwelcome one ; but at last she felt very glad, 
 and was aggravatingly grateful as she thanked 
 the head of the family for this generous deed. 
 " I don't know why my heart was so set on it," 
 she announced later, with great humility, and
 
 192 MARY AND MARTHA. 
 
 Martha sniffed unmistakably from under the 
 patchwork counterpane. "I hope he won't 
 stop long," she observed, quite cheerfully. 
 And so peace was restored, and Miss Martha 
 Dean thought about the dinner and talked over 
 her frugal plans, while Mary listened with 
 pleased content, and looked out through the 
 little bedroom window from her pillow to see 
 the white, twinkling, winter-like stars. 
 
 "Goodness me! " exclaimed Martha on 
 Thanksgiving morning ; " there he comes, and 
 he looks as old as Methusaleh ! " The sisters 
 stood together and watched their guest climb- 
 ing the long hill, and made characteristic com- 
 ments. " He does look real lonesome," said 
 Mary, but Martha bustled off to look at the 
 chicken which had just been put into the oven. 
 " He looks as if he were hungry," she growled 
 on the way, and took a complacent look into 
 the kettles after she had seen that the oven 
 continued to be in a proper state of warmth. 
 There was enough for her to do to look after 
 the dinner. Mary could attend to the com- 
 pany : but, after all, it was good to have com- 
 pany, especially some one who seemed to be 
 glad to be with them. He had grown to look
 
 MARY AND MARTHA. 193 
 
 like her own dear, honest-hearted father in 
 these latter years ; he could not be a bad man, 
 and it seemed a great while since they had seen 
 one of their own folks at the table. 
 
 So Martha put her whole heart into making 
 her little dinner just as good as it could be. 
 She sat down in the front room once or twice 
 and tried to talk over old times, but she was 
 not very successful ; they were constantly run- 
 ning against unpleasant subjects ; it seemed 
 as if the mistaken household that had been 
 divided against itself had no traditions of any- 
 thing but warfare. 
 
 But the guest was pathetically glad to come ; 
 he could talk to his cousin Mary about the 
 pleasure Martha's note had given him. He 
 did not say that it was not very affectionate, 
 but he told the truth about having often 
 wished since he had grown older that they 
 could talk over the old times and have a kinder 
 feeling toward each other. " And I was so 
 broken up this year," he added, plaintively. 
 " I miss my wife worse and worse. She was 
 some years j^ounger than I, and always seemed 
 so pleasant and sprightly well, if one of you 
 girls is left without the other, you '11 know
 
 194 MARY AND MARTHA. 
 
 something about it, that 's all I can say," and 
 a sudden pang shot through the listener's heart. 
 And Mary Dean looked so sorry and so kind 
 that she had to listen to a great many things 
 about the wife who had died. Cousin John 
 Whitefield moved her sympathy more and 
 more, and by the time dinner was ready they 
 were warm friends. Then there was the din- 
 ner, and the two elderly women and their guest 
 enjoyed it very much. Miss Martha had put 
 on the best table-cloth and the best dishes. 
 She had done all she could to make the little 
 festival a success, and presently even she was 
 filled with the spirit of the day, and did not let 
 the least shadow of disapproval show itself in 
 her face when Mary said : " Sister, I 'm sure we 
 ought to be very thankful to-day for all these 
 good things and for Cousin John's company. 
 I don't feel as if we ever should make out to be 
 enemies again ; " and the cousin shook his head 
 more than once, while something like a tear 
 glistened in the eyes that were turned toward 
 Mary Dean. They talked of old times ; they 
 said to each other that they would let bygones 
 be bygones. Some of the sisters' friends had 
 been very kind ; one had given them a present
 
 MARY AND MARTHA. 195 
 
 of cranberries, which Martha liked very much, 
 but had denied herself, since they were so dear 
 that year. 
 
 Cousin John had evidently dressed himself 
 with great care, but he looked untended, and 
 the sisters' shrewd eyes saw where a stitch or 
 two was needed and a button had been lost. 
 It seemed more friendly than ever when he 
 stood before Martha to have his coat mended ; 
 it only took a minute. And her eyes were the 
 best, Mary said, proudly. 
 
 " Girls," said the old man, suddenly ; " girls, 
 I want to know if, with all your sewing trade, 
 you have n't got any sewing-machine ? " And 
 the girls looked at each other wistfully, and 
 answered No. 
 
 " Now, I know what I '11 do for you," and 
 the withered face brightened. " I 'm going 
 to send you over Maria's. She set everything 
 by it ; 't was one her brother gave her Jo- 
 siah, that 's so well off in New York. She 
 says 't was one of the best ; and there it has 
 stood. I 've been thinking I should have to 
 sell it. I '11 send it over right away." And 
 he looked from one delighted face to the 
 other. "You won't refuse, now?" he asked;
 
 196 MARY AND MARTHA. 
 
 as if there had been any danger of that ! And 
 the sisters confessed how puzzled they had 
 been about their winter's work ; they had not 
 acknowledged so fully even to each other that 
 some of their old customers had died, that it 
 hardly paid to do hand-sewing, and hardly any- 
 body needed tailors' work, somehow ; and they 
 were not able to be out in all weather, or to be 
 of as much service to their neighbors as they 
 used. But they were sure to do well now if 
 they had a machine. Mr. Torby, at the shop, 
 paid excellent prices for the best work. 
 
 Cousin John stayed until the next day, and 
 they watched him go down the hill with many 
 feelings of gratitude and respect. " It takes 
 two to make a quarrel, but only one to end 
 it," said Martha, turning suddenly to Mary. 
 They both felt younger than they had for a 
 great while, and they pitied their cousin's aged 
 looks and slow steps. " 'T was all owing to 
 you," she went on, in a tone that was not 
 usual with her. " Mary, I believe you Ve 
 chosen the better part, and you 've listened to 
 the Lord's words while I 've been cumbered 
 with much serving." But Mary would have 
 it that only Martha could have made Cousin
 
 MARY AND MARTHA. 197 
 
 John so comfortable, and got him the good 
 Thanksgiving dinner. 
 
 " The dinner 's the least part of it," said 
 Martha, this time in her every-day, short fash- 
 ion of speech. " There ! it 's beginning to 
 snow. I wish, if there 's a good fall of it, we 
 could just put this house on runners and slide 
 down hill ! " But she looked very good-na- 
 tured, and Mary laughed softly. 
 
 " You say that every year, don't you, Mar- 
 tha ? " said she. " Just think how long we Ve 
 been wishing for a sewing-machine, and now 
 we're really going to have one. I suppose 
 you '11 know just how to use it before it has 
 been here a day."
 
 THE NEWS FROM PETERSHAM. 
 
 MRS. PEAK had been to Petersham herself, 
 to spend Thanksgiving with her niece, and 
 brought the first account of old Mr. Johnson's 
 illness. Mrs. Jesse Johnson, his daughter-in- 
 law, had come in for a few minutes Thursday 
 afternoon, and had said it was the first time 
 since she could remember that the old gentle- 
 man had not been in his seat in church on 
 Thanksgiving Day. And they all felt as if it 
 were a great break. 
 
 " He would insist upon setting at the ta- 
 ble," said Mrs. Jesse, " but he looked too fee- 
 ble to be out of his bed. These bad colds take 
 hold of a man of his years." 
 
 After the visitor had gone Mrs. Peak and 
 her niece Martha talked a good deal about the 
 changes in the family which would be sure to 
 come when Mr. Johnson died. 
 
 "I know that Jesse's folks are depending 
 upon getting a lift," said Martha. "Mis'
 
 THE NEWS FROM PETERSHAM. 199 
 
 Jesse has hinted as much to me more than 
 once, for she says Jesse 's got more than he 
 can carry in his business, and everything 
 would be easy if he only had a little more cap- 
 ital. Truth is, I have an idea that he 's teased 
 a good share away from his father now, and 
 the old gentleman is n't so ready as he used to 
 be to further his projects. And there 's Wil- 
 liam, his other son, I know it to be a fact that 
 he is intending to go out West when his fa- 
 ther 's taken away. He has had a notion of it 
 for a good while ; his wife's sister's folks are 
 all out there and doing well." 
 
 " They '11 be very much missed as a family," 
 said Mrs. Peak ; " how Petersham has changed 
 from what it was when I was a girl ! " 
 
 When she went home the next day she was 
 quite downhearted, and told Asa Fales, who 
 happened to be at the depot when the train 
 came in and offered to carry her home, that 
 old Mr. Daniel Johnson was breaking up 
 at least, so his family seemed to think. Asa 
 Fales was deeply concerned ; the two villages 
 were only a few miles apart, and he had beeii 
 a Petersham boy. It was old Mr. Johnson ta 
 whom he owed his rue in the world, and he
 
 200 THE NEWS FROM PETERSHAM. 
 
 remembered that he might never have owned 
 his flourishing country store if it had not 
 been for this kind friend's assistance. Be- 
 sides, he had been confident of Mr. Johnson's 
 support if he should make up his mind to 
 buy a large tract of woodland which would 
 pay well for being cleared that very next win- 
 ter. He was already indebted to him, how- 
 ever, and it would be a very different thing if 
 he were the debtor of the eager heirs. So 
 with all this in his mind he questioned Mrs. 
 Peak anxiously, and they concluded that Mr. 
 Johnson's end was not far distant. 
 
 " Of course he made a great effort to get to 
 the table on account of its being Thanksgiv- 
 ing," said Asa, sorrowfully, " but I 'm afraid 
 he '11 give right up now. I 'd ride right over 
 to see him to-morrow, but I can't get away, 
 It 's right in my busy time ; I 'm buying up a 
 great deal of wood this fall, and some of 'em 
 are bringing it in now on wheels instead of 
 waiting for snow." 
 
 " The snow does keep off late this year," 
 said Mrs. Peak " Here it 's the first o' De- 
 cember, and there 's only been one flurry that 
 was hardly more than a hoar-frost."
 
 THE NEWS FROM PETERSHAM. 201 
 
 They reached the little gray house behind 
 the lilac-bushes, where Mrs. Peak lived alone, 
 and as she unlocked its side-door and went in, 
 it seemed strangely cold and lonely. " I must 
 look about for a likely kitten," she said to her- 
 self ; " they 're a sight of company, and what 
 trouble it gave would be no harm. I declare 
 it makes me feel lonesome ; all the folks I 
 have always been used to knowing are a-dying 
 off. I always set a good deal by Daniel 
 Johnson." 
 
 Two neighbors looked up the road a little 
 later than this from their kitchen windows, 
 and seeing a light in Mrs. Peak's kitchen also, 
 said to themselves that she might be lonely 
 that evening without anybody to speak to, and 
 they would step over and hear the news. They 
 met at the door, each with a shawl over her 
 head and her knitting-work in her hands, 
 and were welcomed most heartily. Mrs. West, 
 who was very fond of talking, began at once to 
 describe her experiences Thanksgiving morn- 
 ing, when she found that the cats had stolen 
 into the pantry during the night, and mangled 
 the turkey so that it was only fit to be thrown 
 away. It was too late to get another, except a
 
 202 THE NEWS FROM PETERSHAM. 
 
 rack of bones fit only for a lantern, that had 
 been left at Fales's store. 
 
 " I did n't know what in the world I should 
 do. There was all the folks coming ; his sis- 
 ter and all the child'n, and my brother and 
 his wife, and we three at home are middlin' 
 hearty but there; we made out with the 
 chicken-pie and a spare-rib I put right in. It 
 so happened I had one that was thawed. An' 
 I took those cats and soused 'em well in a tub 
 o' water, after I 'd give 'em as good a beating 
 as I knew how. And after a while they stole 
 in half froze, and set by the stove meek as 
 Moses with their paws tucked underneath 'em, 
 and when I 'd look at 'em they 'd mew at me 
 both together 'thout making a sound. For all 
 I was so worked up, I had to laugh." 
 
 They all laughed again at the cats, while 
 Mrs. Peak acknowledged that she had just 
 been thinking of getting a kitten, but such ac- 
 counts as this were discouraging, and Mrs. 
 West promptly offered her own virtuous pus- 
 sies, which amused the little company very 
 much. 
 
 " You have n't told us yet whether you 
 heard anything over at Petersham," said Mrs.
 
 THE NEWS FROM PETERSHAM. 203 
 
 Rogers, the other guest, at which Mrs. Peak's 
 face grew long. 
 
 " I had a beautiful visit with Martha," she 
 answered, " but I Ve been feeling anxious to 
 hear again from old Mr. Daniel Johnson. 
 Jesse's wife came in and said he seemed very 
 feeble. He did n't make no effort to get out 
 to meetin' Thanksgivin' Day, and Martha said 
 she 'd noticed he looked pale and kind o' wiz- 
 ened up two or three weeks ago." 
 
 " I suppose the cold weather pinched him," 
 suggested Mrs. West. " Well, he '11 be a great 
 loss." 
 
 "I heard from him direct this morning," 
 continued Mrs. Peak, mournfully. " I called 
 to Jesse's oldest boy as he went by, and he 
 said his grand 'ther was n't any better. I 
 asked if he was abed, and he said, ' No.' He 's 
 got a sight o' resolution ; I should n't wonder 
 if he did n't take his bed at all." 
 
 " I don't see how they '11 pay their minis- 
 ter the salary they give him now, when they 
 lose Mr. Johnson," said Mrs. Rogers. " He 's 
 always ready to give, and he does what he 
 can for his folks. I should n't wonder if he 
 had n't but a little property left, after all he 'a
 
 204 THE NEWS FROM PETERSHAM. 
 
 had to do, and being out o' business for some 
 years now." 
 
 " He 's kept his money a-movin," observed 
 Mrs. West. " There ain't no such business 
 man about here, but there 's been plenty o' 
 hands reached out to take what they could get. 
 Well, 't is all over now ; he won't last a great 
 while if he 's as feeble as you say. His father 
 went just the same way, only kept the house a 
 week, and his bed the last day." 
 
 " I should have gone right over to see him 
 myself yesterday," said the hostess, "but it 
 kept raining steady all day, same as it did here, 
 I suppose." 
 
 " They '11 be likely to have his funeral from 
 the meeting-house, won't they?" asked Mrs. 
 Rogers, solemnly; but nobody could answer 
 her question. 
 
 Next day being Sunday, and most of the 
 congregation coming from the scattered farms, 
 there was the usual exchange of greetings and 
 inquiries for news. And in this way the sad 
 story of Mr. Johnson's last illness was spread 
 far and wide before night. And in passing 
 from one to another, the report became every 
 hour more serious. At last some one ventured
 
 THE NEWS FROM PETERSHAM. 205 
 
 fco say that, judging from what she had just 
 heard, the poor man could not now be living. 
 And the listener felt justified in announcing 
 that Mrs. Smith thought there was no doubt 
 that he was dead. 
 
 Late on Sunday night Mrs. West brought 
 the news to Mrs. Peak. 
 
 " He heard it from some one who stopped at 
 Asa Fales's, but there was n't no particulars ; " 
 and Mrs. Peak said nobody had any idea Mr. 
 Johnson would go so soon. It was a great 
 shock to her ; as much as if she had not known 
 of his illness. 
 
 " Death is always sudden at the last," said 
 Mrs. West. " I suppose you will go over to 
 the funeral ? it seems a pity you should have 
 come home Saturday, don't it ? " 
 
 " I shall get ready to go by the first train," 
 answered the old lady, crying a little. " I de- 
 clare I wish I 'd gone to the house before I 
 come away. It ain't that I think of the ex- 
 pense of going to Petersham twice, for that 's 
 nothing at such a time as this, but I can't feel 
 reconciled to not seeing him again. He was 
 a most amiable Christian man, there won't 
 be many dry eyes in Petersham the day he 's
 
 206 THE NEWS FROM PETERSHAM. 
 
 buried. I 've known him ever since I Ve 
 known anybody." 
 
 So by the earliest train next day Mrs. Peak 
 went back to Petersham. Her countenance 
 wore a solemn expression. She felt herself to 
 be one of the chief mourners, though her place 
 in the procession would probably be not far 
 from the least afflicted end. As she stepped 
 down from the car, she pulled a very long face, 
 and was surprised to see no signs of the ca- 
 lamity which had befallen the village. She 
 meditated upon the way the world moves on 
 though its best men die, and took her way, 
 to save time, through the back streets to her 
 niece Martha's. 
 
 " Well, Martha," she said, sadly, " I 'm sure 
 I did n't think I should be back again so soon 
 when I left you. When do they bury ? " 
 
 " Who ? " asked Martha, much amazed. 
 She was busy washing, and was not in the 
 least prepared for her aunt's appearance. She 
 was used to making careful arrangements 
 when she expected guests being, as her 
 friends said, very set in her ways and if 
 there was anything she disliked it was a lack 
 of ceremony, even from her nearest relatives.
 
 THE NEWS FROM PETERSHAM. 207 
 
 "I haven't heard of any death," she as- 
 sured her aunt, who was apparently much per- 
 plexed. 
 
 " Somebody told the Wests last night that 
 Mr. Dan'el Johnson had passed away, and 
 Mis' West came right out to tell me," Mrs. 
 Peak explained at last. 
 
 Martha began to laugh. "He was out to 
 meeting last night as sure as the world," she 
 said. " He 's had a bad cold, you know 
 he 's always been subject to fall colds, but 
 he 's about again. I heard Jesse's wife fussin' 
 at him about doin' up his throat when we were 
 comin' out o' the meetin'-house last night." 
 
 " She was dreadful down-hearted about him, 
 I 'm sure, when she come in Thanksgiving 
 night," ventured Mrs. Peak in self-defense. 
 
 " Now, Aunt Peak," said Martha, " have n't 
 you seen enough of Lydia Johnson by this 
 time to know that she always thinks every- 
 thing and everybody is going to rack and 
 ruin ? She was cheerful about the old gentle- 
 man to what she is sometimes. To be sure 
 we all know he 's getting along in years." 
 
 " Seems to me I do rec'lect she is apt to 
 look on the dark side," reflected Mrs. Peak
 
 208 THE NEWS FROM PETERSHAM 
 
 " But now, Marthy, don't speak to any one of 
 what my errand was in coming over. I Ve 
 got a little shopping any way that I forgot 
 last week, and folks will think we 're dreadful 
 hungry for news over our way." 
 
 " It does look like it," chuckled Martha. 
 " But do stop to dinner, aunt, now you 're 
 over ; it 's coming winter and you may not get 
 started again. 'Tis a pity there ain't some- 
 thing else for you to go to. I s'pose you 've 
 heard that story about the old ladies that set 
 out for a funeral and found they 'd missed the 
 day, and asked the folks if they did n't know 
 of a funeral they could go to ? " 
 
 " Marthy," said her Aunt Peak, " I should 
 think you had no feelin's. It was n't my fault 
 as I know of that the story got about. I did 
 speak of it to one or two that his son's wife 
 appeared concerned, and when word come that 
 he was gone I only thought she had good rea- 
 son to be anxious ; and he was an old friend, 
 and a leader in church interests, and I thought, 
 natural enough, I 'd come right over.'* 
 
 " Don't take it hard of me, joking with 
 you," said Martha, " but it is kind of amusing 
 when you come to look at it and see how sto
 
 THE NEWS FROM PETERSHAM. 209 
 
 lies get made up and set going out of nothing. 
 Every one of 'em thinks they tell the truth, 
 and first thing you know there 's a lie travel- 
 ing about fast as lightning," and she turned to 
 her neglected washing, as if no time must be 
 lost. 
 
 " I can't get back before two. I 'm sorry I 
 happened to trouble you on an inconvenient 
 day, I'm sure," said Mrs. Peak, humbly. 
 " I '11 step down the street for a while and do 
 u few errands, and you must n't let me put you 
 out. Just a cup of tea and a taste of bread 
 and butter '11 be all I ask for," and Martha 
 nodded and told her aunt not to worry, and to 
 have as good a time as she could. 
 
 The old lady's pride had met with a sad 
 downfall she did not know how to face the 
 people at home. But luckily she was saved 
 the first acknowledgment, as Asa Fales had 
 reached Petersham before her and had found 
 Mr. Daniel Johnson briskly at work by the 
 garden trellis covering his grape-vines. 
 
 He had prudently avoided any reference to 
 the next world, and, indeed, had learned the 
 falseness of the story from a Petersham man 
 whom he had met on the road. So he entered
 
 210 THE NEWS FROM PETERSHAM. 
 
 at once upon the project of buying the pine 
 woods between Gaytown and Hollis, and found 
 to his great satisfaction that his old friend 
 would be glad to join him if the affair could 
 be well arranged. 
 
 Mrs. Peak herself met Mr. Johnson, and 
 could hardly look him in the face when she 
 asked for his health. And when the neigh- 
 bors came in one after another that evening 
 after she was again comfortably established at 
 home, she said, " You may laugh at me all 
 you have a mind to, but I don't mean to 
 need another lesson like this. I think it 's a 
 good deal better to mind what we Ve got to do 
 instead of livin' on what folks have got to say ; 
 but it 's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, 
 and I suppose I shall always like to hear what 
 news there is a-goinV
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 I. 
 
 BROWN left his chair by the fire somewhat 
 impatiently, and dropped his newspaper on the 
 rug ; he crossed the dining-room to the bay- 
 window, and stood with his back to his wife, 
 looking out at the weather. Women were such 
 persistent geese ! He had a vague idea that 
 she might take some notice of the disagreeable 
 sleet and wind, and relent a little about hint- 
 ing that he had better be at his office. She 
 had already asked him to renew her subscrip- 
 tion to the church newspaper (he would have 
 to leave the stage and walk a block and a 
 half), and had said that he must look in at her 
 brother Bob's counting-room some time during 
 the day to ask for his wife's health. She had 
 furthermore given him two letters to post, and 
 had reminded him three times that he must not 
 forget them.
 
 212 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 " I believe that I will not go to the office 
 to-day," Brown announced presently, with con- 
 siderable dignity and even sternness, as if he 
 would not brook the idea of being contradicted 
 in any shape. His wife said nothing to this, 
 which was a great disappointment ; and after 
 growing more and more disturbed for a minute 
 or two he turned and offered his explanations. 
 Mrs. Brown was devoting herself to the baby, 
 while the nursery-maid was busy up-stairs in 
 the baby's luxurious quarters. Brown was 
 usually neither too proud nor too much occu- 
 pied to devote himself to his daughter, also, 
 but now he walked stiffly back to the big 
 chair by the fire, and took no notice of the 
 little hands that were put out to him. The 
 baby's mother flushed suddenly with some- 
 thing like anger, very unusual in her gentle 
 face. 
 
 " It is such an abominable day," said Brown. 
 " I don't feel very energetic. There won't be a 
 soul inside the office door, unless it 's a book 
 agent. I am going to make myself comfort- 
 able at home, and see something of you and 
 yes, you little pink ! " 
 
 He had come so near to neglecting the baby
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 213 
 
 that his better nature could submit no longer, 
 and he caught the smiling child, and went 
 prancing round the breakfast table until she 
 shrieked with delight, and family harmony 
 was restored. Mrs. Brown smiled, too, they 
 were a happy household ; but she looked seri- 
 ous again directly, and returned to the charge. 
 
 " Ben, dear," she said, " I don't like to have 
 you neglect your profession." 
 
 Brown stopped his capering, and the cups 
 and plates gave a final jingle. "When you 
 know perfectly well how it neglects me ! " he 
 responded solemnly, with a twinkling eye. 
 
 Even in the presence of the baby Mrs. Brown 
 did not like to have such confessions made, and 
 she looked up reproachfully. She kept up with 
 great care the fiction of her husband's having 
 already a fair law practice for a young man of 
 his age, and a very promising outlook. Brown 
 had no imagination ; he made no complaint ; 
 he knew plenty of fellows in the same box, 
 and was not going to shoulder the whole shame 
 of paying rent for a clientless office. He had 
 begun to get tired of spending his days there 
 altogether, even with the resource of taking 
 ail the time he liked for an elaborate and social
 
 214 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 luncheon. His wife had been growing a trifle 
 anxious lately because it was so difficult to 
 tempt his appetite at dinner-time, and Gales, 
 the wit of the luncheon club, had said in his 
 affected little drawling voice only the day be- 
 fore, " Shall have to cut this sort of thing, 
 you know ; getting too stout, and always hated 
 eating my dinner in the middle of the day. 
 Could do it with one client, but to-morrow I 'm 
 expecting another." Brown suddenly remem- 
 bered this, and smiled, because he had a quick, 
 amusing fear lest the bad weather might keep 
 Gales's client at home. Then he gave a sigh, 
 and gently deposited the baby in her mother's 
 lap. " I will go, you hard-hearted monsters," 
 he said, kissing them both, " but why I ever 
 let myself be coaxed into studying law is the 
 puzzle of my life. If I had something to do 
 I would work like a beaver. I 've got it in 
 me, fast enough, but I hate this make-believe 
 business. So would you." 
 
 " I do feel sorry about it ; you know I do," 
 answered Lucy, with great tenderness and sym- 
 pathy. " I should be perfectly unhappy. But 
 you have your studies, Ben, dear." 
 
 " I begin to hate those old yellow books,"
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 215 
 
 said Ben. "Now, if my father had let me 
 study engineering, as I wished, I should have 
 been in the middle of things by this time." 
 
 " You never would have broken the chain ? " 
 asked Lucy, with unfeigned anxiety roused 
 by such treason. She had been so proud of 
 Brown's being the fourth lawyer of his line 
 and of his precocious scholarship. He was 
 only twenty-eight years and two months old at 
 that moment, beside, and it was much too soon 
 to lose all hope about his future. 
 
 Brown went manfully out into the sleet a 
 few minutes later, and his wife and the baby 
 watched him from the window. He was a 
 handsome, good-natured young man, and it was 
 impossible not to be proud of him^ or to feel 
 sorry at his temporary discomfort as he slipped 
 and plodded along the incumbered sidewalk. 
 When he had paused for a moment at the 
 corner to throw a last kiss to the baby and 
 wave his hand, old Mr. Grandison, who stood 
 at his own window opposite, nodded his head 
 in sage approval. " Good fellow," he grum- 
 bled, with his chin plunged deep in his old- 
 fashioned black silk stock. " Comes of a good 
 family, and is sharp after his business." The
 
 216 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 damp air blew in at the window, and the spec- 
 tator of Brown's departure was obliged to 
 turn away and seek his fireside again. He 
 would have been perfectly thankful to change 
 places with the young man, and go down town 
 to do a stiff day's work, as he used twenty 
 years ago. 
 
 Lucy Brown had turned aside from her 
 window, also, and begun an eager morning's 
 work. She had been dreadfully afraid that 
 Ben would insist upon staying at home, and 
 she felt hard-hearted in very truth. But when 
 she had waked up that morning to find it 
 snowing, she had resolved to have the books 
 in the library thoroughly cleaned. Nobody 
 would come in, and she would muster the 
 household force, and of course attend to Ben's 
 private desk and papers herself. She was still 
 excited by her narrow escape from complete 
 disappointment, but she hoped she had not 
 seemed anything but kind and affectionate in 
 urging her husband that day of all others to 
 go to his office. 
 
 Mr. John Benedict Brown had an uneventful 
 journey to his place of business. He liked the
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 217 
 
 bad weather, on the whole, he had so few 
 things ordinarily to match his youthful energy 
 against, and he met two or three companions 
 in misery, if one had any right to call these 
 briefless barristers by such a hard name. Each 
 carried his green bag, but Brown's friend Gales 
 unconsciously held his in such a way that the 
 shape of a box of cigars was displayed un- 
 mistakably as its only contents. Gales's office 
 was farther down the street, and Brown re- 
 membered his promise about the subscription 
 just in time not to pass the office of the paper. 
 He would have sent a note to the publisher, 
 to do his errand, but Lucy was very strenuous 
 upon his settling the matter in person. She 
 had paid for a year in advance, and the bill 
 had been rendered again. She was most de- 
 pendent upon this particular publication, and 
 seemed absurdly anxious to stand well in the 
 publisher's estimation. There was only one 
 other man in the office beside the clerk, when 
 Brown entered. This other man stood with 
 his back to the door, looking over a file of 
 newspapers, and until the small matter was set- 
 tled, in a general and impersonal fashion that 
 would have wounded Mrs. Brown, he gave no 
 sign of consciousness of Brown's presence.
 
 218 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 Then lie laid down the newspapers and ap- 
 proached our friend. " Snooks, old boy, how 
 are you ? " he inquired affectionately, and a 
 little timidly, too, as if not quite certain of his 
 reception. 
 
 The very name of Snooks was sufficient ; it 
 had been Brown's nickname at the school 
 where he had fitted for college. Anybody who 
 called him Snooks had a right to favor after 
 the space of at least a dozen years since those 
 happy days when he had heard it often. This 
 schoolmate had not followed the class to college, 
 but he had been a good crony in his day, and a 
 lad of some cleverness and an erratic habit of 
 mind. Only a few days before, Gales, who had 
 also been at the school, had asked our hero what 
 had become of Checkley. Old Shekels they 
 used to call him, for the inconsequent reason 
 that he never had two cents in his pocket. He 
 was kept at his studies by some kind and char- 
 Hable friend, who forgot to an aggravating 
 extent to supply the minor comforts of life. 
 Checkley had developed an amazing gift for 
 maintaining himself by an ingenious system of 
 barter, like those savages who have not got so 
 far in civilization as any sort of exchequer or 
 strictly financial arrangements.
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 219 
 
 The old brotherliness of the past quickly 
 filled Brown's heart. Checkley looked hungry, 
 as usual, but he would take him to the office 
 and make him a welcome companion that dull 
 morning, and by and by they would have a 
 bit of luncheon together. After all, the day 
 promised well; he had feared a very special 
 lack of entertainment. 
 
 " Come round to my office," said Brown, 
 warmly. "I've nothing in the world to do 
 this morning. Tell me what you have been 
 about all this time. I '11 send for Gales pres- 
 ently ; he was asking for you a day or two ago. 
 We 're both in the law ; lots of time to call 
 our own, too," he added, with a cheerful hon- 
 esty which his wife would have inwardly la- 
 mented and tried to explain. 
 
 Checkley was out that day protected by a 
 melancholy fall overcoat and no umbrella, but 
 he took Brown's umbrella, and carried it over 
 both their heads with careful impartiality, as 
 if it were his own. He looked as if he were 
 growing old, which seemed premature in a 
 man of thirty. Brown could not help a sus- 
 picion that Checkley had made himself up for 
 some secret purpose. He always used to say
 
 220 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 that he meant to be a detective, and had been 
 considered immensely clever in some boyish 
 plays and pantomimes. However, another 
 stolen glance made Brown feel certain that this 
 appearance was Checkley as Himself, An Un- 
 successful Man, and that the gray hairs which 
 sprinkled his thin, straight, brownish hair were 
 quite genuine. The thinness and lankness of 
 his boyhood had never fulfilled their promise 
 of a robust frame, 'but appeared to have suf- 
 fered from exposure and neglect, like an un- 
 finished building which has had time to let its 
 timbers get rain-blackened and look poor. 
 
 But the same spirit and shrewd determina- 
 tion twinkled from Checkley's eyes, and he 
 kept step manfully with his well-clothed and 
 well-fed acquaintance. This was a most for- 
 tunate meeting. Nothing had ever played 
 better into his hands. Snooks Brown was al- 
 ways a good fellow, and luck was sure to turn. 
 
 " You are n't in the ' Parishioner's War-Cry ' 
 office as a permanent thing, I imagine ? " asked 
 Brown, with friendly desire to keep up the con- 
 versation, just as they stepped into the eleva- 
 tor. " Odd that we should have happened to 
 find each other there. I never was inside that 
 place before."
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 221 
 
 " No," said Checkley. " Truth is, it looked 
 quiet and secluded, and I put into harbor there 
 to dry off a little and get my wits together. 
 Temporary asylum. I was paying that clerk 
 the compliment of looking over his newspa- 
 pers, but I think he was just beginning to sus- 
 pect that I held them upside down. I had a 
 kind of revenge on him when you came in. It 
 looked as if we had an appointment, you know, 
 and you were always so thundering respecta- 
 ble." 
 
 Brown laughed with unaffected pleasure. 
 He was not so far from boyhood as a stranger 
 might imagine. There was something delight- 
 ful about Checkley's turning up that wet Feb- 
 ruary morning, and telling the most mortify- 
 ing facts about himself with honest sincerity. 
 He took the wet, thin overcoat and put it away 
 with his own, and would have insisted upon his 
 guest's occupying the best chair in the office, if 
 he had not promptly taken it without any in- 
 vitation. There was an open wood fire, and 
 Checkley stretched out a pair of very shabby 
 shoes to dry with an air of comfort and satis- 
 faction. He was a schemer, a dreamer, a curi- 
 ous plotter of insignificant things, but he never
 
 222 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 had been a toady or a beggar, and there was a 
 golden thread of good humor and unselfishness 
 through his unprofitable character. 
 
 Brown had taken up a not very ponderous 
 mail that lay on his desk, two or three bills, 
 as many circulars, and an invitation to make 
 further subscription to the Art Club. He 
 gravely looked these over, and put them in an 
 orderly heap at the further edge of the blotter. 
 Old Shekels's shoes were beginning to steam at 
 the toes, and his host noticed that they looked 
 about the size of his cwn shoes. At any rate, 
 there was an extra pair of arctics in the office 
 closet that could be offered before they went 
 out to luncheon. Brown felt a glow of kind- 
 heartedness spread itself over him, as he re- 
 solved to dress Checkley in comfortable fash- 
 ion before they parted again. " You look just 
 as you did when we used to stay up after hours, 
 and sit before the fire and tell stories," he said, 
 jovially, to his guest. " I dare say you could 
 spin as good a midnight yarn as ever." 
 
 " You rich fellows see the world from a dif- 
 ferent angle," responded Checkley, who grew 
 more luxurious every moment. " Now it really 
 makes no difference how long you have to wait
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 223 
 
 for practice ; it 's sure to come, if only when 
 you begin to settle up the family estates. 
 There are half a dozen good round ones ; and 
 they never would like to choose any one else, 
 all those good old aunties of yours. If you 
 had been out of school when your father died, 
 you would have gone on with at least a third 
 of his business, and that was enough for you 
 to handle. It is only a question of time, and 
 you 're rich any way. I don't like to see all 
 your first-rate abilities rusting out, neverthe- 
 less. I always said there was more good stuff 
 in you than in any of the fellows, more hold 
 on and push too, if you had anything to push, 
 and got your energy well roused. I should 
 just like to see you in a Western railroad of- 
 fice, making things spin. Now a poor dog like 
 me, thrown out neck and heels into the water 
 to get to land as best I can by myself, why, 
 it 's a good thing to meet a floating plank to 
 rest a paw on now and then ; " and he turned 
 to look Brown full in the eyes with a plaintive, 
 doglike appeal, as if he unconsciously identi- 
 fied himself with his figure of speech. 
 
 " What have you been doing, old boy ? 
 Can't I lend you a hand, somehow ? " asked
 
 224 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 the sympathetic host. He began to feel that 
 the minus Shekels was driving at something 
 definite, and he did not believe that he should 
 make a fool of himself ; but this was the first 
 time that one of his boyhood friends had turned 
 up looking as if the world had used him badly. 
 There ought to be something done about it. 
 
 " Look here," said Checkley, with an air of 
 secrecy ; and he held out a sheaf of papers, 
 which were produced from his breast-pocket 
 as if the hand well knew its way to them. " I 
 dare say," the owner remarked proudly, " that 
 you wouldn't believe that there is an enor- 
 mous fortune in that small space ? " 
 
 Brown tried to look interested, but his 
 doubtfulness showed through. 
 
 " It is the surest thing alive," continued 
 Checkley. " Have you got ten thousand dol- 
 lars you could put your hand on ? " 
 
 The listener nodded slowly ; to tell the 
 truth, he had a little more than that lying idle 
 in the bank, because he really did not know 
 how to reinvest it. The bulk of his property 
 was in the hands of trustees to whom his 
 father had consigned it, but this was some 
 money that had been left him by an old rela
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 225 
 
 tive, long ago, in his own right. He had a 
 vague idea of putting it into a country-place, 
 some day or other. He had a sentiment 
 about keeping it by itself, and he wanted a 
 nice old-fashioned farm by and by. For the 
 present he and his wife spent their summers 
 with Lucy's mother, who would else have been 
 alone in her great house at Newport. He 
 could say neither yes nor no to such a ques- 
 tion, or rather such a questioner, as this ; yet 
 a curiosity took possession of him to hear 
 more, and Checkley saw his advantage. 
 
 "Now, my boy," he said, pulling his big 
 chair close to Brown's side at the desk, " I 
 helped work this out, and I twisted things 
 round so that I have the right in my own 
 hands. I simply have n't a cent, and I don't 
 know where I can get it, unless you give it to 
 me, to carry out the thing one step more. I 
 need capital," he ended persuasively, and gave 
 another doglike look at Brown. 
 
 The situation was growing commonplace. 
 Brown felt for the first time a little bored, 
 and began to wonder how he should get out 
 of it. He also noticed that Old Shekels had 
 singed those confounded old shoes of his. It
 
 226 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 was becoming doubtful if the arctic overshoes 
 and the luncheon even would be considered 
 a handsome conclusion to their renewed ac- 
 quaintance. 
 
 " Now look here," said Shekels, with a 
 cheerful smile. " You are thinking how you 
 can ever get rid of me, and that you have 
 heard this sort of story before. I '11 tell you 
 the rest of it in fifteen minutes, and then you 
 can say that your business claims your time, 
 and I '11 disappear like the juggler's rabbit in 
 the hat." 
 
 " In the shoes," Brown mentally corrected 
 him, and tried to look resigned, and even 
 pleased ; but he played impatiently with his 
 paper-knife. He felt provokingly young and 
 helpless in Checkley's hands. 
 
 Brown's legal ancestry and the traditions of 
 his education had not prevented the love of 
 his profession from being largely an acquired 
 taste. He was equal to being a good lawyer 
 by and by, but his head was naturally fitted 
 for affairs ; and if there was one thing that he 
 understood more easily than another, it was 
 mechanical intricacies. Checkley did not use 
 his whole fifteen minutes in making sure of 
 this ally.
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 227 
 
 " I do see it. Do you take me for a blind 
 man ? " exclaimed the listener, springing to his 
 feet, and marching across to the window, where 
 he stood with his back to Checkley, just as he 
 had looked out at the storm once before that 
 day. "It is a great temptation, but I can't 
 throw up my law prospects. My career is cut 
 out for me already. But I '11 give you a lift, 
 Old Shekels, hang me if I don't ! " 
 
 Checkley grew calm as his friend became 
 excited. " Nonsense," said he. " I don't want 
 much of your time ; it 's your money I 'm after. 
 You can keep your law business going, all 
 the better for you. We are likely to have 
 suits, but nobody can touch us. I don't ask 
 you to decide now. Think it over, and think 
 me over. I 've no security to give you but my 
 plan itself." 
 
 " Do you smoke ? " inquired Brown, amica- 
 bly, and Checkley answered that he did. 
 
 As the story of this day cannot be suffered 
 to grow any longer, the reader must be content 
 to know that these former schoolmates passed 
 a most agreeable morning, that they had a cap- 
 ital luncheon together, early, lest Checkley 
 might not have breakfasted well, and that
 
 228 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 Checkley accepted the overshoes and all other 
 favors with generous lack of protest or false 
 shame. 
 
 II. 
 
 A year from the time when he met his old 
 playfellow, Brown was inclined to repent his 
 whole indulgence in affectionate civilities to a 
 roving schemer. He assured himself that it 
 had been an expensive lesson, but one that he 
 probably needed. A year later Brown was 
 triumphant, and began to flatter himself that 
 he knew a man and likewise a promising en- 
 terprise when he saw them. He was doing 
 very well in his law business. The family rep- 
 utation for clearness of legal vision and suc- 
 cessful pleading was gaining new laurels, and 
 young J. Benedict Brown was everywhere 
 spoken of as the most promising man of his 
 age at the New York bar. Detractors hinted 
 that there were dozens of brighter men, but 
 that nobody could help picking up some 
 crumbs of business with such a father and 
 grandfathers behind him. Mrs. Brown led 
 the company of her husband's admirers, and 
 already indulged in dreams of his appearance
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 229 
 
 in the gloomy but noble garb of a chief jus- 
 tice. He was very busy in these days ; long 
 ago he had been obliged to take his breakfast 
 at eight o'clock instead of half -past nine, and 
 he was rarely at home until after six o'clock at 
 night, while it was not uncommon that their 
 seven o'clock dinner was considerably delayed. 
 Lucy watched him with increasing anxiety, for 
 fear that he would break himself down with 
 overwork, but he never had seemed in such 
 good health and spirits. The year before he 
 had been so gloomy and despondent for a few 
 weeks that she was always fearing a return, 
 but at present there was no sign of any. To 
 outward view the Benedict Browns were the 
 most prosperous young people in the city. 
 Fortune, position, everything that the social 
 heart desired, seemed to be heaped upon them. 
 A few croaking voices had begun to figure 
 Brown's probable expenses, and to insinuate 
 that he must be living a good way beyond his 
 income. Brown did not look like a debtor, 
 however; he had an older and more deter- 
 mined appearance, as if he had weighty affairs 
 on his mind and a high principle of conduct in 
 regard to them.
 
 230 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 One morning early in March the hero of 
 this tale hurried away from his breakfast ta- 
 ble, with a quick kiss on the top of his three- 
 year-old daughter's curly warm little head. 
 They had been breakfasting alone together in 
 a delightfully social way, and before Brown 
 put on his overcoat he ran up-stairs, two steps 
 at a time, to give another kiss to his wife and 
 a young son some three weeks of age. Mrs. 
 Brown already spoke of the unconscious mor- 
 sel of humanity with proud respect as Bene- 
 dict, but Brown himself was provokingly fond 
 of calling him Johnny. He appeared to have 
 a secret satisfaction and deep sense of pride 
 and amusement in denying his son the family 
 name. Who knew whether this might not be 
 the most illustrious of all the five Benedict 
 Browns ? At present he was a very impor- 
 tant and welcome person indeed in his own 
 family. 
 
 " I am in an uncommon hurry this morn- 
 ing," said the father, turning back for one 
 word more as he went out. " I have a busi- 
 ness meeting to go to at nine." 
 
 Lucy was one of those delightful women 
 who rarely demand particular explanations
 
 TEE TWO BROWNS. 231 
 
 and are contented with general assurances, 
 and she kindly advised Brown not to get too 
 tired, and to be sure to come home by half- 
 past five if he could ; she missed him. so much 
 more now that she was not busy herself and 
 had to spend the whole day up-stairs. She 
 had a vague desire to know about her hus- 
 band's business, it seemed to interest him 
 so much ; but she did not like to expose her 
 total ignorance of affairs, and had a theory, 
 besides, that it was better for Ben to shake off 
 his cares when he was at home. 
 
 As Ben went down-stairs again, he was at- 
 tacked by a sense of guilt more uncomfortable 
 than usual, and said to himself that he must 
 really tell Lucy all about the Planter Com- 
 pany. There was no fear of any catastrophe, 
 it was far beyond the realm of experiments, 
 and she was sure to hear of it from somebody 
 else, and to feel hurt at his silence. The won- 
 der was that he had hidden his head in the 
 sand of his first name so long. 
 
 The office of J. Benedict Brown, counselor 
 at law, was un visited, except by its faithful 
 clerk and copyist, until some three hours later
 
 232 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 in the day. "When the young lawyer reached 
 a certain point on Broadway, he turned 
 quickly to the right and went down a side 
 street, as if he were well accustomed to such a 
 course, and knew the shortest cut toward a 
 dingy brick building which bore a clamorous 
 sort of sign, " The Farmer's Right - Hand 
 Man : The Electric Automatic Potato Planter. 
 Brown & Checkley, Manufacturers." The 
 doorway was blockaded with large packing- 
 cases, and, early as it still was for the busi- 
 ness world, there were several men in the 
 counting-room, toward which Brown went at 
 once. The workmen near by gave our friend 
 a cheerful morning greeting, and Mr. Check- 
 ley, who sat behind his desk, rose soberly, and 
 presented the new-comer to the counting-room 
 audience as " Our head of the firm, gentlemen, 
 Mr. John B. Brown ; and now we will proceed 
 to business at once." Brown established him- 
 self at another desk, well stocked with papers, 
 and began to hunt for something in a lower 
 drawer, the key of which he had taken from 
 his own pocket. This was evidently not an 
 occasional thing, this business interview ; he 
 took on, even to the most indifferent observer's 
 eye, an air of relationship to the place.
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 233 
 
 " The only thing that seems to be imperative 
 this morning, Mr. Brown," said Checkley, plac- 
 idly, in a voice directed to the other listeners, 
 " is a decision on our part in regard to the in- 
 crease of our circular, almanac, and agent de- 
 partments. We came to no conclusion yester- 
 day. You have the figures before you on that 
 sheet of blue paper. I think the least increase 
 that we can manage is to quadruple the num- 
 ber of circulars and almanacs over that of last 
 year." 
 
 Checkley was in the habit of trying to give 
 casual strangers as large an idea as possible 
 of the magnitude of the Planter Company's 
 business, so Brown listened respectfully, and 
 waited for further information. 
 
 " These gentlemen," continued Mr. Check- 
 ley, "are ready with an offer to make an ex- 
 tensive additional contract for the wood- work 
 of the machines, and we will listen to them. 
 In our liability to meet extraordinary orders 
 at short notice, we are of course obliged to 
 defend ourselves against any possible inability 
 of theirs to furnish supplies. We find that 
 the business grows with such rapidity that it 
 is most difficult to make provision against sur-
 
 234 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 prise. You can easily understand " (address- 
 ing the small audience) " that an article like 
 ours is invaluable to every man who cultivates 
 over three acres of land. Indispensable, I 
 may say, since it saves the hiring of labor, 
 saves time, and saves strength. Such an ar- 
 ticle is one no farmer will be without when he 
 once sees it work." 
 
 Checkley was unusually fluent of speech this 
 morning, and the interview went on prosper- 
 ously. Somehow, the familiar place and fa- 
 miliar arguments struck Brown with a fresh 
 vividness and air of reality. His thoughts 
 wandered away to his law business for a few 
 minutes, and then he found himself again lis- 
 tening to another account of the electric auto- 
 matic potato planter which Checkley was giv- 
 ing to a new-comer, a Western man, who was 
 evidently a large dealer in agricultural sup- 
 plies. There was a row of clerks behind a 
 screen, and their pens were scratching dili- 
 gently. Brown could see the high stacks of 
 almanacs through the dusty glass walls that 
 fenced the counting-room, bright red al- 
 manacs, which combined a good selection of 
 family reading with meteorological statistics
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 235 
 
 and the praises of the potato planter judi- 
 ciously arranged on every page. It looked as 
 if there were almanacs enough already for 
 every man, woman, and child in America, but 
 Checkley knew what he was about. Brown 
 had thought that almanacs were a step too 
 low ; he was conscious of a shameful wish now 
 and then that he had embarked on any sort 
 of business rather than a patent potato planter. 
 The pride of the J. Benedict Browns, judges 
 and famous pleaders at the bar, had revolted 
 more than once in the beginning against such a 
 sordid enterprise. But as for John B. Brown, 
 this enterprising manufacturer and distributer 
 of an article that no farmer could do with- 
 out, he felt an increasing pride in his success. 
 He had merely made use of a little capital 
 that was lying idle, and his own superfluous 
 and unemployed energy. He believed that 
 his legal affairs had been helped rather than 
 hindered by this side issue of his, and he and 
 Checkley had fought some amazing fights with 
 the world in the course of their short but suc- 
 cessful alliance. Brown lazily opened a di- 
 rectory near at hand, and looked among the 
 B's. It was a new copy, and he nearly laughed
 
 236 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 aloud at the discovery that he figured twice 
 on the page : Brown, J. Benedict lawyer, 
 Broadway ; h. 38th St., and Brown, John B., 
 B. & Checkley machinists, 9th Ave ; h. Jersey 
 City. Here was a general masquerade ! Check- 
 ley lived in Jersey City, and one of the clerks 
 must have given wrong information, or else 
 the directory agent had confused what was 
 told him. Nobody knew where he lived, very 
 likely. They called him The Boss, in the es- 
 tablishment, because he dressed well and had 
 a less brotherly and companionable manner 
 than Checkley. It was surprising, the way a 
 man could hide himself in such a huge city as 
 this. Yes, he must certainly tell Lucy that 
 very night. They would have a capital laugh 
 over it, and he could tease her about making 
 Johnny a partner instead of the fifth at the 
 bar. Lucy was very fond of a joke, and she 
 had no idea how rich they were going to be if 
 affairs went on at this pace. Brown had felt 
 very dishonest for a long time whenever he 
 saw their advertisements in the papers, and 
 had been nearly ready to confess and be for- 
 given once the summer before, when he and 
 Lucy took a little journey together up the Con-
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 237 
 
 necticut River, and Lucy had writhed in con- 
 temptuous agony over Checkley's desecration 
 of natural scenery. " Use Brown & Check- 
 ley's Electric Automatic Potato Planter, and 
 Save Ten Years of Life," was displayed on 
 rocks and fences everywhere. Checkley him- 
 self had used his short summer holiday in 
 leading a gang of letterers into the rural dis- 
 tricts, and this was the result. Could a man 
 of ordinary courage confess at such a moment 
 that the name of Brown was in reality her 
 own property, and that she was unconsciously 
 responsible for such vandalism ? 
 
 Checkley was rushing things this morning ; 
 he eagerly assured his guest that they had 
 made the planter pay her own bills after the 
 first six months, and had advertised only as 
 fast as they gained the means. It was the 
 first application of electricity to farming. 
 " Brown and I had little capital to start with, 
 but we knew we had hold of a sure thing. I 
 am not sure that there is anything that cor- 
 responds to it in the world of inventions," 
 Checkley continued proudly. " I have been 
 an inventor all my life. Here you have a 
 light-wheeled vehicle that one horse can drag
 
 238 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 all day and an intelligent child can control 
 You only need to plow and harrow and ma- 
 nure your ground : then the planter is driven 
 to and fro ; it stops itself at proper distances, 
 a revolving harrow loosens the ground within 
 a space twelve inches in diameter, this har- 
 row is drawn up, the shovel throws the earth 
 out at one side, the hopper lets fall sufficient 
 seed, a second shovel arrangement covers it in, 
 and a weight falls twice and banks it down, 
 the horse steps on between the furrows. My 
 dear sir, in the time I have consumed in tell- 
 ing you, four hills of potatoes are planted as 
 well as if you had done each one separately 
 with your own hoe ; the average time is only 
 three fifths of a minute. A horse soon learns 
 the trick, for the brake is self-acting and stops 
 him in the proper place. The only thing that 
 troubled us in the beginning was the complaint 
 of patrons that the horses gave trouble, and 
 the hills went zigzagging all over the field. 
 This new improvement makes a field as reg- 
 ular as a checker-board. With the brake that 
 stops the planter instantly, the horse learns to 
 anticipate, and makes his four steps forward 
 and stops of his own accord. It is less fatigu-
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 239 
 
 ing for the horse than a plow or harrow, and a 
 treadmill is barbarous beside it. Then think 
 of the heat of planting time and the waste of 
 human energy ! We are now perfecting a re- 
 hoer and digger, but our present enterprise is 
 more than we can handle with ease. You have, 
 no doubt, read our testimonials. Hear this : a 
 ten-acre field planted in half a day, with some 
 help from a neighbor, read for yourself, sir ! 
 " You need to be very careful of the gauges 
 and setting your brakes properly," Checkley 
 confided honestly. " Electricity is a terrible 
 force ; there has been one bad accident through 
 such carelessness. The shovel arrangement 
 was not set as it should be, and the machine 
 went on digging straight down, and would 
 have carried the horse with it, if the harness 
 had n't been so old that he freed himself, and 
 scrambled out of the pit. My dear sir, this 
 will show you the power of that machine ; it 
 went down forty feet, right through gravel, 
 rotten rock, and everything, until it struck a 
 solid ledge, and that stopped it at last. The 
 whole neighborhood collected, and they got 
 alarmed, thought she might be boring for 
 a volcano or something ; and they rolled a big
 
 240 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 bowlder out of a pasture near by, and let it 
 drop right down on the planter ; but that only 
 damaged the wood-work and partly disabled 
 the running-work, for she kept tossing up 
 splinters for a day or two. The man had n't 
 a word to say, for it was a springy field, and 
 the planter had struck water somewhere and 
 made him a first-rate well. He had been in- 
 tending to dig one thereabouts for a good 
 while." 
 
 " I want to know ! " exclaimed the wide- 
 eyed listener. Brown heard this flow of Check- 
 ley's eloquence, and was amused at the re- 
 sponse. It seemed that the listener, a worthy, 
 well-to-do Connecticut farmer, had an idea of 
 introducing the automatic potato planter to 
 his neighborhood, and was trying to obtain one 
 on trial at reduced price, with a promise of 
 wide influence in its behalf and cordial recom- 
 mendation. Checkley believed in favoring the 
 farmers, and the affair was presently con- 
 cluded. Brown was amazed to hear his com- 
 panion say that he, Brown, had been thinking 
 that he should like to pay a visit to that neigh- 
 borhood at county-fair time, and speak to the 
 folks on agricultural topics. Checkley liked
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 241 
 
 his jokes, and Brown smiled, but he turned a 
 little cold, and wondered if they were not 
 going a trifle too fast. There might not be 
 enough of him for two Browns, at this rate ! 
 But it was something to find himself a busy, 
 prosperous man instead of an idle, overgrown 
 boy, and among the new firms of its class 
 none stood better than Brown & Checkley. 
 
 There was little time left for serious busi- 
 ness conference, but Checkley had great ex- 
 ecutive ability, and so had Mr. John B. Brown 
 of Jersey City, for that matter. Checkley 
 was thin yet and not very well dressed, but he 
 had a buoyant, confident air. " How well he 
 knows human nature, and what a good fel- 
 low he is I " thought Brown as they parted. 
 " Snooks is more of a man than the dandy I 
 met in that newspaper office," reflected Check- 
 ley. " I never have lost a cent for him, either, 
 but hang me if we have n't had some narrow 
 escapes. I got him in pretty deep once, when 
 he had the worst doubts of me he ever had. 
 Snooks looked solemn, but he never flung at 
 me, or did anything but shoulder half the 
 blame and the worry, like a man." 
 
 In the neighborhood of the company's office
 
 242 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 Brown met several business acquaintances, who 
 gave him a friendly good-morning. He had 
 gathered a whole new circle of associates, in 
 his character of senior partner of Brown & 
 Checkley. He had indulged in bad lunches 
 with these friends, and already figured largely 
 in the agricultural-implement world ; he would 
 have been deeply gratified if he had heard 
 somebody say, as he went by, " That 's Brown, 
 of the Planter Company. Those fellows are 
 sweeping everything before them this spring. 
 They 've got hold of as big a thing as the Mc- 
 Cormick reaper." 
 
 It was ten or fifteen minutes' walk between 
 the two offices, and when J. Benedict Brown, 
 Esq., seated himself at his desk he was still 
 thinking about his other business, which he 
 usually insisted upon putting out of his mind. 
 He never had looked at it so entirely from the 
 outside. He was at heart a most conservative 
 person. He was more fettered than he knew 
 by his family pride and traditions, and he had 
 become persuaded of his ability to follow the 
 law in a way that he never used to expect. 
 He felt it in him to make his influence rec- 
 ognized at the bar, and to handle heavy pieces
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 243 
 
 of business. Now that Checkley was so well 
 established he could slip out, and hold only a 
 silent partnership, if he pleased. Yet an op- 
 posing judgment in his own mind at the mo- 
 ment prevented him from cordially accepting 
 such an idea. There were some things, and 
 he knew it, that Checkley could not have 
 planned nor have carried without him, and the 
 concern might easily fall to pieces even now. 
 There was his own boy, however, who must 
 inherit as fair a name from him as he had 
 from his father. There had never yet been a 
 dishonored man of his name. Checkley had 
 counted upon the value of the family repu- 
 tation at first ; he insisted that they were 
 throwing away a great advantage by not add- 
 ing the prefix of J. Benedict to the plain 
 Brown & Checkley. J. Benedict Brown was a 
 name of historical renown. Checkley did not 
 begin to understand yet that John B. Brown 
 was as utterly unknown to the friends of the 
 J. Benedict Browns as if he and his potato 
 planter had never existed. He simply knew 
 that Snooks was old-maidishly eager to keep 
 his two occupations apart, and that only from 
 half-past eight to ten and from three o'clock
 
 244 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 until dinner-time he was the steady shaft-horse 
 of Brown & Checkley. 
 
 Brown sat in the Broadway office, busy at 
 his work, having finished his reflections with- 
 out coming to any new decisions. He was 
 working up a law case that he took great 
 pride in. All his inherited cleverness and a 
 new love for such a puzzle delighted him ; he 
 never had felt a keener sense of his own power, 
 and the planter was utterly forgotten. 
 
 Some one entered the office, and gave a 
 chair one aggressive pull across the polished 
 wood floor. It sounded as if the caster had left 
 a damaging scratch, and Brown looked round 
 with not a little annoyance. He felt a strange 
 suspicion that one of his Planter Company as- 
 sociates had at last hunted him down. There 
 was an inner room for purposes of private con- 
 sultation, and Brown signified, after a proper 
 interval, that the stranger might go there. It 
 was a darkish place, where he had once tried 
 to have his own desk ; but it was much too 
 gloomy, especially in the days when there was 
 nothing to do. Except when he was at court, 
 or at his other business, he was very faithful to 
 his post, and the stranger need not have been so 
 unreasonably glad to find him at his office.
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 245 
 
 " I see that you 're your father's own son," 
 the client began, in an asthmatic voice. He 
 looked like a cross old fellow, and Brown had 
 an instant sense of relief because the first 
 words had not been suggestive of the other 
 place of business. " I knew your father and 
 grandfather before you," said Mr. Grandison, 
 " and I 've been out of lawyers' hands these 
 twenty years, more or less ; but I 've got some 
 fight left, and when I got my blood up yester- 
 day about some infringements, I thought over 
 to whom I could give the case, and I decided 
 that I would come round and look you over, 
 to see if I could trust you with such a piece 
 of work. I don't know whether you 're not 
 too young now, but it '11 be a feather for you 
 if you can handle it. I 'm ready to pay what 
 the work 's worth, I '11 tell you that to begin 
 with." 
 
 The word " infringements " had an un- 
 pleasant sound, but Brown waited patiently. 
 He had some knowledge of thi; man, for whom 
 his father had gained a famous case. Grandi- 
 son was an inventor. On the whole, he could 
 recall the case perfectly ; he had tried to make 
 himself familiar with it, for future use ; but
 
 246 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 there was no possibility of those questions be- 
 ing reopened. 
 
 " My factories go on like clock - work, 
 and have these thirty years/' said the old 
 man. Brown began to feel a personal dislike. 
 44 1 thought I had disposed of all opponents 
 and rivals long ago. Jenks and Rowley are 
 our regular lawyers, but now they 're getting 
 old, and they don't own me, any way. You 
 see there are a couple of jackasses, over on 
 Ninth Avenue, who have started up an electric 
 potato planter, a capital good thing it is, 
 too, that runs so close to that cog-wheel ar- 
 rangement in the steam harrow we make that 
 I 'm going to stop them short, if I can ; or, if 
 I can't do that, I '11 buy 'em out, if it costs a 
 million to do it. You can't afford to let such 
 a business as mine scatter itself, and I mean 
 to hold it together as long as I am here to 
 do it." 
 
 Brown felt a dampness gather on his fore- 
 head ; then his manhood arose triumphant, and 
 his courage declared itself equal to this emer- 
 gency. He was not caught stealing, neither 
 had he done anything dishonorable. There 
 was no real incongruity in a Benedict Brown's
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 247 
 
 being interested in a potato planter ; it had 
 all been a fair, above-board business. He was 
 ready to stand up for it. 
 
 " I 've been living in Thirty-Eighth Street," 
 said the client, " and I have often watched you 
 come and go. I like to see a lad diligent and 
 right after his business, as you are, and ready 
 to go down town an hour or two earlier in the 
 morning than the fashion is. I 've had my eye 
 on you for a year or two. I started in life a 
 poor boy, and never had the backing up that 
 was ready for you ; but I keep the run of my 
 affairs, I can tell you. I don't get down town 
 every day, by any means, but a thing like this 
 that I want to consult you about fires me all 
 up." 
 
 " Will you give me an idea of the case, Mr. 
 Grandison ? " asked Brown, politely. He was 
 afraid he might be taking an unfair advantage, 
 but the words were out, and the old manufac- 
 turer, with much detail, laid the grievance be- 
 fore him. 
 
 " They 're smart young men," he ended. " I 
 don't know their match. I hear they had a 
 small capital, and laid it out mostly in adver- 
 tising. One of them got hold of a half -worked-
 
 248 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 out notion and completed it, and bought out 
 the owner's right ; and there was a small man- 
 ufactory over in Jersey that had been swamped, 
 and they got that for a song, too ; and the min- 
 ute the machine was on the market it went 
 like wildfire. In spite of constant extensions, 
 they have been able to meet their obligations 
 right along. I don't want to harm 'em if 
 they '11 treat me fairly. I '11 give 'em a hand- 
 some sum down to sell out quietly, or I '11 fight 
 'em all to pieces." 
 
 " Perhaps they can stand a fight, and can 
 prove that their machine is no infringement 
 on anybody's," suggested the lawyer, with a 
 good deal of spirit. 
 
 Mr. Grandison gave him a shrewd glance. 
 " This Brown is no relation to you, I hope ? " 
 he said, doubtfully ; but Brown flushed 
 quickly, and made a little joke about the 
 name's not being at all uncommon. The cli- 
 ent thought he was not pleased at being as- 
 sociated with a firm of machinists, and was 
 sorry he had spoken. The boy felt older than 
 he looked, no doubt. 
 
 When the interview was ended, Brown, who 
 had been very inexpressive of his opinions all
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 249 
 
 the way through, assured his visitor that there 
 were some reasons why he would not give any 
 answer then about undertaking the case, and 
 would ask his leave to defer a direct reply 
 until the next day. " I shall be very glad to 
 stop as I go up town in the afternoon," said 
 our friend. The elder man thanked him, and 
 said he should count it a great favor, if the 
 weather were no better than at present, and 
 went limping away. Poor old soul ! it was 
 late for him to be taking pleasure in quarrels 
 with his fellow-men. 
 
 Checkley was going over to the works that 
 afternoon, and there was no hope of seeing 
 him until the next morning, so Brown gave 
 all his mind that he possibly could to being J. 
 Benedict, the rising lawyer. He had some per- 
 plexing business upon which he tried hard to 
 fix his attention, but the affairs of John B. 
 Brown and the potato planter kept rising be- 
 fore him in an uneasy, ghostlike way that was 
 most disagreeable. He had put more of his 
 thoughts into those side interests than he had 
 been aware. The two years had gone by like 
 a dream, but they had left a good many per- 
 manent evidences of their presence. There
 
 250 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 was one of the teamsters, who had broken hig 
 leg early in the winter, and whom Brown had 
 visited in the hospital, besides looking after 
 the patient's family. He had built up his own 
 business reputation, and had grown ambitious 
 about the success of the firm. He had deter- 
 mined at first to say nothing, even to his wife, 
 until he knew whether he had made a fool of 
 himself or not, but he was perfectly aware now 
 that he had not made a fool of himself. He 
 was evolving plans for giving all their work- 
 men some share in the business, and was in- 
 creasingly glad that he had a chance to work 
 out some experiments in the puzzling social 
 questions of the day. He was ready now to 
 be something of a statesman. He was willing 
 to believe that he had got hold of the right 
 thread of the snarled skein that linked labor 
 with capital. His wife knew that he had some 
 business interests apart from his law reports 
 and his practice, and none of his friends would 
 be surprised that he had been speculating a 
 little. Gales would have got at the whole 
 story, and told it, too ; but he had gone 
 abroad months before, and relinquished his 
 profession altogether, for the time being. Per.
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 251 
 
 haps the time had come to choose between 
 the two Browns ; it would be hard to play 
 both characters, if the cares of either should 
 double, for instance, and he was, perhaps, 
 fated to be J. Benedict, after all. This was 
 a melancholy thought, and the old wish re- 
 turned that his other enterprise had concerned 
 anything but an automatic potato planter. It 
 might give him a nickname, and he never 
 would be able to live the silly story down. 
 Checkley was sure to project something new, 
 and yet he was truly proud of the firm of 
 Brown & Checkley, and would not see it 
 cheated. 
 
 Next day, Checkley happened to be alone in 
 the office, and his partner beckoned him out 
 into an empty corner of their place of busi- 
 ness, where they were well removed from the 
 clerks and their scratching pens. Checkley 
 laughed and shouted, and was at first unable 
 to give any answer. " Wants you to bring a 
 suit of infringement against yourself, does 
 he ? " he gasped at length. " Go ahead, my 
 boy ; nobody '11 know the difference. It will 
 advertise us enormously. I have told you a 
 dozen times that nothing would do us so much
 
 252 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 good as a rousing lawsuit. Now don't put on 
 your best J. Benedict manners, but listen to 
 me. I* m not going to work myself to death. 
 We have laid by something handsome already ; 
 if the old fellow will add to it, I am perfectly 
 willing to sell out, if you are, just to make his 
 last days happy. I 've got my head full of new 
 electric notions, and I want to go to France 
 and experiment. You tell him the whole 
 story ; he will be glad to get hold of the 
 planter, and I shall be glad to let it go. I 
 meant to go roving this summer. I '11 let it 
 all drop. We have had a run of luck, and 
 luck is apt to turn. We 're young yet, you 
 know, J. Benedict Brown, so I put this busi- 
 ness into your hands. You 're lawyer for the 
 firm." 
 
 Brown turned away mournfully ; he was 
 convinced more entirely than ever before of 
 the erratic nature of his partner: yesterday 
 with his whole soul bent on furthering the 
 success of the planter ; to-day ready to throw 
 it aside, and to wander away and spend all 
 the money he had earned. Brown mentally 
 resolved that it really was not safe to risk his 
 good name any longer in such keeping, but
 
 THE TWO BROWNS. 253 
 
 that he should insist upon being made trustee 
 of a share of his partner's funds, so that Check- 
 ley might never come to the ground again. 
 
 Checkley called him back in great excite- 
 ment, when he was leaving the office, a little 
 later. " Look here," said he. " I was going 
 to put this picture into our next almanac as 
 your portrait. I was in the patent-medicine 
 business once, and this was old Dr. Parkins, 
 who made the Spring Bitters. I was going to 
 start him again as John B. Brown, the Penn- 
 sylvania farmer and inventor." 
 
 " I think it would have been beneath our 
 dignity," responded Brown, severely. " What 
 became of your patent-medicine business? I 
 never heard of that." 
 
 " Because it feU through," said Old Shekels, 
 cheerfully. " This was the only thing that 
 never did. You 're spoiling a first-class busi- 
 ness man for a doubtful lawyer." But Brown 
 laughed, and straightened himself proudly as 
 he went toward Broadway and his other office, 
 which bore the shining brass door-plate with 
 his honored name of J. Benedict Brown. 
 
 That evening he confessed all to his wife. 
 It was a great shock, but she bore it bravely.
 
 254 THE TWO BROWNS. 
 
 She knew little about business, but she believed 
 with all her heart in respecting the traditions 
 of one's family. Though, after all, one Brown 
 had kindly made money for the other.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 HEC'Dlp-URD 
 *2lW 
 MAY 2 p 1991 
 
 KJC'DLD-URL 
 
 NOV 291993 
 4WKQCT 6 1999 
 
 RET ocioi'W 
 
 315
 
 J>F