THE FARM-HOUSE
At the sight of us the girl, who was gathering flowers, disappeared, and
only Mrs. Parks came forward to meet me, her good-humored face beaming,
and her large, helpful hands stretched out to relieve me of my bag and
umbrella.
“So you brought her?” she said to Sam. “Wall, I’m glad you was there. I
was afraid the ’bus wouldn’t go this time of day, and I kinder hoped the
McPherson carriage might happen to go down, as I heard they was
expectin’ another visitor up to the house, but nobody went by but Mr.
Travers on hossback. Come right in. Your room is all ready for you when
Charlotte Ann gets a few more flowers. Put up your money. Sam don’t want
no pay.”
This last was said because I was opening my purse with a view to ask how
much I was indebted to the young man, who shook his head and nodding a
good-by drove off, after a wistful look at a blue skirt visible among
the rose-bushes in the garden. Then I began to look around me at the
quaint old house, with big rooms, wide hall, low ceilings, and open
fireplaces, with pleasant views from every window, of wooded hills, and
grassy valleys, and the pine-grove, with Nannie’s Well, which was
beginning to interest me so much. But the object which attracted me most
was the stone house on the hill—the McPherson place. Would the young
people, Reginald Travers and Irene Burdick, ever come together? and how
much truth was there in the story Sam had told me? I would ask Mrs.
Parks when I knew her better, I thought. She was bustling about my room,
a large, airy chamber, with four windows, a high-post bedstead,
surmounted with what she called a “teaster” and surrounded with what she
called a “balance.” Everything was old-fashioned, but scrupulously clean
and comfortable to the last degree.
“You might like the south room across the hall the best,” she said, “and
I’d give it to you, only it jines another, and I’m hopin’ to have two
girls who’ll take the two rooms. Nobody sleeps with nobody nowadays;
everybody must be separate; different from what it was when I was young,
and three sometimes slep’ together if ’twas necessary; but Charlotte Ann
says the world moves, and I s’pose it does. I’ve had a letter from them
girls askin’ about ’em—the rooms, I mean.”
I assured her I wanted nothing better than the room I had, with the
eastern sunshine in the morning and its cool north breeze all the day.
“Charlotte Ann, Charlotte Ann! Is that you? Miss Bennett’s come. Sam
brought her, but he didn’t stop,” Mrs. Parks called over the balustrade,
and a young girl came up the stairs with her hands full of roses, and
cheeks which rivalled them in color, while her eyes at the mention of
Sam had in them a look which reminded me of the boy when I asked him who
Lottie was.
She was very pretty, and within a week we became great friends and as
intimate as a woman of forty often is with a girl of seventeen. I knew
all about Sam, for whom Lottie cared more than for the half-dozen other
boys whom she called kids and who annoyed her with attentions. I knew,
too, about Sam’s father, Ephraim Walker, who had quarrelled with her
mother about a line fence and claimed two feet more land than belonged
to him, to say nothing of his hens, which were always getting into Mrs.
Parks’ garden, until Mr. Walker built a high board fence which shut out
the hens and a view of his premises as well.
“Mother gave up the two feet for the sake of getting rid of the hens,
and she has never spoken to him since,” Lottie said, with a snap in her
eyes which told her opinion of Sam’s father, who, she added, “hates me
like pisen.”
“Hates you! For what?” I asked, and after some hesitancy she replied, “I
don’t mind telling you that Sam is carrying me now more than the other
boys.”
I did not quite know what carrying her meant, but ventured to guess in
my mind, and she went on—“and he comes here pretty often, and his father
don’t like it and is crosser than a bear when Sam takes me out with
Black Beauty, and once, when he found us in the McPherson pines sitting
on a log he threatened to horsewhip Sam if he found him there again
philandering with me. Sam squared up to him and said, ‘Come on and try
it, if you dare.’ He didn’t dare; I should think not! He whip Sam! I’d
laugh!”
She did laugh a little bitterly, and, reminded, by her mention of the
McPherson pines of Nannie’s Well, I asked her about it and heard much
the same story Sam had told me, with a few more details concerning the
superstition attaching to the well, and the number of young people who
had tried the trick at noonday—some with success, they pretended, and
more with none.
“I don’t believe in it, of course,” Lottie said, “but sometime I mean to
try it just for fun. If those two girls come maybe they’ll try it, too.
I don’t s’pose you’d care to, you are too——”
She stopped abruptly, not wishing to say “You are too old,” but I
understood her and answered, “Yes, too old to be looking into a well at
noon to find my future husband.” Then I questioned her about the girls
who might be my neighbors.
“They are cousins,” she said, “and their name is Burdick; one of them,
we suppose, is the girl old Sandy McPherson wanted Mr. Reginald Travers
to marry. It is the same name and she lives in New York with her aunt
Mrs. Graham, and has just got home from Europe, and when mother asked
Mr. McPherson if it wasn’t the one, he said he wouldn’t wonder, and
laughed. I can’t imagine why she is coming here unless she wants to see
what kind of man Mr. Travers is. I should suppose she’d let him go after
her, wouldn’t you?”
I did not express an opinion, but began to feel a good deal of interest
in the romance likely to go on around me. Mr. Travers was a great swell,
Lottie said, and as that was what Sam had called him, I was anxious to
see him. I did see him the next Sunday in the little church which, with
Mrs. Parks and Lottie, I attended in the village. It was one of the
oldest churches on the coast, Mrs. Parks said, and it looked its full
age. There were not many Episcopalians in town; few of them had much
money, except Colin McPherson, who paid three-fourths of the rector’s
salary and left the rest of the expense to the other parishioners and
summer visitors. The windows were high, with small panes of glass; the
carpet was faded; the backs of the pews were low; the seats were narrow
and hard, and the small organ was frightfully out of tune. Accustomed as
I was to city churches, I began to feel homesick in this shabby place,
where the people looked nearly as forlorn as their surroundings. The
organ had just commenced what was intended as a voluntary, which set my
nerves on edge, when there was a stir near the door, and the sexton in
his creaky boots tiptoed up the aisle to a square pew with red cushions,
which I had singled out as the McPherson pew. Nearly every one turned
his head, and I with the rest, to look at the white-haired man carrying
himself very erect, with his gold-bowed glasses on his nose and his big
prayer-book held tightly in his hand. “Stiff, with a good face,” was my
mental comment, and then I scanned curiously the young man who walked
behind him, with aristocracy and polish and city stamped all over him
from his collar and necktie to the shape of his shoes. I couldn’t see
the latter, it is true, but I felt sure of them, and that his trousers
were creased as they should be and were of the latest fashion. He had a
pale, refined face, with clearly cut features, a mouth which told of
firmness rather than sweetness, and eyes which I was certain seldom
brightened at a joke because they didn’t see it. And yet there was about
him something which I liked. He might be proud and probably was, but his
presence seemed to brighten the little church wonderfully, so that I
forgot its shabbiness in watching him, and nearly forgot the service,
which the rector tried to intone, and the harsh notes of the organ and
the discords of the soprano.
What did he think of it all? I wondered. He was certainly very devout
and only once gave any sign of annoyance, and that was when the organ
was galloping madly through the Te Deum and the soprano was trying to
keep up with the alto, and the bass and tenor were in full pursuit of
the soprano. Then he shrugged his shoulders very slightly and turned
toward the organ loft so that, for an instant our eyes met. In his I
fancied there was a look of surprise and half wonder, a second searching
glance, and then he turned to his book more devoutly than ever, and I
heard a full, rich baritone joining with the organ and soprano and
leading them steadily on to the end of the grand anthem. As he sat down
he looked at me again with something like inquiry in his eyes. Could it
be that he had heard of the expected arrival of Irene Burdick at Mrs.
Parks’ and wondered if I were she? If so, I knew he was thinking what
his decision in the matter would be. He couldn’t marry his grandmother.
Mrs. Parks was one who meant to do her duty by her boarders, and was a
little proud of her acquaintance with Colin McPherson and liked to show
it. As we left the church she managed to get herself and myself very
near to him, and after asking how he was and telling him she was pretty
well and it was a fine day she introduced me to him as Miss Rose Bennett
from Albany, while her eyes rested upon Mr. Travers standing close to
him. Mr. McPherson took the hint and presented him after asking my name,
which he had not quite caught, as he was rather deaf.
“Miss Benton! oh, yes, Miss Benton; good first-class name! Any relation
to the Colonel? Mr. Travers, this is Mrs. Parks and Miss Benton,” he
said, while Mrs. Parks grasped the young man’s hand effusively and said
she was glad to know him and hoped he would call, and that she was
expecting two young ladies, the Miss Burdicks, from New York.
Then over the cold, proud, pale face there broke a smile which changed
its expression altogether and made it very attractive. “If he smiles
like that on Irene she’ll not go back on him,” I thought, as I walked
away after hearing him say something about being pleased to meet me and
call.
That afternoon when dinner was over I went with Lottie to the pine-woods
and saw Nannie’s Well and the little mirror which Lottie took from its
box in the hollow trunk of the tree and showed to me, saying it was the
very one into which poor Nannie had looked. It had been sold by the
Wilkes family and bought and sold again and again until some one gave it
to the young people of the town.
“It would be easy for two faces to be seen in it,” she said. “I wonder
if there’s anything in it. I don’t believe so, but I shall try it
to-morrow, if it’s a bright day. Don’t tell mother. She says it’s all
humbug, but owns that she tried it once.”
I promised, and the next day about twenty minutes before twelve I saw
Lottie going down the lane in the direction of the pine-woods, and felt
a little curiosity as to the result of her experiment. I had been a week
in the family and had learned their habits pretty well, while they had
learned mine, and knew that I liked quiet and regular meals because, as
Mrs. Parks said, my “digester was out of kilter and needed toning up,”
and it was my digester which she used as one argument to hurry up the
delinquent Lottie, when she stood on the rail fence, calling: “Charlotte
Ann! Charlotte Ann! Charlotte Ann Parks! Where be you?”
It was nearly half-past twelve when Lottie returned, looking flushed and
excited. Like Sam, I believed the whole thing rot, but was anxious to
hear what she had to tell me.
“Did you see Sam?” I asked, when we were alone.
“Yes, bodily,” she answered with a laugh. “He saw me on the way to the
woods and followed, and just as a shadow was beginning to come on the
glass, or I thought it was, he seized me round my shoulders and said,
‘Let me see how our faces look together!’ I came near falling into the
well, and should have done so, if he had not held me back. He just
spoiled it, but I mean to try again after the young ladies are here.
They are coming to-morrow. Mother has a letter. Here it is.”
She handed it to me and I read as follows:
“New York, July —, 18—.
“Mrs. Parks,
“Madam:—You may expect me on Wednesday, with my cousin Rena.
“Yours, Miss Irene Burdick.”
The note sounded stiff and _uppish_, as Lottie said, and I at once
conceived a dislike for Miss Irene, and a kind of sympathy for Rena, who
was probably a poor relation and would act in the capacity of maid.
Irene, who wrote the note, was of course the Miss Burdick, and the large
corner room across the hall from mine was assigned to her. It had four
windows and a fireplace, an ingrain carpet and Boston rocker, a
high-post bedstead with “teaster and balance” like mine. It had a
terrible daub of Beatrice Cenci on the wall, taken there from the parlor
because Miss Burdick had been abroad and would feel more at home with a
picture of the old masters, Mrs. Parks said, looking admiringly at the
yellow-haired creation which bore but little resemblance to the
original. There was a washstand in the room, with a hole on the top for
the bowl to rest in, a piece of castile soap, and three towels on a line
above the stand. There was a round cherry table which Mrs. Parks said
was her grandmother’s and which she could have sold for a big price to
some relic hunter, but Lottie wouldn’t let her, so she kept it, but
didn’t see why there was such a craze for old things. The room adjoining
Irene’s was long and narrow, with no fireplace. It had a rag carpet and
single bedstead without “teaster” or “balance.” Its bureau of three
drawers served as a washstand, and there were two towels on a line
instead of three. But everything was clean and comfortable, and on
Wednesday we filled the rooms with flowers, especially the one intended
for Miss Irene. It was Mrs. Parks’ idea to put the most there and the
best vases. Rena had broken-nosed pitchers and bowls, and flowers a
little faded, until there came from the McPherson place a quantity of
hot-house roses and lilies for the Misses Burdick and Miss Bennett.
Nixon, who brought them, further said that the McPherson carriage would
meet the young ladies at the station if Mrs. Parks would tell him on
what train they were expected. She didn’t know, but it would probably be
at four o’clock, and she nearly lost her head over the attention from
Colin McPherson to her guests, and wondered how under the sun and moon
he knew they were coming that day.
A young man and friend of Mr. Travers had arrived at the house the night
before, Nixon said, and I began to think we might have some gay times
with four city people in close proximity to each other. Mrs. Parks had
taken possession of the flowers, and after giving me what she thought I
ought to have, she put the larger proportion of the remainder in Irene’s
room, saying it was quite proper for her to have the most from the
greenhouse which would probably be hers. A few roses and lilies were
accorded to Rena and put in a large tumbler which Mrs. Parks said had
been used by her grandfather to mix toddy in when the minister called. I
was not satisfied with the allotment to Rena, for whom my sympathy kept
growing; and reserving for myself a single half-opened rose and one or
two lilies, I took the rest to her room, putting them wherever I could
find a place and in whatever I could find to put them. This done, the
rooms were ready, and we waited with what patience we could for the
train which was to bring the Burdicks. At half-past three we saw the
McPherson carriage go by with Nixon. Half an hour later we heard the
whistle of the train in the distance, and fifteen minutes later the
McPherson carriage stopped at the gate, and while Lottie and I looked
cautiously from my window, Mrs. Parks, in a flutter of pleasure and
pride, went down the walk to meet the occupants of the carriage. The
Burdicks had come.