"Some time I will tell you about it--not to-day. But about `ways and
means.' Perhaps I had better teach this year, as I meant to do at
first."
But Eunice had a plan to unfold, by which, should Fidelia approve, all
would be made easy for them both. Mrs Stone wished to stay in Halsey
for a time. The place was more like home than any other place could
ever be to her, and she would like to share the home of the sisters for
a time.
"Would you like it, Eunice?" asked Fidelia a little anxiously.
"Yes; for some reasons I would like it. Mrs Stone is kind and good,
and she does not seem like a stranger to me, though she has been away so
many years. She is capable too, and I am not so strong as I used to
be."
"But you are well, Eunice? You are not afraid any more--of--"
Fidelia could not utter the word which rose to her lips--a word which,
indeed, had never been uttered between them.
"Yes, I am well--for me. No, I am not afraid any more. But, dear, I
own to have been lonesome last winter, and a little downhearted
sometimes."
"I ought to have been at home."
"No, dear. It was all right; and it is best that you should go again
next year for various reasons, rather than to wait. And, besides--"
Then Eunice went on to explain that, though not a rich woman, Mrs Stone
had enough for her own wants, and more. She had no near ties of
kindred, and no special work in the world to look forward to, and work
she could find in Halsey more easily than anywhere else.
"And, dear, if I had been asked to plan for my own comfort, and for a
chance to make going away again easy for you at the same time, I could
not have asked for anything more suitable than this. The obligation and
the comfort will be mutual. Yes, I like the plan."
"Would it be for always, Eunice?"
Eunice smiled and shook her head.
"Dear, I don't much believe in making plans for always. `Short views'
are best, you know. We might try it for a year, and then decide."
"Eunice, if I liked to take it, I might have the school at the Corners
this winter; and I could be at home."
"Yes; and that would be pleasant all round, if it were necessary. But I
think it would be wiser for you to go back to the seminary this winter."
Fidelia did not answer immediately. Indeed, she rose and went the
length of the garden, and stood looking over the fields to the river and
the hills, and she was saying some hard things to herself as she stood
there. In a little she turned and came slowly back again.
"Well, dear, what do you say?" said Eunice gently.
"I say that the plan is good, if you like it. It is I who am all wrong.
It is hateful in me, I know, but, Eunice, I could not have any one come
between you and me. Not _any one_, Eunice."
"But, my darling," cried Eunice, laughing a little, and stretching out
her hands, "that could never be! Why, you are all I have got!"
Fidelia sat down on the step, and laid her face for a minute on her
sister's lap.
"I never knew till lately that I had an envious and jealous
disposition," said she in a little.
"But you need not be jealous of Ruby Stone, or of any one else, as far
as I am concerned, dear. I am almost sorry now, that she did not stay
another day, so that you might have seen her. Oh, you will like her, I
am sure!--she is so sincere and simple, and so much in earnest."
A great deal more was said about their plans, and about Mrs Stone, but
not a word about Dr Justin Everett.
It was good to be at home again. A great many people, young and old,
came to see Fidelia within the next three days. In the meantime Mrs
Stone returned, and all necessary arrangements for the year were made
between her and the sisters. Mrs Stone would have liked to rent the
place or to buy it; but it was not to be thought of that the sisters
should give up their home altogether, and so their plans were made for
the year only.
Mrs Stone was a small dark-eyed woman, thin and brown, with deeper
wrinkles between her eyes than her forty years should have shown. When
she sat with her eyes cast down on her work, and her lips firmly shut,
one who did not know her well might be excused for saying that she
looked "hard." But when she looked up, and spoke, or smiled, her face
changed. She had a good and pleasant face, with some signs of trouble
upon it.
Her married life had been a time of discipline to her, she owned to
Eunice, when they first met, and to her she spoke of the troubles of the
time; but she spoke to no one else of it. She was capable and active,
and did what was to be done in the house with such evident pleasure and
success that the housekeeping gradually fell into her hands, and Fidelia
had more liberty than ever she had at home before. And she made a good
use of her liberty. She had preparations for next year to make, and
friends to visit, and began to feel more light-hearted--more like
herself--than she had done for a good while.
There was much going on to make the time pass pleasantly. Nellie Austin
and her brother Amos were visiting the Everetts; and in whatever was
planned for their pleasure and the pleasure of the household Fidelia had
a share. There were fishing parties and berrying expeditions; and they
went sometimes to the woods, or to visit some mountain or waterfall, or
chasm among the hills.
Dr Everett himself, when one of his rare days of leisure came, liked
nothing better than to go with the young folks; and it was a day to be
marked with a white stone when he could make one of the party. Dr
Justin had more leisure, and could go oftener. Dr Everett was as merry
and as eager for adventures as any of them. Dr Justin was quiet, and
took the place of a looker-on rather than a sharer in the amusements of
the young people. Privately some of them were inclined to think him
something of a tyrant, for he kept them in order, and did not hesitate
to assume and exercise authority when occasion called for it, nor to
reprove--and that with sufficient emphasis--any of them who through
thoughtlessness or selfishness interfered with the pleasure of the rest.
But this did not often happen, and he was a favourite among them all.
Fidelia came to like Dr Justin better than at Eastwood she would have
supposed possible. She went very often with the rest of the young
people, and no one of them all enjoyed the delights of woods and fields
and mountains more than she. Nellie Austin declared that she hardly
recognised in her the dull, determined student of the first part of the
year. She was light-hearted and happy; and she told Nellie, and herself
as well, that she had good cause.
Eunice was well, and every day made it more clear to them that they had
made no mistake in deciding to share their home with Mrs Stone. And
then she was going back to the seminary and her beloved studies again.
Yes, Eunice was very well--"for her," Fidelia sometimes added with a
sigh, which meant that Eunice might never be altogether well and strong
again. But she was happy--there could be no doubt about that. Dr
Justin came sometimes as a visitor to the house, quiet and grave there
as elsewhere; and his quietness and gravity was the reason that Fidelia
liked him better than she had liked him at Eastwood, she told herself.
Nothing could be more evident than that he exerted no disturbing
influence on Eunice. They were friendly--they were even confidential,
Fidelia sometimes thought. But she never spoke of Dr Justin to her
sister, except as his name came in the account which Eunice always liked
to hear of the expeditions in which she could take no part; and she day
by day grew less afraid lest her sister might have something to tell her
of him that she would not like to hear.
But she liked Mr Justin, she owned to herself; and after awhile she
began to see that, though he had less to say to her than to Nellie and
the rest, he was not less mindful of her than of them--that though he
amused himself with them, and submitted to be teased by them, and even
condescended to tease them in return, he had only grave respectful words
for her, and indeed carried himself towards her as though he thought she
might not care for friendly advances on his part; but he was always
careful for her safety and comfort, and one day he told her why.
"I promised your sister that I would take care of you," said he one day,
when he found it necessary to insist on helping her, as well as the
others, over some difficulty in the way.
"Eunice?" said Fidelia, startled. "Eunice knows that I am quite able to
take care of myself."
"But I thought you had been taken care of all your life?" said Dr
Justin as she slowly followed the others up the steep ascent.
"By my Eunice! Yes."
It would not have been easy for either of them to say much of Eunice, so
they were silent as they went slowly on.
This was one of the marked days of that happy time to them all. The
young people had made their arrangements for a blackberrying excursion;
but when it proved that Dr Everett had a day of leisure, and could go
with them, it was proposed that the blackberries should be left for
another day, and that they should all go to the Peak to see the view.
The young Austins were still there, and all the Everetts were to go
except the mother. Jabez and young Mr Fuller, who had been teacher of
last winter's school, and a few others, made up the party. To climb
"the Peak" was a thing to be done at least once or twice in the lifetime
of every dweller in Halsey, and it was worth the trouble it cost.
At the last moment Mrs Stone declared her intention of joining the
party--"just to see how it would seem to be there again;" and Deacon
Ainsworth for a minute or two entertained the idea of going also, but
thought better of it. He had serious doubts as to the moral effect of
so much tramping up hill and down again, just to look at things, in a
world where there is so much work that needed to be done. Blackberrying
parties and fishing expeditions he could understand; but to give so much
time to pleasure which generally turned out to be hard work that did not
pay, was a doubtful matter to him.
All this was said to Jabez, who would have done better, he declared, to
stick to the work he had undertaken. It would pay better.
"Well, but I don't seem to have anything that needs to be done just
to-day, grandpa. And it will pay to go there. Oh, yes, it will pay to
go up there with the two doctors! They'll have something to say about a
good many things we'll see up there--botany, geology, mineralogy, and
all the rest of it. Why, you would enjoy it, grandpa! If it wasn't for
your rheumatism, I'd say, `Go.' I expect to have a real good time."
So did they all. They made an early start, driving as far as horses
could be taken; then, taking an irregular course northwards along the
western side of the mountain, they gradually reached a point from which
could be seen the commencement of the two mountain ranges which extend
through two neighbouring states. It was early still, and here they were
to rest for awhile. The real climbing of the day was still before them.
The view which they had come to see, was the view eastward from the
Peak--the view of a long reach of the river, and the valley and the
cultivated hill country beyond. Here they sat in the shadow of a great
rock, looking northwards to the mountains.
There was little variety in the view--only a wide stretch of broken hill
country, with the grey rock showing through in wide irregular patches,
and along the dry water-courses--all changing into a haze of smoky blue
in the distance, where the mountains seemed to touch the sky. Dr
Justin and a friend, who in their boyish days had been often at the
Peak, and through all the hills within sight of it, pointed out to each
other, the position of their old familiar haunts--the best trout stream,
Silver Lake, the Glen and the Gorge, and by the help of a field-glass
tried to point them out to the others. They could see gleams of blue
water here and there between the nearer hills; and higher up, a tinge of
bright colour where the early frost had already been, but almost
everywhere the summer green prevailed. It was a scene strange and
beautiful; and to those who looked upon it for the first time, the charm
and interest lay in its wide extent and in the utter silence and
solitude resting upon it. There were farms and cottage homes, and even
towns and mills and churches, scattered out of sight among the hills;
workers and pleasure-seekers--the busy and idle--were going to and fro
among them; but the only signs of human life or labour which came up to
those who were gazing down on the wide expanse were the shriek of the
locomotive and the wisp of vaunting vapour which for a moment lingered
on its track.
Mrs Stone sat a little withdrawn from the rest, looking northward also,
with a strange fixed look on her face--the look which made people who
did not know her very well say she was hard. She shook her head,
smiling a little, when Fidelia asked her if she would not like to look
at the mountains through the glass.
"Well, no, I don't seem to care much about it. I didn't come to see
anything in particular. I wanted to see how it would seem to be up here
again--that is all."
"And how does it seem?" asked Dr Justin, who had drawn near with his
glass in his hand.
"Well, I don't know as I could tell you. I am not sorry I came. I
guess I have thought about this place as often as about any other place
in the state in the last ten years. No; I am not sorry I came. I don't
know as I'm sorry I came last time. It is all right, I expect."
"Tell us about last time," said Fidelia softly.
"Some time I'll tell you, maybe. I guess I shall need all my breath
before I get up the Peak. I am not so spry as I was last time I came."
"I'll help you up," said Fidelia.
"Oh, I guess I shan't need any help! I'll start now, and take it
slowly. I don't suppose I shall miss the way."
"I will go with you," said Fidelia.
Dr Justin looked as if he would like to go too, but he did not. He
shut the glass with a snap, and turned to the group still standing on
the edge of the rock looking northwards; and the two set off together.
They went on slowly and silently till they came to a point where the
path they had followed became two paths, the one going up the steep side
of the mountain, the other holding northward along the ledge.
"Now I ought to know which path to take, but I don't feel sure about
this," said Mrs Stone meditatively. "They say the longest way round is
the nearest way home; and according to that we should hold on round the
ledge. The path will take us somewhere."
But it did not seem to do so, for in a little they came up against a
steep rock, and Mrs Stone owned herself at a loss and out of breath.
Fidelia proposed that she should sit down and rest, while she went alone
in search of the path.
"No; we'll keep together. I don't suppose we can be lost; at any rate
two people are not so lost as one alone would be. We'll keep together."
They must have turned themselves round in some way, for they could not
find the point where they had left the ascending path. By-and-by they
came to a shelving rock where the bushes had been recently pressed down;
some broken branches, still unwithered, lay near.
"This must be the near way that Jabez and the boys took," said Fidelia,
"We ought to be able to find our way now."
But they did not find it after several attempts. Mrs Stone was firm in
refusing to let Fidelia separate from her.
"Two are better than one," said she.
At last they came to a point where they got a glimpse of the valley
lying west of the mountain. The land-marks were familiar, only it
seemed as though north and south had changed places, Mrs Stone said.
Another attempt brought them back to the place where they had found the
broken branches, and they had fancied themselves going in the other
direction.
"Well, there! I guess we'd better sit down till some one comes to find
us. Not that we are lost. I never heard yet of any one being lost on
Shattuck Peak for more than an hour or two. Why didn't I think of it
before, dear? Are you too hungry and tired to sing, Fidelia? I
shouldn't wonder if they were beginning to worry about us up there.
They'll be listening."
Fidelia clambered a little higher, and sang "The Star-spangled Banner,"
smiling a little at the thought of the time when she sang it with the
boys on Eastwood Hill. She wondered that she had not thought of lifting
up her voice sooner.
But nothing came of it. Fidelia amused herself gathering some late
flowers, and in searching about for other wild wood treasures, and then
she sang again, and listened for an answering voice; but she listened in
vain.
"I expect we _are_ lost for the time being," said Mrs Stone composedly.
"We'd as well make the best of it, and see what we can do to pass the
time. I wish I had brought my knitting. They'll miss us pretty soon,
and come to find us."
"Tell me about the last time you were on the mountain," said Fidelia.
"To pass the time? Well, that may do as well as anything. But it isn't
much of a story, and what is of it is not very pleasant to tell or to
hear."
The telling of that story involved the telling of much more; but there
was time enough, before an answer came to Fidelia's next song, for all
Mrs Stone had to tell.