AFTER MANY YEARS
Fourteen years is a long time to look forward to, but looking back it
does not seem very long, since Kenneth bade good-bye to Connie, and hung
her sled in the attic, with the stained handkerchief drying upon it. The
sled is hanging there still, and the handkerchief is lying in one of
Kenneth’s bureau drawers, yellow and soiled, for no water has touched it
since he washed it at the pump and put it away to dry. The prayer-book
shows marks of constant usage, and Kenneth goes regularly to St. Jude’s,
which to himself he still calls Connie’s church. He has worked his way
through college, and at his graduation no one stood higher in his class
than Kenneth Stannard, the boy from The 4 Corners, who swept the halls
and did many menial offices to help himself along.
Connie has been at the farmhouse but once since her first visit there,
and that was in the summer eight years after the memorable Christmas,
and when she was fourteen and Kenneth twenty-two. He had dreamed of her
coming night after night, and always saw her in her blue cloak and hood,
as she had been when he bade her good-by. He knew there must be a
change, but was not quite prepared for the slender, dignified girl, who
wore an enormous hat and called him Mr. Stannard. She was, however,
inexpressibly lovely, he thought, with her flower-like face and great
blue eyes, which laughed when she laughed, but oftener drooped shyly
under long, thick lashes. But for the eyes, and the smile which lighted
up her whole face, Kenneth would hardly have recognized in her the
little girl of six whom he had drawn for miles and miles through slush
and mud. Did she remember it, he wondered, and the Christmas tree? If
she did, she made no sign, and he would not refer to it, or tell her
that he knew the contents of the prayer-book now as well as she did. She
could only spend a day, or a part of it, as her aunt had left her at the
station, while she went on to Albany to visit a friend, and was to call
for her in the evening. She was very sweet and gracious, but a little
too dignified for her years, Kenneth thought, as he tried to entertain
her.
“Would you like to go to the huckleberry pasture?” he asked, after
dinner was over.
“Oh, yes,” she said, with the old eagerness of manner, and they were
soon on their way to the spot where they had once had their Christmas
tree.
It was no longer used for sheep, for the deacon had none. But Kenneth
had kept the place up, and when the old chair fell to pieces he made
another, in which he sometimes sat on Sunday afternoons, reading
Connie’s prayer-book.
“Oh, I remember this place so well,” Connie said, sitting down in the
chair, and drawing long breaths as she looked off across the stretches
of woods and valleys and hills, bright in their summer robes and bathed
in sunshine.
Kenneth was standing where the tree had stood, leaning on a timber which
supported that side of the inclosure, and Connie thought what a fine
face and figure he had, and felt a faint stir of something she could not
define, as she met his eyes fixed so earnestly upon her.
“Tell me of your college life,” she said. “I was so glad when I heard
you had gone. Was that cousin of yours there, too, and where is he? You
know I have never seen him.”
Kenneth was glad to talk of his own college life, which had closed that
summer, but had nothing good to say of Hal, who from Andover had entered
Harvard, spending money so recklessly that the deacon had refused to
meet his bills. There was lark after lark, as Hal called them, until at
last there was one too many, and the deacon was notified to take the
young man home, if he would prevent open disgrace. Hal came home,
good-natured and silver-tongued as ever, and half made Mr. and Mrs.
Stannard believe that the fault had been with the professor, who
misunderstood him, and with his companions, who had let him take the
blame in which they should have shared. He was of age now and in Boston,
pretending to study law and coming home occasionally for a day or so, to
be waited upon like a prince by his Aunt Mary, who always went down
before his dark eyes and soft, musical voice, which seldom failed to
stir the heart of women. Kenneth could not tell this to Connie, but he
told her Hal had been in Harvard, and was now in Boston studying law,
and then the conversation drifted away from him to Kenneth himself,
Connie asking what he meant to do, now he was through college.
“Stay here on the farm?” and her voice implied that she thought he might
do better.
Kenneth detected the tone, and answered quickly:
“Not on the farm, perhaps, but here in the country, as an M.D. I am to
study medicine with Dr. Catherin at Rocky Point. He is the greatest
doctor in these parts,—is sent for far and near for counsel. You’ve
heard of him, perhaps?”
Connie believed she had, and was glad that Kenneth was to be with so
eminent a man, and hoped he would become as celebrated. She certainly
was a little stiff, and remained so the rest of the day, until they were
on their way to the station, just as the sun was setting. Kenneth had
proposed driving her down, but she insisted upon walking, the evening
was so fine, and she wanted the exercise, she said. For a time she was
very silent, but when they were half way down the hill, near a bit of
broken wall, she said: “Let’s sit here and rest.”
The full moon was rising, and threw a flood of light on her face as she
turned suddenly to Kenneth, calling him now by that name instead of Mr.
Stannard, as she had done through the day.
“I _must_ call you Kenneth for once,” she said. “I wanted to all the
time, but you seemed so big and so tall, with whiskers, and the boy
Kenneth’s face was so smooth, and I thought maybe you wouldn’t like it,
and I am fourteen, and must drop all my childish manners, auntie says.
She tells me to be womanly, and not say out all I think and feel, and I
do try to, and I have been trained into a kind of automaton; but it’s so
hard, especially here, where I haven’t acted myself. But don’t think
I’ve forgotten, for I haven’t. I remember the week spent here, and know
I was a very pert, forward child, asking questions I ought not to have
asked, and telling everything I knew. Don’t stop me,” she continued, as
Kenneth began to protest. “I know what I did, and am ashamed of some
things, but was so happy with the cats and in the barn and on that sled,
and at the Christmas tree. Oh, that tree! How many times I have dreamed
of it, and of the boy who gave everything and had nothing for himself.”
“Yes, I had,” Kenneth interrupted eagerly. “I had _you_! Don’t you
remember? You called me up and gave yourself to me, and I said I’d keep
you forever!”
There was a good deal of the woman in the young girl of fourteen and the
bright color flamed into her cheeks as she replied:
“I was a child, and did not know any better. I have taken it back.”
“No, Connie. Don’t do that,” Kenneth said, impulsively, and laid his
hand on hers.
For a moment Connie’s clear blue eyes looked at him with something like
rebuke in them; then, with a toss of her head, which made her like the
Connie of the sled, she said:
“It isn’t worth having. I am not what I was then. I have been moulded
and trained till there is but little left of the Connie you used to
know, though in some things I am unchanged. I told you you were the
‘_bestest boy_’ and had the ‘_goodest face_’ I ever saw, and—and—I think
so still.”
The moon was shining full upon her, bringing out every point of her
beauty, and Kenneth might have stooped and kissed her, as he did when
she first told him her opinion of him, had it not been that just then
the mail carrier from the post-office at The 4 Corners came down the
hill:
“Hallo!” he called, stopping suddenly as he recognized Connie, who he
knew had been spending the day at the farmhouse, and was presumably
bound for the train. “If either of you is goin’ to the cars, you haven’t
much time to spare. Better climb in here.”
“I must not be left. Let’s get in!” Connie exclaimed, and they were soon
driving rapidly to the station, which they reached just as the train
came up, and Mrs. Hart’s face looked from the window in quest of Connie.
There was only time for a hurried good-by, and then the train sped on
its way, and Connie was gone for a second time.
Time passed, and news came that she had gone abroad and was in France,
in a convent school, and the following autumn Kenneth entered the office
of Dr. Catherin at Rocky Point, proving himself so apt a student and
exercising so good judgment that before he was graduated the doctor gave
him a part of his large practice. After his graduation he opened an
office in Millville and another at his home at The 4 Corners, where the
people were very proud of their young M.D. And Kenneth was a man to be
proud of, whether as a citizen or physician or son. He was not exactly
handsome, as we understand the term, but he had just the face which
strangers trust, and which sick people like to see at their bedside.
With his tall figure and fine physique, he was a man to be noticed among
scores of other men, and one of whom Connie would say that he had more
than the “goodest” face in the world, if she could see him now. She has
been his guiding star, and not an honor has ever been conferred upon him
that has not brought with it a thought of her and a wish that she knew.
In the stable are two young horses, necessary for his practice, and he
calls them Pro and Con, the latter being as near Connie’s name as he
dares to come. She is a graceful, high-strung, nervous animal, full of
capers and quirks, and rebelling against being hitched to a post, and
usually running away if she is not. Pro is gentler and more quiet, and
will stand unhitched for hours, while his master is visiting his
patients. And yet Kenneth loves Con the best, and pets her the most, and
talks sometimes to her of the Connie far away, whom he would give worlds
to see, and from whom he seldom hears.
When Hal came of age, and the management of his property was turned over
to him, he found everything straight to a penny, but was disappointed
that his fortune was not larger. With his tastes and habits he wanted a
great deal of money, and he spent a great deal, and would have borrowed
of Kenneth, if his cousin would have loaned him. Once he offered to
mortgage his house, but Kenneth refused, with the result that there
sprung up a coolness on Harry’s part, and for a long time he neither
came home nor wrote. Then suddenly he appeared one day, gracious and
good-natured as ever, delighted to see the old place, proud of Kenneth’s
success, and very affectionate to his aunt. Kenneth felt sure he had
something in his mind. “Only wait and it will come out,” he thought, and
that night, when they were seated upon the piazza, enjoying the cool
breeze, he told them what he wanted.