CHAPTER II.--MR. GRAHAM AND JESSIE.
CHAPTER III.--EIGHT YEARS LATER.
CHAPTER IV.--JESSIE AND ELLEN.
CHAPTER V.--WALTER AND JESSIE.
CHAPTER VI.--OLD MRS. BARTOW.
CHAPTER VII.--HUMAN NATURE.
CHAPTER VIII.--A RETROSPECT.
CHAPTER IX.--NELLIE.
CHAPTER X.--A DISCLOSURE.
CHAPTER XI.--THE NIGHT AFTER THE BURIAL.
CHAPTER XII.--A CRISIS.
CHAPTER XIII.--EXPLANATIONS.
CHAPTER XIV.--THE STRANGER NURSE.
CHAPTER XV.--GLORIOUS NEWS.
CHAPTER XVI.--THANKSGIVING DAY AT DEERWOOD.
CHAPTER XVII.--CONCLUSION.
----
CHAPTER I.--THE INMATES OF THE FARM-HOUSE.
Old Deacon Marshall sat smoking beneath the maple tree which he had
planted many years before, when he was scarcely older than the little
girl sitting on the broad doorstep and watching the sun as it went down
behind the western hills. The tree was a sapling then, and himself a
mere boy. The sapling now was a mighty tree, and its huge branches swept
the gable roof of the time-worn building, while the boy was a
gray-haired man, sitting there in the glorious sunset of that bright
October day, and thinking of all which had come to him since the morning
long ago, when, from the woods near by, he brought the little twig, and
with his mother's help secured it in its place, watching anxiously for
the first indications of its future growth.
Across the fields and on a shady hillside, there were white headstones
gleaming in the fading sunlight. He could count them all from where he
sat,--could tell which was his mother's, which his father's, and which
his fair-haired sister's. Then there came a blur before his eyes, and
great tears rolled down his furrowed cheek, as he remembered that in
that yard there were more graves of his loved ones than there were
chairs around his fireside, even though he counted the one which for
years had not been used, but stood in the dark corner of the kitchen,
just where it had been left that dreadful night when his only son was
taken from him. On the hillside there was no headstone for that boy, but
there were two graves, which had been made just as many years as the
arm-chair of oak had stood in the dark corner, and on the handsome
monument which a stranger's hand had reared, was cut the name of the
deacon's wife and the deacon's daughter-in-law.
Fourteen times the forest tree had cast its leaf since this last great
sorrow came, and the old man had in a measure recovered from the
stunning blow, for new joys, new cares, new loves had sprung into
existence, and few who looked into his calm, unruffled face, ever
dreamed of the anguish he had suffered. Time will soften the keenest
grief, and in all the town there was not apparently a happier man than
the deacon; though as often as the autumn came, bringing the frosty
nights and hazy October days, there stole a look of sadness over his
face, and the pipe, his never-failing friend, was brought into
requisition more frequently than ever.
"It drove the blues away," he said; but on the afternoon of which we
write, _the blues_ must have dipped their garments in a deeper dye than
usual, for though the thick smoke curled in graceful wreaths about his
head, it did not dissipate the gloom which weighed upon his spirits as
he sat beneath the maple, counting the distant graves, and then casting
his eye down the long lane, through which a herd of cows was wending its
homeward way. They were the deacon's cows, and he watched them as they
came slowly on, now stopping to crop the tufts of grass growing by the
wayside, now thrusting their slender horns over the low fence in quest
of the juicy cornstalk, and then quickening their movements as they
heard the loud, clear whistle of their driver, a lad of fourteen, and
the deacon's only grandson.
Walter Marshall was a handsome boy, and none ever looked into his frank,
open face, and clear, honest eyes, without turning to look again, he
seemed so manly, so mature for his years, while about his slightly
compressed lips there was an expression as if he were constantly seeking
to force back some unpleasant memory, which had embittered his young
life and fostered in his bosom a feeling of jealousy or distrust of
those about him, lest they, too, were thinking of what was always
uppermost in his mind.
To the deacon, Walter was dear as the apple of his eye, both for his
noble qualities and the cloud of sorrow which had overshadowed his
babyhood. A dying mother's tears had mingled with the baptismal waters
sprinkled on his face, and the first sound to which he ever seemed to
listen was that of the village bell tolling, as a funeral train wound
slowly through the lane and across the field to the hillside, where the
dead of the Marshall family were sleeping. He had lain in his
grandmother's arms that day, but before a week went by, a stranger held
him in her lap, while the deacon went again to the hillside and stood by
an open grave. Then the remaining inmates of the farm-house fell back to
their accustomed ways, and the prattle of the orphan boy,--for so they
called him,--was the only sunshine which for many a weary month visited
the old homestead.
Since that time the deacon's daughter had married, had wept over her
dead husband, and smiled upon a little pale-faced, blue-eyed girl, to
whom she gave the name of Ellen, for the sake of Walter's mother.
Aunt Debby, the deacon's maiden sister, occupied a prominent position in
the family, who prized her virtues and humored her whims in a way which
spoke volumes in her praise. Although unmarried, Aunt Debby declared
that it was not her fault, and insisted that her husband, who was to
have been, was killed in the war of 1812. Not that she ever saw him, but
her fortune had been told for fifty cents by one who pretended to read
the future, and as she placed implicit confidence in the words of the
seer, she shed a few tears to the memory of the widower who marched
bravely to his death, leaving to the world four little children, and to
her a life of single-blessedness. For the sake of the four children
whose step-mother she ought to have been, she professed a great
affection for the entire race of little ones, and especially for Walter,
whose father had been her pet.
"Walter was the very image of him," she said, and when, on the night of
which we are writing, she heard his clear whistle in the distance, she
drew her straight-backed chair nearer to the window, and watched for the
first appearance of the boy. "That's Seth again all over," she thought,
as she saw him make believe set the dog on Ellen, who had gone to meet
him. "That's just the way Seth used to pester Mary," and she glanced at
the meek-eyed woman, moulding biscuits on the pantry shelf. As was usual
with Aunt Debby, when Seth was the burden of her thoughts, she finished
her remarks with, "Seth allus was a good boy," and then, as she saw
Walter take a letter from his pocket and pass it to his grandfather, she
hastened to the door, while her pulses quickened with the hope that it
might contain some tidings of the wanderer.
The letter bore the New York postmark, and glancing at the signature,
the deacon said:
"It's from Richard Graham," while both Walter and Aunt Debby drew nearer
to him, waiting patiently to know the nature of its contents.
"There's nothing about my boy," the old man said, when he had finished
reading, and with a gesture of impatience Walter turned away, saying to
himself, "I'd thank him not to write if he can't tell us something we
want to hear," while Aunt Debby went back to her knitting, and the
polished needles were wet as they resumed their accustomed click.
"Mary," called the deacon, to his daughter, "this letter concerns you
more than it does me. Richard's wife is dead,--killed herself with
fashion and fooleries."
Advancing toward her father, Mary said:
"When did she die, and what will he do with his little girl?"
"That's it," returned the father, "that's the very thing he wrote
about," and opening the letter a second time, he read that the
fashionable and frivolous Mrs. Graham, worn out by a life of folly and
dissipation, had died long before her time, and that the husband, warned
by her example, wished to remove his daughter, a little girl eight years
of age, from the city, or rather from the care of her maternal
grandmother, who was sure to ruin her.
It is true the letter was not exactly worded thus, but that was what it
meant. Mr. Graham had once lived in Deerwood, and knew the old Marshall
homestead well,--knew how invigorating were the breezes from the
mountains,--how sweet the breath of the newly mown hay, or soil freshly
plowed,--knew how bracing were the winter winds which howled around the
farm-house,--how healthful the influences within, and when he decided to
shut up his grand house and go to Europe for an indefinite length of
time, his thoughts turned toward rustic Deerwood as a safe asylum for
his child. In the gentle Mary Howland she would find a mother's care,
such as she had never known, and after a little hesitation, he wrote to
know if at the deacon's fireside there was room for Jessie Graham.
"She is a wayward, high-spirited little thing," he wrote, "but
warm-hearted, affectionate and truthful,--willing to confess her faults,
though very apt to do the same thing again. If you take her, Mrs.
Howland, treat her as if she were your own; punish her when she deserves
it, and, in short, train her to be a healthy, useful woman."
The price offered in return for all this was exceedingly liberal, and
would have tempted the deacon had there been no other inducement.
"That's an enormous sum to pay for one little girl," he said, when he
finished reading the letter. "It will send Ellen through the seminary,
and maybe, buy her a piano, if she's thinking she must have one to drum
upon."
"Piano!" repeated Walter. "I'll earn one for her when she needs it. I
don't like this Jessie with her city airs. Don't take her, Aunt Mary. We
have suffered enough from the Grahams;" and Walter tossed his cap into
the tree, with a low rejoinder, which sounded very much like "_darn
'em!_"
"Walter," said the deacon, "you do wrong to cherish such feelings toward
Mr. Graham. He only did what he thought was right, and were your father
here now, he'd say Richard was the best friend he ever had."
This was the place for Aunt Debby to put in her accustomed "Seth allus
was a good boy," while Walter, not caring to discuss the matter, laughed
good-humoredly, and said:
"But that's nothing to do with this minx of a Jessie. Why does he write
her name s-i-e? Why don't he spell it s-y-sy, and be sensible? Of course
she's as stuck up as she can be,--afraid of cows and snakes and
everything," and Walter sneered at the idea of a girl who was afraid of
snakes and everything.
"Yes," chimed in Ellen, who Aunt Debby said was born for no earthly use
except to "take Walter down." "I shouldn't suppose you'd say anything,
for don't you remember when you went to Boston with Mr. Smith to see the
caravan, and stopped at the Tremont, and when they pounded that big
thing for dinner you were scared almost to death, and hid behind the
door screaming, 'The lion's out! the lion's out! Don't you hear him
roar?'"
Walter colored crimson, and replied apologetically:
"Pshaw, Nell, I was a little shaver then, only ten years old. I'd never
heard a gong before, and why shouldn't I think the lion out?"
"And why shouldn't Jessie be afraid of snakes if she never saw one?
She's only eight, and you were ten," was the reply of Ellen, whose heart
bounded at the thoughts of a companion, and who had unwittingly avowed
herself the champion of the unknown Jessie Graham.
"Hush, children," interrupted the deacon. "It isn't worth while to
quarrel. Folks raised in the city are sometimes green as well as country
people, and this Jessie may be one of 'em. But the question now is,
shall she come to Deerwood or not?" and he turned inquiringly toward his
daughter. "Mary, are you willing to be a mother to Richard Graham's
child?"
Mrs. Howland started, and sweeping her hand across her face, answered:
"I am willing," while Aunt Debby, in her straight-backed chair mumbled:
"To think it should come to that,--Mary taking care of his and another
woman's child; but, law! it's no more than I should have done if he
hadn't been killed," and with a sigh for the widower and his four
motherless offspring, Aunt Debby also gave her assent, thinking how she
would knit lamb's-wool stockings for the little girl, whose feet she
guessed were about the size of Ellen's.
"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Ellen, when it was settled, "for now there'll
be somebody to play with when my head aches too hard to go to school. I
hope she'll bring a lot of dolls; and, Walter, you won't ink their faces
and break their legs as you did that cob baby Aunt Debby made for me?"
When thus appealed to, Walter was reading for himself the letter which
had fallen at his grandfather's feet, and his clear hazel eyes were
moist with tears, as he read the postscript:
"I have as yet heard nothing from Seth, poor fellow! I hoped he would
come back ere this. It may be I shall meet him in my travels."
"He isn't so bad a man after all," thought Walter, and with his feelings
softened toward the father, he was more favorably disposed toward the
daughter's dolls, and to Ellen's question he replied, "Of course I
shan't bother her if she lets me alone and don't put on too many airs."
"I can't see to write as well as I used to," said the deacon, after
everything had been arranged, "and Walter must answer the letter."
"Walter won't do any such thing," was the mental comment of the boy,
whose animosity began to return toward one who he fancied had done his
father a wrong.
After a little, however, he relented, and going to his room wasted
several sheets of paper before he was at all satisfied with the few
brief lines which were to tell Mr. Graham that his daughter Jessie would
be welcome at Deerwood. Great pains he took to spell her name according
to his views of orthography, making an extra flourish to the "y" with
which he finished up the "Jessy."
"Now, that's sensible," he said. "I wonder Aunt Debby don't spell her
name b-i-e-by. She would, I dare say, if she lived in New York."
Walter's ideas of city people were formed entirely from the occasional
glimpses he had received of his proud Boston relatives, who had been
highly indignant at his mother's marriage with a country youth, the most
of them resenting it so far as to absent themselves from her funeral.
His lady grandmother, they told him, had been present, and had held him
for a moment upon her rich black mourning dress, but from that day she
had not looked upon his face. These things had tended to embitter Walter
toward his mother's family, and judging all city people by them, it was
hardly natural that he should be very favorably disposed toward little
Jessie. Still, as the time for her arrival drew near, none watched for
her more vigilantly or evinced a greater interest in her coming than
himself, and on the day when she was expected, it was observed by his
cousin Ellen that he took more than usual pains with his toilet, and
even exchanged his cowhide boots for a lighter pair, which would make
less noise in walking; then as he heard the whistle in the distance, he
stationed himself by the gate, where he waited until the gray horses
which drew the village omnibus appeared over the hill. The omnibus
itself next came in sight, and the head of a little girl was thrust from
the window, a profusion of curls falling from beneath her brown straw
hat, and herself evidently on the lookout for her new home.
"Curls, of course," said Walter. "See if I don't cut some of 'em off,"
and he involuntarily felt for his jack-knife.
By this time the carriage was so near that he vacated his post, lest the
strangers should think he was waiting for them, and returning to the
house, looked out of the west window, whistling indifferently, and was
apparently quite oblivious of the people alighting at the gate, or of
the chubby form tripping up the walk, and with sunny face and laughing
round bright eyes, winning at once the hearts of the four who, unlike
himself, had gone out to receive her.