A welcome to the homestead--
The gables and the trees;
And welcome to the true hearts,
As the sunshine and the breeze.
One bright morning, several weeks after Mr. Danforth's attack, the
three were seated in their favorite nook in the garden.
It was a holiday with Sarah; there were no lessons to study; no
exercises to practice; no duty more irksome than that of reading the
newspaper aloud to the old gentleman, who particularly fancied her
fresh, happy voice.
Mrs. Danforth was occupied with her knitting, and Sarah sat at their
feet upon a low stool, looking so much like a favorite young relative
that it was no wonder if the old pair forgot that she was unconnected
with them save by the bonds of affection, and regarded her as being, in
reality, as much a part of their family as they considered her in their
hearts.
While they sat there, some sudden noise attracted Mrs. Danforth's
attention; she rose and went into the house so quietly that the others
scarcely noticed her departure.
It was not long before she came out again, walking very hastily for
her, and with such a tremulous flutter in her manner, that Sarah
regarded her in surprise.
"William!" she said to her husband, "William!"
He roused himself from the partial doze into which he had fallen, and
looked up.
"Did you speak to me?" he asked.
"I have good news for you. Don't be agitated--it is all pleasant."
He struggled up from his seat, steadying his trembling hands upon his
staff.
"My boy has come!" he exclaimed louder and more clearly than he had
spoken for weeks; "William, my boy!"
At the summons, a young man came out of the house and ran toward them.
The old gentleman flung his arms about his neck and strained him close
to his heart.
"My boy!" was all he could say; "my William!"
When they had all grown somewhat calmer, Mrs. Danforth called Sarah,
who was standing at a little distance.
"I want you to know and thank this young lady, William," she said;
"your grandfather and I owe her a great deal."
She gave him a brief account of the old gentleman's fall, and Sarah's
presence of mind; but the girl's crimson cheeks warned her to pause.
"No words can repay such kindness," said the young man, as he
relinquished her hand, over which he had bowed with the ceremonious
respect of the time.
"It is I who owe a great deal to your grandparents," Sarah replied,
a little tremulously, but trying to shake off the timidity which she
felt beneath his dark eyes. "I was a regular prisoner like any other
school-girl, and they had the goodness to open the door and let me out."
"Then fidgety old Madame Monot had you in charge?" young Danforth said,
laughing; "I can easily understand that it must be a relief to get
occasionally where you are not obliged to wait and think by rule."
"There--there!" said the old lady; "William is encouraging
insubordination already; you will be a bad counselor for Sarah."
Both she and her husband betrayed the utmost satisfaction at the frank
and cordial conversation which went on between the young pair; and in
an hour Sarah was as much at ease as if she had been gathering wild
flowers in her native woods.
Danforth gave them long and amusing accounts of his adventures, talked
naturally and well of the countries he had visited, the notable places
he had seen, and never had man three more attentive auditors.
That was a delightful day to Sarah; and as William Danforth had not
lost, in his foreign wanderings, the freshness and enthusiasm pleasant
in youth, it was full of enjoyment to him likewise.
There was something so innocent in Sarah's loveliness--something so
unstudied in her graceful manner, that the very contrast she presented
to the artificial women of the world with whom he had been of late
familiar, gave her an additional charm in the eye of the young man.
Many times, while they talked, Mrs. Danforth glanced anxiously toward
her husband; but his smile reassured her, and there stole over her pale
face a light from within which told of some pleasant vision that had
brightened the winter season of her heart, and illuminated it with a
reflected light almost as beautiful as that which had flooded it in
its spring-time, when her dreams were of her own future, and the aged,
decrepit man by her side a stalwart youth, noble and brave as the boy
in whom their past seemed once more to live.
"If Madame Monot happens to see me she will be shocked," Sarah said,
laughingly. "She told me that she hoped I would improve my holiday by
reading some French sermons that she gave me."
"And have you looked at them?" Danforth asked.
"I am afraid they are mislaid," she replied, mischievously.
"Not greatly to your annoyance, I fancy? I think if I had been obliged
to learn French from old-fashioned sermons, it would have taken me a
long time to acquire the language."
"I don't think much of French sermons," remarked Mrs. Danforth, with a
doubtful shake of the head.
"Nor of the people," added her husband; "you never did like them,
Therese."
She nodded assent, and young Danforth addressed Sarah in Madame
Monot's much-vaunted language. She answered him hesitatingly, and
they held a little chat, he laughing good-naturedly at her mistakes
and assisting her to correct them, a proceeding which the old couple
enjoyed as much as the young pair, so that a vast amount of quiet
amusement grew out of the affair.
They spent the whole morning in the garden, and when Sarah went up to
her room for a time to be alone with the new world of thought which had
opened upon her, she felt as if she had known William Danforth half her
life. She did not attempt to analyze her feelings; but they were very
pleasant and filled her soul with a delicious restlessness like gushes
of agony struggling from the heart of a song-bird. Perhaps Danforth
made no more attempt than she to understand the emotions which had been
aroused within him; but they were both very happy, careless as the
young are sure to be, and so they went on toward the beautiful dream
that brightens every life, and which spread before them in the nearing
future.
And so the months rolled on, and that pleasant old Dutch house grew
more and more like a paradise each day. Another and another quarter
was added to Sarah's school-term. She saw the fruit swell from its
blossoms into form till its golden and mellow ripeness filled the
garden with fragrance. Then she saw the leaves drop from the trees and
take a thousand gorgeous dyes from the frost. Still the old garden
was a paradise. She saw those leaves grow crisp and sere, rustling to
her step with mournful sighs, and giving themselves with shudders to
the cold wind. Still the garden was paradise. She saw the snow fall,
white and cold, over lawn and gravel-walk, bending down the evergreens
and tender shrubs, while long, bright icicles hung along the gables
or broke into fragments on the ground beneath. Still the garden was
paradise; for love has no season, and desolation is unknown where he
exists, even though his sacred presence is unsuspected. Long before
the promised period arrived, there was no falsehood in Madame Monot's
assertion that her pupil should be perfect; for a lovelier or more
graceful young creature than Sarah Jones could not well exist. How it
would have been had she been entirely dependent on the school-teachers
for her lessons, I can not pretend to say; but the pleasant studies
which were so delicately aided in that old summer-house, while the old
people sat by just out of ear-shot--as nice old people should on such
occasions--were effective enough to build up half a dozen schools, if
the progress of one pupil would suffice.
At such times old Mrs. Danforth would look up blandly from her work and
remark in an innocent way to her husband, "That it was really beautiful
to see how completely Sarah took to her lessons and how kindly William
stayed at home to help her. Really," she thought, "traveling abroad did
improve a person's disposition wonderfully. It gives a young man so
much steadiness of character. There was William, now, who was so fond
of excitement, and never could be persuaded to stay at home before, he
could barely be driven across the threshold now."
The old man listened to these remarks with a keen look of the eye; he
was asking himself the reason of this change in his grandson, and the
answer brought a grim smile to his lips. The fair girl, who was now
almost one of his household, had become so endeared to him that he
could not bear the idea of even parting with her again, and the thought
that the line of his name and property might yet persuade her to make
the relationship closer still, had grown almost into a passion with the
old man.
This state of things lasted only a few months. Before the leaves fell,
a change came upon Mr. Danforth. He was for some time more listless and
oppressed than usual, and seemed to be looking into the distance for
some thought that had disturbed him. One day, without preliminaries, he
began to talk with his wife about William's father, and, for the first
time in years, mentioned his unhappy marriage.
"I have sometimes thought," said the lady, bending over her work to
conceal the emotion that stirred her face, "I have sometimes thought
that we should have told our grandson of all this years ago."
The old man's hand began to tremble on the top of his cane. His eyes
grew troubled and he was a long time in answering.
"It is too late now--we must let the secret die with us. It would crush
him forever. I was a proud man in those days," he said, at last; "proud
and stubborn. God has smitten me therefore, I sometimes think. The
thought of that poor woman, whose child I took away, troubles me at
nights. Tell me Therese, if you know any thing about her. The day of
my sickness I went to the lodge in Weehawken where she was last seen,
hoping to find her, praying for time to make atonement; but the lodge
was in ruins--no one could be found who even remembered her. It had
cost me a great effort to go, and when the disappointment came, I fell
beneath it. Tell me, Therese, if you have heard any thing of Malaeska?"
The good lady was silent; but she grew pale, and the work trembled in
her hands.
"You will not speak?" said the old man, sharply.
"Yes," said the wife, gently laying down her work, and lifting her
compassionate eyes to the keen face bending toward her, "I did hear,
from some Indians that came to the fur-stations up the river, that
an--that Malaeska went back to her tribe."
"There is something more," questioned the old man--"something you keep
back."
The poor wife attempted to shake her head, but she could not, even by
a motion, force herself to an untruth. So, dropping both hands in her
lap, she shrunk away from his glance, and the tears began to roll down
her cheeks.
"Speak!" said the old man, hoarsely.
She answered, in a voice low and hoarse as his own, "Malaeska went to
her tribe; but they have cruel laws, and looking upon her as a traitor
in giving her son to us, sent her into the woods with one who was
chosen to kill her."
The old man did not speak, but his eyes opened wildly, and he fell
forward upon his face.
William and Sarah were coquetting, with her lessons, under the old
pear-tree, between the French phrases; he had been whispering something
sweeter than words ever sounded to her before in any language, and her
cheeks were one flush of roses as his breath floated over them.
"Tell me--look at me--any thing to say that you have known this all
along," he said, bending his flashing eyes on her face with a glance
that made her tremble.
She attempted to look up, but failed in the effort. Like a rose that
feels the sunshine too warmly, she drooped under the glow of her own
blushes.
"Do speak," he pleaded.
"Yes," she answered, lifting her face with modest firmness to his,
"Yes, I do love you."
As the words left her lips, a cry made them both start.
"It is grandmother's voice; he is ill again," said the young man.
They moved away, shocked by a sudden recoil of feelings. A moment
brought them in sight of the old man, who lay prostrate on the earth.
His wife was bending over him, striving to loosen his dress with her
withered little hands.
"Oh, come," she pleaded, with a look of helpless distress; "help me
untie this, or he will never breathe again."
It was all useless; the old man never did breathe again. A single blow
had smitten him down. They bore him into the house, but the leaden
weight of his body, the limp fall of his limbs, all revealed the
mournful truth too plainly. It was death--sudden and terrible death.
If there is an object on earth calculated to call forth the best
sympathies of humanity, it is an "old widow"--a woman who has spent
the spring, noon, and autumn of life, till it verges into winter, with
one man, the first love of her youth, the last love of her age--the
spring-time when love is a passionate sentiment, the winter-time when
it is august.
In old age men or women seldom resist trouble--it comes, and they bow
to it. So it was with this widow: she uttered no complaints, gave way
to no wild outbreak of sorrow--"she was lonesome--very lonesome without
him," that was all her moan; but the raven threads that lay in the snow
of her hair, were lost in the general whiteness before the funeral was
over, and after that she began to bend a little, using his staff to
lean on. It was mournful to see how fondly her wrinkled hands would
cling around the head, and the way she had of resting her delicate chin
upon it, exactly as he had done.
But even his staff, the stout prop of his waning manhood, was not
strong enough to keep that gentle old woman from the grave. She carried
it to the last, but one day it stood unused by the bed, which was white
and cold as the snow-drift through which they dug many feet before they
could lay her by her husband's side.