but for an embarrassing moment found that he was stuck fast. Johnny
Spencer instinctively gave him an assisting push, and once free the
great soldier, statesman, and millionaire took a few steps forward to
the open floor; then, after hesitating a moment, he mounted the little
platform and stood in the teacher's place. Marilla Hender was as pale
as ashes.
"I have thought many times," the great guest began, "that some day I
should come back to visit this place, which is so closely interwoven
with the memories of my childhood. In my counting-room, on the fields
of war, in the halls of Congress, and most of all in my Western home,
my thoughts have flown back to the hills and brooks of Winby and to
this little old school-house. I could shut my eyes and call back the
buzz of voices, and fear my teacher's frown, and feel my boyish
ambitions waking and stirring in my breast. On that bench where I just
sat I saw some notches that I cut with my first jackknife fifty-eight
years ago this very spring. I remember the faces of the boys and girls
who went to school with me, and I see their grandchildren before me. I
know that one is a Goodsoe and another a Winn by the old family look.
One generation goes, and another comes.
"There are many things that I might say to you. I meant, even in those
early restricted days, to make my name known, and I dare say that you
too have ambition. Be careful what you wish for in this world, for if
you wish hard enough you are sure to get it. I once heard a very wise
man say this, and the longer I live the more firmly I believe it to be
true. But wishing hard means working hard for what you want, and the
world's prizes wait for the men and women who are ready to take pains
to win them. Be careful and set your minds on the best things. I meant
to be a rich man when I was a boy here, and I stand before you a rich
man, knowing the care and anxiety and responsibility of wealth. I
meant to go to Congress, and I am one of the Senators from Kansota. I
say this as humbly as I say it proudly. I used to read of the valor
and patriotism of the old Greeks and Romans with my youthful blood
leaping along my veins, and it came to pass that my own country was in
danger, and that I could help to fight her battles. Perhaps some one
of these little lads has before him a more eventful life than I have
lived, and is looking forward to activity and honor and the pride of
fame. I wish him all the joy that I have had, all the toil that I have
had, and all the bitter disappointments even; for adversity leads a
man to depend upon that which is above him, and the path of glory is a
lonely path, beset by temptations and a bitter sense of the weakness
and imperfection of man. I see my life spread out like a great
picture, as I stand here in my boyhood's place. I regret my failures.
I thank God for what in his kind providence has been honest and right.
I am glad to come back, but I feel, as I look in your young faces,
that I am an old man, while your lives are just beginning. When you
remember, in years to come, that I came here to see the old
school-house, remember that I said: Wish for the best things, and work
hard to win them; try to be good men and women, for the honor of the
school and the town, and the noble young country that gave you birth;
be kind at home and generous abroad. Remember that I, an old man who
had seen much of life, begged you to be brave and good."
The Honorable Mr. Laneway had rarely felt himself so moved in any of
his public speeches, but he was obliged to notice that for once he
could not hold his audience. The primer class especially had begun to
flag in attention, but one or two faces among the elder scholars
fairly shone with vital sympathy and a lovely prescience of their
future. Their eyes met his as if they struck a flash of light. There
was a sturdy boy who half rose in his place unconsciously, the color
coming and going in his cheeks; something in Mr. Laneway's words lit
the altar flame in his reverent heart.
Marilla Hender was pleased and a little dazed; she could not have
repeated what her illustrious visitor had said, but she longed to tell
everybody the news that he was in town, and had come to school to make
an address. She had never seen a great man before, and really needed
time to reflect upon him and to consider what she ought to say. She
was just quivering with the attempt to make a proper reply and thank
Mr. Laneway for the honor of his visit to the school, when he asked
her which of the boys could be trusted to drive back his hired horse
to the Four Corners. Eight boys, large and small, nearly every boy in
the school, rose at once and snapped insistent fingers; but Johnny
Spencer alone was desirous not to attract attention to himself. The
Colburn's Intellectual Arithmetic with the portrait had been well
secreted between his tight jacket and his shirt. Miss Hender selected
a trustworthy freckled person in long trousers, who was half way to
the door in an instant, and was heard almost immediately to shout
loudly at the quiet horse.
Then the Hero of District Number Four made his acknowledgments to the
teacher. "I fear that I have interrupted you too long," he said, with
pleasing deference.
Marilla replied that it was of no consequence; she hoped he would call
again. She may have spoken primly, but her pretty eyes said everything
that her lips forgot. "My grandmother will want to see you, sir," she
ventured to say. "I guess you will remember her,--Mis' Hender, she
that was Abby Harran. She has often told me how you used to get your
lessons out o' the same book."
"Abby Harran's granddaughter?" Mr. Laneway looked at her again with
fresh interest. "Yes, I wish to see her more than any one else. Tell
her that I am coming to see her before I go away, and give her my
love. Thank you, my dear," as Marilla offered his missing hat.
"Good-by, boys and girls." He stopped and looked at them once more
from the boys' entry, and turned again to look back from the very
doorstep.
"Good-by, sir,--good-by," piped two or three of the young voices; but
most of the children only stared, and neither spoke nor moved.
"We will omit the class in Fourth Reader this afternoon. The class in
grammar may recite," said Miss Hender in her most contained and
official manner.
The grammar class sighed like a single pupil, and obeyed. She was very
stern with the grammar class, but every one in school had an inner
sense that it was a great day in the history of District Number Four.
II.
The Honorable Mr. Laneway found the outdoor air very fresh and sweet
after the closeness of the school-house. It had just that same odor in
his boyhood, and as he escaped he had a delightful sense of playing
truant or of having an unexpected holiday. It was easier to think of
himself as a boy, and to slip back into boyish thoughts, than to bear
the familiar burden of his manhood. He climbed the tumble-down stone
wall across the road, and went along a narrow path to the spring that
bubbled up clear and cold under a great red oak. How many times he had
longed for a drink of that water, and now here it was, and the thirst
of that warm spring day was hard to quench! Again and again he stopped
to fill the birchbark dipper which the school-children had made, just
as his own comrades made theirs years before. The oak-tree was dying
at the top. The pine woods beyond had been cut and had grown again
since his boyhood, and looked much as he remembered them. Beyond the
spring and away from the woods the path led across overgrown pastures
to another road, perhaps three quarters of a mile away, and near this
road was the small farm which had been his former home. As he walked
slowly along, he was met again and again by some reminder of his
youthful days. He had always liked to refer to his early life in New
England in his political addresses, and had spoken more than once of
going to find the cows at nightfall in the autumn evenings, and being
glad to warm his bare feet in the places where the sleepy beasts had
lain, before he followed their slow steps homeward through bush and
brier. The Honorable Mr. Laneway had a touch of true sentiment which
added much to his really stirring and effective campaign speeches. He
had often been called the "king of the platform" in his adopted State.
He had long ago grown used to saying "Go" to one man, and "Come" to
another, like the ruler of old; but all his natural power of
leadership and habit of authority disappeared at once as he trod the
pasture slopes, calling back the remembrance of his childhood. Here
was the place where two lads, older than himself, had killed a
terrible woodchuck at bay in the angle of a great rock; and just
beyond was the sunny spot where he had picked a bunch of pink and
white anemones under a prickly barberry thicket, to give to Abby
Harran in morning school. She had put them into her desk, and let them
wilt there, but she was pleased when she took them. Abby Harran, the
little teacher's grandmother, was a year older than he, and had
wakened the earliest thought of love in his youthful breast.
It was almost time to catch the first sight of his birthplace. From
the knoll just ahead he had often seen the light of his mother's lamp,
as he came home from school on winter afternoons; but when he reached
the knoll the old house was gone, and so was the great walnut-tree
that grew beside it, and a pang of disappointment shot through this
devout pilgrim's heart. He never had doubted that the old farm was
somebody's home still, and had counted upon the pleasure of spending a
night there, and sleeping again in that room under the roof, where the
rain sounded loud, and the walnut branches brushed to and fro when the
wind blew, as if they were the claws of tigers. He hurried across the
worn-out fields, long ago turned into sheep pastures, where the last
year's tall grass and golden-rod stood gray and winter-killed; tracing
the old walls and fences, and astonished to see how small the fields
had been. The prosperous owner of Western farming lands could not help
remembering those widespread luxuriant acres, and the broad outlooks
of his Western home.
It was difficult at first to find exactly where the house had stood;
even the foundations had disappeared. At last in the long, faded grass
he discovered the doorstep, and near by was a little mound where the
great walnut-tree stump had been. The cellar was a mere dent in the
sloping ground; it had been filled in by the growing grass and slow
processes of summer and winter weather. But just at the pilgrim's
right were some thorny twigs of an old rosebush. A sudden brightening
of memory brought to mind the love that his mother--dead since his
fifteenth year--had kept for this sweetbrier. How often she had wished
that she had brought it to her new home! So much had changed in the
world, so many had gone into the world of light, and here the faithful
blooming thing was yet alive! There was one slender branch where green
buds were starting, and getting ready to flower in the new year.
The afternoon wore late, and still the gray-haired man lingered. He
might have laughed at some one else who gave himself up to sad
thoughts, and found fault with himself, with no defendant to plead his
cause at the bar of conscience. It was an altogether lonely hour. He
had dreamed all his life, in a sentimental, self-satisfied fashion, of
this return to Winby. It had always appeared to be a grand affair, but
so far he was himself the only interested spectator at his poor
occasion. There was even a dismal consciousness that he had been
undignified, perhaps even a little consequential and silly, in the old
school-house. The picture of himself on the war-path, in Johnny
Spencer's arithmetic, was the only tribute that this longed-for day
had held, but he laughed aloud delightedly at the remembrance and
really liked that solemn little boy who sat at his own old desk. There
was another older lad, who sat at the back of the room, who reminded
Mr. Laneway of himself in his eager youth. There was a spark of light
in that fellow's eyes. Once or twice in the earlier afternoon, as he
drove along, he had asked people in the road if there were a Laneway
family in that neighborhood, but everybody had said no in indifferent
fashion. Somehow he had been expecting that every one would know him
and greet him, and give him credit for what he had tried to do, but
old Winby had her own affairs to look after, and did very well without
any of his help.
Mr. Laneway acknowledged to himself at this point that he was weak and
unmanly. There must be some old friends who would remember him, and
give him as hearty a welcome as the greeting he had brought for them.
So he rose and went his way westward toward the sunset. The air was
growing damp and cold, and it was time to make sure of shelter. This
was hardly like the visit he had meant to pay to his birthplace. He
wished with all his heart that he had never come back. But he walked
briskly away, intent upon wider thoughts as the fresh evening breeze
quickened his steps. He did not consider where he was going, but was
for a time the busy man of affairs, stimulated by the unconscious
influence of his surroundings. The slender gray birches and pitch
pines of that neglected pasture had never before seen a hat and coat
exactly in the fashion. They may have been abashed by the presence of
a United States Senator and Western millionaire, though a piece of New
England ground that had often felt the tread of his bare feet was not
likely to quake because a pair of smart shoes stepped hastily along
the school-house path.
III.
There was an imperative knock at the side door of the Hender
farmhouse, just after dark. The young school-mistress had come home
late, because she had stopped all the way along to give people the
news of her afternoon's experience. Marilla was not coy and speechless
any longer, but sat by the kitchen stove telling her eager grandmother
everything she could remember or could imagine.
"Who's that knocking at the door?" interrupted Mrs. Hender. "No, I'll
go myself; I'm nearest."
The man outside was cold and foot-weary. He was not used to spending a
whole day unrecognized, and, after being first amused, and even
enjoying a sense of freedom at escaping his just dues of consideration
and respect, he had begun to feel as if he were old and forgotten, and
was hardly sure of a friend in the world.
Old Mrs. Hender came to the door, with her eyes shining with delight,
in great haste to dismiss whoever had knocked, so that she might hear
the rest of Marilla's story. She opened the door wide to whoever might
have come on some country errand, and looked the tired and
faint-hearted Mr. Laneway full in the face.
"Dear heart, come in!" she exclaimed, reaching out and taking him by
the shoulder, as he stood humbly on a lower step. "Come right in, Joe.
Why, I should know you anywhere! Why, Joe Laneway, _you same boy_!"
In they went to the warm, bright, country kitchen. The delight and
kindness of an old friend's welcome and her instant sympathy seemed
the loveliest thing in the world. They sat down in two old
straight-backed kitchen chairs. They still held each other by the
hand, and looked in each other's face. The plain old room was aglow
with heat and cheerfulness; the tea-kettle was singing; a drowsy cat
sat on the wood-box with her paws tucked in; and the house dog came
forward in a friendly way, wagging his tail, and laid his head on
their clasped hands.
"And to think I haven't seen you since your folks moved out West, the
next spring after you were thirteen in the winter," said the good
woman. "But I s'pose there ain't been anybody that has followed your
career closer than I have, accordin' to their opportunities. You've
done a great work for your country, Joe. I'm proud of you clean
through. Sometimes folks has said, 'There, there, Mis' Hender, what be
you goin' to say now?' but I've always told 'em to wait. I knew you
saw your reasons. You was always an honest boy." The tears started and
shone in her kind eyes. Her face showed that she had waged a bitter
war with poverty and sorrow, but the look of affection that it wore,
and the warm touch of her hard hand, misshapen and worn with toil,
touched her old friend in his inmost heart, and for a minute neither
could speak.
"They do say that women folks have got no natural head for politics,
but I always could seem to sense what was goin' on in Washington, if
there was any sense to it," said grandmother Hender at last.
"Nobody could puzzle you at school, I remember," answered Mr. Laneway,
and they both laughed heartily. "But surely this granddaughter does
not make your household? You have sons?"
"Two beside her father. He died; but they're both away, up toward
Canada, buying cattle. We are getting along considerable well these
last few years, since they got a mite o' capital together; but the old
farm wasn't really able to maintain us, with the heavy expenses that
fell on us unexpected year by year. I've seen a great sight of
trouble, Joe. My boy John, Marilla's father, and his nice wife,--I
lost 'em both early, when Marilla was but a child. John was the flower
o' my family. He would have made a name for himself. You would have
taken to John."
"I was sorry to hear of your loss," said Mr. Laneway. "He was a brave
man. I know what he did at Fredericksburg. You remember that I lost my
wife and my only son?"
There was a silence between the friends, who had no need for words
now; they understood each other's heart only too well. Marilla, who
sat near them, rose and went out of the room.
"Yes, yes, daughter," said Mrs. Hender, calling her back, "we ought to
be thinkin' about supper."
"I was going to light a little fire in the parlor," explained Marilla,
with a slight tone of rebuke in her clear girlish voice.
"Oh, no, you ain't,--not now, at least," protested the elder woman
decidedly. "Now, Joseph, what should you like to have for supper? I
wish to my heart I had some fried turnovers, like those you used to
come after when you was a boy. I can make 'em just about the same as
mother did. I'll be bound you've thought of some old-fashioned dish
that you'd relish for your supper."
"Rye drop-cakes, then, if they wouldn't give you too much trouble,"
answered the Honorable Joseph, with prompt seriousness, "and don't
forget some cheese." He looked up at his old playfellow as she stood
beside him, eager with affectionate hospitality.
"You've no idea what a comfort Marilla's been," she stopped to
whisper. "Always took right hold and helped me when she was a baby.
She's as good as made up already to me for my having no daughter. I
want you to get acquainted with Marilla."
The granddaughter was still awed and anxious about the entertainment
of so distinguished a guest when her grandmother appeared at last in
the pantry.
"I ain't goin' to let you do no such a thing, darlin'," said Abby
Hender, when Marilla spoke of making something that she called "fairy
gems" for tea, after a new and essentially feminine recipe. "You just
let me get supper to-night. The Gen'ral has enough kickshaws to eat;
he wants a good, hearty, old-fashioned supper,--the same country
cooking he remembers when he was a boy. He went so far himself as to
speak of rye drop-cakes, an' there ain't one in a hundred, nowadays,
knows how to make the kind he means. You go an' lay the table just as
we always have it, except you can get out them old big sprigged cups
o' my mother's. Don't put on none o' the parlor cluset things."
Marilla went off crestfallen and demurring. She had a noble desire to
show Mr. Laneway that they knew how to have things as well as
anybody, and was sure that he would consider it more polite to be
asked into the best room, and to sit there alone until tea was ready;
but the illustrious Mr. Laneway was allowed to stay in the kitchen, in
apparent happiness, and to watch the proceedings from beginning to
end. The two old friends talked industriously, but he saw his rye
drop-cakes go into the oven and come out, and his tea made, and his
piece of salt fish broiled and buttered, a broad piece of honeycomb
set on to match some delightful thick slices of brown-crusted loaf
bread, and all the simple feast prepared. There was a sufficient piece
of Abby Hender's best cheese; it must be confessed that there were
also some baked beans, and, as one thing after another appeared, the
Honorable Joseph K. Laneway grew hungrier and hungrier, until he
fairly looked pale with anticipation and delay, and was bidden at that
very moment to draw up his chair and make himself a supper if he
could. What cups of tea, what uncounted rye drop-cakes, went to the
making of that successful supper! How gay the two old friends became,
and of what old stories they reminded each other, and how late the
dark spring evening grew, before the feast was over and the
straight-backed chairs were set against the kitchen wall!
Marilla listened for a time with more or less interest, but at last
she took one of her school-books, with slight ostentation, and went
over to study by the lamp. Mrs. Hender had brought her knitting-work,
a blue woolen stocking, out of a drawer, and sat down serene and
unruffled, prepared to keep awake as late as possible. She was a woman
who had kept her youthful looks through the difficulties of farm life
as few women can, and this added to her guest's sense of homelikeness
and pleasure. There was something that he felt to be sisterly and
comfortable in her strong figure; he even noticed the little plaid
woolen shawl that she wore about her shoulders. Dear, uncomplaining
heart of Abby Hender! The appealing friendliness of the good woman
made no demands except to be allowed to help and to serve everybody
who came in her way.
Now began in good earnest the talk of old times, and what had become
of this and that old schoolmate; how one family had come to want and
another to wealth. The changes and losses and windfalls of good
fortune in that rural neighborhood were made tragedy and comedy by
turns in Abby Hender's dramatic speech. She grew younger and more
entertaining hour by hour, and beguiled the grave Senator into
confidential talk of national affairs. He had much to say, to which
she listened with rare sympathy and intelligence. She astonished him
by her comprehension of difficult questions of the day, and by her
simple good sense. Marilla grew hopelessly sleepy, and departed, but
neither of them turned to notice her as she lingered a moment at the
door to say good-night. When the immediate subjects of conversation
were fully discussed, however, there was an unexpected interval of
silence, and, after making sure that her knitting stitches counted
exactly right, Abby Hender cast a questioning glance at the Senator to
see if he had it in mind to go to bed. She was reluctant to end her
evening so soon, but determined to act the part of considerate
hostess. The guest was as wide awake as ever: eleven o'clock was the
best part of his evening.
"Cider?" he suggested, with an expectant smile, and Abby Hender was on
her feet in a moment. When she had brought a pitcher from the pantry,
he took a candle from the high shelf and led the way.
"To think of your remembering our old cellar candlestick all these
years!" laughed the pleased woman, as she followed him down the steep
stairway, and then laughed still more at his delight in the familiar
look of the place.
"Unchanged as the pyramids!" he said. "I suppose those pound sweetings
that used to be in that farthest bin were eaten up months ago?"
It was plain to see that the household stores were waning low, as
befitted the time of year, but there was still enough in the old
cellar. Care and thrift and gratitude made the poor farmhouse a rich
place. This woman of real ability had spent her strength from youth to
age, and had lavished as much industry and power of organization in
her narrow sphere as would have made her famous in a wider one. Joseph
Laneway could not help sighing as he thought of it. How many things
this good friend had missed, and yet how much she had been able to win
that makes everywhere the very best of life! Poor and early widowed,
there must have been a constant battle with poverty on that stony
Harran farm, whose owners had been pitied even in his early boyhood,
when the best of farming life was none too easy. But Abby Hender had
always been one of the leaders of the town.
"Now, before we sit down again, I want you to step into my best room.
Perhaps you won't have time in the morning, and I've got something to
show you," she said persuasively.