With the reader's permission I now pass over a period of six years. I am
still residing in the city of Montreal, as Mr. Baynard, when I reached
the age of twenty-one, saw fit to offer me a partnership in his
business, which the fruits of my former industry, added to a generous
gift from my Uncle Nathan, enabled me to accept. Many changes have taken
place in my early home in the village of Elmwood. Many old friends and
neighbors have been laid to rest in the quiet churchyard, and many with
whom I attended the village school have gone forth from their paternal
home to seek their fortune in the wide world. The cottage home of my
mother has undergone many improvements since we last looked upon it. It
has been enlarged and modernized in various ways, and its walls are no
longer a dingy brown, but of a pure white, and its windows are adorned
with tasteful green blinds. From a boy it had been my earnest wish to
see my mother placed in a home of ease and comfort, and that wish is now
gratified. Time has not dealt severely with my mother, for she looks
scarcely a day older than when we last saw her six years ago. My sister
Flora is finishing her education at a distant boarding school, where I
am happy to say my brotherly affection and generosity placed her. Good
Doctor Gray and his kind wife are still alive; but they are really
beginning to grow old. But what of Charley, for surely the reader has
not forgotten Charley Gray; he graduated from College with the highest
honors, and is now studying medicine in the city of New York, as,
agreeable to the ideas of his boyhood, he has decided upon becoming a
physician. I have met with him only twice during the past six years.
Does his old unhappy disposition cling to him still? we shall learn that
bye and bye.
During all the years of my residence in Montreal, Mr. Baynard had
enjoyed uninterrupted health, but he was now seized with a sudden and
alarming illness; his disease was brain fever in its most violent form.
His physician found it impossible to break up the fever, and with his
afflicted family I anxiously awaited the result. A deep gloom
overshadowed the dwelling, the family and servants moved with noiseless
steps and hushed voices through the silent apartments. He was delirious
most of the time. The doctor often tried to prevail upon Mrs. Baynard to
leave him to the care of some other member of the family and seek rest,
but she could not think of leaving his bedside even for a short time,
and only did so when rest was an absolute necessity. The two daughters
had been absent at school for two years, and just at this time they
returned to their home, having finished their term of study, and they
were almost heart-broken thus to find their father stretched upon a bed
of sickness, and could not but entertain fears as to the result. All my
attention during the day was required at the store, as the whole
oversight of the extensive establishment devolved upon me.
The days that Mr. Baynard lay prostrated by suffering passed wearily by:
the frequent visits of the physician, the perpetual silence, and the air
of gloom which prevailed through the dwelling, told but too plainly that
there was sorrow and suffering within its walls. His wife would often
bend over the suffering form of her husband, and her tears would fall
fast while he still lay unconscious of her presence or watchful care;
and she feared he might in this state pass away and leave no token of
recognition or remembrance. At length the time allotted for the disease
to run its course arrived. This time had been anxiously waited for by
the physician, and with much greater anxiety, by his sorrowing family.
On the night of the crisis of the disorder, Mr. Baynard was so extremely
weak that the question of life and death was evenly balanced, and it was
hard to separate probabilities of the one from the other. Mrs. Baynard
requested that I would not return to the place of business after tea,
but remain with them. The physician never left the room during all that
night; and O! what a long and dreary night it was: the house was silent
as a tomb, even the ticking of the watch which lay upon the stand seemed
too loud. Finally the breathing of the sick man seemed entirely to
cease. The doctor stepped hastily forward, felt his pulse and placed his
hand over his heart. "Is he dead?" said Mrs. Baynard, in a calm voice,
but her face was pale as marble. The doctor made no reply but raised his
hand as if to enjoin silence, and he quickly applied powerful draughts
to the soles of his feet: if these took effect they might have hope. In
a short time the patient made a slight movement as if from pain, and the
physician hastily called for wine, saying, "Life is still there, and if
it can for a short time be sustained by stimulants, he may rally." Ere
the morning sun rose, the doctor expressed a hope that the crisis was
past, and that he would recover. For several days, he lay weak and
helpless as an infant; but the doctor assured us that he was slowly but
surely recovering. Soon after he was so far recovered as to spend a
portion of each day at our place of business.
I received a letter from Charley Gray informing me that he intended
spending several weeks of the summer at Elmwood, and urgently requesting
me to meet him there. I had intended visiting Elmwood before receiving
his letter; I had only been once there during the three past years, and
I felt the need of a respite from the cares of business. My sister also
expected this summer to return home, having spent four years at school,
and I looked forward with much pleasure to the time when we should meet
again in the dear old home at Elmwood. Time had worked a great change in
me since I left that home eight years before. Providence had smiled upon
my efforts to assist my widowed mother and sister. Through my means my
mother was now placed in a home of comfort and affluence, and my sister
had received a thoroughly good education. I was still prospered, and of
late was fast accumulating money. Never before, since leaving the
paternal roof, had I felt so strong a desire to rest for a time beneath
its shelter, and as the time drew nigh I could hardly control my
impatience. At home again! I realized this happiness in its truest
meaning, when I found myself again beneath the roof that had sheltered
my childhood. Flora too was there, but so much changed that I could
hardly recognize the little sister who had ever looked up to me for
protection and love. The very evening after my arrival Dr. Gray called.
His call surprised us a little as the hour was late. He came in with his
old good-humored laugh, saying: "Do not be alarmed, for this is not a
professional visit, and for once I have left my medicine-case at home;
but when I went home quite late in the evening and learned that Walter
had arrived I thought I should sleep all the more soundly for coming
over to welcome you to Elmwood again. By the bye," continued he, "I
hear Walter that you are fast becoming rich; well I am glad to hear it,
and I am pretty sure you will make a good use of your money." I assured
him I was far enough from being rich. "Modest as ever," replied he, "but
no matter, better that than forward and boastful, no fear but you'll get
along. I am expecting Charley to arrive every day," said he, "and then
won't we have the good old-fashioned times again." I was very happy to
meet my old friend again in such good spirits. The next day while,
conversing with my mother, I suddenly remembered Farmer Judson, and
I enquired if his temper was improved any of late. My mother looked
serious as she replied, "I had forgotten to tell you, Mr. Judson has
been ill for a long time. He first had lung-fever from which he
partially recovered, but he now seems like one in a slow consumption; I
have not as yet called to see him, as I hear he is very irritable and
does not care to see people, and I feared he would take my visit as an
intrusion. I very much pity his poor wife, who is almost worn out with
attending upon him, and would gladly aid her were it in my power." As a
boy I had cherished anger toward the farmer; but that had all passed
away and I felt sorry to hear of his illness.
Two days after my arrival, Charley Gray came. Our meeting could not be
otherwise than happy. He was, I believe, the most changed of the two;
and I thought at the time I had never before seen so perfect a type of
manly beauty. "What a pity," thought I, "that one so highly gifted, and
noble looking, and whose manner was at times so attractive and winning,
should allow himself at other times to be so morose and disagreeable
from a foolish and unreasonable temper." He had now completed his
studies, and had come home for a short time before entering upon the
practice of his profession. When I left the city, Mr. Baynard advised
me to spend at the least two or three months at home, for so long and
industriously had I applied myself to business, that he thought a season
of rest and recreation would be very beneficial to me; and all our old
friends at Elmwood seemed anxious to add to the enjoyment of Charley
Gray and myself during our stay. My mother was one who seldom left her
home, and she surprised me one day by saying, "If Charley and I would
take a journey to Uncle Nathan's, she and Flora would accompany us," and
that very evening I wrote to my uncle and aunt informing them of our
proposed visit, and asking them if they would be willing to entertain
so large a party; and an answer soon arrived informing me that nothing
would afford them more pleasure than our visit, and "they were very sure
they could find room for us all." I had only paid one hasty visit to
Fulton since I left it, and I anticipated much pleasure from again
meeting my uncle and aunt with many old friends of my school-days at
Fulton.
I did not intend writing a long story, and will not trouble my readers
with the particulars of our journey, nor of the hearty welcome we
received when we arrived at the old farm house of Uncle Nathan. Let it
suffice that nothing was wanting to render our stay agreeable. My uncle
and aunt looked scarcely a day older than when I left them eight years
since. Upon my remarking how lightly time had set on them, my uncle
replied with his old manner of fun and drollery, "Don't you know,
Walter, that old bachelors and old maids never grow old, they get kind
o' dried in just such a way and keep so for any length of time," and I
could not help thinking there was some truth in his remark. I enquired
with much curiosity for Cousin Silas and his family. "O!" replied Aunt
Lucinda, "upon the whole they have done better than one could have
expected when they first came here. Silas will never do much anyway,
they still live on the Taylor place, and Nathan manages one way and
another to get some work out of him. Nathan intends at some time to deed
the place to the family in such a way that Silas can't squander it away;
but he has never told them so yet. Somehow or other, after mother's
death, I felt drawn toward the family, and did all I could to help them
along. I kept the little girls with me by turns, and encouraged them to
attend school, and took pains to learn them habits of order and
industry, and I found after a time that my labor was not entirely thrown
away, for as they grew older they carried the habits which I tried to
teach them into their own home, and to say the least of it, they live
much more like other people than they used to; and I begin to think that
even an old maid can do a little good in the world, now and then, as
well as any one else. Of course you remember the boys, and what an awful
trial it used to be to have Ephraim about the place; well, he settled
down after a while, he always said the whipping his father gave him for
cutting up my clothes-lines and then lying about it was what made a man
of him. He attended school for three years, and then not wishing to work
on the farm, he struck out into the world for himself; he obtained a
situation in a mercantile house in Toronto, and I hear bids fair to make
a successful business man. George Washington has not entirely ceased to
grumble and look sulky; but there has been a wonderful change in one
respect, for there is now no harder working youth in the neighborhood;
he likes farming, and early and late may be found at his work. I don't
know but Nathan may have given him a hint that the old Taylor place may
one day be his own. I don't know how it is, the neighbors say it was
your Uncle Nathan and I who ever made any thing of those children.
Nathan said: 'Silas would never do much any way, and we had better try
and make something of the children,' and I certainly have done my best;
but it was uphill work for a long time; and I am glad that they have
profited by our efforts for their good."