AT THE END OF THE VISIT
“Well, you are a stranger,” was Jeanie’s greeting. “You’ve not been
here for two weeks, and I hardly had a glimpse of you on Sabbath day.
We have heard from Archie since then and I have been meaning to come
over to see you, but we are so busy nowadays since Archie went away; we
often wish you and your father were with us again.”
“I’ve been busy, too,” said Agnes, seating herself on the broad stone
which formed the doorstep of the M’Cleans’ cabin. “Ah, but I have much
to tell you, Jeanie; it seems as if I hadn’t seen you for a year. But
first, what of Archie?”
“He reached grandfather’s safely and they were overjoyed to see him. He
was ready to begin his studies, and will it not be fine that we shall
have a meenister in the family?”
“How did the letter come, and was there none for me?”
“There was but a line. He said he would write again by the first
opportunity. He had yet to see your mother, but would go at once and
deliver your messages. He had a chance to send this letter at a few
moments’ notice, and so he could only give us the account of his health
and his prospects, and that is about all. Are you disappointed that he
did not write to you, Nancy?”
“I wanted to hear of my mother. I hoped she would be coming soon,”
returned Agnes, evading a direct answer.
“Perhaps she will be here before long; this letter was long on the way
and might well have been outrun by one travelling more swiftly than
the bearer who stopped often along the way. Now your news, Nancy. Were
you harmed by the freshet? and isn’t it marvellous that Jimmy O’Neill
should have come back?”
“It is marvellous, and he is marvellous, the same old roystering Jimmy,
for all his adventures. And it is so strange to see him with no hair on
his head after being used to that bushy poll of his. Polly is so happy
that she is noisier than ever; indeed, Jeanie, betwixt Polly and Jimmy
and the bairns there is little quiet to be had anywhere unless one goes
off into the woods.”
“But do you like quiet?”
“Sometimes.”
“Then what’s come over you, Nancy Kennedy? You were a regular hoyden
when last I saw you, and you to be talking of liking quiet.” And Jeanie
laughed.
“Did you hear about Honey?” Agnes asked, not noticing the laugh.
“What Honey? Whose Honey?”
“Muirhead’s Honey, the little child who was saved from the flood.”
“Law, no; at least I did hear some such tale, but it passed out of my
mind at the news of Jimmy’s return.”
“It was Jimmy O’Neill who saved the baby and Parker Willett who rescued
them both. He is so brave.” Agnes spoke softly and with a far-away look
upon her face.
“That was brave; tell me about it.”
“He took a little skiff and ventured out upon that swift, raging water,
when it was as much as one’s life was worth to go a rod from shore,
and all in among those tree-tops along by the run, he steered the boat
till he reached a place where Jimmy could be taken in the boat, and the
child, too; the baby, you know, was tucked away in an old hollow stump
and was sailing downstream that way. It was Jimmy who first saw him and
got him aboard his raft; but they could not have reached shore but for
Parker, and he lets Jimmy take all the credit, and will not listen to a
word about his own part in it.” Agnes’s cheeks glowed, and she talked
excitedly.
Jeanie looked at her in surprise. “I thought you did not like Mr.
Willett, the man who tried to rob you of your home.”
“We do like him.” Agnes wisely adopted the plural. “He didn’t know that
the house belonged to us, you know that. It was Muirhead who misled
him.”
“Muirhead again; he is a disagreeable uncle to have. Was the baby
really his? What a strange thing! Is it a nice baby, Agnes, or
disagreeable like his father?”
“He is the bonniest bairnie,” Agnes replied. “I love him, and I am glad
he is my little cousin, though I shall probably never see him again.
Parker Willett took him home this morning, or at least he took him to
Dod Hunter’s, and he will see that he gets home safely. I believe the
reason Mr. Willett didn’t take him all the way was because he didn’t
want Hump Muirhead to think he had any part in saving Honey. I venture
to say he has told Dod that it was all Jimmy’s doings. Mr. Willett is
going to leave us, Jeanie.”
“Is he? I should suppose he would, now that Jimmy has come. I don’t
imagine you are very sorry.”
Agnes was silent, but the color rushed to her face. “We shall miss
him,” she said after a moment. “I shall particularly,” she went on
bravely. “No one was ever so polite and kind to me as he, for he never
will let me do a thing which he can do for me. He will bring water from
the spring and will get up early to work in the garden, and he waits on
me as if I were a princess. Could I help missing him? Jimmy never does
those things; he isn’t lazy, Jimmy isn’t, but he expects us to do all
the little things while he does only the big ones.”
“That is more manly.”
Agnes’s face flamed. “No, it isn’t; it may be the way of men like
Jimmy, but it isn’t the way gentlemen like Parker Willett do.”
“Why, Nancy!” Jeanie looked at her in astonishment. “You certainly do
stand up for Mr. Willett. I think he is handsome and polite and all
that, but I always felt that he was hard to get acquainted with; I mean
he hasn’t our everyday ways.”
“I’m glad he hasn’t,” Agnes flashed out again.
“Oh, you are very complimentary. Perhaps you don’t like our ways,
either. For my part I am too independent, and I hope not so lazy that I
like people to wait on me; I would rather do for myself anything that I
am strong enough to do, and let the men attend to their own work.”
“I would, too, in a measure; but I like to see a man ready to spare a
woman when he can, and I didn’t mean your ways, for your ways are our
own, too, but I was thinking of Polly.”
“But you like Polly and try to be like her; you are getting to be quite
like her; we have all been thinking so.”
Agnes looked aghast. “I didn’t know it,” she said faintly. “I don’t
want to be. Oh, I’m not. I’m not. Polly is a dear, good woman,
but--but--Mr. Willett’s sister wouldn’t be like her, nor his mother. I
can fancy them, the mother a stately dame, and the sister so dainty and
sweet; I wonder he can stand us.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Jeanie, loftily. “We are good
enough for any one. If he doesn’t like us, he can leave us. I’m sure
nobody cares about having him here, for we are all of a different race,
anyhow,--I don’t mean that exactly; but we are Scotch-Irish and like to
go with our own kind, and he is a Church of England man and is cold and
proud.”
“He’s not; he’s not a bit. I’d like to know who are prouder and
more clannish than these same Scotch-Irish, and Mr. Willett says we
are self-contained and stand off by ourselves, and that is what all
strangers say of us. You shall not say such things of Mr. Willett,
Jeanie M’Clean.”
“Well, I declare! I believe you are in love with him,” exclaimed
Jeanie. And then Agnes burst into tears, and at the same moment came
into her mind a remembrance of how she had teased Jeanie into revealing
her heart’s secret, and she told herself that this was her retribution.
Jeanie sat still for a moment in a state of surprise. Agnes and Archie
had always been associated in her mind as lovers, and her remark was
meant not to strike home, but was simply a chance shot directed because
of her annoyance.
She waited till Agnes’s sudden flurry of tears was over, and then she
put an arm around her. “I oughtn’t to have said that, Agnes,” she
confessed, “for there is Archie, and of course you would not think of
Mr. Willett; he is too old for a girl like you, and I knew you never
thought of him in that way.” In the eyes of the seventeen-year-old
maid to be twenty-five was to be middle-aged. “I knew something had
gone wrong,” she went on, “when I told you we had heard from Archie;
I knew you expected a letter, and it is a hard thing to have a
disappointment like that.”
Agnes hung her head. “I wasn’t thinking of the letter, Jeanie,” she
said truthfully. “I think Archie has gone out of my life altogether,
and I am not like to marry at all, for there will be mother and the
children, and I am the eldest.”
“Yes; but by the time Archie has finished his studies Sandy will be old
enough to manage, and the others will be out of leading-strings. I am
the eldest at home, too, but--oh, you will not be an old maid, Agnes,
nor will I.”
“Nor will you? No, I think not,” Agnes smiled, “for there is David.”
“Yes, there is David. That is one of the other things I had to tell. It
is David.”
“Really? Really, Jeanie?” Agnes caught her friend’s hands in hers. “Has
he summoned courage? And when was it? and when will it be? Tell me all.
How could you keep it all this time, you naughty lassie?”
“I kept it till the last. I wanted to tell you since last Sabbath day
when he came to sit up with me, and he and father discoursed so long
upon the sermon I thought I’d never get a word from him; but when
mother was putting the bairnies to bed, father heard a noise among
the beasts, and he went out to see what it was, and so--and so--then
we were alone, and it was so quiet, oh, so quiet, for neither of us
spoke for a long time, and then I laughed and said, ‘Why don’t you say
something?’ And he--he did say something.”
“I am so glad,” said Agnes. “And does he come every evening to sit up
with you?”
“Yes, every evening, and we are to be married this spring. There will
be a house-raising, Nancy, and I am very happy in all except that I
wish Archie were here. Father and mother are quite satisfied, for David
is sober and industrious and--”
“I am a witch.”
“You truly are. I wish now you would bewitch some one yourself and
follow my example if--if it isn’t Archie.”
Agnes’s face grew pensive. “I am not bewitching in that way, Jeanie.”
“Ah, but you are. I know Mr. Willett is rather old, but all do not
think so, for that Sabbath when you rode to meeting with him, many said
it would be a good thing and convenient all around; and since Jimmy has
come back, I have heard more speculation upon the same subject.”
Agnes shook her head. “I know the gossips will talk, but Jimmy’s coming
back will not affect that. All is not settled yet nor can be till my
mother comes. My father seems brighter, Jeanie. Jimmy’s coming seems
to have done him good in some way. I think Jimmy stirs up his poor
brain and makes it work better. Of course Jimmy and Polly will want to
have a home of their own, and we shall have ours, but how and when I
don’t know yet. Now, let us talk of David.”
“Indeed, then, I’ve something else to do,” Jeanie replied, laughing and
jumping up. “We’ve gossiped so long I have forgotten my work, but I
regret naught said except your calling Parker Willett our better.”
“Indeed, I did not mean that, Jeanie. He is no better, but different in
his ways.”
“Ah, that’s more like it. We’ll leave it so, then.”
The little settlement had thriven apace, and now quite a village
had sprung up around and beyond the M’Cleans’. There was talk of a
schoolmaster for the children, and a site for the log schoolhouse had
already been selected. Better dwellings, too, were to be seen here
and there, and the Muirhead’s house was no longer the best in the
neighborhood. The clearings showed their garden patches thriftily
planted with Indian corn, pumpkins, potatoes, and other vegetables.
The rude farming implements had increased in number, and tan vats
and forges were to be seen here and there. Most of the little farms
displayed homely comfort, and if not luxury, at least plenty. Joseph
M’Clean had worked early and late, and although not one of the
earliest comers, his clearing compared favorably with the others. The
outbuildings, stout and weather-safe, gave shelter for the cattle
and storage for the crops. In the woods ran wild the herd of porkers
which, feasting on acorns and other nuts, were easily raised, and when
one was required for food, it was despatched by a shot from Joseph’s
rifle. The loom and spinning-wheel were ever busy, and now would be
busier than ever turning out the rolls of linen and wool which would
be required for Jeanie’s wedding-chest. Much talk there was over it
all, the homely Scotch-Irish phrases cropping out ever and anon as
the matter was discussed by the women of the settlement, who, like
those of to-day, were all agog when a wedding was in prospect. To be
sure the wedding-clothes did not demand very much time or attention.
Linsey-woolsey, that combination of linen and wool, furnished the
material for one or two petticoats. “Six hundred” linen, made from
home-grown flax, was sufficiently good for a few bedgowns or sacques
to be worn with the petticoats, and the same linen cut into squares
and hemmed made the neckerchiefs. For winter wear there was the fur
jacket of squirrel skin, and as styles did not alter, there was not
much difficulty in fashioning the garments necessary. Yet with the flax
hackling, the spinning, and weaving there was quite enough to be done,
and Agnes was glad to lend a hand.
“If this is what calls you in,” she said, as Jeanie led the way to the
loom, “I’m glad to bear my part. How comfortable you have everything
here, Jeanie.” She looked around admiringly at the neat room, which
showed traces of the care of both the master and mistress of the
establishment.
“Yes, we have everything most convenient,” said Jeanie, “and it’s main
due to Archie. We do miss Archie and his handy ways.”
“Will he no be coming to the wedding?”
“Not he. It is too far and it takes too long. My mother would have me
wait till Archie could tie the knot, but David is persistent. David
doesn’t talk much, but when he wants to make a point, somehow one must
give in to him.”
“It’s to be hoped, then, for your sake, that his points will be such as
you can approve,” laughed Agnes.
“Ah, but they will be,” returned Jeanie, with the blissful assurance of
one in love.
“Shall I take the loom or the wheel?” asked Agnes.
“Oh, the wheel,” returned Jeanie, adjusting the heavy clacking machine
before which she stood. And soon the buzz of the wheel and the clatter
of the loom drowned their attempts at conversation except when Jeanie
stopped to tie a thread or Agnes replenished her wool. They could,
however, entertain themselves in another way, and presently Agnes
started up one of the old psalms and Jeanie joined in.
[Illustration: VERY SWEETLY DID THE GIRLISH VOICES SOUND]
Very sweet did the girlish voices sound to the accompaniment of the
whirring wheel and the shuffling loom, and David thought so as he
paused outside to listen. Jeanie, tall and straight, her dark eyes
aglow, flung out her song with spirit as she sent her shuttle back
and forth. Agnes, fair and graceful, stepped forward and back, and sang
less vehemently but with more sweetness. “It’s a pretty picture,” said
David to himself, “and I hate to disturb it, but a man can’t keep back
good news.”
As his figure darkened the doorway the two girls turned, and a rosy
flush mounted to Jeanie’s dark cheek. She stopped her work and stood
still, but Agnes went on faster. “It’s not the time to stop,” she said,
nodding merrily to David, “or Jeanie’s chest will not be full against
the wedding.”
“But ye’ll be thinking that what I have to tell is more important
than Jeanie’s chest,” he replied, “though maybe as it’s to Jeanie’s
advantage to keep you at it, I had better keep silence.”
“You’ll not then,” Agnes returned, pausing so suddenly that her thread
broke off with a snap, “for not another turn do I make till I hear what
you have to tell.”
David gave Jeanie a reassuring nod. “You’ll not have me keep it from
her, Jean, when ye know what it is,” he said, “though it maybe will
defraud your chest. It’s just this, Nancy: your mother and her bairns
are on the road and must soon be here. I galloped on when I learned it.”
“My mother! My mother!” Agnes clasped her hands, and her cry went up
like a shout of praise. Then without another word she ran from the
house toward the road, tears of sudden joy filling her eyes.
“She made quick work with her heels,” said David, looking after her
with amazement. Such swiftness of movement was beyond him.
“How does she know which way to go?” said Jeanie.
“There’s but the one, she thinks, and that toward the village. She’ll
not miss them.”
“And did you see them, David?”
“I did.”
“Where were they?”
“They had just come into the village on Adam Kinsey’s broad.”
“And then? Go on, David.”
“Dod Hunter agreed to bring ’em along in his ox-cart. It’s slow going,
and Nancy needn’t hurry.”
“We might go and meet them, too. There’s no use trying to overtake
Nancy, but we might go on toward the road and meet them before they get
here.”
“There’s no use going so soon,” said David, “for they’ll not be getting
this far for half an hour yet. I’ll bide here with you awhile Jean.” He
settled himself imperturbably. “I’ll not interfere with your work,” he
went on, “and ye can give me a word once in a while, lass. I’d as soon
treat me eyes to a look of ye as me ears to the sound of your voice,”
which rather doubtful compliment Jeanie was not disposed to take
amiss, knowing that David wanted nothing better than to sit and look
at her.
Meanwhile Agnes had run tumultuously along the path leading to the
river road, and at last, out of breath, was obliged to settle down to a
walk. Her heart was all aflame with the thought of seeing her mother,
and once or twice she fairly sobbed out her delight. Reared though she
had been among the self-contained Scots, her later association with
the demonstrative Polly had encouraged the free outlet of her youthful
feelings. When at last the slow ox-team hove in sight, she again
quickened her pace and went flying to meet it, crying, “Mother! mother!
mother!”
The deliberate oxen came to a halt, and Dod Hunter rested his goad upon
the ground as the flying figure approached.
“It’s my lass! I’ll be getting down. It’s my lass,” said Mrs. Kennedy,
her voice all of a tremble. And by the time Agnes had reached the team
her mother stood by the side of the road. Then in another minute the
dear arms were around her, and she heard, in a broken whisper: “My
lass, my bairnie! Praise God I hold you at last! It has been a weary
time, a weary time.”
Then came shrill little voices from the cart and the scrambling of feet
over its side, and Agnes was clasped on one side by Sandy and on the
other by Jock and Jessie. “Ah, Sandy, I’d know your blessed freckled
face anywhere,” the girl cried, giving him a frantic hug. “And Jock,
my lad, how you’ve grown, and Jessie, too. Bless her dear blue eyes;
she’s shy of me, poor child, and no wonder when she hasn’t seen me for
so long. But where is Margret?”
“There, don’t you see? She’s holding the baby,” Jock informed her.
“My little brother Fergus, and I’ve never seen him. Ah, I must get to
him and to Margret. She’s the same faithful bairnie she ever was,” and
Agnes climbed into the cart to look for the first time upon the solemn
little face of her two-year-old baby brother.
And then what a chatter there was! Between answering and asking
questions Agnes hardly paused, and after a while Dod Hunter, plodding
along by the side of his oxen, looked back with a sly twinkle in his
eye. Agnes laughed. “I know you think me a great chatterbox, Uncle Dod;
but I’ve not seen them for two long years, and my heart fairly seems
ready to fly out of my body, and as that doesn’t happen, it is the talk
that will fly out of my mouth.”
“I wonder ye’ve the breath left,” said the old man, “if ye kept up the
pace from M’Clean’s that ye brought up here with.”
“I didn’t run all the way, but when I got out of breath I had to walk.
Ah, but I wanted wings.”
“Do you think we’ve changed her, marm?” asked Dod of Mrs. Kennedy.
“She is taller and not so serious.”
“Who could be serious at such a time?” laughed Agnes.
“And she has a way with her that is new to me.”
“It’s maybe offen Polly O’Neill she has that,” said Dod, wagging his
head.
Agnes flushed up. She did not like to be compared to Polly, much as
she loved the dear creature, and it was the second time that day that
the comparison had been made. “I’ll be my old self now with my mother
near me,” she said gravely. “I have run wild, I know, and Polly has not
checked me. Polly has not your ways, mother, and sometimes I have been
forgetting; but Polly is a good woman and has been like a sister to me.”
“Your girl is a good, brave lass, and you’ve no cause to be ashamed of
her,” Dod declared.
“I could never be that, I well know,” Mrs. Kennedy returned quietly.
Sometimes walking with Jock and Sandy, sometimes riding with Margret
cuddled one side and Jessie the other, the baby on her lap, Agnes made
the journey back to the M’Cleans’ gate, where Mrs. M’Clean, Jeanie, and
David stood waiting for the party.
“You’ll better be dropping some of your load here,” Mrs. M’Clean
suggested.
“Oh, no, no.” Agnes positively refused to consider this.
“But where will you stow them all in your bit of a cabin?”
“We’ll hang them up on pegs rather than leave one behind,” Agnes
declared. “We’ll manage somehow.”
But Mrs. M’Clean shook her head as they started off. “We’ve a deal of
room, now Archie’s gone,” she said, “and where they’ll stow those five
children, not to mention Margaret Kennedy hersel’, I don’t know.” But
she did not know Polly and her resources.