Westover could not have said he felt very much at home on his first
sojourn at the farm, or that he had cared greatly for the Durgins. But
now he felt very much at home, and as if he were in the hands of friends.
It was toward the close of the afternoon that he arrived, and he went in
promptly to the meal that was served shortly after. He found that the
farm-house had not evolved so far in the direction of a hotel as to have
reached the stage of a late dinner. It was tea that he sat down to, but
when he asked if there were not something hot, after listening to a
catalogue of the cold meats, the spectacled waitress behind his chair
demanded, with the air of putting him on his honor:
"You among those that came this afternoon?"
Westover claimed to be of the new arrivals.
"Well, then, you can have steak or chops and baked potatoes."
He found the steak excellent, though succinct, and he looked round in the
distinction it conferred upon him, on the older guests, who were served
with cold ham, tongue, and corned-beef. He had expected to be appointed
his place by Cynthia Whitwell, but Jeff came to the dining-room with him
and showed him to the table he occupied, with an effect of doing him
special credit.
From his impressions of the berries, the cream, the toast, and the tea,
as well as the steak, he decided that on the gastronomic side there could
be no question but the Durgins knew how to keep a hotel; and his further
acquaintance with the house and its appointments confirmed him in his
belief. All was very simple, but sufficient; and no guest could have
truthfully claimed that he was stinted in towels, in water, in
lamp-light, in the quantity or quality of bedding, in hooks for clothes,
or wardrobe or bureau room. Westover made Mrs. Durgin his sincere
compliments on her success as they sat in the old parlor, which she had
kept for herself much in its former state, and she accepted them with
simple satisfaction.
"But I don't know as I should ever had the courage to try it if it hadn't
been for you happening along just when you did," she said.
"Then I'm the founder of your fortunes?"
"If you want to call them fortunes. We don't complain It's been a fight,
but I guess we've got the best of it. The house is full, and we're
turnin' folks away. I guess they can't say that at the big hotels they
used to drive over from to see Lion's Head at the farm." She gave a low,
comfortable chuckle, and told Westover of the struggle they had made. It
was an interesting story and pathetic, like all stories of human endeavor
the efforts of the most selfish ambition have something of this interest;
and the struggle of the Durgins had the grace of the wish to keep their
home.
"And is Jeff as well satisfied as the rest?" Westover asked, after other
talk and comment on the facts.
"Too much so," said Mrs. Durgin. "I should like to talk with you about
Jeff, Mr. Westover; you and him was always such friends."
"Yes," said Westover; "I shall be glad if I can be of use to you."
"Why, it's just this. I don't see why Jeff shouldn't do something besides
keep a hotel."
Westover's eyes wandered to the photograph of his painting of Lion's Head
which hung over the mantelpiece, in what he felt to be the place of the
greatest honor in the whole house, and a sudden fear came upon him that
perhaps Jeff had developed an artistic talent in the belief of his
family. But he waited silently to hear.
"We did think that before we got through the improvements last spring a
year ago we should have to get the savings-bank to put a mortgage on the
place; but we had just enough to start the season with, and we thought we
would try to pull through. We had a splendid season, and made money, and
this year we're doin' so well that I ain't afraid for the future any
more, and I want to give Jeff a chance in the world. I want he should go
to college."
Westover felt all the boldness of the aspiration, but it was at least not
in the direction of art. "Wouldn't you rather miss him in the
management?"
"We should, some. But he would be here the best part of the summer, in
his vacations, and Jackson and I are full able to run the house without
him."
"Jackson seems very well," said Westover, evasively.
"He's better. He's only thirty-four years old. His father lived to be
sixty, and he had the same kind. Jeff tell you he had been at Lovewell
Academy?"
"Yes; he did."
"He done well there. All his teachers that he ever had," Mrs. Durgin went
on, with the mother-pride that soon makes itself tiresome to the
listener, "said Jeff done well at school when he had a mind to, and at
the Academy he studied real hard. I guess," said Mrs. Durgin, with her
chuckle, "that he thought that was goin' to be the end of it. One thing,
he had to keep up with Cynthy, and that put him on his pride. You seen
Cynthy yet?"
"No. Jeff told me she was in charge of the diningroom."
"I guess I'm in charge of the whole house," said Mrs. Durgin. "Cynthy's
the housekeeper, though. She's a fine girl, and a smart girl," said Mrs.
Durgin, with a visible relenting from some grudge, "and she'll do well
wherever you put her. She went to the Academy the first two winters Jeff
did. We've about scooped in the whole Whitwell family. Franky's here, and
his father's--well, his father's kind of philosopher to the lady
boarders." Mrs. Durgin laughed, and Westover laughed with her. "Yes, I
want Jeff should go to college, and I want he should be a lawyer."
Westover did not find that he had anything useful to say to this; so he
said: "I've no doubt it's better than being a painter."
"I'm not so sure; three hundred dollars for a little thing like that."
She indicated the photograph of his Lion's Head, and she was evidently so
proud of it that he reserved for the moment the truth as to the price he
had got for the painting. "I was surprised when you sent me a photograph
full as big. I don't let every one in here, but a good many of the ladies
are artists themselves-amateurs, I guess--and first and last they all
want to see it. I guess they'll all want to see you, Mr. Westover.
They'll be wild, as they call it, when they know you're in the house.
Yes, I mean Jeff shall go to college."
"Bowdoin or Dartmouth?" Westover suggested.
"Well, I guess you'll think I'm about as forth-putting as I was when I
wanted you to give me a three-hundred-dollar picture for a week's board."
"I only got a hundred and sixty, Mrs. Durgin," said Westover,
conscientiously.
"Well, it's a shame. Any rate, three hundred's the price to all my
boarders. My, if I've told that story once, I guess I've told it fifty
times!"
Mrs. Durgin laughed at herself jollily, and Westover noted how prosperity
had changed her. It had freed her tongue, it has brightened her humor, it
had cheered her heart; she had put on flesh, and her stalwart frame was
now a far greater bulk than he remembered.
"Well, there," she said, "the long and the short of it is, I want Jeff
should go to Harvard."