house in town. Rosa had found another guide than her own sweet will.
She no longer idled the days away, but sat patiently upon her little
stool and painted from morning till late in the afternoon, while
Brent--the personification of vigilance--hovered about, pipe in mouth,
seeing to the thousand and one things about the house, which, except
for his superintendence, kept itself, and dividing the rest of his
attention between Rosa's canvas and his own.
"Do you know," said Caroline, indignantly, "that Rosa--our lazy little
Rosa--has made fifteen hundred dollars the past year, while Brent has
only made three hundred?"
"That's what he married her for," said Minnie, with a rapid
inspiration. "I wondered what impelled him. I thought it wasn't love."
"My dear, he seems very fond of her," said Mrs. Jones, divided between
a wish to cry and a wish to make the best of it.
"He _is_ fond of her," declared Caroline, "and she's fond of him. But
if ever a girl found a master she has. He makes her work as I never
expected to see Rosa work. Not at housework, dear me, no! She is not to
waste her precious strength on such things. She is to devote herself
to art, which is to make _her_ reputation and _his_ living. That's all
there is to it."
"Perhaps it is not the worst thing that could have happened to her,"
mused Minnie. "There is a kind of nature that needs to be compelled to
make the best of itself."
"Don't you want some brute of an Englishman to compel you to make the
best of yourself?" snapped Caroline.
"No," answered Minnie, quietly. "What would do for Rosa would never
suit me."
"Well, I think we had better go in and take some peaches and straighten
up that disorderly house," said the elder sister.
They found Rosa sitting absorbed over a beautiful screen which was
a piece of ordered work, to cost a hundred and fifty dollars, while
Brent stood at the kitchen door, smoking placidly as he contemplated a
tableful of unwashed dishes.
"Come in, sisters both," he said, gaily. "But don't stop Rosa just now;
she hates to be interrupted when she is at work."
AN AWAKENING[7]
"AND who is that tall young man in the store, who stood there as if
nothing could induce him to take his hands from his pockets?"
Miss Stretton's companion looked as if he were mystified by
her scornful tone. "That's Albert Johnson," he answered in his
matter-of-fact way. "He's only been back hyar about six months. A
couple o' years ago he went down to Texas and made about five hundred
dollars, and then, all to onct, he turned up hyar again. He's nephew to
old Johnson, and stays in th' store, mostly."
"Doing what?" asked Miss Stretton, crisply.
"Why, doin' whatever's to do," answered Jerry Douglas with his thin
laugh. He was a tall, bony youth, with gray eyes and a delicate mouth.
Although unformed and shy, there was a hint of character about
him; which was the reason why Miss Stretton gave him the honor of
her company that morning on his trip to Stoneyton. It was partly in
pursuance of her amiable wish to draw him out, and partly because she
liked the ride on horseback. She was usually talkative, but now they
ambled along the dusty pike in silence.
"Ah--I jest thought of it, Miss Julia," Jerry said suddenly. "Old
Johnson's got a nice horse he might let you have. Bert's been ridin' it
since he come back, but he can't want it all th' time. I'll see if I
kin git it fur you, if you say so."
"Of course I say so, Jerry," retorted Miss Stretton, coming out of her
brown study and turning her bright blue eyes upon him. "And why didn't
you think of it before? But I know it takes you Virginia young men a
long time."
Young Douglas laughed again uneasily. "I s'pose we're ruther backward
compared to th' men you know, but you must recollect we've been under
a cloud since th' war. We haven't got eddication, and consequently we
feel at a disadvantage. Me, now, I've been to school, but what do I
know? Th' only thing's fur me to go ter Texas."
"Yes, and make a little money and come back again and loaf around till
it is spent," commented the girl inwardly. But she said aloud, "Don't
be disheartened, Jerry. It isn't what we know that counts; it's what we
do."
"What I want t' do is t' make money," Jerry muttered; "only th' people
home won't let me go 'way."
"Your time will come if you don't give up, never fear," she returned
kindly, as they rode up to the stile and he awkwardly helped her off
the great plow-horse.
She stood at the gate for a minute, watching the angular, boyish figure
lead the horse to the stable, heard the rough but not unkindly, "Go in
thar, now, Victor--stand, sir!" And then all was still.
In front of the low frame-house was a small, trim garden, with two
beds of red geranium bordered by bits of whitened oyster-shells.
Behind, lay the fields; to the left, the stable, pig-sty and orchard.
On the right, was an unkempt bit of woods, thick with undergrowth. Some
day they were going to cut out that undergrowth, which obstructed the
fine view of the hills beyond.
"Some day," mused Miss Stretton, "great things are to be done!" And yet
she was not without pity as she contemplated the few acres of worn-out
land, the meager cattle, the small, uncertain fruit-crop which made the
living of the worthy lady, Mrs. Douglas, and her sluggish, semi-invalid
husband. This summer they had for the first time followed the example
of their neighbors and augmented their income by taking two summer
boarders; there was not room for more.
Two or three days went by, and Jerry had apparently done nothing about
the horse. Miss Stretton's dearest wish was to hire an animal on
which she might take her daily rides with credit to herself and less
jarring of her bones. The great beast now at her service resembled
some creature in process of transformation to some other species, so
shambling, so long-mouthed, so ashamed of his own appearance did he
seem. But, rendered desperate by Jerry's procrastination, she mounted
Prince one morning and turned toward the village.
"You have shaken me to pieces--you, Prince!" she said reproachfully as
she stopped him in front of the store.
Stoneyton was perhaps the very smallest village ever dignified by the
name. There was a church, the store, and two neighboring houses, one
beside the store and one just across the narrow street. Two swaying
elms almost covered this space with their low-hanging branches, and a
broken wagon shaft lying in the way made it difficult for a vehicle to
turn there. A cart and horse now stood in the road, its driver absent.
There was, for a rarity, no one on the stoop; all was unusually still;
and Miss Stretton, waiting impatiently until the driver should come
out and start off, leaving the road again a thoroughfare, sat still on
her tall steed, and let her eyes roam dreamily around on the well-known
but ever-pleasing landscape.
The customer came out, and with her came young Mr. Johnson, who stowed
away her parcels, helped her into the wagon, and handed her the reins
before he turned to the pretty girl with a tinge of color still dyeing
his brown cheek.
"Is--your uncle in?" asked Miss Stretton sweetly.
He was very sorry, but his uncle had gone to Port Royal that morning to
see a sick sister. Could he do anything for her?
"Well," she said, hesitating, "I suppose you might do just as well,
only--I had expected to talk with your uncle."
Young Johnson looked puzzled but admiring. It was the admiration in
his splendid dark eyes that embarrassed her. To the city girls who
came up to the mountain every one of these little country stores,
and every farm which boasted a son or two of some old, impoverished
family, furnished an escort to dances and picnics, and the beau of a
summer. Miss Stretton was not exempt from girlish weaknesses, and as
the handsome countryman stood there waiting for her probable order for
ribbons or candy or stationery, she wished that she could settle her
little matter of business with some one else.
But she took it like a douche at last, all at once. "Jerry told me that
your uncle has a nice riding-horse, and I want one for a month or so.
Would he hire it? Could I arrange the matter with you?"
"Well, the horse is mine, in fact. Uncle made a present of it to me,"
explained Albert, kicking a little stone in the road.
"Oh!" said the young lady. The affair was now a nuisance to both
of them. For her part, she felt that, if she proceeded, there must
ensue some pecuniary loss in the transaction; she must be large and
uncalculating. On the other hand, Albert shrank from the mention of
dollars and cents, although if the matter had been conducted through a
third party, he would not have hesitated to make something out of the
Yankee girl. Being a Virginian, he could not now put a cool, business
face upon it. It occurred to him that he would like to drive her down
to the hop at Berryville to-morrow night. How would it look to make
bargains before tendering an invitation!
He looked up and down the road; the soft breeze from over the hills
just rustled the leaves, the low grunt of a porker reached their ears
from around the house, a dog barked somewhere, but no figure disturbed
the scene; nobody was coming, they must talk it out.
"Well?" she interrogated impatiently. She looked very graceful and
saucy. He glanced upward and caught her fleeting smile.
"I'll tell you what, Miss Stretton," he said with the relief of an
inspiration, "you mustn't make bargains in the dark. Try my Sultana
to-morrow, and if she goes to suit you, we'll talk further."
"All right, Mr. Johnson, and I'm extremely obliged to you." She was
grateful for the suggestion; Jerry should be messenger next time.
They were now at ease and could look one another frankly in the face.
Each knew the other well by hearsay. Who did not know of the Johnson
family, who had lived on the same fine old place for a hundred years
and more? And to which of the inquisitive natives was the affable
young lady a stranger when she had been staying for a fortnight at the
Douglas farm? It was quite conventional for them to call each other by
name and to linger a few minutes talking.
She rode off finally, with a charming smile, and Albert went into the
dingy store whistling, with his hands in his pockets; handsome and
lazy, and with nothing better to do than to recline on the counter and
recollect each detail of the conversation.
The next morning he made taking the horse over an excuse for a call,
and obtained her promise to go with him to the hop. Every one went;
the road was gay with vehicles of every description, and on the
ten-mile drive there and back their acquaintance grew old. If Miss
Stretton knew how to talk, Albert could listen eloquently.
Afterward she tried to recall something sensible and original in
his talk, which would account for the pleasure she had taken in his
company, but there was nothing in her memory save confused impressions
of what he must have meant.
"What a shame," she said to herself vehemently, "for a young man of
intelligence and versatility--he knows many things and could know more
if he tried--to be playing fifth wheel to a coach on a stupid country
road--clerk in that little store which a girl of twelve could manage
alone!"
And as soon as the chance came, she told him this, indirectly, and with
many a friendly ameliorating glance. Albert took her lecture meekly. It
came one morning when they were riding together. She had found Sultana
delightful, and he had made a joking bargain, letting her ride if he
might ride with her when he had time and his mother's horse could be
spared from the farm. And so this little matter was adjusted without
any reference to money.
It was rare pleasure to the city girl to gallop over the open country
of a fair August morning before the sun grew red; the fresh breeze from
the Blue Ridges colored her cheeks and lighted up her eyes, while it
filled her mind with longings, arousing her energy.
"It is energy that you young men lack," she admonished him in a sweet,
deferential tone. "Energy! Chalk it up on the fences, and spell it out
as you saunter along these dull little country lanes."
Albert thought best to treat it as a joke, but that only made her more
earnest. Then he changed his tactics, and met the reproach by a degree
of pathetic admission that unsettled her.
She found it a fascinating pastime to chide this handsome idler for
making little use of his abilities and she longed to be able to exert
a strongly stimulating influence. But when he told her that, on the
whole, he enjoyed his life as it was and had no wish to change it, that
there was virtue in contentment and that he appreciated his lot, much
as she seemed to despise it----
"I didn't say I despised it!" she exclaimed, abashed, her airy
ambitions seeming for an instant less grand. But when she looked at
her young Alcibiades, lost in the luxury of peace, she pined to send
him forth among men to do battle for the things men care to win. And
yet the girl had such tact that her touch did not irritate. The young
Southerner felt her thrilling tones move him pleasantly; she cooled
his languid breath like a fresh North wind coming in the summer heat.
Throughout, his face wore the same look of rich, indolent peace. One
day, however, he opened his splendid, dark eyes wide, and asked her
just what she would have a man do to prove himself a man.
Miss Stretton was as vague and inexperienced as women usually are who
urge extraordinary feats upon men in whom they are interested. But not
to seem foolish, she took the matter into consideration.
"I'll give you time," he said, laughing when she hesitated, "but--you
have been so hard on me, Miss Julia, that I really must press the
question home."
After this she listened to the reports about him, and heard much of
his sweet temper under provocation--to which, she owned, she herself
could testify--of his kindness of heart, his courage, his goodness
to his feeble mother. The country people relied upon him; his moral
character was spotless. Yet, even while she learned to admire him, she
was not satisfied. Seeing her gem thus proved real, made her the more
determined to bring out its luster.
His question was carried gravely in her mind, and she forbore to resume
the subject until she could say something wise and practical.
They met often, there were so many affairs during the summer to bring
them together, hops, drives, and picnics, and then the camp-meetings,
which brought out all the county. She saw him sometimes in attendance
on his mother there, always gentlemanly and good, where the other boys
were openly rowdy. She saw him in the store, always patient with the
freaks of customers and with the cross humors of his uncle.
And one day she met him (and her heart was touched) carrying along the
road a little crying child, whose bare toes were crinkled up with the
hurt from a sharp stone. The ragamuffin sat perched upon the broad
shoulder and peered down at the lady with eyes of cerulean blue. He
hugged his friend a little closer but with undiminished confidence.
Albert colored slightly, but walked along beside the stylish girl
without apologizing for his burden.
"Can't I do something for the little fellow?" she asked gently,
and being used to children (she was a school teacher), she saw in
a minute what the matter was, and taking from her purse a piece of
court-plaster, she made Albert set him down while she applied it to
the cut. If her fingers shrank from the dirty little foot neither of
her watchers saw it.
"There, little man, does that feel better?"
"I wants ter b' toted," said the urchin, irrelevantly.
"Of course," said Albert, shouldering him again. "Didn't I promise to
carry you clear home? But if the lady had done something for me, I'd
have thanked her, heh?"
But the child's face expressed only a vacant sort of contentment.
And they all went on together until they reached a poor house where a
woman stood at the door, looking anxiously up and down the road. As
her boy was brought to her, she caught him up, with a shake and a kiss
delivered simultaneously.
"That's jus' like ye, Albert," she said gruffly. "I've been ter'ble
worried fur th' past hour--feared he'd got runned over. Yer ma well?"
"Middling, thank you, Mrs. Smithers."
Then he rubbed his handkerchief over his forehead and asked Miss
Stretton if she was going "to town" this hot day.
"Yes, I'm trying to walk off a restless fit, and I have a letter to
mail."
"Better give that to me. See, I've picked up three or four along the
road and got half-a-dozen commissions--hope I shan't forget 'em."
"Are you general errand-boy?" she demanded impatiently.
"You wouldn't want me to be unneighborly? Besides," he added with a
twinkle in his eye, "I thought you found fault with me for not being
useful!"
"Oh, no, not in that way. Don't you suppose I see that you are useful
here, that everybody likes you and depends upon you--but it is such
a waste of yourself to be busied with such little things--there are
larger places to be filled elsewhere----"
"And larger men to fill them," he said seriously. "There ain't as much
to me as you suppose. It seems to me my place is here, right in this
little sleepy village. I can be a help to my uncle and to others, and
my mother can't do without me."
"Oh!" she cried sharply. This was a stumbling-block she had to
recognize. Yet she found that he hardly understood her. She wanted to
stir him up to discontent with himself and his surroundings, so that he
might be led to enlarge his mental outlook. The thing was for him first
to become enlightened, aspiring, superior to his friends--action would
follow.
Although it is hard for a man to follow the rapid deviations of a
woman's mind, yet the most phlegmatic have their moments of insight.
Miss Stretton had revealed a great deal more than she was aware to the
young countryman, and he was less dull than he seemed. It came to him
that there was something that he wanted to say, but all his ideas grew
confused as he thought. He looked around with an uncertain, wistful
gaze. He was only a poor man, surrounded by commonplace, meager things;
advantages had been lacking to him; perhaps, as she had said, he had
not improved his chances. And yet it seemed to him that he had done
his duty.
"I know our farmers' lives up here must seem mean to you," he said
slowly, "poor and small. You think we might do more and make more
out of ourselves. Well, maybe we might. I think that, after a while,
we'll find new things to do. I thought once I'd strike out, and I
went to Texas. But can you fancy what life is down there among the
cattle-drovers? I couldn't stand it, Miss Stretton. I didn't love money
well enough to sink myself quite so low. And so I came back. Maybe
you think I lay 'round a heap, but I do all that comes in my way, and
somebody'd have to do it. If I was ambitious, I s'pose I'd want to
be something else besides a country storekeeper, but it seems to me
there's more love in my heart for this poor land and for my neighbors
than for anything else. I'm not of a restless disposition, and yet I've
got my share of pride. I'm not old yet,"--the fine figure straightening
a little, involuntarily--"and maybe after a while something else will
come to me that I can do."
"And you are content to wait for it--the chance--to come, are you?" she
asked, bending her earnest gaze upon him.
"I won't quote the only bit of Milton I remember, but I believe I serve
a useful purpose even while I wait for promotion--that is, what you
think promotion."
The girl was silenced. She could not exactly understand how a man could
be like this, yet in the midst of her defeat was a feeling of triumph
in him. Through the _far niente_ her energetic mind had so despised
there came the gleam of a fine thought, a real purpose, before which
her woman's nature bowed, rejoicing. Obeying a common impulse, they
lingered in the lane.
"They need a new teacher in this district," said Albert abruptly, and
looking full at her. "If it is your mission to put energy into us, why
not begin the missionary work there? Take the boys young."
She had no reply to this but a look of reproach. He had put away her
friendship for himself, he recommended her to other matters. Tacitly,
he implied that she was incapable of the sacrifice involved in his
suggestion. It was ironical.
She turned to walk on, but Albert started and caught her hand. "Don't
be angry, Miss Julia! I only meant that it would be less dangerous with
them than it has been with me. I--I am more stirred than you would like
me to be----"
His blazing eyes transfixed her. For an instant she stared, then drew
her hand away and put it up to her face.
"Yes," he continued brokenly, "I know it's no use to speak, you
couldn't condescend to this paltry existence--you want the fulness and
brightness of the city,--the company of an educated man. There isn't
anything about me that's fit to associate with you. Well? I must beg
pardon, I s'pose, and yet I couldn't forbear letting you know that,
while you've been trying to put some vim into the lazy country fellow,
you've waked up his heart, at least."
Miss Stretton uncovered her face. They confronted one another--the
bright, sweet girl, the handsome youth, aglow with passion.
The land was poverty-stricken, the promise small, but there was
freshness, beauty, peace all about. "He is good, he is noble," she
thought. There crept into her face something that amazed him, but he
did not stop to wonder at it. He saw fortune sweeping down a shower of
gold at his feet, and it was no time to question her beneficence. By a
step he lessened the little distance between them, and the two shadows
melted into one along the sunny lane.
"You are far brighter than I, Julia," he murmured after a while,
"though your reasoning has never moved me any. But if you love me!--I
think you will do whatever you wish with me."
"I didn't mean this, at all," she returned, her lovely face sparkling
with tears and smiles both at once. In her heart she felt that it was
her nature, not his, which the future might change.
Yet, when they concluded to walk on to the store, she looked about with
a sense of responsibility and an eye to changes to come, while he--his
face flushed with happiness--lounged beside her in the old indolent
way--unreproved.
APPLE BLOSSOMS[8]
IN the clean, large kitchen of a Virginia farm-house sat an old woman
alone, knitting. She had been pretty once; fifty years ago that
wrinkled yellow skin had been called "creamy," and the scant gray hair
drawn back under the plain cap had been a shower of brown curls. And
she had coquetted with Judge Holt and turned away from him at the last
to marry plain Nathan Bennett, living with him in rare contentment for
two-score years, and then coming to spend the remnant of her days with
her daughter Ann. Now Ann, too, was gone, and only the children were
left; Ben and Nancy, and her own adopted child, Lura Ann.
She smoothed down her neat gray cashmere gown, which had been her
"second best" dress since Ann's death, and leaned back more comfortably
against the cushioned surface of the splint rocking-chair.
"They're good children," she said to herself,--"excepting Nancy. And
she's not so bad as might be." She cast a satisfied glance at the
meadows and fields stretching as far as her eyes could reach, and then
looked lovingly at the dwarf apple-trees whose branches pressed against
the window-shutters. Some of the pink blossoms lay on the ledge. It was
May. The flies were buzzing, the sparrows twittering, as they stole
cotton from the body of a doll lying in the yard and flew up to the
roof with it.
A little girl came around the house and picked up the doll, shook it,
looked up at the eaves where the mother sparrow sat, muttered something
in an angry tone, and entered the house, singing. She sang: "The apples
were ripe and beginning to fall, beginning to fall!"
"Ah, yes," said her grandmother, "you'll see the apples fall a many
times, but I shall scarcely see 'em more'n once more--once or twice
more, at most. Well, well, I'll be contented to die if only I can live
to see my boy and Lura Ann----" then she stopped, meeting the child's
bright eyes.
"Lura Ann is going to marry Sackford Moss," said the child.
An angry flush came over the old woman's thin face; she jerked her
knitting, and one of her needles fell to the floor.
"Now you're mad, granny, and it's wicked to be mad, so I shan't hand
you your knitting-needle," sang the little girl, in a silvery voice.
"Then you'll have no stockings to wear when the biting frost comes; but
you don't care--you don't care. 'Tis a generation that thinks not of
the future, but works its will in the present," moaned the old woman,
folding her hands together hard.