A BELATED FIRST CAUSE
The West farm was on the upper of the two roads between Stonebridge and
Gordon, at the point where a steep uphill grade paused, on a plateau of
several hundred feet in length, as if to rest and take breath and allow
those who travelled upon it to drink in the splendour of the river view
before attempting the still steeper ascent beyond.
Three generations of Wests had lived from this farm until, some forty
years before, its hundred acres being all too small for the needs of
modern push and life, the last young male of the family, a man of twenty
odd, of tenacious mixed Scotch and New England stock, had gone to New
York to follow a quicker game of dollars.
In due course, when Adam Lawton’s parents died, his mother having been
a West and the homestead her portion, he found himself absorbed in the
beginnings of money-making, yet somewhere in him was a deep-buried
sentiment for his boyhood’s home, stern though the life and discipline
had been, and even though he found no leisure to revisit it. He therefore
had installed his maternal cousin Keith in it as guardian, paying the
taxes and for such improvements and repairs as kept it apace with the
times. Then he promptly forgot it, except on pay days, when he justified
himself to himself, the Scotch thrift in him insisting on justification,
for the comparatively slight outlay, by saying half aloud to his private
secretary, who did the forwarding, “A snug little place, and always worth
a price; my daughter fancies it, and perhaps some day, who knows, I may
like to go back there for a rest.”
Thus it followed that Miss Keith and the farm had lived together for
twenty years a life of almost wedded devotion. The sheep had disappeared
from the hills, it is true, and four cows, a fat horse, and countless
chickens and ducks represented the live stock. The cultivated ground
had been reduced to a great corn-field, a potato patch, and vegetable
garden, on whose borders grew fruits of all seasons, the rest of the
land being sown down to rye or hay, while the woodland that protected
the house on the north and east, being only required to yield kindlings,
had returned to the beauty of a forest primeval, with a dense growth of
oak, white pine, and hemlock, underspread with untrodden ferns, amid
which, following the seasons’ call, blossomed arbutus, anemones, moccasin
flowers, snow crystal Indian pipe, and partridge vine.
Now, for the first time in all these years, Miss Keith was faltering in
her single-hearted allegiance, and this upheaval coming on her fiftieth
birthday, too, gave it a double significance. At fifty one’s ideas and
person are supposed to be settled for life, but with Miss Keith her
semi-centennial was the first occasion upon which she ever remembered to
have felt thoroughly unsettled, and as she stood in front of the parlour
mantel-shelf, arms akimbo, gazing at the _First Cause_, that rested
against the wall between the fat clock and a blue china vase filled with
quaking grass, she alternately frowned and smiled.
This First Cause was the highly finished cabinet photograph of a man,
coupled with a suggestion of marriage contained in a letter, the edge of
the pale blue envelope containing which peeped from under the garrulous
little clock that ticked vociferously the twenty-four hours through, and
gave an alarming whir-r, suggestive of asthma in the depths of its chest,
before striking every quarter and half, and mumbled a long grace before
the hours.
The photograph was of a man past fifty, with a good head, large,
wide-open eyes, and a broad nose that might mean either stupidity or a
sense of humour, according as to how the nostrils moved in life. Very
little else could be said of the face, for mustache and beard covered
it closely, running up before the ears to meet a curly mop of hair that
roofed the head. It was an attractive face at first glance, and the low,
turned-over collar, flowing tie that was barely hinted at beneath the
beard, and loose sack-coat carried out the suggestion of strength, that
was continued to where a pair of powerful hands, whose fingers rested
together easily tip to tip, completed the picture.
Picture and letter had arrived three days before, and yet the answer
to the latter lay in process of construction upon the flap of the
old-fashioned bookcase in the window corner. Perhaps the cause for the
delay was more in the fact that both picture and letter, though relating
to the First Cause, had not come directly from him, but from his sister.
She had been a school friend of Miss Keith’s, who occasionally came to
visit her and who was now living in Boston, having become the third wife
of some one connected in a humble capacity with a free library in the
city where the State-house dome seeks to rival Minerva’s helmet, and
whose streets ever coil in and out as if in classic emulation of Medusa’s
locks.
Taking the letter from under the clock, Miss Keith went to the window and
re-read it for the twentieth time.
“October 10, 19—.
“MY DEAR FRIEND:
“It is only during the past year, since I have been living
within reach and under the privilege and influence of all that
is inspiring to one of my aspirations, that I have realized
how lonely your life must be upon that farm, where your only
intimate associates are animals, feathered and otherwise, and
evening, instead of becoming as it is with me the period of
self-culture in the society of a loyal male companion, is too
often a period of premature somnolence and apathy.
“Until now I have seen no method of escape to offer you,
and so have held my peace. Two weeks ago, however, fortune
smiled through a letter from my brother, James White, out in
Wisconsin. You must remember James—the handsome man with curly
hair who waited on Jane Tilley when we were at Mt. Holyoke,
until she jilted him for William Parsons. He got over it
nobly, though, and brought us paper flower bouquets the day we
graduated. Mine was of red and white roses, and yours was all
white. Surely you will remember—he said you looked ‘quite smart
enough for a bride.’
“Well, you _were_ pretty in those days, Keith, with your white
skin and light brown hair, before you took on freckles; but,
after all, dark complexions like mine wear the best.
“Now, to come to time—James is a widower. He has sweet children
and needs a wife and mother for them. Though there are plenty
of western women, and some that have hoards of money, out
in Corntown, where his canning business is, he was always
particular and peckish, preferring a refined eastern woman
to influence his family. Knowing that I am living in Boston
in the midst of opportunities, so to speak, our home being
halfway between Bunker Hill Monument and Harvard University,
he has intrusted me to select him a wife. Your face appeared
to me. Putting aside more pressing claimants, I wrote to him
of the girl he once declared fit to be ‘a bride,’ and sent him
your last picture—at least it’s the last I’ve seen. He answered
by return post. He has not forgotten, and he will, if you
consent, come here the first of May to meet you and be married.
“Now, dear Keith, why not put your place on the market, and
when winter sets in come here to me in Boston and see the
world, spend a season of relaxation, hear lectures and music,
and be thus attuned for matrimony in the sweet spring, when
the horse-chestnut buds yield to the sun and drop their glossy
shields in the Public Gardens?
“Your friend and sister-in-law to be,
“JUDITH W. DOW.”
Straightway Miss Keith, the strong of body and heretofore of mind, the
adviser of both men and women for miles around, Miss Keith, the capable,
who, with help “on shares,” made the little farm pay and lived a life of
bustling content that was the opposite of somnolent vegetation, began
mentally to chafe and rebel against the confinement and loneliness of her
lot, and yearn for change,—she who had always preached and practised
that one’s work is that which lies nearest to hand.
She ignored the freckle thrust and the phrase taking for granted that
the farm was hers to sell. The words _music_ and _lectures_ seemed
italicized, yet the strongest appeal in the crafty letter was its promise
of human companionship, for she had often yearned for kin.
Miss Keith was of no common type, even among the many intelligent women
reared on New England farms. She had struggled her way through Mt.
Holyoke and fitted herself to teach in the Gilead school, where she had
remained ten years, until, at the death of her Aunt Lawton, her cousin
had offered to install her at the farm, where the active life indoors
and out proved a strong attraction. During these years her clear, strong
voice had led in singing-school and in the village choir, where it still
held sway,—the fact that it was slightly “weathered” increasing rather
than diminishing its power. Though pale of hair and face, at no time in
her life had she been wholly unattractive, and her speech, sometimes
lapsing into provincialisms when she was either excited or constrained,
was wholly free of either Yankee dialect or nasal twang. She had met many
people of all grades in due course,—farmers, manufacturers, prospectors,
and the leisurely class of cottagers from Stonebridge and Gordon; but no
man had ever said, “I love you.”
Seating herself at the desk with an unaccustomed drooping of the head,
she finished the letter begun the day before, filling each of the four
pages with rapid strokes, folded it without once re-reading, sealed it
with a bit of crumby red wax that had not seen light probably since her
Aunt Lawton had used it for the sealing of her will, and affixed the
stamp with slow exactness precisely in the proper corner. Then with
folded hands she leaned back and gazed at the missive, saying, as she did
so, “That decides it. I will go to Boston the first of the year, when
everything is closed up and settled for the winter. Farrish, below, can
tend the stock. I’ve saved a little money to enjoy myself with, and when
May comes, if James White turns up and we hold to the same mind, I shall
marry him; if not—I suppose Cousin Adam will be glad for me to come back,
that is, unless he makes other arrangements.”
The alternative to the matrimonial scheme seemed just then of such slight
moment that she hardly pronounced the words, but turned to leave the
desk, when a sharp, compelling bark from the rug before the hearth made
her start and brought a red spot to each cheek.
There before her sat a shaggy brown dog, setter in build, but with a
collie cross showing in eccentricities of hair that formed a ruff about
his neck and gave the tail a strange bushiness. A pair of great, soft,
brown eyes were fixed on Miss Keith’s face, and the expression in them
was accentuated by the slight raising of the long, mobile, silky ears,
which seemed to ask a question. Meeting no response, the dog barked once
more and raised one paw pleadingly.
Miss Keith, who had risen, seated herself again suddenly. “Why, Tatters,
old man, I’ve forgotten your breakfast, and it is almost dinner-time.
Where have you been since yesterday? Hunting by the river? You know you
should not come in here with a wet coat and muddy paws. Down! Down!” she
cried, as the dog, never moving his gaze from her face, crossed the room
and, sitting on his haunches before her, rested his fringy wet paws on
her lap.
“What is the matter? Thorns or burs in your feet?”
The dog continued to look at her steadfastly, giving a little whine
meantime, but never a wag of his tail.
“Tatters!” she exclaimed at last, moistening her lips, which seemed to be
unaccountably dry, “I believe you know what is on my mind, and what I’ve
been wrestling with in the spirit these three days,—but it’s all settled
now, and my mind is free. Come, and I’ll get your dinner bone.”
“Settled!” and then the thought struck her, “What would become of
Tatters?” A new caretaker might easily be found for the place and cattle,
who would also understand the pruning of the cherished vines and fruit
trees, but would he understand Tatters, and would Tatters understand or
tolerate any one not born of the family? As long as people of the West
stock had lived in Gilead, with them had been a sturdy breed of collies
and setters, whose sagacity and nosing power were famed throughout the
country-side. Now, through chance and short-sightedness, the two breeds
had merged in one, and Tatters, of middle age, wise beyond the dog wisdom
of his ancestors, was its only representative.
Ever since his year of puppyhood, when Miss Keith with New England
firmness had completed his house-breaking education, he had been the
house man, guarding the picket gate by day, the door by night. In his
responsibility of combining double natures, he herded young calves in a
poorly fenced pasture, or tracked the turkey hens (those most brainless
of feathered things) when they recklessly led their broods into the dark
woodland in May storms. As setter, he ran free by the wagon when Miss
Keith took eggs, butter, or berries to her various customers, dashing in
among the hordes of English sparrows by the roadside, or going afield
with cautious tread and circling tail to flush the flocks of meadowlarks
with eager sporting fervour. As collie, with Scotch traditions in his
blood, he followed her to meeting or singing-school, and slept under
the pew seat or sat sentinel in the vestibule, according to season and
weather. Then by the winter hearth fire he was Miss Keith’s counsellor,
for in spite of the stoves that her Cousin Adam had supplied, her
practicality of mind, and the labour it entailed, she had a primeval
streak in her that yearned to see the heat that warms one. Tatters was
the silent partner, it is true, in their discussions, and merely looked
assent as he listened to the oft-repeated tale of short weight in feed,
and the sloth of hired men as opposed to the thrift of those who work on
shares, with perfect composure, yet let one of these hired men but raise
his voice in unamiable argument with Miss Keith, and Tatters crouched to
heel, upper lip cleared from his glistening teeth, ready for action, and
no one ever braved the warning.
Then, too, he took the responsibility of beginning the day’s work upon
his shaggy shoulders. At six o’clock in winter, changing to five on May
day, he left his rug in the outer kitchen, and going to Miss Keith’s
bedroom, nosed open the door, wedged from jarring by a mat, and after
lifting her stout slippers to the bed edge, carefully, one by one, with
many false starts and droppings, if she did not waken, he would sit down,
and with thrown back head give quick, short barks until he had response.
How did he know hours and dates? How do we know that of which we are most
sure, yet cannot prove by mathematical problems? He _did_ know—that was
sufficient.
As all these things surged through Miss Keith’s brain, the First Cause on
the mantel-shelf grew more remote, and folding her strong lean arms about
the pleading dog, she rested her face against his head and began to cry
softly, a thing unheard of.