BETWEEN TIMES
It was at breakfast the next morning that the great decision was
announced.
“Well, young ladies,” said the doctor, looking from one to the other of
his older daughters, “what do you think your mother and I have decided
to do with you?” He paused for just an instant, then gave the answer
himself without waiting for theirs. “Nothing short of sending you East
for the rest of the summer. We’ve held a council, and decided that
nothing else will do in your case.”
They caught their breath, gasping for a moment at the suddenness of it,
then Kate brought her hands together with a clap. “Glorious!” she cried;
“that’s the best news I ever heard. But, do you know, I felt in my bones
last night that it was coming.”
The doctor laughed. The idea of this plump young creature deriving any
premonitions from her bones amused him. “And what did yours indicate?”
he asked, turning to Esther.
“Nothing as delightful as that,” she said. Her face was not as bright as
Kate’s. She wondered, with a sudden misgiving, whether her discontented
mood of the evening before had any share in bringing the decision, and
the thought was in the glance which she sent at that moment toward her
mother.
The latter met it with a smiling clearness. “Your father has been in
favor of it for some time,” she said, “and now that the wheat has turned
out so well there is really nothing in the way.”
The shadow flitted from Esther’s eyes. “Oh, it will be beautiful to go,
perfectly beautiful! I only wish Virgie could go, too,” she said, with a
glance at the little sister, whose face had grown very sober.
“Now you needn’t worry a bit about Virgie,” said the doctor, putting his
arm around the child, who sat beside him. “Your mother and I couldn’t
stand it without her, and we’re going to see that she has a good time.
Just you wait, Virgie,” he added, lowering his voice confidentially, “I
have a plan for this fall, and you’re going to be in it. There’ll be a
fine slice of cake left for us three when the others have eaten theirs
all up.”
He was exceedingly fond of his children. With their training, either
physical or mental, he had never charged himself,—perhaps because they
were girls,—but to gratify their wants, and to shield them as far as
possible from the hardships of life, was a side of parental privilege to
which he was keenly responsive.
“But when are we going?” Kate was already demanding.
“Just as soon as your mother can get you ready,” said the doctor; “and I
shouldn’t think that need to take very long. I fancy she has your
wardrobe planned already. Something kept her awake last night, and when
I asked her, sometime in the small hours, what it was, she said she was
contriving a new way to make over one of your old dresses. For your
mother,” he added, smiling at that lady, “is like the wife of John
Gilpin. Though bent on pleasure—yours, of course—she has ‘a frugal
mind.’”
“Think of being likened to that immortal woman!” cried Mrs. Northmore.
“I only hope my plans will work better than hers did.”
“Oh, your plans always work,” said the doctor. “But don’t tax your wits
too far reconstructing old clothes. Get some new ones; get ’em pretty
and stylish. I want the girls to be fixed up nice if they’re going to
visit those Eastern relatives.”
“Hear! hear!” cried Kate. “Papa, your ideas and mine fit beautifully.”
He was in the best of spirits. The good wheat crop had already brought
the payment of some long-standing medical bills, and Dr. Northmore could
always adjust himself to a time of abundance more gracefully than to the
day of small things.
“We shall treat you handsomely in the matter of our expenses, you may
depend on that,” said his wife. She had no intention of relaxing her
carefulness in the use of money; but she never wounded her husband’s
pride, and she always indulged him in the amused smile with which, in
times of comparative ease, he seemed to regard feminine economies.
There were plenty of them in the days that immediately followed, but the
girls had most of the things they wanted, and their father was more than
satisfied with the pretty becoming dresses in which they bloomed out,
one after another, for his benefit. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Northmore
was quite as desirous as he that her girls should be well provided for
this summer outing. She was a bit of a philosopher, but she never
affected the slightest indifference to the matter of dress. She had
excellent taste herself, and had given it to her children.
Things moved so swiftly that in little more than a week they were ready.
There were good-by calls to be made, and a host of others to be received
from friends who came to offer their congratulations and express
effusive hopes for their pleasure during the summer, for the news of
their plan had spread rapidly. But there was one friend to whom word
came late, and who, but for accident, might have missed it altogether.
This was Morton Elwell. The girls were walking home from the village
late one afternoon, when Kate, glancing back, saw the young man with the
New Light preacher. The two had been harvesting together at the other
end of the county, and since that day at the farm neither of them had
been in town.
“There’s Mort Elwell!” she exclaimed; and then she faced about, drawing
her sister with her, and waited frankly for him to come up.
The two men quickened their steps instantly. “Upon my word, I didn’t
know you till you turned,” said Morton. “My, how fine you look!”
Kate smiled, and Esther flushed. Perhaps it was one of the liberties she
did not quite like his taking, that he should be so plainly observant of
their new dresses.
“Well, it’s a wonder that anybody knows _you_, face to face, Mort,” said
Kate. “I declare you’re as brown as a mulatto.”
“Am I?” said the young man cheerfully. “Well, I’m at the engine now, and
what with smoke and sunburn it paints a fellow up in good style.”
“I suppose you know we’re going away next Wednesday,” said Kate. She had
fallen behind with him, leaving Esther to walk with the preacher.
“Why, no, I didn’t know it,” said Morton, fairly stopping in his walk.
“Is that so?”
“‘Certain true, black and blue,’ as we used to say when we were
children,” replied Kate. “We’re going to Grandfather Saxon’s. It was all
settled that night after we got home from the threshing.” She paused a
moment; then, as he had not spoken, added, with a little pout: “I
suppose you couldn’t strain a point to say you’re glad. Everybody else
seems to say it easily enough.”
“Why, of course I’m glad,” said Morton, hastily, “and I hope you’ll have
a tremendously good time; but it sort of takes a body’s breath away,
it’s so sudden. When are you coming back?”
“We’re not thinking of that part yet,” said Kate; “but not before
September.”
His face lengthened. “Why, I shan’t see anything of you girls all
vacation,” he said. “I did think when the harvesting was over I should
get an occasional glimpse of you. I wish threshing hadn’t begun so early
this year.”
“What’s that?” said the preacher, turning his head. “Wanting seed time
and harvest put off for your special benefit! That won’t do, Mort.”
“Oh, not that exactly,” said the young man. “But it _is_ sort of hard on
a fellow not to get any chance of seeing his friends all summer, when
that’s the only time in the year he’s at home.”
“There’ll be plenty of your friends left,” said Esther. She had half
turned her head, and was looking wonderfully pretty in her new leghorn
hat with the corn-flowers and poppies.
“Oh!” he said, reproachfully; but he had no chance to say anything more
just then, for the preacher claimed her attention.
“How far East are you going?” he asked.
“To mother’s old home in New England,” said the girl. The preacher gave
a surprised whistle. “Was your mother raised back there?” he demanded.
“Well, I never should have known but she was a born Hoosier.”
As a born Hoosier herself the young lady appreciated the compliment.
“No,” she said, “mother came from Massachusetts; but she’s lived here
twenty years, and I don’t suppose there’s much difference now.”
“Oh, we’ll let her have the name now,” said the preacher,
good-naturedly. “But it’s queer I never heard her say a word about
‘Boston.’”
“She didn’t come from Boston,” said Esther. “There’s ever so much of New
England outside of Boston, you know.”
“’Pears to cover the whole ground for most Yankees,” said the preacher,
dryly. “I don’t recollect as I ever talked with any of ’em—except your
mother—that it didn’t leak out mighty quick if they’d come from
anywheres near the ‘Hub.’ ’Peared to carry it round as a sort of
measuring stick, to size up everything else by.”
His figure was a trifle mixed, but it met the case. After a moment he
added: “Well, I’m right glad you’re going. It’s a good thing for young
folks to see something of the world outside of the home corner. I always
thought I’d like to travel a bit myself, but I reckon I’ll never get to
do it any other way than going round with a threshing machine, and that
don’t exactly hit my notion of travelling for pleasure. Eh, Mort?” he
queried, turning to the young man behind him.
The latter was not in a mood to feel the full humor of the remark, which
he had heard in spite of his apparent attention to Kate’s lively
chatter. “Can’t say there’s much variety in it,” he replied rather
absently.
“However,” continued the preacher, turning again to Esther, “I did go to
Kentucky once when I was a little chap. No,” he said, shaking his head,
as he caught the eager question in her eyes, “not in the Blue Grass
country where your father was raised, but in among the knobs where the
Cumberlands begin. It was a mighty poor rough country. I reckon you’ll
see something of the same sort where you’re going.”
“Oh, but that is a beautiful country! Mother has always said so,” cried
the girl, looking quite distressed.
“Well, maybe you’d call that country down there pretty too,” said the
preacher, with easy accommodation, “though it’s all in a heap, and rocks
all over it. Reminds me of the story about a soldier from somewhere
hereabouts that was going through there in the war-time, and stopped to
talk a minute with a fellow that was hoeing corn. ‘Well, stranger,’ says
he, ‘reckon you’re about ready to move out of here.’ ‘Why so?’ says the
fellow, looking sort of stupid. ‘Why, I see you’ve got the land all
rolled up ready to start,’ says the soldier.”
The preacher interrupted his mellow drawl for a moment to join in her
laugh at the story, then went on: “Now my notion of a pretty country is
one that looks as if you could raise something on it; the sort we’ve got
round here, you know,” he added, stretching out his arm with an
inclusive gesture.
His idea of landscape beauty was not Esther Northmore’s, but as she
looked at that moment over the peaceful country, golden and green with
its generous harvests, with here and there a stretch of forest rising
tall and straight against the sky, she felt its quiet charm with a
thrill of pride and gladness. “Yes; this is a beautiful country,” she
said softly. “I shall never change my mind about that.”
They had reached a point where another road crossed the one they were
following, and the preacher paused in his walk. “I must turn off here,”
he said. “Good-by! and take care of yourselves.” He shook hands heartily
with each of the girls, and added, with a nod at Esther: “Give my
special regards to your mother. Tell her I’ve just found out that she’s
a Yankee, and I don’t think any less of her for it.”
He was an odd genius, this New Light preacher. The Northmores were by no
means of his flock, but the feeling between them was most cordial. In
his office of comforter he had touched that of the healer more than once
among the families under his care, and the touch had left a mutual
respect between him and the doctor. With Mrs. Northmore the feeling was
even warmer. Rough and ill-educated as he was, there was a native force
and shrewdness in the man by no means common, and they were joined with
a frank honesty which would have attracted her in a far less interesting
person than he.
Morton Elwell walked on to the house, but refused the girls’ invitation
to come in to supper. “You know mother would like to have you,” Esther
said, with polite urgence. “She was complaining the other day that we
saw so little of you.”
But Morton was resolute. Perhaps the thresher’s costume in which he was
arrayed, the blue flannel shirt, jean trousers, and heavy boots, none
too black, helped him to stand by the promise he had given Mrs. Elwell.
“No,” he said; “I told Aunt Jenny I wouldn’t fail to come home to
supper.” But he leaned on the gate when he had opened it for the girls,
and stood for a minute as if he found it hard to turn away.
[Illustration: “HE LEANED ON THE GATE WHEN HE HAD OPENED IT FOR THE
GIRLS.”]
“Of course you’ll write to me first,” he said, glancing from one to the
other. There had been a correspondence of a desultory sort between them
ever since he went away to college, and he seemed to take for granted
that it would go on now. And then he added, looking to Esther, “You
wrote to me real often when you were a little girl, and went to your
grandfather’s before.”
Her color rose a trifle. “You have a remarkably good memory, Mort, to
remember such little things when they happened so long ago,” she said
lightly.
“Why, I’ve got every one of them now,” he replied. “I was looking them
over not so very long ago, and they were the jolliest kind of letters,
with little postscripts added by Kate in cipher. She was five, I
believe, then. They were joint productions in those days, but you
needn’t feel obliged to make them so now.”
“I suppose we needn’t feel ‘_obliged_’ to write them at all,” she said,
lifting her eyebrows a little.
“Oh, you wouldn’t go back on a fellow like that!” said Morton. “Why, it
would break me all up.”
There was something so affectionately boyish in his manner that Kate
said instantly: “Of course we’ll write to you, and tell you everything
that happens. You may wish my letters were postscripts again before you
get through with them.”
And Esther added cheerfully, “Yes, if you want to add a few more
specimens of my handwriting to that ancient collection, you shall
certainly have them.”
“Maybe we’ll send you our pictures too,” said Kate. “We’re going to have
some taken after we get there, and if they’re good—”
He broke in upon her with a sudden eagerness. “Well, don’t let your
cousin get you up like statues. I hate that kind.”
Kate burst into a laugh, but Esther looked impatient. “Oh, dear, don’t
you know that common, everyday faces like ours can’t be made to look
that way?” she said.
“Can’t they? Well, I’m awfully glad of it,” he replied. “Good-by.” And
then he grasped their hands for a moment, and struck off at a long,
swinging gait across the field that lay between their home and his
uncle’s.
The days that were left ran fast. They were full and hurried, as the
last days of preparation are apt to be in spite of the best-laid plans.
But the girls managed to take some rides with their father, who, in view
of the coming separation, seemed to expect more of their company than
usual, and Kate contrived to hold some sittings in the kitchen with Aunt
Milly, who had been in a depressed state of mind ever since the summer
plan had been decided on. In spite of being one who held with no
superstitions, a fact she never failed to mention when she had anything
of a mysterious nature to communicate, the number of dreams and
presentiments she had in regard to this visit was remarkable, and they
all tended to throw doubt on the probability of her darlings’ return.
“Why, we came back when we were children,” said Kate one evening, when
the old woman was unusually depressed, “and it was just as far to
grandfather’s then as it is now. It’s because you’re getting old and
rheumatic that you feel so blue about us, Aunt Milly.”
But Milly sighed as she shook her head. “It was different in those days,
honey,” she said. “You couldn’t help comin’ back to your ole mammy when
you were chil’en. But you’re older now, an’ a mighty good looking pair
o’ girls, if I do say it, an’ there’s no tellin’ what may happen when
you get to gallivantin’ roun’ with the young men in your mother’s
country.”
“Now, Aunt Milly,” laughed Kate, “you’ve always pretended to think we’re
only children still, and all at once you talk as if we were grown-up
young ladies. It’s no such thing. Besides,” she added cunningly, “didn’t
we come back safe and sound from Kentucky last year? And you know there
are no young men anywhere to hold a candle with those down there.”
“That’s a fac’, honey,” said Aunt Milly, lifting her head. “The ole
Kentucky stock don’t have to knock under yet, if some things is
changed.”
“Trust Milly to stand up for her own country,” laughed Dr. Northmore,
who had paused in his passage through the kitchen, and caught the last
remark.
“And me for mine, papa,” cried Kate. “I shall always like it better than
any other. I know I shall.”
Apparently he did not disapprove the sentiment, but he added warningly,
“Well, make it big enough.” And then he took her away with him to join
the family conclave in talking over the proposed journey.
They were small travellers, the Northmores, and the excursions from home
had of late years been short. The length of the one about to be taken
impressed them all. Mrs. Northmore spoke of it with manifest anxiety,
and the doctor spent much time poring over the railroad guide and
time-table. It was a work which, in spite of its fascination, harassed
him, and he alternated between the exasperated opinion that it was
impossible for any man not inspired to understand its vexatious figures,
and a disposition to combat with vehemence any one who reached a
conclusion different from his own on a single point. By this time the
course of the journey had been fully decided on. There would be but one
change of cars, and this had been hedged about with so much of
explanation and admonition that no two girls of average sense could
possibly go wrong.
The day came at last, and a perfect day it was, when they started off.
The doctor and Virgie accompanied them to the station, but Mrs.
Northmore preferred to say the last word quietly at home. There was a
crowd of young people gathered at the station, but the time for good-bys
was brief. The through train for the East was not a moment behind time.
There was a short impatient stop of the iron steed, a sudden crowding
together for hurried farewells, then two flushed faces, half smiling,
half tearful, pressed against the window, and the great wheels were in
motion again and the travellers on their way.
They drew a long breath as they settled fairly into their seats. “I’m
glad that part of it’s over,” said Kate.
“So am I,” said Esther; and then she added: “I’m glad we don’t get there
right away. It’s nice to have an interlude between the acts.”