WHERE EDNA WENT.
To Canandaigua first, but not to the seminary, nor yet the jeweller’s,
as she had once thought of doing. She had heard from her aunt that Mr.
Greenough was paid, and she shrank from meeting him face to face, or
from seeing any of her old friends. So she sat quietly in the ladies’
room, waiting for the first train going east, and thinking it would
never come. She had bought her ticket for Albany, but, with her thick
black veil drawn closely over her face, the ticket agent never suspected
that she was the gay, light-hearted girl he used sometimes to see at the
station, and who recently had become so noted for the tragic ending of
her marriage.
No one recognized her, for it was not the hour when the seminary girls
were ever at the depot, and when, at last, the train came and took her
away with it, nobody was the wiser for her having been there.
And _where_ was she going? Have you, my reader, ever crossed the
mountain range between Pittsfield and Albany? And if you have, do you
remember how many little villages you saw, some to the right, some to
the left, and all nestled among and sheltered by those tall mountains
and rocky hills, with here and there a stream of water, as clear and
bright as crystal, rippling along under the shadow of the willow and the
birch, or dancing headlong down some declivity?
Edna was bound for one of these towns, where Uncle Phil Overton had
lived for many years. He was her great uncle on her mother’s side,
though she had never heard of him until she met her cousin, Mrs. Dana,
in Chicago. Mrs. Dana had known Mr. Overton well, and had lived with him
for a few months while she taught in the little academy which stood upon
the common. He was an eccentric old man, who for years had lived among
the mountains, in the same yellow farm-house, a mile, or more, from the
village, which represented to him the world, and which we call Rocky
Point.
Edna could not tell why her thoughts kept turning to Uncle Phil as they
did. In her utter despair, while listening to Aunt Jerry’s abusive
greeting, her heart had cried out:
“Oh, what shall I do?”
“Go to Uncle Phil,” was the answer which came to her cry, and she had
clung to that as a drowning man to a straw.
Mrs. Dana had said he was kind and generous, if you touched the right
chord. He had no wife, or children, but lived alone with a colored
woman, who had been in the family for years. He was getting to be
old,—sixty, if not more,—and, perhaps, he would be glad of some young
creature in the house, or, at all events, would let her stay till she
could look about and find something to do. Maybe she could teach in the
academy. Mrs. Dana had done so, and Edna felt that her acquirements were
certainly equal to those of her cousin. And so she was going to Rocky
Point, and Albany lay in her way, and she stopped there until Monday,
and took her watch and coral to a jeweller’s, and asked what they were
worth.
It was a beautiful little watch, and the chain was of exquisitely
wrought gold; and, as the jeweller chanced to be an honest man, he told
her frankly what it was worth, but said, as it was second-hand, he could
not dispose of it so readily, and consequently could not afford to give
her quite so much as if it were new. Edna accepted his offer, and, with
a bitter pang, left the watch and coral lying in the glass case, and,
going back to the hotel, wrote a letter to Roy, and sent him one hundred
dollars.
How near Roy seemed to her there in Albany, which was not so very far
from Leighton Place, and how she was tempted to take the New York train,
and go to Charlie’s home; not into it, but to the town, where she could
see it and visit Charlie’s grave. But a few moments’ reflection showed
her the inexpediency of such an act. She had no money to waste in
useless trips. She should need it all, and more, unless Uncle Phil
opened his door to her; and so she put the scheme aside, and took,
instead, the Boston train, which long before noon left her upon the
platform at Rocky Point. Everybody knew Uncle Phil Overton, and half a
dozen or more answered her questions at once, and wondered who she was,
and what the queer old chap would do with such a dainty bit of
femininity as she seemed to be. One man, a farmer, whose road homeward
lay past the Overton place, offered to take her there, and she was soon
riding along through scenery so wild and romantic, even in early
December, as to elicit from her many an exclamation of surprise and
delight, while her fingers fairly ached to grasp her pencil and paper
and sketch some of the beautiful views with which the neighborhood
abounded. The man was very respectful, but rather inquisitive; and as
his curiosity was in no wise abated by the sight of her glowing face
when, at the top of a hill, she threw back her veil, and asked him to
stop a moment while she gazed at the scenery around her, he began to
question her, and found that she was Phil Overton’s grand-niece, an
orphan without friends, and that she had come to Rocky Point, hoping to
find something to do. Did he know whether they were in want of a teacher
in the academy, and did any of the scholars take lessons in drawing or
music? She could teach both, though drawing was her preference.
Mr. Belknap was very sorry to tell her that the old academy was
closed,—“played out,” he said; and the “Deestrict” School had been
commenced for a week, or more. “But then,” he added, as he saw the look
of disappointment on Edna’s face, “maybe we could scare up a s’leck
school. We had one last winter, kep’ by a man in a room of the academy;
but he was a poor stick, and the boys raised the very old Harry with
him. They wouldn’t with you, a slip of a girl. Ain’t you pretty young to
teach?”
“Yes, perhaps so; but I must do something,” Edna replied.
She did not tell him she was a widow; and, seeing her clothed in so deep
mourning, the man naturally concluded it was for her parents, and he
began to feel a deep interest in her, telling her she might count on his
children if she opened a school; that he would also help her to get
scholars, if needful, and then he asked if she had any idea of the kind
of man Uncle Phil Overton was. Something in Mr. Belknap’s question set
Edna’s heart to beating rapidly, but before she could reply, they turned
the corner in the road and came close to the house.
“I wish you success with Uncle Phil,” Mr. Belknap said, as he handed
Edna from the wagon and deposited her trunk upon the stoop. “Maybe I and
the girls will drop in to-night and see how you get on,” he added, as he
climbed over the wheel, and chirruping to his horse, drove off, leaving
Edna standing by the door, whose huge brass knocker sent back a dull,
heavy echo, but did not for some little time bring any answering
response.