_CHAPTER I_
_Olive._
A long, wide, and smoothly macadamized road stretched itself from the
considerable town of Glenford onward and northward toward a gap in the
distant mountains. It did not run through a level country, but rose and
fell as if it had been a line of seaweed upon the long swells of the
ocean. Upon elevated points upon this road, farm lands and forests could
be seen extending in every direction. But there was nothing in the
landscape which impressed itself more obtrusively upon the attention of
the traveler than the road itself. White in the bright sunlight and gray
under the shadows of the clouds, it was the one thing to be seen which
seemed to have a decided purpose. Northward or southward, toward the gap
in the long line of mountains or toward the wood-encircled town in the
valley, it was always going somewhere.
About two miles from the town, and at the top of the first long hill
which was climbed by the road, a tall white pole projected upward
against the sky, sometimes perpendicularly, and sometimes inclined at a
slight angle. This was a turnpike gate or bar, and gave notice to all in
vehicles or on horses that the use of this well-kept road was not free
to the traveling public. At the approach of persons not known, or too
well known, the bar would slowly descend across the road, as if it were
a musket held horizontally while a sentinel demanded the password.
Upon the side of the road opposite to the great post on which the
toll-gate moved, was a little house with a covered doorway, from which
toll could be collected without exposing the collector to sun or rain.
This tollhouse was not a plain whitewashed shed, such as is often seen
upon turnpike roads, but a neat edifice, containing a comfortable room.
On one side of it was a small porch, well shaded by vines, furnished
with a settle and two armchairs, while over all a large maple stretched
its protecting branches. Back of the tollhouse was a neatly fenced
garden, well filled with old-fashioned flowers; and, still farther on, a
good-sized house, from which a box-bordered path led through the garden
to the tollhouse.
It was a remark that had been made frequently, both by strangers and
residents in that part of the country, that if it had not been for the
obvious disadvantages of a toll-gate, this house and garden, with its
grounds and fields, would be a good enough home for anybody. When he
happened to hear this remark Captain John Asher, who kept the toll-gate,
was wont to say that it was a good enough home for him, even with the
toll-gate, and its obvious disadvantages.
It was on a morning in early summer, when the garden had grown to be so
red and white and yellow in its flowers, and so green in its leaves and
stalks, that the box which edged the path was beginning to be
unnoticed, that a girl sat in a small arbor standing on a slight
elevation at one side of the garden, and from which a view could be had
both up and down the road. She was rather a slim girl, though tall
enough; her hair was dark, her eyes were blue, and she sat on the back
of a rustic bench with her feet resting upon the seat; this position she
had taken that she might the better view the road.
With both her hands this girl held a small telescope which she was
endeavoring to fix upon a black spot a mile or more away upon the road.
It was difficult for her to hold the telescope steadily enough to keep
the object-glass upon the black spot, and she had a great deal of
trouble in the matter of focusing, pulling out and pushing in the
smaller cylinder in a manner which showed that she was not accustomed to
the use of this optical instrument.
"Field-glasses are ever so much better," she said to herself; "you can
screw them to any point you want. But now I've got it. It is very near
that cross-road. Good! it did not turn there; it is coming along the
pike, and there will be toll to pay. One horse, seven cents."
She put down the telescope as if to rest her arm and eye. Presently,
however, she raised the glass again. "Now, let us see," she said, "Uncle
John? Jane? or me?" After directing the glass to a point in the air
about two hundred feet above the approaching vehicle, and then to
another point half a mile to the right of it, she was fortunate enough
to catch sight of it again. "I don't know that queer-looking horse," she
said. "It must be some stranger, and Jane will do. No, a little boy is
driving. Strangers coming along this road would not be driven by little
boys. I expect I shall have to call Uncle John." Then she put down the
glass and rubbed her eye, after which, with unassisted vision, she gazed
along the road. "I can see a great deal better without that old thing,"
she continued. "There's a woman in that carriage. I'll go myself." With
this she jumped down from the rustic seat, and with the telescope under
her arm, she skipped through the garden to the little tollhouse.
The name of this girl was Olive Asher. Captain John Asher, who took the
toll, was her uncle, and she had now been living with him for about six
weeks. Olive was what is known in certain social circles as a navy girl.
About twenty years before she had come to her uncle's she had been born
in Genoa, her father at the time being a lieutenant on an American
war-vessel lying in the harbor of Villa Franca. Her first schooldays
were passed in the south of France, and she spent some subsequent years
in a German school in Dresden. Here she was supposed to have finished
her education but when her father's ship was stationed on our Pacific
coast and Olive and her mother went to San Francisco they associated a
great deal with army people, and here the girl learned so much more of
real life and her own country people that the few years she spent in the
far West seemed like a post-graduate course, as important to her true
education as any of the years she had spent in schools.
After the death of her mother, when Olive was about eighteen, the girl
had lived with relatives, East and West, hoping for the day when her
father's three years' cruise would terminate, and she could go and make
a home for him in some pleasant spot on shore. Now, in the course of
these family visits she had come to stay with her father's brother, John
Asher, who kept the toll-gate on the Glenford pike.
Captain John Asher was an older man than his brother, the naval officer,
but he was in the prime of life, and able to hold the command of a ship
if he had cared to do it. But having been in the merchant service for a
long time, and having made some money, he had determined to leave the
sea and to settle on shore; and, finding this commodious house by the
toll-gate, he settled there. There were some people who said that he had
taken the position of toll-gate keeper because of the house, and there
were others who believed that he had bought the house on account of the
toll-gate. But no matter what people thought or said, the good captain
was very well satisfied with his home and his official position. He
liked to meet with people, and he preferred that they should come to him
rather than that he should go to them. He was interested in most things
that were going on in his neighborhood, and therefore he liked to talk
to the people who were going by. Sometimes a good talking acquaintance
or an interesting traveler would tie his horse under the shade of the
maple-tree and sit a while with the captain on the little porch. Certain
it was, it was the most hospitable toll-gate in that part of the
country.
There was a road which branched off from the turnpike, about a mile from
the town, and which, after some windings, entered the pike again beyond
the toll-gate, and although this road was not always in very good
condition, it had seen a good deal of travel, which, in time, gave it
the name of the shunpike. But since Captain Asher had lived at the
toll-gate it was remarked that the shunpike was not used as much as in
former times. There were penurious people who had once preferred to go a
long way round and save money whose economical dispositions now gave way
before the combined attractions of a better road, and a chat with
Captain Asher.
It had been predicted by some of her relatives that Olive would not be
content with her life in her uncle's somewhat peculiar household. He was
a bachelor, and seldom entertained company, and his ordinary family
consisted of an elderly housekeeper and another servant. But Olive was
not in the least dissatisfied. From her infancy up, she had lived so
much among people that she had grown tired of them; and her good-natured
uncle, with his sea stories, the garden, the old-fashioned house, the
fields and the woods beyond, the little stream, which came hurrying down
from the mountains, where she could fish or wade as the fancy pleased
her, gave her a taste of some of the joys of girlhood which she had not
known when she was really a girl.
Another thing that greatly interested her was the toll-gate. If she had
been allowed to do so, she would have spent the greater part of her time
taking money, making change, and talking to travelers. But this her
uncle would not permit. He did not object to her doing some occasional
toll-gate work, and he did not wonder that she liked it, remembering how
interesting it often was to himself, but he would not let her take toll
indiscriminately.
So they made a regular arrangement about it. When the captain was at his
meals, or shaving, or otherwise occupied, old Jane attended to the
toll-gate. At ordinary times, and when any of his special friends were
seen approaching, the captain collected toll himself, but when women
happened to be traveling on the road, then it was arranged that Olive
should go to the gate.
Two or three times it had happened that some young men of the town,
hearing their sisters talk of the pretty girl who had taken their toll,
had thought it might be a pleasant thing to drive out on the pike, but
their money had always been taken by the captain, or else by the
wooden-faced Jane, and nothing had come of their little adventures.
The garden hedge which ran alongside the road was very high.
_CHAPTER II_
_Maria Port._
Olive stood impatiently at the door of the little tollhouse. In one hand
she held three copper cents, because she felt almost sure that the
person approaching would give her a dime or two five-cent pieces.
"I never knew horses to travel so slowly as they do on this pike!" she
said to herself. "How they used to gallop on those beautiful roads in
France!"
In due course of time the vehicle approached near enough to the
toll-gate for Olive to take an observation of its occupant. This was a
middle-aged woman, dressed in black, holding a black fan. She wore a
black bonnet with a little bit of red in it. Her face was small and
pale, its texture and color suggesting a boiled apple dumpling. She had
small eyes of which it can be said that they were of a different color
from her face, and were therefore noticeable. Her lips were not
prominent, and were closely pressed together as if some one had begun to
cut a dumpling, but had stopped after making one incision.
This somewhat somber person leaned forward in the seat behind her young
driver, and steadily stared at Olive. When the horse had passed the
toll-bar the boy stopped it so that his passenger and Olive were face
to face and very near each other.
"Seven cents, please," said Olive.
The cleft in the dumpling enlarged itself, and the woman spoke. "Bless
my soul," she said, "are you Captain Asher's niece?"
"I am," said Olive in surprise.
"Well, well," said the other, "that just beats me! When I heard he had
his niece with him I thought she was a plain girl, with short frocks and
her hair plaited down her back."
Olive did not like this woman. It is wonderful how quickly likes and
dislikes may be generated.
"But you see I am not," she replied. "Seven cents, please."
"Don't you suppose I know what the toll is?" said the woman in the
carriage. "I'm sure I've traveled over this road often enough to know
that. But what I'm thinkin' about is the difference between what I
thought the captain's niece was and what she really is."
"It does not make any difference what the difference is," said Olive,
speaking quickly and with perhaps a little sharpness in her voice, "all
I want is for you to pay me the toll."
"I'm not goin' to pay any toll," said the other.
Olive's face flushed. "Little boy," she exclaimed, "back that horse!" As
the youngster obeyed her peremptory request Olive gave a quick jerk to a
rope and brought down the toll-gate bar so that it stretched itself
across the road, barely missing in its downward sweep the nose of the
unoffending horse. "Now," said Olive, "if you are ready to pay your
toll you can go through this gate, and if you are not, you can turn
round and go back where you came from."
"I'm not goin' to pay any toll," said the other, "and I don't want to go
through the gate. I came to see Captain Asher.--Johnny, turn your horse
a little and let me get out. Then you can stop in the shade of this tree
and wait until I'm ready to go back.--I suppose the captain's in," she
said to Olive, "but if he isn't, I can wait."
"Oh, he's at home," said Olive, "and, of course, if I had known you were
coming to see him, I would not have asked you for your toll. This way,
please," and she stepped toward a gate in the garden hedge.
"When I've been here before," said the visitor, "I always went through
the tollhouse. But I suppose things is different now."
"This is the entrance for visitors," said Olive, holding open the gate.
Captain Asher had heard the voices, and had come out to his front door.
He shook hands with the newcomer, and then turned to Olive, who was
following her.
"This is my niece, my brother Alfred's daughter," he said, "and Olive,
let me introduce you to Miss Maria Port."
"She introduced herself to me," said Miss Port, "and tried to get seven
cents out of me by letting down the bar so that it nearly broke my
horse's nose. But we'll get to know each other better. She's very
different from what I thought she was."
"Most people are," said Captain Asher, as he offered a chair to Miss
Port in his parlor, and sat down opposite to her. Olive, who did not
care to hear herself discussed, quietly passed out of the room.
"Captain," said Miss Port, leaning forward, "how old is she, anyway?"
"About twenty," was the answer.
"And how long is she going to stay?"
"All summer, I hope," said Captain John.
"Well, she won't do it, I can tell you that," remarked Miss Port.
"She'll get tired enough of this place before the summer's out."
"We shall see about that," said the captain, "but she is not tired yet."
"And her mother's dead, and she's wearin' no mournin'."
"Why should she?" said the captain. "It would be a shame for a young
girl like her to be wearing black for two years."
"She's delicate, ain't she?"
"I have not seen any signs of it."
"What did her mother die of?"
"I never heard," said the captain; "perhaps it was the bubonic plague."
Miss Port pushed back her chair and drew her skirts about her.
"Horrible!" she exclaimed. "And you let that child come here!"
The captain smiled. "Perhaps it wasn't that," he said. "It might have
been an avalanche, and that is not catching."
Miss Port looked at him seriously. "It's a great pity she's so
handsome," she said.
"I don't think so; I am glad of it," replied the captain.
Miss Port heaved a sigh. "What that girl is goin' to need," she said,
"is a female guardeen."
"Would you like to take the place?" asked the captain with a grin.
At that instant it might have been supposed that a certain dumpling
which has been mentioned was made of very red apples and that its
covering of dough was somewhat thin in certain places. Miss Port's eyes
were bent for an instant upon the floor.
"That is a thing," she said, "which would need a great deal of
consideration."
A sudden thrill ran through the captain which was not unlike a moment in
his past career when a gentle shudder had run through his ship as its
keel grazed an unsuspected sand-bar, and he had not known whether it was
going to stick fast or not; but he quickly got himself into deep water
again.
"Oh, she is all right," said he briskly; "she has been used to taking
care of herself almost ever since she was born. And by the way, Miss
Port, did you know that Mr. Easterfield is at his home?"
Miss Port was not pleased with the sudden change in the conversation,
and she remembered, too, that in other days it had been the captain's
habit to call her Maria.
"I did not know he had a home," she answered. "I thought it was her'n.
But since you've mentioned it, I might as well say that it was about him
I came to see you. I heard that he came to town yesterday, and that her
carriage met him at the station, and drove him out to her house. I
hoped he had stopped a minute as he drove through your toll-gate, and
that you might have had a word with him, or at least a good look at him.
Mercy me!" she suddenly ejaculated, as a look of genuine disappointment
spread over her face; "I forgot. The coachman would have paid the toll
as he went to town, and there was no need of stoppin' as they went back.
I might have saved myself this trip."
The captain laughed. "It stands to reason that it might have been that
way," he said, "but it wasn't. He stopped, and I talked to him for about
five minutes."
The face of Miss Port now grew radiant, and she pulled her chair nearer
to Captain Asher. "Tell me," said she, "is he really anybody?"
"He is a good deal of a body," answered the captain. "I should say he is
pretty nearly six feet high, and of considerable bigness."
"Well!" exclaimed Miss Port, "I'd thought he was a little dried-up sort
of a mummy man that you might hang up on a nail and be sure you'd find
him when you got back. Did he talk?"
"Oh, yes," said the captain, "he talked a good deal."
"And what did he tell you?"
"He did not tell me anything, but he asked a lot of questions."
"What about?" said Miss Port quickly.
"Everything. Fishing, gunning, crops, weather, people."
"Well, well!" she exclaimed. "And don't you suppose his wife could have
told him all that, and she's been livin' here--this is the second
summer. Did he say how long he's goin' to stay?"
"No."
"And you didn't ask him?"
"I told you he asked the questions," replied the captain.
"Well, I wish I'd been here," Miss Port remarked fervently. "I'd got
something out of him."
"No doubt of that," thought the captain, but he did not say so.
"If he expects to pass himself off as just a common man," continued Miss
Port, "that's goin' to spend the rest of his summer here with his
family, he can't do it. He's first got to explain why he never came near
that young woman and her two babies for the whole of last summer, and,
so far as I've heard, he was never mentioned by her. I think, Captain
Asher, that for the sake of the neighborhood, if you don't care about
such things yourself, you might have made use of this opportunity. As
far as I know, you're the only person in or about Glenford that's spoke
to him."
The captain smiled. "Sometimes, I suppose," said he, "I don't say
enough, and sometimes I say too much, but--"
"Then I wish he'd struck you more on an average," interrupted Miss Port.
"But there's no use talkin' any more about it. I hired a horse and a
carriage and a boy to come out here this mornin' to ask you about that
man. And what's come of it? You haven't got a single thing to tell
anybody except that he's big."
The captain changed the subject again. "How is your father?" he asked.
"Pop's just the same as he always is," was the answer. "And now, as I
don't want to lose the whole of the seventy-five cents I've got to pay,
suppose you call in that niece of yours, and let me have a talk with
her. Perhaps I can get something interesting out of her."
The captain left the room, but he did not move with alacrity. He found
Olive with a book in a hammock at the back of the house. When he told
her his errand she sat up with a sudden bounce, her feet upon the
ground.
"Uncle," she said, "isn't that woman a horrid person?"
The captain was a merry-minded man, and he laughed. "It is pretty hard
for me to answer that question," said he; "suppose you go in and find
out for yourself."
Olive hesitated; she was a girl who had a very high opinion of herself
and a very low opinion of such a person as this Miss Port seemed to be.
Why should she go in and talk to her? Still undecided, she left the
hammock and made a few steps toward the house. Then, with a sudden
exclamation, she stopped and dropped her book.
"Buggy coming," she exclaimed, "and that thing is running to take the
toll!" With these words she started away with the speed of a colt.
An approaching buggy was on the road; Miss Maria Port, walking rapidly,
had nearly reached the back door of the tollhouse when Olive swept by
her so closely that the wind of her fluttering garments almost blew
away the breath of the elder woman.
"Seven cents!" cried Olive, standing in the covered doorway, but she
might have saved herself the trouble of repeating this formula, for the
man in the buggy was not near enough to hear her.
When Olive saw it was a man, she turned, and perceiving her uncle
approaching the tollhouse, she hurried by him up the garden path,
looking neither to the right nor to the left.
"A pretty girl that is of yours!" exclaimed Miss Port. "She might just
as well have slapped me in the face!"
"But what were you going to do in here?" asked Captain Asher. "You know
that's against the rules."
"The rules be bothered," replied the irate Maria. "I thought it was Mr.
Smiley. He's been away from his parish for a week, and there are a good
many things I want to ask him."
"Well, it is the Roman Catholic priest from Marlinsville," said Captain
Asher, "and he wouldn't tell you anything if you asked him."
The captain had a cheerful little chat with the priest, who was one of
his most valued road friends; and when he returned to his garden he
found Miss Port walking up and down the main path in a state of
agitation.
"I should think," said she, "that the company would have something to
say about your takin' up your time talkin' to people on the road. I've
heard that sometimes they get out, and spend hours talkin' and smokin'
with you. I guess that's against the rules."
"It is all right between the company and me," replied the captain. "You
know I am a stockholder in a small way."
"You are!" exclaimed Miss Port. "Well, I've got somethin' by comin'
here, anyway." Stowing away this bit of information in regard to the
captain's resources in her mind for future consideration, she continued:
"I don't think much of that niece of your'n. Has she never lived
anywhere where the people had good manners?"
Olive, who had gone to her room in order to be out of the way of this
queer visitor, now sat by an upper window, and it was impossible that
she should fail to hear this remark, made by Miss Port in her most
querulous tones. Olive immediately left the window, and sat down on the
other side of the room.
"Good manners!" she ejaculated, and fell to thinking. Her present
situation had suddenly presented itself to her in a very different light
from that in which she had previously regarded it. She was living in a
very plain house in a very plain way, with a very plain uncle who kept a
tollhouse; but she liked him; and, until this moment, she had liked the
life. But now she asked herself if it were possible for her longer to
endure it if she were to be condemned to intercourse with people like
that thing down in the garden. If her uncle's other friends in Glenford
were of that grade she could not stay here. She smiled in spite of her
irritation as she thought of the woman's words--"Anywhere where the
people had good manners."
Good manners, indeed! She remembered the titled young officers in
Germany with whom she had talked and danced when she was but seventeen
years old, and who used to send her flowers. She remembered the people
of rank in the army and navy and in the state who used to invite her
mother and herself to their houses. She remembered the royal prince who
had wished to be presented to her, and whose acquaintance she had
declined because she did not like what she had heard of him. She
remembered the good friends of her father in Europe and America, ladies
and gentlemen of the army and navy. She remembered the society in which
she had mingled when living with her Boston aunt during the past winter.
Then she thought of Miss Port's question. Good manners, indeed!
"Well," said the perturbed Maria, after having been informed by the
captain that his niece was accustomed to move in the best circles, "I
don't want to go into the house again, for if I was to meet her, I'm
sure I couldn't keep my temper. But I'll say this to you, Captain Asher,
that I pity the woman that's her guardeen. And now, if you'll help my
boy turn round so he won't upset the carriage, I'll be goin'. But before
I go I'll just say this, that if you'd been in the habit of takin'
advantage of the chances that come to you, I believe that you'd be a
good deal better off than you are now, even if you do own shares in the
turnpike company."
It was not difficult for the captain to recognize some of the chances to
which she alluded; one of them she herself had offered him several
times.
"Oh, I am very well off as I am," he answered, "but perhaps some day I
may have something to tell you of the Easterfields and about their
doings up on the mountain."
"About her doin's, you might as well say," retorted Miss Port. "No
matter what you tell me, I don't believe a word about his ever doin'
anything." With this she walked to the little phaeton, into which the
captain helped her.
"Uncle John," said Olive, a few minutes later, "are there many people
like that in Glenford?"
"My dear child," said the captain, "the people in Glenford, the most of
them, I mean, are just as nice people as you would want to meet. They
are ladies and gentlemen, and they are mighty good company. They don't
often come out here, to be sure, but I know most of them, and I ought to
be ashamed of myself that I have not made you acquainted with them
before this. As to Maria Port, there is only one of her in Glenford,
and, so far as I know, there isn't another just like her in the whole
world. Now I come to think of it," he continued, "I wonder why some of
the young people have not come out to call on you. But if that Maria
Port has been going around telling them that you are a little girl in
short frocks it is not so surprising."
"Oh, don't bother yourself, Uncle John, about calls and society," said
Olive. "If you can only manage that that woman takes the shunpike
whenever she drives this way, I shall be perfectly satisfied with
everything just as it is."
_CHAPTER III_
_Mrs. Easterfield._
On the side of the mountain, a few miles to the west of the gap to which
the turnpike stretched itself, there was a large estate and a large
house which had once belonged to the Sudley family. For a hundred years
or more the Sudleys had been important people in this part of the
country, but it had been at least two decades since any of them had
lived on this estate. Some of them had gone to cities and towns, and
others had married, or in some other fashion had melted away so that
their old home knew them no more.
Although it was situated on the borders of the Southern country, the
house, which was known as Broadstone, from the fact that a great flat
rock on the level of the surrounding turf extended itself for many feet
at the front of the principal entrance, was not constructed after
ordinary Southern fashions. Some of the early Sudleys were of English
blood and proclivities, and so it was partly like an English house; some
of them had taken Continental ideas into the family, and there was a
certain solidity about the walls; while here and there the narrowness of
the windows suggested southern Europe. Some parts of the great stone
walls had been stuccoed, and some had been whitewashed. Here and there
vines climbed up the walls and stretched themselves under the eaves. As
the house stood on a wide bluff, there was a lawn from which one could
see over the tree tops the winding river sparkling far below. There were
gardens and fields on the open slopes, and beyond these the forests rose
to the top of the mountains.
The ceilings of the house were high, and the halls and rooms were wide
and airy; the trees on the edge of the woods seemed always to be
rustling in a wind from one direction or another, and a lady; Mrs.
Easterfield; who several years before had been traveling in that part of
the country; declared that Broadstone was the most delightful place for
a summer residence that she had ever seen, either in this country or
across the ocean. So, with the consent and money of her husband, she had
bought the estate the summer before the time of our story, and had gone
there to live.
Mr. Easterfield was what is known as a railroad man, and held high
office in many companies and organizations. When his wife first went to
Broadstone he was obliged to spend the summer in Europe, and had agreed
with her that the estate on the mountains would be the best place for
her and the two little girls while he was away. This state of affairs
had occasioned a good deal of talk, especially in Glenford, a town with
which the Easterfields had but little to do, and which therefore had
theorized much in order to explain to its own satisfaction the conduct
of a comparatively young married woman who was evidently rich enough to
spend her summers at any of the most fashionable watering-places, but
who chose to go with her young family to that old barracks of a house,
and who had a husband who never came near her or his children, and who,
so far as the Glenford people knew, she never mentioned.
Mrs. Margaret Easterfield was a very fine woman, both to look at and to
talk to, but she did not believe that her duty to her fellow-beings
demanded that she should devote her first summer months at her new place
to the gratification of the eyes and ears of her friends and
acquaintances, so she had gone to Broadstone with her family--all
females--with servants enough, and for the whole of the summer they had
all been very happy.
But this summer things were going to be a little different at
Broadstone, for Mrs. Easterfield had arranged for some house parties.
Her husband was very kind and considerate about her plans, and promised
her that he would make one of the good company at Broadstone whenever it
was possible for him to do so.
So now it happened that he had come to see his wife and children and the
house in which they lived; and, having had some business at a railroad
center in the South, he had come through Glenford, which was unusual, as
the intercourse between Broadstone and the great world was generally
maintained through the gap in the mountains.
With his wife by his side and a little girl on each shoulder, Mr. Tom
Easterfield walked through the grounds and the gardens and out on the
lawn, and looked down over the tops of the trees upon the river which
sparkled far below, and he said to his wife that if she would let him do
it he would send a landscape-gardener, with a great company of Italians,
and they would make the place a perfect paradise in about five days.
"It could be ruined a great deal quicker by an army of locusts," she
said, "and so, if you do not mind, I think I will wait for the locusts."
It was not time yet for any of the members of the house parties to make
their appearance, and it was the general desire of his family that Mr.
Easterfield should remain until some of the visitors arrived, but he
could not gratify them. Three days after his arrival he was obliged to
be in Atlanta; and so, soon after breakfast one fine morning, the
Easterfield carriage drove over the turnpike to the Glenford station,
Mr. and Mrs. Easterfield on the back seat, and the two little girls
sitting opposite, their feet sticking out straight in front of them.
When they stopped at the toll-gate Captain Asher came down to collect
the toll--ten cents for two horses and a carriage. Olive was sitting in
the little arbor, reading. She had noticed the approaching equipage and
saw that there was a lady in it, but for some reason or other she was
not so anxious as she had been to collect toll from ladies. If she could
have arranged the matter to suit herself she would have taken toll from
the male travelers, and her Uncle John might attend to the women; she
did not believe that men would have such absurd ideas about people or
ask ridiculous questions.
There was no conversation at the gate on this occasion, for the
carriage was a little late, but as it rolled on Mrs. Margaret said to
Mr. Tom:
"It seems to me as though I have just had a glimpse of Dresden. What do
you suppose could have suggested that city to me?"
Mr. Tom could not imagine, unless it was the dust. She laughed, and said
that he had dust and ballast and railroads on the brain; and when the
oldest little girl asked what that meant, Mrs. Margaret told her that
the next time her father came home she would make him sit down on the
floor and then she would draw on that great bald spot of his head, which
they had so often noticed, a map of the railroad lines in which he was
concerned, and then his daughters would understand why he was always
thinking of railroad-tracks and that sort of thing with the inside of
his head, which, as she had told them, was that part of a person with
which he did his thinking.
"Don't they sell some sort of annual or monthly tickets for this
turnpike?" asked Mr. Tom. "If they do, you would save yourself the
trouble of stopping to pay toll and make change."
"I so seldom use this road," she said, "that it would not be worth
while. One does not stop on returning, you know."
But notwithstanding this speech, when Mrs. Easterfield returned from the
Glenford station, one little girl sitting beside her and the other one
opposite, both of them with their feet sticking out, she ordered her
coachman to stop when he reached the toll-gate.
Olive was still sitting in the arbor, reading. The captain was not
visible, and the wooden-faced Jane, noticing that the travelers were a
lady and two little girls, did not consider that she had any right to
interfere with Miss Olive's prerogatives; so that young lady felt
obliged to go to the toll-gate to see what was wanted.
"You know you do not have to pay going back," she said.
"I know that," answered Mrs. Easterfield, "but I want to ask about
tickets or monthly payments of toll, or whatever your arrangements are
for that sort of thing."
"I really do not know," said Olive, "but I will go and ask about it."
"But stop one minute," exclaimed Mrs. Easterfield, leaning over the side
of the carriage. "Is it your father who keeps this toll-gate?"
For some reason or other which she could not have explained to herself,
Olive felt that it was incumbent upon her to assert herself, and she
answered: "Oh, no, indeed. My father is Lieutenant-Commander Alfred
Asher, of the cruiser Hopatcong."
Without another word Mrs. Easterfield pushed open the door of the
carriage and stepped to the ground, exclaiming: "As I passed this
morning I knew there was something about this place that brought back to
my mind old times and old friends, and now I see what it was; it was
you. I caught but one glimpse of you and I did not know you. But it was
enough. I knew your father very well when I was a girl, and later I was
with him and your mother in Dresden. You were a girl of twelve or
thirteen, going to school, and I never saw much of you. But it is either
your father or your mother that I saw in your face as you sat in that
arbor, and I knew the face, although I did not know who owned it. I am
Mrs. Easterfield, but that will not help you to know me, for I was not
married when I knew your father."
Olive's eyes sparkled as she took the two hands extended to her. "I
don't remember you at all," she said, "but if you are the friend of my
father and mother--"
"Then I am to be your friend, isn't it?" interrupted Mrs. Easterfield.
"I hope so," answered Olive.
"Now, then," said Mrs. Easterfield, "I want you to tell me how in the
world you come to be here."
There were two stools in the tollhouse, and Olive, having invited her
visitor to seat herself on the better one, took the other, and told Mrs.
Easterfield how she happened to be there.
"And that handsome elderly man who took the toll this morning is your
uncle?"
"Yes, my father's only brother," said Olive.
"A good deal older," said Mrs. Easterfield.
"Oh, yes, but I do not know how much."
"And you call him captain. Was he also in the navy?"
"No," said Olive, "he was in the merchant service, and has retired. It
seems queer that he should be keeping a toll-gate, but my father has
often told me that Uncle John does not care for appearances, and likes
to do things that please him. He likes to keep the tollhouse because it
brings him in touch with the world."
"Very sensible in him," said Mrs. Easterfield. "I think I would like to
keep a toll-gate myself."
Captain Asher had seen the carriage stop, and knew that Mrs. Easterfield
was talking to Olive, but he did not think himself called upon to
intrude upon them. But now it was necessary for him to go to the
tollhouse. Two men in a buggy with a broken spring and a coffee bag laid
over the loins of an imperfectly set-up horse had been waiting for
nearly a minute behind Mrs. Easterfield's carriage, desiring to pay
their toll and pass through. So the captain went out of the garden-gate,
collected the toll from the two men, and directed them to go round the
carriage and pass on in peace, which they did.
Then Mrs. Easterfield rose from her stool, and approached the tollhouse
door, and, as a matter of course, the captain was obliged to step
forward and meet her. Olive introduced him to the lady, who shook hands
with him very cordially.
"I have found the daughter of an old friend," said she, and then they
all went into the tollhouse again, where the two ladies reseated
themselves, and after some explanatory remarks Mrs. Easterfield said:
"Now, Captain Asher, I must not stay here blocking up your toll-gate all
the morning, but I want to ask of you a very great favor. I want you to
let your niece come and make me a visit. I want a good visit--at least
ten days. You must remember that her father and I, and her mother, too,
were very good friends. Now there are so many things I want to talk over
with Miss Olive, and I am sure you will let me have her just for ten
short days. There are no guests at Broadstone yet, and I want her. You
do not know how much I want her."
Captain Asher stood up tall and strong, his broad shoulders resting
against the frame of the open doorway. It was a positive delight to him
to stand thus and look at such a beautiful woman. So far as he could
see, there was nothing about her with which to find fault. If she had
been a ship he would have said that her lines were perfect, spars and
rigging just as he would have them. In addition to her other
perfections, she was large enough. The captain considered himself an
excellent judge of female beauty, and he had noticed that a great many
fine women were too small. With Olive's personal appearance he was
perfectly satisfied, although she was slight, but she was young, and
would probably expand. If he had had a daughter he would have liked her
to resemble Mrs. Easterfield, but that feeling did not militate in the
least against Olive. In his mind it was not necessary for a niece to be
quite as large as a daughter ought to be.
"But what does Olive say about it?" he asked.
"I have not been asked yet," replied Olive, "but it seems to me that
I--"
"Would like to do it," interrupted Mrs. Easterfield. "Now, isn't that
so, dear Olive?"
The girl looked at the captain. "It depends upon what you say about it,
Uncle John."
The captain slightly knitted his brows. "If it were for one night, or
perhaps a couple of days," he said, "it would be different. But what am
I to do without Olive for nearly two weeks? I am just beginning to
learn what a poor place my house would be without her."
At this minute a man upon a rapidly trotting pony stopped at the
toll-gate.
"Excuse me one minute," continued the captain, "here is a person who can
not wait," and stepping outside he said good morning to a bright-looking
young fellow riding a sturdy pony and wearing on his cap a metal plate
engraved "United States Rural Delivery."
The carrier brought but one letter to the tollhouse, and that was for
Captain Asher himself. As the man rode away the captain thought he might
as well open his letter before he went back. This would give the ladies
a chance to talk further over the matter. He read the letter, which was
not long, put it in his pocket, and then entered the tollhouse. There
was now no doubt or sign of disturbance on his features.
"I have considered your invitation, madam," said he, "and as I see Olive
wants to visit you, I shall not interfere."
"Of course she does," cried Mrs. Easterfield, springing to her feet,
"and I thank you ever and ever so much, Captain Asher. And now, my
dear," said she to Olive, "I am going to send the carriage for you
to-morrow morning." And with this she put her arm around the girl and
kissed her. Then, having warmly shaken hands with the captain, she
departed.
"Do you know, Uncle John," said Olive, "I believe if you were twenty
years older she would have kissed you."
With a grim smile the captain considered; would he have been willing to
accept those additional years under the circumstances? He could not
immediately make up his mind, and contented himself with the reflection
that Olive did not think him old enough for the indiscriminate caresses
of young people.
_CHAPTER IV_
_The Son of an Old Shipmate._
When Olive came down to breakfast the next morning she half repented
that she had consented to go away and leave her uncle for so long a
time. But when she made known her state of mind the captain laughed at
her.
"My child," said he, "I want you to go. Of course, I did not take to the
notion at first, but I did not consider then what you will have to tell
when you come home. The people of Glenford will be your everlasting
debtors. It might be a good thing to invite Maria Port out here. You
could give her the best time she ever had in her life, telling her about
the Broadstone people."
"Maria Port, indeed!" said Olive. "But we won't talk of her. And you
really are willing I should go?"
"I speak the truth when I say I want you to go," replied the captain.
Whereupon Olive assured him that he was truly a good uncle.
After the Easterfield carriage had rolled away with Olive alone on the
back seat, waving her handkerchief, the captain requested Jane to take
entire charge of the toll-gate for a time; and, having retired to his
own room, he took from his pocket the letter he had received the day
before.
"I must write an answer to this," he said, "before the postman comes."
The letter was from one of the captain's old shipmates, Captain Richard
Lancaster, the best friend he had had when he was in the merchant
service. Captain Lancaster had often been asked by his old friend to
visit him at the toll-gate, but, being married and rheumatic, he had
never accepted the invitation. But now he wrote that his son, Dick, had
planned a holiday trip which would take him through Glenford, and that,
if it suited Captain Asher, the father would accept for the son the
long-standing invitation. Captain Lancaster wrote that as he could not
go himself to his old friend Asher, the next best thing would be for his
son to go, and when the young man returned he could tell his father all
about Captain Asher. There would be something in that like old times.
Besides, he wanted his former shipmate to know his son Dick, who was, in
his eyes, a very fine young fellow.
"There never was such a lucky thing in the world," said Captain Asher to
himself, when he had finished rereading the letter. "Of course, I want
to have Dick Lancaster's son here, but I could not have had him if Olive
had been here. But now it is all right. The young fellow can stay here a
few days, and he will be gone before she gets back. If I like him I can
ask him to come again; but that's my business. Handsome women, like that
Mrs. Easterfield, always bring good luck. I have noticed that many and
many a time."
Then he set himself to work to write a letter to invite young Richard
Lancaster to spend a few days with him.
For the rest of that day, and the greater part of the next, Captain
Asher gave a great deal of thinking time to the consideration of the
young man who was about to visit him, and of whom, personally, he knew
very little. He was aware that Captain Lancaster had a son and no other
children, and he was quite sure that this son must now be a grown-up
young man. He remembered very well that Captain Lancaster was a fine
young fellow when he first knew him, and he did not doubt at all that
the son resembled the father. He did not believe that young Dick was a
sailor, because he and old Dick had often said to each other that if
they married their sons should not go to sea. Of course he was in some
business; and Captain Lancaster ought to be well able to give him a good
start in life; just as able as he himself was to give Olive a good start
in housekeeping when the time came.
"Now, what in the name of common sense," ejaculated Captain Asher, "did
I think of that for? What has he to do with Olive, or Olive with him?"
And then he said to himself, thinking of the young man in the bosom of
his family and without reference to anybody outside of it: "Yes, his
father must be pretty well off. He did a good deal more trading than
ever I did. But after all, I don't believe he invested his money any
better than I did mine, and it is just as like as not if we were to show
our hands, that Olive would get as much as Dick's son. There it is
again. I can't keep my mind off the thing." And as he spoke he knocked
the ashes out of his pipe, and began to stride up and down the garden
walk; and as he did so he began to reproach himself.
What right had he to think of his niece in that way? It was not doing
the fair thing by her father, and perhaps by her, for that matter. For
all he knew she might be engaged to somebody out West or down East, or
in some other part of the world where she had lived. But this idea made
very little impression on him. Knowing Olive as he did, he did not
believe that she was engaged to anybody anywhere; he did not want to
think that she was the kind of girl who would conceal her engagement
from him, or who could do it, for that matter. But, everything
considered, he was very glad Olive had gone to Broadstone, for, whatever
the young fellow might happen to be, he wanted to know all about him
before Olive met him.
Captain Asher firmly believed that there was nothing of the matchmaker
in his disposition, but notwithstanding this estimate of himself, he
went on thinking of Olive and the son of his old shipmate, both
separately and together. He had never said to anybody, nor intimated to
anybody, that he was going to give any of his moderate fortune to his
niece. In fact, before this visit to him he had not thought much about
it, nor did it enter his mind that Olive's Boston aunt, her mother's
sister, had favored this visit of the girl to her toll-gate uncle,
hoping that he might think about it.
In consequence of these cogitations, and in spite of the fact that he
despised matchmaking, Captain Asher was greatly interested in the coming
advent of his shipmate's son.
When the same phaeton, the same horse, and the same boy that had brought
Maria Port to the tollhouse, conveyed there a young man with two
valises, one rather large, Captain Asher did not hurry from the house to
meet his visitor. He had seen him coming, and had preferred to stand in
his doorway and take a preliminary observation of him. Having taken
this, Captain Asher was obliged to confess to himself that he was
disappointed.
The first cause of his disappointment was the fact that the young man
wore a colored shirt and no vest, and a yellow leather belt. Now,
Captain Asher for the greater part of his active life had worn colored
shirts, sometimes very dark ones, with no vests, but he had not supposed
that a young man coming to a house where there was a young lady
accustomed to the best society would present himself in such attire. The
captain instantly remembered that his visitor could not know that there
was a young lady at the house, but this did not satisfy him. Such attire
was not respectful, even to him. The leather belt especially offended
him. The captain was not aware of the _negligé_ summer fashions for men
which then prevailed.
The next thing that disappointed him was that young Lancaster, seen
across the garden, did not appear to be the strapping young fellow he
had expected to see. He was moderately tall, and moderately broad, and
handled his valise with apparent ease, but he did not look as though he
were his father's son. Dick Lancaster had married the daughter of a
captain when he was only a second mate, and that piece of good fortune
had been generally attributed to his good looks.
But these observations and reflections occupied a very short time, and
Captain Asher walked quickly to meet his visitor. As he stepped out of
the garden-gate he was disappointed again. The young man's trousers were
turned up above his shoes. The weather was not wet, there was no mud,
and if Dick Lancaster's son had not bought a pair of ready-made trousers
that were too long for him, why should he turn them up in that
ridiculous way?
In spite of these first impressions, the captain gave his old friend's
son a hearty welcome, and took him into the house. After dinner he
subjected the young man to a crucial test; he asked him if he smoked. If
the visitor had answered in the negative he would have dropped still
further in the captain's estimation. It was not that the captain had any
theories in regard to the sanitary advantages or disadvantages of
tobacco; he simply remembered that nearly all the rascals with whom he
had been acquainted had been eager to declare that they never used
tobacco in any form, and that nearly all the good fellows he had known
enjoyed their pipes. In fact, he could not see how good fellowship could
be maintained without good talk and good tobacco, so he waited with an
anxious interest for his guest's answer.
"Oh, yes," said he, "I am fond of a smoke, especially in company," and
so, having risen several inches in the good opinion of his host, he
followed him to the little arbor in the garden.
"Now, then," said Captain Asher, when his pipe was alight, "you have
told me a great deal about your father, now tell me something about
yourself. I do not even know what your business is."
"I am Assistant Professor of Theoretical Mathematics in Sutton College,"
answered the young man.
Captain Asher put down his pipe and gazed at his visitor across the
arbor. This answer was so different from anything he had expected that
for the moment he could not express his astonishment, and was obliged to
content himself with asking where Sutton College was.
"It is what they call a fresh-water college," replied the young man,
"and I do not wonder that you do not know where it is. It is near our
town. I graduated there and received my present appointment about three
years ago. I was then twenty-seven."
"Your father was good at mathematics," said Captain Asher. "He was a
great hand at calculations, but he went in for practise, as I did, and
not for theories. I suppose there are other professors who teach regular
working mathematics."
"Oh, yes," replied the young man, with a smile, "there is the Professor
of Applied Mathematics, but of course the thorough student wants to
understand the theories on which his practise is to be based."
"I do not see why he should," replied the other. "If a good ship is
launched for me, I don't care anything about the stocks she slides off
of."
"Perhaps not," said Lancaster, "but somebody has to think about them."
In the afternoon Captain Asher showed his visitor his little farm, and
took him out fishing. During these recreations he refrained, as far as
possible, from asking questions, for he did not wish the young man to
suppose that for any reason he had been sent there to undergo an
examination. But in the evening he could not help talking about the
college, not in reference to the work and life of the students, a
subject that did not interest him, but in regard to the work and the
prospects of the faculty.
"What does your president teach?" he asked. "I believe all presidents
have charge of some branch or other."
"Oh, yes," said Lancaster, "our president is Professor of Mental and
Moral Philosophy."
"I thought it would be something of the kind," said the captain to
himself. "Even the head Professor of Mathematical Theories would never
get to the top of the heap. He is not useful enough for that."
After he had gone to bed that night Captain Asher found himself laughing
about the events of the day. He could not help it when he remembered how
his mind had been almost constantly occupied with a consideration of his
old shipmate's son with reference to his brother's daughter. And when he
remembered that neither of these two young people had ever seen or heard
of the other, it is not surprising that he laughed a little.
"It's none of my business, anyway," thought the captain, "and I might as
well stop bothering my head about it. I suppose I might as well tell
him about Olive, for it is nothing I need keep secret. But first I'll
see how long he is going to stay. It's none of his business, anyway,
whether I have a niece staying with me or not."
_CHAPTER V_
_Olive pays Toll._
It is needless to say that Olive was charmed with Broadstone; with its
mistress; with the two little girls; with the woods; the river; the
mountains; and even the sky; which seemed different from that same sky
when viewed from the tollhouse. She was charmed also with the rest of
the household, which was different from anything of that kind that she
had known, being composed entirely, with the exception of some servants,
of women and little girls. Olive, accustomed all her life to men, men,
men, grew rapturous over this Amazonian paradise.
"Don't be too enthusiastic," said Mrs. Easterfield; "for a while you may
like fresh butter without salt, but the longing for the condiment will
be sure to come."
There was Mrs. Blynn, the widow of a clergyman, with dark-brown eyes and
white hair, who was always in a good humor, who acted as the general
manager of the household, and also as particular friend to any one in
the house who needed her services in that way. Then there was Miss
Raleigh, who was supposed to be Mrs. Easterfield's secretary. She was a
slender spinster of forty or more, with sad eyes and very fine teeth.
She had dyspeptic proclivities, and never differed with anybody except
in regard to her own diet. She seldom wrote for Mrs. Easterfield, for
that lady did not like her handwriting, and she did not understand the
use of the typewriter; nor did she read to the lady of the house, for
Mrs. Easterfield could not endure to have anybody read to her. But in
all the other duties of a secretary she made herself very useful. She
saw that the books, which every morning were found lying about the
house, were put in their proper places on the shelves, and, if
necessary, she dusted them; if she saw a book turned upside down she
immediately set it up properly. She was also expected to exert a certain
supervision over the books the little girls were allowed to look at. She
was an excellent listener and an appropriate smiler; Mrs. Easterfield
frequently said that she never knew Miss Raleigh to smile in the wrong
place. She took a regular walk every day, eight times up and down the
whole length of the lawn.
Mrs. Easterfield gave herself almost entirely to the entertainment of
her guest. They roamed over the grounds, they found the finest points of
view, at which Olive was expert, being a fine climber, and they tramped
for long distances along the edge of the woods, where together they
killed a snake. Mrs. Easterfield also allowed Olive the great privilege
of helping her work in her garden of nature. This was a wide bed which
was almost entirely shaded by two large trees. The peculiarity about
this bed was that its mistress carefully pulled up all the flowering
plants and cultivated the weeds.
"You see," said she to Olive, "I planted here a lot of flower-seeds
which I thought would thrive in the shade, but they did not, and after a
while I found that they were all spindling and puny-looking, while the
weeds were growing as if they were out in the open sunshine, so I have
determined to acknowledge the principle of the survival of the fittest,
and whenever anything that looks like a flower shows itself I jerk it
out. I also thin out all but the best weeds. I hoe and rake the others,
and water them if necessary. Look at that splendid Jamestown weed--here
they call it jimson weed--did you ever see anything finer than that with
its great white blossoms and dark-green leaves? I expect it to be twice
as large before the summer is over. And all these others. See how
graceful they are, and what delicate flowers some of them have!"
"I wonder," said Olive, "if I should have had the strength of mind to
pull up my flowers and leave my weeds."
"The more you think about it," said Mrs. Easterfield, "the more you like
weeds. They have such fine physiques, and they don't ask anybody to do
anything for them. They are independent, like self-made men, and come up
of themselves. They laugh at disadvantages, and even bricks and
flagstones will not keep them down."
"But, after all," said Olive, "give me the flowers that can not take
care of themselves." And she turned toward a bed of carnations, bright
under the morning sun.
"Do you suppose, little girl," said Mrs. Easterfield, following her,
"that I do not like flowers because I do like weeds? Everything in its
place; weeds are for the shady spots, but I keep my flowers out of such
places. This flower, for instance," touching Olive on the cheek. "And
now let us go into the house and see what pleasant thing we can find to
do there."
In the afternoon the two ladies went out rowing on the river, and Mrs.
Easterfield was astonished at Olive's proficiency with the oar. She had
thought herself a good oarswoman, but she was nothing to Olive. She
good-naturedly acknowledged her inferiority, however. How could she
expect to compete with a navy girl? she said.
"Are you fond of swimming?" asked Olive, as she looked down into the
bright, clear water.
"Oh, very," said Mrs. Easterfield. "But I am not allowed to swim in this
river. It is considered dangerous."
Olive looked up in surprise. It seemed odd that there should be anything
that this bright, free woman was not allowed to do, or that there should
be anybody who would not allow it.
Then followed some rainy days, and the first clear day Mrs. Easterfield
told Olive that she would take her a drive in the afternoon.
"I shall drive you myself with my own horses," she said, "but you need
not be afraid, for I can drive a great deal better than I can row. We
must lose no time in seizing all the advantages of this Amazonian life,
for to-morrow some of our guests will arrive, the Foxes and Mr. Claude
Locker."
"Who are the Foxes?" asked Olive.
"They are the pleasantest visitors that any one could have," was the
answer. "They always like everything. They never complain of being
cold, nor talk about the weather being hot. They are interested in all
games, and they like all possible kinds of food that one can give them
to eat. They are always ready to go to bed when they think they ought
to, and sit up just as long as they are wanted. Of course, they have
their own ideas about things, but they don't dispute. They take care of
themselves all the morning, and are ready for anything you want to do in
the afternoon or evening. They have two children at home, but they never
talk about them unless they are particularly asked to do so. They know a
great many people, and you can tell by the way they speak of them that
they won't talk scandal about you. In fact, they are model guests, and
they ought to open a school to teach the art of visiting."
"And what about Mr. Claude Locker?"
Mrs. Easterfield laughed. "Oh, he is different," she said; "he is so
different from the Foxes that words would not describe it. But you won't
be long in becoming acquainted with him."
The road over which the two ladies drove that afternoon was a beautiful
one, sometimes running close to the river under great sycamores, then
making a turn into the woods and among the rocks. At last they came to a
cross-road, which led away from the river, and here Mrs. Easterfield
stopped her horses.
"Now, Olive," said she, for she was now very familiar with her guest, "I
will leave the return route to you. Shall we go back by the river
road--and the scenery will be very different when going in the other
direction--or shall we drive over to Glenford, and go home by the
turnpike? That is a little farther, but the road is a great deal
better?"
"Oh, let us go that way," cried Olive. "We will go through Uncle John's
toll-gate, and you must let me pay the toll. It will be such fun to pay
toll to Uncle John, or old Jane."
"Very well," said Mrs. Easterfield, "we will go that way."
When the horses had passed through Glenford and had turned their heads
homeward, they clattered along at a fine rate over the smooth turnpike,
and Olive was in as high spirits as they were.
"Whoever comes out to take toll," said she, "I intend to be treated as
an ordinary traveler and nothing else. I have often taken toll, but I
never paid it in my life. And they must take it--no gratis traveling for
me. But I hope you won't mind stopping long enough for me to say a few
words after I have transacted the regular business."
"Oh, no," said Mrs. Easterfield, "you can chat as much as you like. We
have plenty of time."
Olive held in her hand a quarter of a dollar; she was determined they
should make change for her, and that everything should be done properly.
Dick Lancaster sat in the garden arbor, reading. He was becoming a
little tired of this visit to his father's old friend. He liked Captain
Asher and appreciated his hospitality, but there was nothing very
interesting for him to do in this place, and he had thought that it
might be a very good thing if the several days for which he had been
invited should terminate on the morrow. There were some very attractive
plans ahead of him, and he felt that he had now done his full duty by
his father and his father's old friend.
Captain Asher was engaged with some matters about his little farm, and
Lancaster had asked as a favor that he might be allowed to tend the
toll-gate during his absence. It would be something to do, and,
moreover, something out of the way.
When he perceived the approach of Mrs. Easterfield's carriage Lancaster
walked down to the tollhouse, and stopped for a minute to glance over
the rates of toll which were pasted up inside the door as well as out.
The carriage stopped, and when a young man stepped out from the
tollhouse Olive gave a sudden start, and the words with which she had
intended to greet her uncle or old Jane instantly melted away.
"Don't push me out of the carriage," said Mrs. Easterfield,
good-naturedly, and she, too, looked at the young man.
"For two horses and a vehicle," said Dick Lancaster, "ten cents, if you
please."
Olive made no answer, but handed him the quarter with which he retired
to make change. Mrs. Easterfield opened her mouth to speak, but Olive
put her finger on her lips and shook her head; the situation astonished
her, but she did not wish to ask that stranger to explain it.
Lancaster came out and dropped fifteen cents into Olive's hand. He could
not help regarding with interest the occupants of the carriage, and Mrs.
Easterfield looked hard at him. Suddenly Olive turned in her seat; she
looked at the house, she looked at the garden, she looked at the little
piazza by the side of the tollhouse. Yes, it was really the same place.
For an instant she thought she might have been mistaken, but there was
her window with the Virginia creeper under the sill where she had
trained it herself. Then she made a motion to her companion, who
immediately drove on.
"What does this mean?" exclaimed Mrs. Easterfield. "Who is that young
man? Why didn't you give me a chance to ask after the captain, even if
you did not care to do so?"
"I never saw him before!" cried Olive. "I never heard of him. I don't
understand anything about it. The whole thing shocked me, and I wanted
to get on."
"I don't think it a very serious matter," said Mrs. Easterfield. "Some
passer-by might have relieved your uncle for a time."
"Not at all, not at all," replied Olive. "Uncle John would never give
the toll-gate into the charge of a passer-by, especially as old Jane was
there. I know she was there, for the basement door was open, and she
never goes away and leaves it so. That man is somebody who is staying
there. I saw an open book on the arbor bench. Nobody reads in that arbor
but me."
"And that young man apparently," said Mrs. Easterfield. "I agree with
you that it is surprising."
For some minutes Olive did not speak. "I am afraid," she said,
presently, "that my uncle is not acting quite frankly with me. I noticed
how willing he was that I should go to your house."
"Perhaps he expected this person and wanted to get you out of the way,"
laughed Mrs. Easterfield.
"Well, my dear, I do not believe your uncle is such a schemer. He does
not look like it. Take my word for it, it will all be as simple as a-b-c
when it is explained to you."
But Olive could not readily take this view of the case, and the drive
home was not nearly so pleasant as it would have been if her uncle or
old Jane had taken her quarter and given her fifteen cents in change.
That night, soon after the family at Broadstone had retired to their
rooms, Olive knocked at the door of Mrs. Easterfield's chamber.
"Do you know," she exclaimed, when she had been told to enter, "that a
horrible idea has come into my head? Uncle John may have been taken
sick, and that man looked just like a doctor. Old Jane was busy with
uncle, and as the doctor had to wait, he took the toll. Oh, I wish we
had asked! It was cruel in me not to!"
"Now, that is all nonsense," said Mrs. Easterfield. "If anything serious
is the matter with your uncle he most surely would have let you know,
and, besides, both the doctors in Glenford are elderly men. I do not
believe there is the slightest reason for your anxiety. But to make you
feel perfectly satisfied, I will send a man to Glenford early in the
morning. I want to send there anyway."
"But I would not like my uncle to think that I was trying to find out
anything he did not care to tell me," said Olive.
"Oh, don't trouble yourself about that," answered Mrs. Easterfield. "I
will instruct the man. He need not ask any questions at the toll-gate.
But when he gets to Glenford he can find out everything about that
young man without asking any questions. He is a very discreet person.
And I am also a discreet person," she added, "and you shall have no
connection with my messenger's errand."
After breakfast the next morning Mrs. Easterfield took Olive aside. "My
man has returned," she said; "he tells me that Captain Asher took the
toll, and was smoking his pipe in perfect health. He also saw the young
man, and his natural curiosity prompted him to ask about him in the
town. He heard that he is the son of one of the captain's old shipmates
who is making him a visit. Now I hope this satisfies you."
"Satisfies me!" exclaimed Olive. "I should have been a great deal better
satisfied if I had heard he was sick, provided it was nothing dangerous.
I think my uncle is treating me shamefully. It is not that I care a snap
about his visitor, one way or another, but it is his want of confidence
in me that hurts me. Could he have supposed I should have wanted to stay
with him if I had known a young man was coming?"
"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Easterfield, "I can not send anybody to find
out what he supposed. But I am as certain as I can be certain of
anything that there is nothing at all in this bugbear you have conjured
up. No doubt the young man dropped in quite accidentally, and it was his
bad luck that prevented him from dropping in before you left."
Olive shook her head. "My uncle knew all about it. His manner showed it.
He has treated me very badly."
_CHAPTER VI_
_Mr. Claude Locker._
The Foxes arrived at Broadstone at the exact hour of the morning at
which they had been expected. They always did this; even trains which
were sometimes delayed when other visitors came were always on time when
they carried the Foxes. They were both perfectly well and happy, as they
always were.
As rapidly as it was possible for human beings to do so they absorbed
the extraordinary advantages of the house and it surroundings, and they
said the right things in such a common-sense fashion that their hostess
was proud that she owned such a place, and happy that she had invited
them to see it.
In their hearts they liked everything about the place except Olive, and
they wondered how they were going to get along with such a glum young
person, but they did not talk about her to Mrs. Easterfield; there was
too much else.
Mr. Claude Locker was expected on the train by which the Foxes had come,
but he did not arrive; and this made it necessary to send again for him
in the afternoon.
Mrs. Easterfield tried very hard to cheer up Olive, and to make her
entertain the Foxes in her usual lively way, but this was of no use;
the young person was not in a good humor, and retired for an afternoon
nap. But as this was an indulgence she very seldom allowed herself, it
was not likely that she napped.
Mr. Fox spoke to Mrs. Fox about her. "A queer girl," he said; "what do
you suppose is the matter with her?"
"The symptoms are those of green apples," replied Mrs. Fox, "and
probably she will be better to-morrow."
The carriage came back without Mr. Locker. But just as the soup-plates
were being removed from the dinner-table he arrived in a hired vehicle,
and appeared at the dining-room door with his hat in one hand, and a
package in the other. He begged Mrs. Easterfield not to rise.
"I will slip up to my room," said he, "if you have one for me, and when
I come down I will greet you and be introduced."
With this he turned and left the room, but was back in a moment. "It was
a woman," he said, "who was at the bottom of it. It is always a woman,
you know, and I am sure you will excuse me now that you know this. And
you must let me begin wherever you may be in the dinner."
"I have heard of Mr. Locker," said Mr. Fox, "but I never met him before.
He must be very odd."
"He admits that himself," said Mrs. Easterfield, "but he asserts that he
spends a great deal of his time getting even with people."
In a reasonable time Mr. Locker appeared and congratulated himself upon
having struck the roast.
"As a matter of fact," he said, "we will now all begin dinner together.
What has gone before was nothing but overture. If I can help it I never
get in until the beginning of the play."
He bowed parenthetically as Mrs. Easterfield introduced him to the
company; and, as she looked at him, Olive forgot for a moment her uncle
and his visitor.
"Don't send for soup, I beg of you," said Mr. Locker, as he took his
seat. "I regard it as a rare privilege to begin with the inside cut of
beef."
Mr. Locker was not allowed to do all the talking; his hostess would not
permit that; but under the circumstances he was allowed to explain his
lateness.
"You know I have been spending a week with the Bartons," he said, "and
last night I came over from their house to the station in a carriage.
There is a connecting train, but I should have had to take it very early
in the evening, so I saved time by hiring a carriage."
"Saved time?" exclaimed Mrs. Easterfield.
"I saved all the time from dinner until the Bartons went to bed, which
would have been lost if I had taken the train. Besides, I like to travel
in carriages. One is never too late for a carriage; it is always bound
to wait for you."
In the recesses of his mind Mr. Fox now said to himself, "This is a
fool." And Mrs. Fox, in the recesses of her mind, remarked, "I am quite
sure that Mr. Fox will look upon this young man as a fool."
"I spent what was left of the night at a tavern near the station,"
continued Mr. Locker, "where I would have had to stay all night if I
had not taken the carriage. And I should have been in plenty of time for
the morning train if I had not taken a walk before breakfast. Apparently
that is a part of the world where it takes a good deal longer to go back
to a place than it does to get away from it."
"But where did the woman come in?" asked Mrs. Easterfield.
"Oh, she came in with some tea and sandwiches in the middle of the
afternoon," said Mr. Locker. "I was waiting in the parlor of the tavern.
She was fairly young, and as I ate she stood and talked. She talked
about Horace Walpole." At this even Olive smiled. "It was odd, wasn't
it?" continued Mr. Locker, glancing from one to the other. "But that is
what she did. She had been reading about him in an old book. She asked
me if I knew anything about him, and I told her a great deal. It was so
very interesting to tell her, and she was so interested, that when the
train arrived I was too much occupied to think that it might start again
immediately, but it did that very thing, and so I was left. However, the
Walpole young woman told me there was a freight-train along in about an
hour, and so we continued our conversation. When this train came I asked
the engineer how many cigars he would take to let me ride in the cab. He
said half a dozen, but as I only had five, I promised to send him the
other by mail. However, as I smoked two of his five, I suppose I ought
to send him three."
"This young man," said Mr. Fox to himself, "is trying to appear more of
a fool than he really is."
"I have no doubt," said Mrs. Fox to herself, "that Mr. Fox is of the
opinion that this young man is making an effort to appear foolish."
That evening was a dull one. Mrs. Easterfield did her best, Claude
Locker did his best, and Mr. and Mrs. Fox did their best to make things
lively, but their success was poor. Miss Raleigh, the secretary, sat
ready to give an approving smile to any liveliness which might arise,
and Mrs. Blynn, with the dark eyes and soft white hair, sat sewing and
waiting; never before had it been necessary for her to wait for
liveliness in Mrs. Easterfield's house. A mild rain somewhat assisted
the dullness, for everybody was obliged to stay indoors.
Early the next morning Olive Asher went down-stairs, and stood in the
open doorway looking out upon the landscape, glowing in the sunshine and
brighter and more odorous from the recent rain. Some time during the
night this young woman had made up her mind to give no further thought
to her uncle who kept the toll-gate. There was no earthly reason why he,
or anything he wanted to do, or did not want to do, or did, should
trouble and annoy her. A few months before she had scarcely known him,
not having seen him since she was a girl; and, in fact, he was no more
to her now than he was before she went to his house. If he chose to
offer her any explanation of his strange conduct, that would be very
well; if he did not choose, that would also be very well. The whole
affair was of no consequence; she would drop it entirely from her mind.
Olive's bounding spirits now rose very high, and when Claude Locker came
in with his shoes soaked from a tramp in the wet grass she greeted him
in such a way that he could scarcely believe she was the grumpy girl of
the day before. As they went into breakfast Mrs. Fox remarked to her
husband in a low voice that Miss Asher seemed to have recovered entirely
from her indisposition.
In the course of the morning Mr. Locker found an opportunity to speak in
private with Mrs. Easterfield. "I am in great trouble," he said; "I want
to marry Miss Asher."
"You show unusual promptness," said Mrs. Easterfield.
"Not at all," replied Locker. "This sort of thing is not unusual with
me. My mind is a highly sensitive plate, and receives impressions almost
instantaneously. If it were a large mind these impressions might be
placed side by side, and each one would perhaps become indelible. But it
is small, and each impression claps itself down on the one before. This
last one, however, is the strongest of them all, and obliterates
everything that went before."
"It strikes me," said Mrs. Easterfield, "that if you were to pay more
attention to your poems and less to young ladies it would be better."
"Hardly," said Mr. Locker; "for it would be worse for the poems."
The general appearance of Mr. Locker gave no reason to suppose that he
would be warranted in assuming a favorable issue from any of the
impressions to which his mind was so susceptible. He was small, rather
awkwardly set up, his head was large, and the features of his face
seemed to have no relation to each other. His nose was somewhat stubby,
and had nothing to do with his mouth or eyes. One of his eyebrows was
drawn down as if in days gone by he had been in the habit of wearing a
single glass. The other brow was raised over a clear and wide-open
light-blue eye. His mouth was large, and attended strictly to its own
business. It transmitted his odd ideas to other people, but it never
laughed at them. His chin was round and prominent, suggesting that it
might have been borrowed from somebody else. His cheeks were a little
heavy, and gave no assistance in the expression of his ideas.
His profession was that of a poet. He called himself a practical poet,
because he made a regular business of it, turning his poetic
inspirations into salable verse with the facility and success, as he
himself expressed it, of a man who makes boxes out of wood. Moreover, he
sold these poems as readily as any carpenter sold his boxes. Like
himself, Claude Locker's poems were always short, always in request, and
sometimes not easy to understand.
The poem he wrote that night was a word-picture of the rising moon
entangled in a sheaf of corn upon a hilltop, with a long-eared rabbit
sitting near by as if astonished at the conflagration.
"A very interesting girl, that Miss Asher," said Mr. Fox to his wife
that evening. "I do not know when I have laughed so much."
"I thought you were finding her interesting," said Mrs. Fox. "To me it
was like watching a game of roulette at Monte Carlo. It was intensely
interesting, but I could not imagine it as having anything to do with
me."
"No, my dear," said Mr. Fox, "it could have nothing to do with you."
After Mrs. Easterfield retired she sat for a long time, thinking of
Olive. That young person and Mr. Locker had been boating that afternoon,
and Olive had had the oars. Mr. Locker had told with great effect how
she had pulled to get out of the smooth water, and how she had dashed
over the rapids and between the rocks in such a way as to make his heart
stand still.
"I should like to go rowing with her every day," he had remarked
confidentially. "Each time I started I should make a new will."
"Why a new one?" Mrs. Easterfield had asked.
"Each time I should take something more from my relatives to give to
her," had been the answer.
As she sat and thought, Mrs. Easterfield began to be a little
frightened. She was a brave woman, but it is the truly brave who know
when they should be frightened, and she felt her responsibility, not on
account of the niece of the toll-gate keeper, but on account of the
daughter of Lieutenant Asher, whom she had once known so well. The thing
which frightened her was the possibility that before anybody would be
likely to think of such a thing Olive might marry Claude Locker. He was
always ready to do anything he wanted to do at any time; and for all
Mrs. Easterfield knew, the girl might be of the same sort.
But Mrs. Easterfield rose to the occasion. She looked upon Olive as a
wild young colt who had broken out of her paddock, but she remembered
that she herself had a record for speed. "If there is to be any running
I shall get ahead of her," she said to herself, "and I will turn her
back. I think I can trust myself for that."
Olive slept the sound sleep of the young, but for all that she had a
dream. She dreamed of a kind, good, thoughtful, and even affectionate,
middle-aged man; a man who looked as though he might have been her
father, and whom she was beginning to look upon as a father,
notwithstanding the fact that she had a real father dressed in a uniform
and on a far-away ship. She dreamed ever so many things about this
newer, although elder, father, and her dream made her very happy.
But in the morning when she woke her dream had entirely passed from her
mind, and she felt just as much like a colt as when she had gone to bed.
_CHAPTER VII_
_The Captain and his Guest go Fishing and come Home Happy._
When Dick Lancaster told Captain Asher he had taken toll from two ladies
in a phaeton he was quite eloquent in his description of said ladies. He
declared with an impressiveness which the captain had not noticed in him
before that he did not know when he had seen such handsome ladies. The
younger one, who paid the toll, was absolutely charming. She seemed a
little bit startled, but he supposed that was because she saw a strange
face at the toll-gate. Dick wanted very much to know who these ladies
were. He had not supposed that he would find such stylish people, and
such a handsome turnout in this part of the country.
"Oh, ho," said Captain Asher, "do you suppose we are all farmers and
toll-gate keepers? If you do, you are very much mistaken, although I
must admit that the stylish people, as you call them, are scattered
about very thinly. I expect that carriage was from Broadstone over on
the mountain. Was the team dapple gray, pony built?"
"Yes," said Lancaster.
"Then it was Mrs. Easterfield driving some of her company. I have seen
her with that team. And by George," he exclaimed, "I bet my head the
other one was Olive! Of course it was. And she paid toll! Well, well, if
that isn't a good one! Olive paying toll! I wish I had been here to take
it! That truly would have been a lark!"
Dick Lancaster did not echo this wish of his host. He was very glad,
indeed, that the captain had not been at the toll-gate when the ladies
passed through. Captain Asher was still laughing.
"Olive must have been amazed," he said. "It was queer enough for her to
go through my gate and pay toll, but to pay it to an Assistant Professor
of Theoretical Mathematics was a good deal queerer. I can't imagine what
she thought about it."
"She did not know I am that!" exclaimed Dick Lancaster. "There is
nothing of the professor in my outward appearance--at least, I hope
not."
"No, I don't think there is," replied the captain. "But she must have
been amazed, all the same. I wish I had been here, or old Jane, anyway.
But, of course, when a stranger showed himself she would not have said
anything."
"But who is Olive?" asked Lancaster.
"She's my niece," said the captain. "I don't think I have mentioned her
to you. She is on a visit to me, but just now she is staying at
Broadstone. I suppose she will be there about a week longer."
"It's odd he has not mentioned her to me," thought Lancaster, and then,
as the captain went to ask old Jane if she had seen Olive pass, the
young man retired to the arbor with a book which he did not read.
His desire to inform his host that it would be necessary to take leave
of him on the morrow had very much abated. It would be very pleasant, he
thought, to be a visitor in a family of which that girl was a member.
But if she were not to return for a week, how could he expect to stay
with the captain so long? There would be no possible excuse for such a
thing. Then he thought it would be very pleasant to be in a country of
which that young woman was one of the inhabitants. Anyway, he hoped the
captain would invite him to make a longer stay. The great blue eyes with
which the young lady had regarded him as she paid the toll would not
fade out of his mind.
"She must have wondered who it was that took the toll," said old Jane.
"And there wasn't no need of it, anyway. I could have took it as I
always have took it when you was not here, and before either of them
came."
"Either of them" struck the captain's ear strangely. Here was this old
woman coupling these two young people in her mind!
The next morning Captain Asher sat on his little piazza, smoking his
pipe and thinking about Olive driving through the gate and paying toll
to a stranger. But he now considered the incident from a different point
of view. Of course, Olive had been surprised when she had seen the young
man, but she might also have wondered how he happened to be there and
she not know of it. If he were staying long enough to be entrusted with
toll-taking it might--in fact, the captain thought it probably
would--appear very strange to her that she should not know of it. So
now he asked himself if it would not be a good thing if he were to write
her a little note in which he should mention Mr. Lancaster and his
visit. In fact, he thought the best thing he could do would be to write
her a playful sort of a note, and tell her that she should feel honored
by having her toll taken up by a college professor. But he did not
immediately write the note. The more he thought about it, the more he
wished he had been at the toll-gate when Mrs. Easterfield's phaeton
passed by.
Captain Asher did not write his note at all. He did not know what to
say; he did not want to make too much of the incident, for it was really
a trifling matter, only worthy of being mentioned in case he had
something more important to write about. But he had nothing more
important; there was no reason why he should write to Olive during her
short stay with Mrs. Easterfield. Besides, she would soon be back, and
then he could talk to her; that would be much better. Now, two strong
desires began to possess him; one was for Olive to come home; and the
other for Dick Lancaster to go away. There had been moments when he had
had a shadowy notion of bringing the two together, but this idea had
vanished. His mind was now occupied very much with thoughts of his
beautiful niece and very little with the young man in the colored shirt
and turned-up trousers who was staying with him.
Dick Lancaster, in his arbor, was also thinking a great deal about
Olive, and very little about that stalwart sailor, her uncle. If he had
merely seen the young woman, and had never heard anything about her,
her face would have impressed him, but the knowledge that she was an
inmate of the house in which he was staying could not fail to affect him
very much. He was puzzling his mind about the girl who had given him a
quarter of a dollar, and to whom he had handed fifteen cents in change.
He wondered how such a girl happened to be living at such a place. He
wondered if there were any possibility of his staying there, or in the
neighborhood, until she should come back; he wondered if there were any
way by which he could see her again. He might have wondered a good many
other things if Captain Asher had not approached the arbor. The captain
having been aroused from his mental contemplation of Olive by a man in a
wagon, had glanced over at the arbor and had suddenly been struck with
the conviction that that young man looked bored, and that, as his host,
he was not doing the right thing by him.
"Dick," said the captain, "let's go fishing. It's not late yet, and I'll
put my mare to the buggy, and we can drive to the river. We will take
something to eat with us, and make a day of it."
Lancaster hesitated a moment; he had been thinking that the time had
come when he should say something about his departure, but this
invitation settled the matter for that day; and in half an hour the two
had started away, leaving the toll-gate in charge of old Jane, who was a
veteran in the business, having lived at the toll-gate years before the
captain.
As they drove along the smooth turnpike Lancaster remembered with great
interest that this road led to the gap in the mountains; that the
captain had told him Broadstone was not very far from the gap; and that
the river was not very far from Broadstone; and his face glowed with
interest in the expedition.
But when, after a few miles, they turned into a plain country road
which, as the captain informed him, led in a southeasterly direction, to
a point on the river where black bass were to be caught and where a boat
could be hired, the corners of Dick Lancaster's mouth began to droop. Of
necessity that road must reach the river miles to the south of
Broadstone.
It was a very good day for fishing, and the captain was pleased to see
that the son of his old shipmate was a very fair angler. Toward the
close of the afternoon, with the conviction that they had had a good
time and that their little expedition had been a success, the two
fishermen set out for home with a basket of bass: some of them quite a
respectable size; stowed away under the seat of the buggy. When they
reached the turnpike the old mare, knowing well in which direction her
supper lay, turned briskly to the left, and set out upon a good trot.
But this did not last very long. To her great surprise she was suddenly
pulled up short; a carriage with two horses which had been approaching
had also stopped.
On the back seat of this carriage sat Mrs. Easterfield; on one side of
her was a little girl, and on the other side was another little girl,
each with her feet stuck out straight in front of her.
"Oh, Captain Asher," exclaimed the lady, with a most enchanting smile,
"I am so glad to meet you. I was obliged to go to Glenford to take one
of my little girls to the dentist, and I inquired for you each time I
passed your gate."
The captain was very glad he had been so fortunate as to meet her, and
as her eyes were now fixed upon his companion, he felt it incumbent upon
him to introduce Mr. Richard Lancaster, the son of an old shipmate.
"But not a sailor, I imagine," said Mrs. Easterfield.
"Oh, no," said the captain, "Mr. Lancaster is Assistant Professor of
Theoretical Mathematics in Sutton College."
Dick could not imagine why the captain said all this, and he flushed a
little.
"Sutton College?" said Mrs. Easterfield. "Then, of course, you know
Professor Brent."
"Oh, yes," said Lancaster. "He is our president."
"I never met him," said she, "but he was a classmate of my husband, and
I have often heard him speak of him. And now for my errand, Captain
Asher. Isn't it about time you should be wanting to see your niece?"
The captain's heart sank. Did she intend to send Olive home?
"I always want to see her," he said, but without enthusiasm.
"But don't you think it would be nice," said the lady, "if you were to
come to lunch with us to-morrow? It was to ask you this that I inquired
for you at the toll-gate."
Now, this was another thing altogether, and the captain's earnest
acceptance would have been more coherent if it had not been for the
impatience of his mare.
"And I want you to bring your friend with you," continued Mrs.
Easterfield. "The invitation is for you both, of course."
Dick's face said that this would be heavenly, but his mouth was more
prudent.
"It will be strictly informal," continued Mrs. Easterfield. "Only myself
and family, three guests, and Olive. We shall sit down at one. Good-by."
Mrs. Easterfield was entirely truthful when she said she was glad to
meet the captain. Her anxiety about Olive and Claude Locker was somewhat
on the increase. She was very well aware that the most dangerous thing
for one young woman is one young man; and in thinking over this truism
she had been impressed with the conviction that it was not well for Mr.
Claude Locker to be the one man at Broadstone. Then, in thinking of
possible young men, her mind naturally turned to the young man who was
visiting Olive's uncle. She did not know anything about him, but he was
a young man, and if he proved to be worth something, he could be asked
to come again. So it was really to Dick Lancaster, and not to Captain
Asher, that the luncheon invitation had been given.
The appointment with the Glenford dentist had made it necessary for her
to leave home that afternoon. To be sure, she had sent the Foxes with
Olive and Claude Locker upon the drive through the gap, and, under
ordinary circumstances, and with ordinary people, there would have been
no reason for her to trouble herself about them, but neither the
circumstances nor the people were ordinary, and she now felt anxious to
get home and find out what Claude Locker and Olive had done with Mrs.
and Mr. Fox.
_CHAPTER VIII_
_Captain Asher is not in a Good Humor._
The next morning was very bright for Captain Asher; he was going to see
Olive, and he did not know before how much he wished to see her.
When Dick Lancaster came from the house to take his seat in the buggy
the sight of the handsome suit of dark-blue serge, white shirt and
collar, and patent-leather shoes, with the trousers hanging properly
above them, placed Dick very much higher in the captain's estimation
than the young man with the colored shirt and rolled-up trousers could
ever have reached. The captain, too, was well dressed for the occasion,
and Mrs. Easterfield had no reason whatever to be ashamed of these two
gentlemen when she introduced them to her other visitors.
She liked Professor Lancaster. Having lately had a good deal of Claude
Locker, she was prepared to like a quiet and thoroughly self-possessed
young man.
Olive was the latest of the little company to appear, and when she came
down she caused a genuine, though gentle sensation. She was most
exquisitely dressed, not too much for a luncheon, and not enough for a
dinner. This navy girl had not studied for nothing the art of dressing
in different parts of the world. Her uncle regarded her with open-eyed
astonishment.
"Is this my brother's daughter?" he asked himself. "The little girl who
poured my coffee in the morning and went out to take toll?"
Olive greeted her uncle with absolute propriety, and made the
acquaintance of Mr. Lancaster with a formal courtesy to which no
objection could be made. Apparently she forgot the existence of Mr.
Locker, and for the greater part of the meal she conversed with Mr. Fox
about certain foreign places with which they were both familiar.
The luncheon was not a success; there was a certain stiffness about it
which even Mrs. Easterfield could not get rid of; and when the gentlemen
went out to smoke on the piazza Olive disappeared, sending a message to
Mrs. Easterfield that she had a bad headache and would like to be
excused. Her excuse was a perfectly honest one, for she was apt to have
a headache when she was angry; and she was angry now.
The reason for her indignation was the fact that her uncle's visitor was
an extremely presentable young man. Had it been otherwise, Olive would
have given the captain a good scolding, and would then have taken her
revenge by making fun of him and his shipmate's son. But now she felt
insulted that her uncle should conceal from her the fact that he had an
entirely proper young gentleman for a visitor. Could he think she would
want to stay at his house to be with that young man? Was she a girl from
whom the existence of such a person was to be kept secret? She was very
angry, indeed, and her headache was genuine.
Captain Asher was also angry. He had intended to take Olive aside and
tell her all about Dick Lancaster, and how he had refrained from saying
anything about him until he found out what sort of a young man he was.
If, then, she saw fit to scold him, he was perfectly willing to submit,
and to shake hands all around. But now he would have no chance to speak
to her; she had not treated him properly, even if she had a headache. He
admitted to himself that she was young and probably sensitive, but it
was also true that he was sensitive, although old. Therefore, he was
angry.
Mrs. Easterfield was disturbed; she saw there was something wrong
between Olive and her uncle, and she did not like it. She had invited
Lancaster with an object, and she did not wish that other people's
grievances should interfere with said object. Olive was grumpy up-stairs
and Claude Locker was in the doleful dumps under a tree, and if these
two should grump and dump together, it might be very bad; consequently,
Mrs. Easterfield was more anxious than ever that there should be at
least two young men at Broadstone.
For this reason she asked Lancaster if he were fond of rowing; and when
he said he was, she invited him to join them in a boat party the next
day to help her and Olive pull the big family boat. Mr. Fox did not like
rowing, and Mr. Locker did not know how.
On the drive home Captain Asher and Lancaster did not talk much. Even
the young man's invitation to the rowing party did not excite much
interest in the captain. These two men were both thinking of the same
girl; one pleasantly, and the other very unpleasantly. Dick was charmed
with her, although he had had very little opportunity of becoming
acquainted with her, but he hoped for better luck the next day.
The captain did not know what to make of her. He felt sure that she was
at fault, and that he was at fault, and he could not see how things
could be made straight between them. Only one thing seemed plain to him,
and this was that, with things as they were at present, she was not
likely to come back to his house; and this would not be necessary; he
knew very well that there were other places she could visit; and that
early in the fall her father would be home.
Dick Lancaster walked to Broadstone the next morning because Captain
Asher was obliged to go to Glenford on business, but the young man did
not in the least mind a six-mile walk on a fine morning.
All the way to Glenford the captain thought of Olive; sometimes he
wished she had never come to him. Even now, with Lancaster to talk to,
he missed her grievously, and if she should not come back, the case
would be a great deal worse than if she had never come at all. But one
thing was certain: If she returned as the young lady with whom he had
lunched at Broadstone, he did not want her. He felt that he had been in
the wrong, that she had been in the wrong; and it seemed as if things in
this world were gradually going wrong. He was not in a good humor.
When he stopped his mare in front of a store, Maria Port stepped up to
him and said: "How do you do, captain? What have you done with your
young man?"
The captain got down from his buggy, hitched his mare to a post, and
then shook hands with Miss Port.
"Dick Lancaster has gone boating to-day with the Broadstone people," he
said.
"What!" exclaimed Miss Port. "Gone there again already? Why it was only
yesterday you took dinner with them."
"Lunch," corrected the captain.
"Well, you may call it what you please," said Maria, "but I call it
dinner. And them two's together without you, that you tried so hard to
keep apart!"
"I did not try anything of the kind," said the captain a little sharply;
"it just happened so."
"Happened so!" exclaimed Miss Port. "Well, I must say, Captain Asher,
that you've a regular genius for makin' things happen. The minute she
goes, he comes. I wish I could make things happen that way."
The captain took no notice of this remark, and moved toward the door of
the store.
"Look here, captain," continued Miss Port, "can't you come and take
dinner with us? You haven't seen Pop for ever so long. It won't be
lunch, though, but an honest dinner."
The captain accepted the invitation; for old Mr. Port was one of his
ancient friends; and then he entered the store. Miss Port was on the
point of following him; she had something to say about Olive; but she
stopped.
"I'll keep that till dinner-time," she said to herself.
Old Mr. Port had always been a very pleasant man to visit, and he had
not changed now, although he was nearly eighty years old. He had been a
successful merchant in the days when Captain Asher commanded a ship, and
there was good reason to believe that a large measure of his success was
due to his constant desire to make himself agreeable to the people with
whom he came in business contact. He was just as agreeable to his
friends, of whom Captain Asher was one of the oldest.
The people of Glenford often puzzled themselves as to what sort of a
woman Maria's mother could have been. None of them had ever seen her,
for she had died years before old Mr. Port had come into that healthful
region to reside; but all agreed that her parents must have been a
strangely assorted pair, unless, indeed, as some of the wiser suggested,
she got her disposition from a grandparent.
"That navy niece of yours must be a wild girl," said Miss Port to the
captain as she carved the beef.
"Wild!" exclaimed the captain. "I never saw anything wild about her."
"Perhaps not," said his hostess, "but there's others that have. It was
only three days ago that she took that young man, that goggle-eyed one,
out on the river in a boat, and did her best to upset him. Whether she
stood up and made the boat rock while he clung to the side, or whether
she bumped the boat against rocks and sand-bars, laughin' the louder the
more he was frightened, I wasn't told. But she did skeer him awful. I
know that."
"You seem to know a good deal about what is going on at Broadstone,"
remarked the captain, somewhat sarcastically.
"Indeed I do," said she; "a good deal more than they think. They've got
such fine stomachs that they can't eat the beef they get at the gap, and
Mr. Morris goes there three times a week, all the way from Glenford, to
take them Chicago beef. The rest of the time they mostly eat chickens,
I'm told."
"And so your butcher takes meat and brings back news," said the captain.
"The next time he passes the toll-gate I will tell him to leave the news
with me, and I will see that it is properly distributed." And with this,
he began to talk with Mr. Port.
"Oh, you needn't be so snappish about her," insisted Maria. "If you are
in that temper often, I don't wonder the young woman wanted to go away."
The captain made no answer, but his glance at the speaker was not
altogether a pleasant one. Old Mr. Port did not hear very well; but his
eyesight was good, and he perceived from the captain's expression that
his daughter had been saying something sharp. This he never allowed at
his table; and, turning to her, he said gently, but firmly:
"Maria, don't you think you'd better go up-stairs and go to bed?"
"He's all the time thinkin' I'm a child," said Miss Maria, with a grin;
"but how awfully he's mistook." Then she added: "Has that teacher got
money enough to support a wife when he marries her? I don't suppose his
salary amounts to much. I'm told it's a little bit of a college he
teaches at."
"I do not know anything about his salary," said the captain, and again
attempted to continue the conversation with the father.
But the daughter was not to be put down. "When is Olive Asher coming
back to your house?" she asked.
The captain turned upon her with a frown. "I did not say she was coming
back at all," he snapped.
Now old Mr. Port thought it time for him to interfere. To him Maria had
always been a young person to be mildly counseled, but to be firmly
punished if she did not obey said counsels. It was evident that she was
now annoying his old friend; Maria had a great habit of annoying people,
but she should not annoy Captain Asher.
"Maria," said Mr. Port, "leave the table instantly, and go to bed."
Miss Port smiled. She had finished her dinner, and she folded her napkin
and dusted some crumbs from her lap. She always humored her father when
he was really in earnest; he was very old and could not be expected to
live much longer, and it was his daughter's earnest desire that she
should be in good favor with him when he died. With a straight-cut smile
at the captain, she rose and left the two old friends to their talk, and
went out on the front piazza. There she saw Mr. Morris, the butcher, on
his way home with an empty wagon. She stepped out to the edge of the
sidewalk and stopped him.
"Been to Broadstone?" she asked.
"Yes," said the butcher with a sigh, and stopping his horse. Miss Port
always wanted to know so much about Broadstone, and he was on his way to
his dinner.
"Well," said Miss Port, "what monkey tricks are going on there now? Has
anybody been drowned yet? Did you see that young man that's stayin' at
the toll-gate?"
"Yes," said the butcher, "I saw him as I was crossing the bridge. He was
in the big boat helping to row. Pretty near the whole family was in the
boat, I take it."
"That's like them, just like them!" she exclaimed. "The next thing we'll
hear will be that they've all gone to the bottom together. I don't
suppose one of them can swim. Was the captain's niece standin' up, or
sittin' down?"
"They were all sitting down," said the butcher, "and behaving like other
people do in a boat." And he prepared to go on.
"Stop one minute," said Miss Port. "Of course you are goin' out there
day after to-morrow?"
"No," said Mr. Morris. "I'm going to-morrow. They've ordered some extra
things." Then he said, with a sort of conciliatory grin, "I'll get some
more news, and have more time to tell it."
"Now, don't be in such a hurry," said Miss Port, advancing to the side
of the wagon. "I want very much to go to Broadstone. I've got some
business with that Mrs. Blynn that I ought to have attended to long ago.
Now, why can't I ride out with you to-morrow? That's a pretty broad seat
you've got."
The butcher looked at her in dismay. "Oh, I couldn't do that, Miss
Port," he said. "I always have a heavy load, and I can't take
passengers, too."
"Now, what's the sense of your talkin' like that?" said Miss Port.
"You've got a great big horse, and plenty of room, and would you have
me go hire a carriage and a driver to go out there when you can take me
just as well as not?"
The butcher thought he would be very willing. He did not care for her
society, and, moreover, he knew that both at Broadstone and in the town
he would be ridiculed when it should be known that he had been taking
Maria Port to drive.
"Oh, I couldn't do it," he replied. "Of course, I'm willing to oblige--"
"Oh, don't worry yourself any more, Mr. Morris," interrupted Miss Port.
"I'm not askin' you to take me now, and I won't keep you from your
dinner."
The next morning as Mr. Morris, the butcher, was driving past the Port
house at rather a rapid rate for a man with a heavy wagon, Miss Maria
appeared at her door with her bonnet on. She ran out into the middle of
the street, and so stationed herself that Mr. Morris was obliged to
stop. Then, without speaking, she clambered up to the seat beside him.
"Now, you see," said she, settling herself on the leather cushion, "I've
kept to my part of the bargain, and I don't believe your horse will
think this wagon is a bit heavier than it was before I got in. What's
the name of the new people that's comin' to Broadstone?"
_CHAPTER IX_
_Miss Port takes a Drive with the Butcher._
As the butcher and Miss Port drove out of town the latter did not talk
quite so much as was her wont. She seemed to have something on her mind,
and presently she proposed to Mr. Morris that he should take the
shunpike for a change.
"That would be a mile and a half out of my way!" he exclaimed. "I can't
do it."
"I should think you'd get awfully tired of this same old road," said
she.
"The easiest road is the one I like every time," said Mr. Morris, who
was also not inclined to talk.
Miss Port did not care to pass the toll-gate that day; she was afraid
she might see the captain, and that in some way or other he would
interfere with her trip, but fortune favored her, as it nearly always
did. Old Jane came to the gate, and as this stolid old woman never asked
any questions, Miss Port contented herself with bidding her good
morning, and sitting silent during the process of making change.
This self-restraint very much surprised old Jane, who straightway
informed the captain that Miss Port was riding with the butcher to
Broadstone--she knew it was Broadstone, for he had no other customers
that way--and she guessed something must be the matter with her, for
she kept her mouth shut, and didn't say nothing to nobody.
As the wagon moved on Miss Port heaved a sigh. Fearful that she might
see the captain somewhere, she had not even allowed herself to survey
the premises in order to catch a glimpse of the shipmate's son. This was
a rare piece of self-denial in Maria, but she could do that sort of
thing on occasion.
When the butcher's wagon neared the Broadstone house Miss Port promptly
got down, and Mr. Morris went to the kitchen regions by himself. She
never allowed herself to enter a house by the back or side door, so now
she went to the front, where, disappointed at not seeing any of the
family although she had made good use of her eyes, she was obliged to
ask a servant to conduct her to Mrs. Blynn. Before she had had time to
calculate the cost of the rug in the hall, or to determine whether the
walls were calcimined or merely whitewashed, she found herself with that
good lady.
Miss Port's business with Mrs. Blynn indicated a peculiar intelligence
on the part of the visitor. It was based upon very little; it had not
much to do with anything; it amounted to almost nothing; and yet it
appeared to contain certain elements of importance which made Mrs. Blynn
give it her serious consideration.
After she had talked and peered about as long as she thought was
necessary, Maria said she was afraid Mr. Morris would be waiting for
her, and quickly took her leave, begging Mrs. Blynn not to trouble
herself to accompany her to the door. When she left the house Maria did
not seek the butcher's wagon, but started out on a little tour of
observation through the grounds. She was quite sure Mr. Morris was
waiting for her, but for this she did care a snap of her finger; he
would not dare to go and leave her. Presently she perceived a young
gentleman approaching her, and she recognized him instantly--it was the
goggle-eyed man who had been described to her. Stepping quickly toward
Mr. Locker, she asked him if he could tell her where she could find Miss
Asher; she had been told she was in the grounds.
The young man goggled his eye a little more than usual. "Do you know
her?" said he.
"Oh, yes," replied Maria; "I met her at the house of her uncle, Captain
Asher."
"And, knowing her, you want to see her"