Read Ebook: The Old Gray Homestead by Keyes Frances Parkinson

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Ebook has 997 lines and 69532 words, and 20 pages

She was so "simple and gentle," as Mrs. Gray said, that it came as a distinct shock when it was discovered that little as she talked, she observed a great deal. Austin was the first member of the family to find this out. All the others had gone to church, and he was lounging on the porch one Sunday morning, when she came out of the house, supposing that she was quite alone. On finding him there, she hesitated for a minute, and then sat quietly down on the steps, made one or two pleasant, commonplace remarks, and lapsed into silence, her chin resting on her hands, looking out towards the barns. Her expression was non-committal; but Austin's antagonistic spirit was quick to judge it to be critical.

"I suppose you've travelled a good deal, besides living in New York," he said, in the bitter tone that was fast becoming his usual one.

"Yes, to a certain extent. I've been around the world once, and to Europe several times, and I spent part of last winter South."

"How miserable and shabby this poverty-stricken place must look to you!"

She raised her head and leaned back against a post, looking fixedly at him for a minute. He was conscious, for the first time, that the pale face was extremely lovely, that the great dark eyes were not gray, as he had supposed, but a very deep blue, and that the slim throat and neck, left bare by the V-cut dress, were the color of a white rose. A swift current of feeling that he had never known before passed through him like an electric shock, bringing him involuntarily to his feet, in time to hear her say:

"It's shabby, but it isn't miserable. I don't believe any place is that, where there's a family, and enough food to eat and wood to burn--if the family is happy in itself. Besides, with two hours' work, and without spending one cent, you could make it much less shabby than it is; and by saving what you already have, you could stave off spending in the future."

She pointed, as she spoke, to the cluttered yard before them, to the unwashed wagons and rusty tools that had not been put away, to the shed-door half off its hinges, and the unpiled wood tossed carelessly inside the shed. He reddened, as much at the scorn in her gesture as at the words themselves, and answered angrily, as many persons do when they are ashamed:

"That's very true; but when you work just as hard as you can, anyway, you haven't much spirit left over for the frills."

"Excuse me; I didn't realize they were frills. No business man would have his office in an untidy condition, because it wouldn't pay; I shouldn't think it would pay on a farm either. Just as it seems to me--though, of course, I'm not in a position to judge--that if you sold all those tubercular grade cows, and bought a few good cattle, and kept them clean and fed them well, you'd get more milk, pay less for grain, and not have to work so hard looking after more animals than you can really handle well."

As she spoke, she began to unfasten her long, frilled, black sleeves, and rose with a smile so winning that it entirely robbed her speech of sharpness.

"Let's go to work," she said, "and see how much we could do in the way of making things look better before the others get home from church. We'll start here. Hand me that broom and I'll sweep while you stack up the milk-pails--don't stop to reason with me about it--that'll only use up time. If there's any hot water on the kitchen stove and you know where the mop is, I'll wash this porch as well as sweep it; put on some more water to heat if you take all there is."

When the Grays returned from church, their astonished eyes were met with the spectacle of their boarder, her cheeks glowing, her hair half down her back, and her silk dress irretrievably ruined, helping Austin to wash and oil the one wagon which still stood in the yard. She fled at their approach, leaving Austin to retail her conversation and explain her conduct as best he could, and to ponder over both all the afternoon himself.

"She's dead right about the cows," declared Thomas; "but what would be the use of getting good stock and putting it in these barns? It would sicken in no time. We need new buildings, with proper ventilation, and concrete floors, and a silo."

"Why don't you say we need a million dollars, and be done with it? You might just as well," retorted his brother.

"Because we don't--but we need about ten thousand; half of it for buildings, and the rest for stock and utensils and fertilizers, and for what it would cost to clean up our stumpy old pastures, and make them worth something again."

At that moment Mrs. Cary entered the room for dinner, and the discussion of unpossessed resources came to an abrupt end. Her color was still high, and she ate her first hearty meal since her arrival; but her dress and her hair were irreproachably demure again, and she talked even less than usual.

That evening Molly begged off from doing her share with the dishes, and went to play on her newly tuned piano. She loved music dearly, and had genuine talent; but it seemed as if she had never realized half so keenly before how little she knew about it, and how much she needed help and instruction. A particularly unsuccessful struggle with a difficult passage finally proved too much for her courage, and shutting the piano with a bang, she leaned her head on it and burst out crying.

A moment later she sat up with a sudden jerk, realizing that the parlor door had opened and closed, and tried to wipe away the tears before any one saw them; then a hot blush of embarrassment and shame flooded her wet cheeks, as she realized that the intruder was not one of her sisters, but Mrs. Cary.

"What a good touch you have!" she said, sitting down by the piano, and apparently quite unaware of the storm. "I love music dearly, and I thought perhaps you'd let me come and listen to your playing for a little while. The fingering of that 'Serenade' is awfully hard, isn't it? I thought I should never get it, myself--never did, really well, in fact! Do you like your teacher?"

"I never had a lesson in my life," replied Molly, the sobs rising in her throat again; "there are two good ones in Wallacetown, but, you see, we never could af--"

"Well, some teachers do more harm than good," interrupted her visitor, "probably you've escaped a great deal. Play something else, won't you? Do you mind this dim light? I like it so much."

So Molly opened the piano and began again, doing her very best. She chose the simple things she knew by heart, and put all her will-power as well as all her skill into playing them well. It was only when she stopped, confessing that she knew no more, that Mrs. Gary stirred.

"I used to play a good deal myself," she said, speaking very low; "perhaps I could take it up again. Do you think you could help me, Molly?"

"Do you see that great trunk?" she went on, after she had drawn Molly in after her and lighted the lamp; "I sent for it a week ago, but it only got here yesterday. It's full of all my--all the clothes I had to stop wearing a little while ago."

Molly's heart began to thump with excitement.

Monday and Tuesday passed by without further excitement; but Wednesday morning, while Mr. Gray was planting his newly ploughed vegetable-garden, Mrs. Cary sauntered out, and sat down beside the place where he was working, apparently oblivious of the fact that damp ground is supposed to be as detrimental to feminine wearing apparel as it is to feminine constitutions.

"I've been watching you from the window as long as I could stand it," she said, "now I've come to beg. I want a garden, too, a flower-garden. Do you mind if I dig up your front yard?"

He laughed, supposing that she was joking. "Dig all you want to," he said; "I don't believe you'll do much harm."

"Thanks. I'll try not to. Have I your full permission to try my hand and see?"

"You certainly have."

"Is there some boy in the village I could hire to do the first heavy work and the mowing, and pull up the weeds from time to time if they get ahead of me?"

Howard Gray leaned on his hoe. "You don't need to hire a boy," he said gravely; "we'll be only too glad to help you all you need."

"Thank you. But, you see, you've got too much to do already, and I can't add to your burdens, or feel free to ask favors, unless you'll let me do it in a business way."

Mr. Gray turned his hoe over, and began to hack at the ground. "I see how you feel," he began, "but--"

"If Thomas could do it evenings, at whatever the rate is around here by the hour, I should be very glad. If not, please find me a boy."

"Well?" demanded her husband, as she paused for breath.

"Well, Howard Gray, the first of them little changes is to be a great big piazza, to go across the whole front of the house! 'The kitchen porch is so small an' crowded,' says she, 'an' you can't see the river from there; I want a place to sit out evenings. Can't I have the fireplaces in my rooms unbricked,' she went on, 'an' the rooms re-papered an' painted? An', oh,--I've never lived in a house where there wasn't a bathroom before, an' I want to make that big closet with a window off my bedroom into one. We'll have a door cut through it into the hall, too,' says she, 'an' isn't there a closet just like it overhead? If we can get a plumber here--they're such slippery customers--he might as well put in two bathrooms as one, while he's about it, an' you shan't do my great washin's any more without some good set-tubs. An' Mrs. Gray, kerosene lamps do heat up the rooms so in summer,--if there's an electrician anywhere around here--' 'Mrs. Cary,' says I, 'you're an angel right out of Heaven, but we can't accept all this from you. It means two thousand dollars, straight.' 'About what I should pay in two months for my living expenses anywhere else,' says she. 'Favors! It's you who are kind to let me stay here, an' not mind my tearin' your house all to pieces. Thomas is goin' to drive me up to Wallacetown this evenin' to see if we can find some mechanics'; an' she got up, an' kissed me, an' strolled off."

"Thomas thinks she's the eighth wonder of the world," said his father; "she can just wind him around her little finger."

"She's windin' us all," replied his wife, "an' we're standin' grateful-like, waitin' to be wound."

"That's so--all except Austin. Austin's mad as a hatter at what she got him to do Sunday morning; he doesn't like her, Mary."

"Humph!" said his wife.

"Good-bye, Mrs. Gray, I'm going for a ride."

"Good-bye, dearie; sure it ain't too hot?"

"Not a bit; it's rained so hard all this week that I haven't had a bit of exercise, and I'm getting cross."

"Cross! I'd like to see you once! It still looks kinder thunderous to me off in the West, so don't go far."

"I won't, I promise; I'll be back by supper-time. There's Austin, just up from the hayfield--I'll get him to saddle for me." And Sylvia ran quickly towards the barn.

"You don't mean to say you're going out this torrid day?" he demanded, lifting his head from the tin bucket in which he had submerged it as she voiced her request, and eyeing her black linen habit with disfavor.

"It's no hotter on the highroad than in the hayfield."

"Very true; but I have to go, and you don't. Being one of the favored few of this earth, there's no reason why you shouldn't sit on a shady porch all day, dressed in cool, pale-green muslin, and sipping iced drinks."

"Did you ever see me in a green muslin? I'll saddle Dolly myself, if you don't feel like it."

She spoke very quietly, but the immediate consciousness of his stupid break did not improve Austin's bad temper.

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