Читать книгу At the Sign of the Fox - Mabel Osgood Wright - Страница 4

Table of Contents

The West farm was on the upper of the two roads between Stonebridge and Gordon, at the point where a steep uphill grade paused, on a plateau of several hundred feet in length, as if to rest and take breath and allow those who travelled upon it to drink in the splendour of the river view before attempting the still steeper ascent beyond.

Three generations of Wests had lived from this farm until, some forty years before, its hundred acres being all too small for the needs of modern push and life, the last young male of the family, a man of twenty odd, of tenacious mixed Scotch and New England stock, had gone to New York to follow a quicker game of dollars.

In due course, when Adam Lawton’s parents died, his mother having been a West and the homestead her portion, he found himself absorbed in the beginnings of money-making, yet somewhere in him was a deep-buried sentiment for his boyhood’s home, stern though the life and discipline had been, and even though he found no leisure to revisit it. He therefore had installed his maternal cousin Keith in it as guardian, paying the taxes and for such improvements and repairs as kept it apace with the times. Then he promptly forgot it, except on pay days, when he justified himself to himself, the Scotch thrift in him insisting on justification, for the comparatively slight outlay, by saying half aloud to his private secretary, who did the forwarding, “A snug little place, and always worth a price; my daughter fancies it, and perhaps some day, who knows, I may like to go back there for a rest.”

Thus it followed that Miss Keith and the farm had lived together for twenty years a life of almost wedded devotion. The sheep had disappeared from the hills, it is true, and four cows, a fat horse, and countless chickens and ducks represented the live stock. The cultivated ground had been reduced to a great corn-field, a potato patch, and vegetable garden, on whose borders grew fruits of all seasons, the rest of the land being sown down to rye or hay, while the woodland that protected the house on the north and east, being only required to yield kindlings, had returned to the beauty of a forest primeval, with a dense growth of oak, white pine, and hemlock, underspread with untrodden ferns, amid which, following the seasons’ call, blossomed arbutus, anemones, moccasin flowers, snow crystal Indian pipe, and partridge vine.

Now, for the first time in all these years, Miss Keith was faltering in her single-hearted allegiance, and this upheaval coming on her fiftieth birthday, too, gave it a double significance. At fifty one’s ideas and person are supposed to be settled for life, but with Miss Keith her semi-centennial was the first occasion upon which she ever remembered to have felt thoroughly unsettled, and as she stood in front of the parlour mantel-shelf, arms akimbo, gazing at the First Cause, that rested against the wall between the fat clock and a blue china vase filled with quaking grass, she alternately frowned and smiled.

This First Cause was the highly finished cabinet photograph of a man, coupled with a suggestion of marriage contained in a letter, the edge of the pale blue envelope containing which peeped from under the garrulous little clock that ticked vociferously the twenty-four hours through, and gave an alarming whir-r, suggestive of asthma in the depths of its chest, before striking every quarter and half, and mumbled a long grace before the hours.

The photograph was of a man past fifty, with a good head, large, wide-open eyes, and a broad nose that might mean either stupidity or a sense of humour, according as to how the nostrils moved in life. Very little else could be said of the face, for mustache and beard covered it closely, running up before the ears to meet a curly mop of hair that roofed the head. It was an attractive face at first glance, and the low, turned-over collar, flowing tie that was barely hinted at beneath the beard, and loose sack-coat carried out the suggestion of strength, that was continued to where a pair of powerful hands, whose fingers rested together easily tip to tip, completed the picture.

Picture and letter had arrived three days before, and yet the answer to the latter lay in process of construction upon the flap of the old-fashioned bookcase in the window corner. Perhaps the cause for the delay was more in the fact that both picture and letter, though relating to the First Cause, had not come directly from him, but from his sister. She had been a school friend of Miss Keith’s, who occasionally came to visit her and who was now living in Boston, having become the third wife of some one connected in a humble capacity with a free library in the city where the State-house dome seeks to rival Minerva’s helmet, and whose streets ever coil in and out as if in classic emulation of Medusa’s locks.

Taking the letter from under the clock, Miss Keith went to the window and re-read it for the twentieth time.

“October 10, 19—.

“My dear Friend:

“It is only during the past year, since I have been living within reach and under the privilege and influence of all that is inspiring to one of my aspirations, that I have realized how lonely your life must be upon that farm, where your only intimate associates are animals, feathered and otherwise, and evening, instead of becoming as it is with me the period of self-culture in the society of a loyal male companion, is too often a period of premature somnolence and apathy.

“Until now I have seen no method of escape to offer you, and so have held my peace. Two weeks ago, however, fortune smiled through a letter from my brother, James White, out in Wisconsin. You must remember James—the handsome man with curly hair who waited on Jane Tilley when we were at Mt. Holyoke, until she jilted him for William Parsons. He got over it nobly, though, and brought us paper flower bouquets the day we graduated. Mine was of red and white roses, and yours was all white. Surely you will remember—he said you looked ‘quite smart enough for a bride.’

“Well, you were pretty in those days, Keith, with your white skin and light brown hair, before you took on freckles; but, after all, dark complexions like mine wear the best.

“Now, to come to time—James is a widower. He has sweet children and needs a wife and mother for them. Though there are plenty of western women, and some that have hoards of money, out in Corntown, where his canning business is, he was always particular and peckish, preferring a refined eastern woman to influence his family. Knowing that I am living in Boston in the midst of opportunities, so to speak, our home being halfway between Bunker Hill Monument and Harvard University, he has intrusted me to select him a wife. Your face appeared to me. Putting aside more pressing claimants, I wrote to him of the girl he once declared fit to be ‘a bride,’ and sent him your last picture—at least it’s the last I’ve seen. He answered by return post. He has not forgotten, and he will, if you consent, come here the first of May to meet you and be married.

“Now, dear Keith, why not put your place on the market, and when winter sets in come here to me in Boston and see the world, spend a season of relaxation, hear lectures and music, and be thus attuned for matrimony in the sweet spring, when the horse-chestnut buds yield to the sun and drop their glossy shields in the Public Gardens?

“Your friend and sister-in-law to be,

“Judith W. Dow.”

Straightway Miss Keith, the strong of body and heretofore of mind, the adviser of both men and women for miles around, Miss Keith, the capable, who, with help “on shares,” made the little farm pay and lived a life of bustling content that was the opposite of somnolent vegetation, began mentally to chafe and rebel against the confinement and loneliness of her lot, and yearn for change,—she who had always preached and practised that one’s work is that which lies nearest to hand.

She ignored the freckle thrust and the phrase taking for granted that the farm was hers to sell. The words music and lectures seemed italicized, yet the strongest appeal in the crafty letter was its promise of human companionship, for she had often yearned for kin.

Miss Keith was of no common type, even among the many intelligent women reared on New England farms. She had struggled her way through Mt. Holyoke and fitted herself to teach in the Gilead school, where she had remained ten years, until, at the death of her Aunt Lawton, her cousin had offered to install her at the farm, where the active life indoors and out proved a strong attraction. During these years her clear, strong voice had led in singing-school and in the village choir, where it still held sway,—the fact that it was slightly “weathered” increasing rather than diminishing its power. Though pale of hair and face, at no time in her life had she been wholly unattractive, and her speech, sometimes lapsing into provincialisms when she was either excited or constrained, was wholly free of either Yankee dialect or nasal twang. She had met many people of all grades in due course,—farmers, manufacturers, prospectors, and the leisurely class of cottagers from Stonebridge and Gordon; but no man had ever said, “I love you.”

Seating herself at the desk with an unaccustomed drooping of the head, she finished the letter begun the day before, filling each of the four pages with rapid strokes, folded it without once re-reading, sealed it with a bit of crumby red wax that had not seen light probably since her Aunt Lawton had used it for the sealing of her will, and affixed the stamp with slow exactness precisely in the proper corner. Then with folded hands she leaned back and gazed at the missive, saying, as she did so, “That decides it. I will go to Boston the first of the year, when everything is closed up and settled for the winter. Farrish, below, can tend the stock. I’ve saved a little money to enjoy myself with, and when May comes, if James White turns up and we hold to the same mind, I shall marry him; if not—I suppose Cousin Adam will be glad for me to come back, that is, unless he makes other arrangements.”

The alternative to the matrimonial scheme seemed just then of such slight moment that she hardly pronounced the words, but turned to leave the desk, when a sharp, compelling bark from the rug before the hearth made her start and brought a red spot to each cheek.

There before her sat a shaggy brown dog, setter in build, but with a collie cross showing in eccentricities of hair that formed a ruff about his neck and gave the tail a strange bushiness. A pair of great, soft, brown eyes were fixed on Miss Keith’s face, and the expression in them was accentuated by the slight raising of the long, mobile, silky ears, which seemed to ask a question. Meeting no response, the dog barked once more and raised one paw pleadingly.

Miss Keith, who had risen, seated herself again suddenly. “Why, Tatters, old man, I’ve forgotten your breakfast, and it is almost dinner-time. Where have you been since yesterday? Hunting by the river? You know you should not come in here with a wet coat and muddy paws. Down! Down!” she cried, as the dog, never moving his gaze from her face, crossed the room and, sitting on his haunches before her, rested his fringy wet paws on her lap.

“What is the matter? Thorns or burs in your feet?”

The dog continued to look at her steadfastly, giving a little whine meantime, but never a wag of his tail.

“Tatters!” she exclaimed at last, moistening her lips, which seemed to be unaccountably dry, “I believe you know what is on my mind, and what I’ve been wrestling with in the spirit these three days,—but it’s all settled now, and my mind is free. Come, and I’ll get your dinner bone.”

“Settled!” and then the thought struck her, “What would become of Tatters?” A new caretaker might easily be found for the place and cattle, who would also understand the pruning of the cherished vines and fruit trees, but would he understand Tatters, and would Tatters understand or tolerate any one not born of the family? As long as people of the West stock had lived in Gilead, with them had been a sturdy breed of collies and setters, whose sagacity and nosing power were famed throughout the country-side. Now, through chance and short-sightedness, the two breeds had merged in one, and Tatters, of middle age, wise beyond the dog wisdom of his ancestors, was its only representative.

Ever since his year of puppyhood, when Miss Keith with New England firmness had completed his house-breaking education, he had been the house man, guarding the picket gate by day, the door by night. In his responsibility of combining double natures, he herded young calves in a poorly fenced pasture, or tracked the turkey hens (those most brainless of feathered things) when they recklessly led their broods into the dark woodland in May storms. As setter, he ran free by the wagon when Miss Keith took eggs, butter, or berries to her various customers, dashing in among the hordes of English sparrows by the roadside, or going afield with cautious tread and circling tail to flush the flocks of meadowlarks with eager sporting fervour. As collie, with Scotch traditions in his blood, he followed her to meeting or singing-school, and slept under the pew seat or sat sentinel in the vestibule, according to season and weather. Then by the winter hearth fire he was Miss Keith’s counsellor, for in spite of the stoves that her Cousin Adam had supplied, her practicality of mind, and the labour it entailed, she had a primeval streak in her that yearned to see the heat that warms one. Tatters was the silent partner, it is true, in their discussions, and merely looked assent as he listened to the oft-repeated tale of short weight in feed, and the sloth of hired men as opposed to the thrift of those who work on shares, with perfect composure, yet let one of these hired men but raise his voice in unamiable argument with Miss Keith, and Tatters crouched to heel, upper lip cleared from his glistening teeth, ready for action, and no one ever braved the warning.

Then, too, he took the responsibility of beginning the day’s work upon his shaggy shoulders. At six o’clock in winter, changing to five on May day, he left his rug in the outer kitchen, and going to Miss Keith’s bedroom, nosed open the door, wedged from jarring by a mat, and after lifting her stout slippers to the bed edge, carefully, one by one, with many false starts and droppings, if she did not waken, he would sit down, and with thrown back head give quick, short barks until he had response.

How did he know hours and dates? How do we know that of which we are most sure, yet cannot prove by mathematical problems? He did know—that was sufficient.

As all these things surged through Miss Keith’s brain, the First Cause on the mantel-shelf grew more remote, and folding her strong lean arms about the pleading dog, she rested her face against his head and began to cry softly, a thing unheard of.