Wheat and Huckleberries Part 20

"Well," said Kate-she hesitated a moment and then looked straight at the questioner-"she as good as said it was none of my business, and she'd do what she thought was right whatever came of it."

"Ah!" said Aunt Katharine, with an accent of relief. "And I presume you didn't tell her that you were coming here this morning. I see now why you came so early." She looked at her niece with a faint sarcastic smile, then said coldly, "I am very fond of your sister."

The words sounded somehow like a threat. The blood mounted in Kate's face, and she clinched her hands on the sides of her chair. "I know it,"

she said, "and so is every one else fond of her. Grandfather likes her just as much as you do. Perhaps it's new for you to care for a girl as you care for her, but it's no new thing for Esther. It's been the way ever since she was little."

The bearing of the fact on Kate's ground of quarrel with her aunt was perhaps not clear, but some fine wrinkles gathered in Miss Saxon's forehead.

"And does Esther like everybody?" she asked, with a returning sharpness.

"She keeps it to herself if she doesn't," said Kate. "She's kind to everybody-most everybody," she added, with a sudden remembrance of the one person to whom Esther had not of late seemed always kind. "And that's how she gets into trouble, making everybody like her, with her soft pleasant ways and saying nice things. Oh, I've had to stand up for her so many times to keep her from being imposed on! I'm standing up for her now," she went on pa.s.sionately. "It's your _ideas_ you care about, and you want her to take up with them, whether they'll make her happy or not. But I care for _her_, and I want to make you stop."

The old woman's face had grown as tense as a drawn bow. "So you think my ideas are getting hold of her, do you?" she asked.

"_She_ thinks they are," cried Kate, "but I don't believe it. I believe it's just because she thinks so much of you. But if she _should_ come to feel as you do about all those things, what good would it do? She couldn't fight for them. Do you think there's any fight in Esther Northmore?" She threw out her hand with an impatient gesture. "Oh, they say you're so clever! But you're not clever at all if you think _that_.

She'd bear things till they broke her heart before she'd fight."

Miss Saxon's lips were drawn tight, and her eyes narrowed to a bright dark line, as if these side-lights that Kate had been throwing on Esther's character had blinded her a little. She did not speak for a moment, and the girl went on hotly, even fiercely.

"You talk about wanting women to be so free and independent, but you want to bind Esther to those ideas of yours and make her carry them out.

I'll tell you what would be the end of it if she should come into your plan. She'd stand by what she promised, but 'twould kill her. She's made for loving, and for caring about the things we've always cared about, and she wouldn't be happy any other way. She isn't that kind."

Aunt Katharine's lips parted now. They seemed to be as dry as Kate's had been a little while ago. She leaned forward on her cane and asked a question slowly. "You pretend to know so much about your sister, tell me, do you think there's anybody she cares for now?"

Kate dropped her head for a moment, but it was no time for evasions. The excitement and strain of the situation were too much for her at last.

"No, I don't," she said, with the tears springing into her eyes. "But there's somebody that cares a sight for her; and if she should ever come to care for him she'd be a thousand times happier than she'd ever be with anything _you_ could do for her. Oh, if you should make her promise-if you should leave your money to her-I should hate you as long as I live, and she would hate you, too, after a while."

Miss Katharine Saxon rose from her seat. She had not been as straight in years, but she trembled from head to foot as she stood there facing the girl.

"Katharine Northmore,-for you're my namesake, if you do hate me,-" she said slowly, "you've said enough. You took upon yourself to do a very impertinent thing when you came down here to give instructions to me. I shall walk by the light I've got, and do my duty as I see it, by myself and your sister too. Now go home. And you needn't be afraid I shall tell Esther you were here. I shan't shame her nor myself by ever speaking of it."

But when she was left alone she sank back in her chair, and there was almost a sob in her voice as she said, "If it were only _that_ girl who saw things as I see them!"

CHAPTER XIII

INTO THE WEST AGAIN

The good cry which Kate had been longing for came before she got back to her grandfather's that morning. She took it with a girlish abandon, sitting on the meadow bridge. Then she rose up, bathed her face in the brook and went on her way, half ashamed of what she had done, half wondering that she had dared to do it, and wholly glad that it was over.

Tom was waiting for her at the bars below the barn. It helped the appearance of things that she should go in with him to breakfast, and, though he would have scorned to own it, Tom had a healthy curiosity as to the outcome of this interview with Aunt Katharine.

Kate's report of it was meagre; but the impression was left on his mind that she had gotten rather the worst of it, especially as she made no concealment of the fact that she had been summarily dismissed at the end. She owned frankly that she had been crying, and then showed plainly that the spirit of controversy was not dead in her yet by the reckless manner in which she threw in her "Westernisms" and defended them during the rest of their talk. On the whole, Tom felt relieved as to her state of mind, and they went into the house quarrelling in the most natural manner; she having remarked that Aunt Katharine's fierce manner didn't "faze" her after she got started, and he protesting that there was no such word in the dictionary. He maintained his point as far as the old Webster in the house was concerned, but she at least proved that her word came of good respectable stock, and stood firm on the proposition that it _ought_ to be there if it wasn't.

It was the last time for many a day that Kate spoke to any one of that morning's adventure. Not a suspicion of it dawned on Esther. The talk between the sisters the night before had been too nearly a quarrel for either of them to wish to reopen the subject which had so disturbed them, and it was out of consideration for Kate's uneasiness over the intimacy with Aunt Katharine that Esther went to her house less often than usual during the next few days. But indeed it was not easy during the week that was left of Kate's stay at her grandfather's for either of the girls to find time for anything except the pleasurings which always crowd the last days of a visit. Everything which had been omitted before must be done now, and there were all the little gifts to be prepared for the family at home, tokens of special meaning for each one, and for Mrs.

Northmore most of all.

She had asked for a piece of flag-root from the old spot in the meadow, and enough was dug to satisfy her appet.i.te for years, Aunt Elsie preserving some of it in sugar, just as the grandmother used to in the old days, when children carried bits of it to church in their pockets to keep them awake during sermon time. She had mentioned an apple from the crooked tree in the lane, whose seeds always shook in their core like a rattlebox by the first of September, and every apple which ripened on the old farm in the summer had a place in Kate's trunk. There were odors, too, which she loved; odors of pine, and sweet fern, and life everlasting, to be gathered and sewed into silken bags and pillows; and there was a little bunch-Aunt Elsie tucked it in-of dried hardhack and catnip and spearmint.

"I don't suppose she ever steeped those things for her own babies, being a doctor's wife," she said; "but she knew the taste of them when she was a baby herself, and I guess it'll bring back the old garret to her, and the bunches that hung from the rafters when she and I used to play there on rainy days."

Such were the chief events of that last week, but there was one other of some importance, a call from Mr. Philip Hadley, who did not come this time to inquire for his ancestors, but very distinctly for the young ladies, and the fact that their grandfather was absent did not prevent his making a decidedly long call. He seemed extremely interested in all their doings since he saw them last, and the look of pleasure with which he heard the announcement that Esther was to spend the winter in Boston would have convinced Tom, had he seen it, of the correctness of an opinion he had lately expressed to Kate. It did not affect her, however.

It was no young man with soft white hands, but only a grim old woman, whose influence she feared for her sister.

So the days went by, swift, hurrying days, and brought the morning of Kate's departure. Tom would have liked to go with her to the depot, but it was the grandfather, with the girls, of course, who made the trip.

They said good-by to each other in a last interview at the barn, and though each tried to be gay and off-hand, the effort was not very successful. They made solemn compact to write to each other often, Tom for his part agreeing to keep his "eye peeled" for any developments concerning Esther, and Kate for hers promising to "watch out" for anything that could interest him in affairs at the West.

"You must come out and see us, Tom," she said earnestly. "I want to show you everything, and make you like our part of the country as well as-as well as I like this. Your ways are different from ours, of course; but I've got a lot of new ideas, and I've had an awfully good time with you, Tom. I didn't know I _could_ feel so bad to go away."

"I guess I should like it out your way too," said Tom, turning his head as if it were not quite safe to look into her eyes at that moment, "and perhaps sometime I can come. I guess it's good for folks to see something besides their own things, and-I _know_ I should like it out West if _you_ were there."

And then they parted, each of them having apparently some trouble with the throat just then, and Tom drawing his sleeve across his eyes in a suspicious manner as he walked down the lane.

"The Lord bless and keep you and cause His face to s.h.i.+ne upon you," Ruel Saxon said solemnly as he bade the girl good-by at the depot.

It was the last word before the train pulled out, for Esther's heart was full, and she could say no more after sending her love for the thousandth time to them all at home. And then the beautiful New England village, with its lovely homes and shaded streets, faded from Kate's sight; the hills and the little fields, crossed by the old stone walls, rushed past her, and it was the wide green stretches of the home country for which the eyes of her heart were straining as she flew on into the West.

It was a great day for the family when she reached home. The doctor was at the depot, impatient as a boy over the three minutes' delay in the train that brought her in, and he almost forgot to secure her trunk, or set her bag into the carriage, in his delight at seeing her.

"Well, I believe they must have treated you pretty well back there," he said, pinching her cheek. And he would have had her on the scales before she left the depot if she had not protested that she could not spare a second getting weighed.

"I shall lose a pound for every minute we waste getting home," she cried, jumping into the carriage; and at this he laughed, and putting the reins into her hands, told her to get the gray filly over the ground as fast as she pleased. How they did go das.h.i.+ng down the road, and what wonder that excitement was rife in the town that afternoon as to what member of the community was lying at the point of death that the doctor was going at such a rate to see him!

They were on the porch to greet her when she pulled up at the door, Mrs.

Northmore and Virgie, with Aunt Milly gorgeous in her best cap and kerchief at the rear; and such a hugging and kissing, such a laughing and crying followed as might have made one wonder what _would_ have happened if the girl had stayed away a year instead of a single summer.

It was good to be back-so good; she realized it more with every minute, and the trite old saying that the best part of going away from home is coming back again appealed to her as never before. The trunk was unpacked with all the household gathered round, but no one, not even Mrs. Northmore, daring to help, lest some precious token, tucked safely in by Kate's own hand, should be drawn prematurely from its corner or shaken unwarily from the folds of a dress. Oh, the joy of drawing them out, one after another, and the bursts of delight with which they were received!

Virgie skipped about the room in glee over the trinkets which had been brought to her from Boston and the sea; Dr. Northmore declared he must have coffee made at once to give him a chance of using the beautiful cup which Stella had painted with just such blossoming honeysuckles as grew over the door from which he had carried away his bride; Aunt Milly stood agape over the glories of the black silk ap.r.o.n which her young ladies had embroidered for her in figures of the gayest colors-Jack Horner enjoying his Christmas pie in one corner, Miss m.u.f.fet frightened from her curds by the wicked black spider in another, and the m.u.f.fin man with his tray on his head stalking proudly between; while as for Mrs.

Northmore, she sat like a little child, her lap filling with treasures, nibbling now and then at the flag-root, or burying her face in those dear old odors, and lifting it again with smiles s.h.i.+ning through the tears in her eyes.

Not till the very bottom of the trunk had been reached was it emptied of its last gift, and then there was plenty of need for the mother's help; for the putting away of her scattered wardrobe was a task to which Kate could not quiet her excited nerves. She was almost too happy to eat, but the supper Aunt Milly had made ready would have put the edge of appet.i.te on satiety itself.

"Why, Aunt Milly, a body'd think I was a regular prodigal, to have such a feast as this set out for me," she declared, at the close of the meal, when it seemed as if every one of her favorite dainties had been heaped upon her plate in turn, but the old woman shook her head at this with emphasis.

"No ye ain't, honey," she said, "your Aunt Milly never did have no use for prodigals" (she would probably not have recognized any member of her family in that character, however he might have wasted his substance), "but I allers did 'low that them that's a comfort to you were the ones to fix for. 'Pears to me that was a terrible mean-spirited man in the Bible that never let 'em set out a kid or anything for the boy that was so good 'n' steady. _I'd_ have done it, if I'd been cookin' for 'em, sure nuff I would."

It was, perhaps, the devoted old servant who had pined most for Kate's return, and it was certainly she who was most anxious to have the girl all to herself now that she had fairly come. Mrs. Northmore could wait.

The things she cared most to know would be learned best in the unsolicited confidences of the days that were coming, and she feigned some errand for herself in the edge of evening which gave the girl a chance to sit for a little while in the kitchen, with the old woman questioning her and crooning over her out of the depths of an abounding love.

"We've missed you powerful bad, honey," she said, rocking back and forth, with her eyes fixed in a beaming content on the girl's face.

"'Spect they didn't put much of it into the letters, but I tell you your ma's been mighty lonesome some of the time. I could see it, if the rest couldn't; and your pa-you could tell how _he_ felt by the way he fretted if the letters didn't come jes' so often. And 'tween you 'n' me he didn't like it much to have Esther stay all winter, only your ma worked him round, the way she has, you know. Bless your heart, if they'd wanted _you_ to stay too, dunno what would 'a' happened to us. 'Spect this yer ole woman would 'a' been dead 'n' gone before spring. I've been pinin'

for you all summer."

"But I shouldn't have stayed if they had wanted me," Kate said cheerfully, and then she added with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, "but really, Aunt Milly, you don't look as if you had been pining. It rather seems to me you've grown a little stouter since we went away."