Wheat and Huckleberries Part 21

"Laws now, Miss Kate," cried Aunt Milly, "that's jes' some o' your jokin'." Then, smoothing her ample front with an uneasy expression, she added beseechingly: "But you can't tell by the looks o' folks what's goin' on inside of 'em. I was powerful puny a spell back. Your pa'll tell you how much medicine he giv' me." Then, her face brightening again: "But you or' to see the way I began to pick up when the day was set for you to come home. 'Peared like the misery jes' cleared out of itself, an' I reckon I did get back the flesh I lost, with maybe a little more," she ended serenely.

"Well, I hope the misery'll stay away for good, now I've come," said Kate, laughing. The sound of voices in the hall told her that a bevy of friends had come to welcome her home, and with another smile at Milly she was off to meet them, and to begin all over again the account of her beautiful summer.

The warmth with which the Western town greets its returning children is one of the pleasant things to have known in one's journey through life.

For the next few days Kate's time was full, responding to the welcome of her friends, asking and answering questions, and adjusting herself again to her own place.

There was one friend for whom she inquired early, and of him Mrs. Elwell brought the fullest report when she brought her own greeting to the girl next morning. Morton had hardly been at home all summer. He had been busy, first at one thing, then another, as Kate knew, and now-it was quite a sudden move-he was with an engineering party in an adjoining county. It seemed he had given some special attention to surveying during the last year in college, and, like everything else he gave his mind to, had it so well in hand that it turned to his use and advantage.

The work would keep him a few weeks longer, which would make him late in getting back to school, but the pay was so good he had felt he must make the most of his chance. She gave one of those little sighs which every one understood when she talked of her nephew, and then her face brightened as she added, "But he'll certainly come home before he goes back to college, and we shall see him before so very long."

At which Kate's face brightened too. There was no one now whom she wanted so much to see as Morton Elwell.

CHAPTER XIV

THE NABOB MAKES AN IMPRESSION

It was a divided stream in which the current of our story flowed during the days that followed, and a quiet stream it seemed at first after the dash and sparkle of the summer. A week more and Kate was busy with her books again, beginning her last year in the Rushmore High School. Tom Saxon was in school too, and Stella had flitted back to Boston, ready to settle down in that pretty studio of hers, with her art and her pupils.

Esther alone was at leisure, but even for her the time pa.s.sed swiftly.

Aunt Elsie gave her a willing share in the light work of the household, and her grandfather claimed her more and more as a companion in all his goings, and a listener to his tales in the lengthening evenings.

Then there were the visits to Aunt Katharine, and few were the days in which they were omitted. The sight of the girl always brought a smile to the face of the lonely old woman. She was, if possible, more kind than ever, and yet, though Esther could not have explained it, she felt with a puzzled wonder that there was somehow a difference. Not for long had Aunt Katharine talked in the old pa.s.sionate way of those peculiar views which she held so dear and vital. She seemed less eager than once to impress them, and Esther noted it, resenting more and more that fancy of her sister's that the proud-spirited old woman would have taken undue advantage of her influence, or have wished to put compulsion on another's life and thought.

It was a pity Kate did not know the true state of the case. As it was she sent an anxious thought every now and then in the direction of Aunt Katharine, and shook her fist, metaphorically speaking, in the face of those ideas which she imagined her to be always urging. In regard to anything else she refused to be solicitous over her sister, though Tom, who actually wrote a letter once a week for the first month, did his best to disturb her. The "nabob" was not only calling oftener than ever,-and this in the absence of Stella,-but the grandfather and Esther had been invited to visit at his summer home in Hartridge, a visit which they had made, and, according to reports on their return, enjoyed immensely.

"You can pay your money and take your choice, of course," Tom wrote derisively at the end of this interesting news, which he sent in advance of Esther herself, "but it's ancestors _or_ Esther, you can count on that. Maybe the young men out your way care more about their great-great-grandfathers than they do about girls, but in this part of the country it would be safer to bet on the girl."

Kate sniffed at this, and responded promptly that the young men in her part of the country, so far as she was acquainted with them, didn't trouble themselves about their great-great-grandfathers at all; and the mental workings of one who gave his time to the business-as Mr. Hadley certainly did in the earlier part of the summer-were beyond her. To which she added-what was clearly another matter-that even if Mr. Hadley had taken a fancy to Esther, it was by no means certain that she had a fancy for him.

She waited with some impatience for Esther's account of the visit, and the letter which came shortly certainly bore out Tom's impression that she had enjoyed it. It seemed that Mr. Hadley's father was extremely anxious to meet Deacon Saxon, but being somewhat infirm of health and indisposed for so long a ride, had urgently begged the old gentleman to come to him,-with his granddaughter, of course,-and the two had taken the drive to Hartridge one day with all the pleasure in life. The Hadleys' summer home, Esther wrote, was perfectly beautiful, much more so in outward aspect than the Boston house, with its straight brown front, and inside it was apparently a bower of loveliness. Such simple but elegant furnis.h.i.+ngs, such devices for making summer leisure redolent of rest and culture! Ah! It was a theme to inspire her pen, and she grew fairly eloquent over it.

It appeared, too, that Mr. Hadley had been more charming than ever, and his family were delightful. There had been a married sister from Boston there on a visit who had been more than gracious to Esther, and had a.s.sured her that she should count on seeing much of her during the winter. Altogether, it seemed to have been an idyllic day. Kate read the letter aloud to the family, then laid it down without joining in the general comment. She was half vexed that her sister should have had so good a time, and she really wished that Mr. Philip Hadley were not quite so agreeable.

But there were certain other people whose agreeable qualities she did not find so exasperating. The sight of one of them, coming to the house that afternoon in the edge of twilight, sent her flying out to meet him with a cry of delight.

"Mort Elwell!" she exclaimed, almost running into his arms; "oh, but I'm glad to see you!"

"Well, you'd better believe I'm glad to see you," he replied. And then they clasped hands and beamed at each other for a minute like brother and sister.

"My! how tall you're getting! Has Esther been growing like that this summer?" he demanded, as they walked together to the house.

"The first question, of course," she replied, trying to pout. "I'm sure I can't tell. I don't believe there's any difference in me, only you've forgotten how I looked when I went away."

Forgotten! Not he. He protested that he remembered just how high she had come above his shoulders when she stood on the thres.h.i.+ng machine that day last summer. And then they both laughed. How long ago it seemed, that harvesting at the farm!

"But it seems longer to us than to you, Mort, I know it does," said the girl. "So much has happened to us, and we've seen so many different places."

"I've seen a few places myself, if you please," he retorted, "and there's more difference in them than you'd think, especially when it comes to the eating. But there are other things, besides going around, to make time seem long to a body."

They welcomed him in the house with such affectionate cordiality as might have been extended to one very dear and near of kin. Mrs.

Northmore's eyes grew bright and moist at the sight of him; and the doctor, who had stretched himself on the lounge five minutes before in a state of exhaustion, declaring that nothing short of a case of apoplexy could make him budge off it that evening, fairly bounded across the room at the sight of Morton, and shook his hand with a heartiness suggestive of exuberant vitality.

"When did you get home?" was the first question when the greetings were over, and "When are you going away?" followed, without waiting for answer.

"I just got in on the train this noon," said Morton, "and I'm going to-morrow morning. Can't spend any time loafing, you know, for the term began a month ago, and I must get there now as soon as I can."

"And you'll have back work to make up the very first thing," said Mrs.

Northmore. "It's too bad to work so hard all summer and then start into your studies at such a disadvantage."

"I think I can manage that all right," said the young man, confidently.

"I've got money enough to make the ends meet for a while, without doing any outside work, and it won't take me long to catch up."

"Well, don't make too brilliant a run, Mort," said the doctor, dryly. "I hate to see a good proverb spoiled; and all work and no play ought to make Jack a dull boy, if it doesn't."

"I rather think Jack's a dull boy to start with, if it knocks him out in one season," said the young man, laughing.

He was so modest, so manly, and his buoyant energy was so refres.h.i.+ng, that it was no wonder they all sat looking at him as if they had a personal pride in his doings.

"But at least you won't have to teach school this winter," said Mrs.

Northmore.

"Not unless somebody relieves me of what I've earned this summer," said Morton, lightly. "In that case I'll speak for my old place again."

"I'll warrant they'd let you have it," said the doctor.

"Oh, they've made me the offer, already," said Morton; "besides, I hold a first-grade certificate to teach in that county, and I might miss it on examination somewhere else."

"Not much danger of that, I fancy," said Mrs. Northmore, and the doctor added, growling, "Those examinations are a good deal of a humbug. For my part, I think a few oral questions put to a fellow straight out would be worth as much as all that written stuff." He had been a county examiner once himself, and had a painful remembrance of the "stuff," which, to tell the truth, his wife had mostly examined for him.

"I rather think an oral question that was put to me helped me in my examination," said Morton, a gleam of amused remembrance coming into his eyes. "Did I ever tell you about that? I had just finished one set of papers and gone up to the desk for another, when one of the examiners, a dry, shrewd-looking old fellow, leaned over and put this question to me: 'When turkeys are six and three-fourths dollars per dozen, how many may be had for two dollars eighty-one cents and one-fourth?'"

"The mean thing!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Kate. "He didn't expect you to figure that out in your head, right then and there, did he?"

"He expected an answer," said Morton, "and do you know, as good luck would have it, I hit it at the first shot, and gave it to him in a quarter of a minute. I told him _five_, and that was right."

"Well," gasped the doctor, "talk about lightning calculators!"

"But I didn't calculate it," laughed the young man. "I told you 'twas luck. You see I knew the answer, being turkeys, must be a whole number, and the sum named was less than half the price of a dozen, so it couldn't be six, and I took the chances on five. The man that asked the question saw through it, of course, and I believe he sort of liked me after that. But look here, who cares about county examinations or what I did last winter? I want to hear about this summer, and how you liked New England. Start in, Kate, and tell me everything."

"'Only that and nothing more?'" she said, lifting her hands. "Why, I intend to give out my experiences sparingly, and embellish my conversation with them for the rest of my life. But we did have a glorious time-I'll tell you so much. And New England's great. If you've any doubts on that point you may as well give them up right here and now. It's funny, some of it, of course; the little fields, and the stone walls, and the ox-teams-but you get used to those things, you know; and the people are nice. It's the next best thing to living out here-it really is-to live in the Old Bay State, as grandfather calls it."

And then, with an abandon which hardly tallied with her avowed intention to keep some capital for future use, she threw herself into the doings on the old farm, the attractions of New England villages, and the delights-oh! the delights of Boston and the sea, with his eager questions drawing her on and fresh items suggesting themselves at every turn.

It lengthened itself into a long delicious evening, and after a little the young people had it all to themselves, for the doctor was called off, and not to a case of apoplexy either, only to a child who had put a b.u.t.ton into his ear; and a neighbor dropped in, to whose troubles Mrs.

Northmore must give her sympathizing attention.

There was one subject on which the young man's interest showed itself keen at a score of points in the course of Kate's vivacious talk. Did Esther look at this and that as her sister did? Did she note the contrasts with a touch of pride and pleasure in the ways at home? Was she wholly glad to stay behind? And might it not be longer than the winter, much longer perhaps, before she would be at home again.