Stories by American Authors Volume IV Part 12

There was nothing now to drown the roaring of the floods and the steady drive of the storm.

"There's a lantern," Shep called from the door. He had opened the upper half, and was s.h.i.+elding himself behind it. "I guess it's Evesham coming back for us. He's a pretty good sort of a fellow, after all; don't thee think so, Dorothy? He owes us something for drowning us out at the sheep-was.h.i.+ng."

"What _does all_ this mean?" said Dorothy, as Evesham swung himself over the half-door, and his lantern showed them in their various phases of wetness.

"There's a big leak in the lower dam! I've been afraid of it all along; there's something wrong in the principle of the thing."

Dorothy felt as if he had called her grandfather a fraud, and her father a delusion and a snare. She had grown up in the belief that the mill-dams were part of Nature's original plan, in laying the foundations of the hills;--but it was no time to be resentful, and the facts were against her.

"Dorothy," said Evesham, as he tucked the buffalo about her, "this is the second time I've tried to save you from drowning, but you never will wait! _I'm_ all ready to be a hero, but _you_ won't be a heroine."

"I'm too practical for a heroine," said Dorothy. "There! I've forgotten my chickens."

"I'm glad of it! Those chickens were a mistake. They oughtn't to be perpetuated."

Youth and happiness can stand a great deal of cold water; but it was not to be expected that Rachel Barton should be especially benefited by her night journey through the floods. Evesham waited in the hall when he heard the door of her room open next morning. Dorothy came slowly down the stairs; he knew by her lingering step and the softly closed door that she was not happy.

"Mother is very sick," she answered his inquiry.

"It is like the turn of inflammation and rheumatism she had once before. It will be very slow,--and oh! it is such suffering! Why _do_ the best women in the world have to suffer so?"

"Will you let me talk things over with you after breakfast, Dorothy?"

"Oh yes!" she said; "there is so much to do and think about. I _wish_ father _would_ come home!"

The tears came into Dorothy's eyes as she looked at him. Rest--such as she had never known, or felt the need of till now--and strength immeasurable, since it would multiply her own by an unknown quant.i.ty, stood within reach of her hand, but she might not put it out! And Evesham was dizzy with the struggle between longing and resolution.

He had braced his nerves for a long and hungry waiting, but fate had yielded suddenly;--the floods had brought her to him,--his flotsam and jetsam, more precious than all the guarded treasures of the earth. She had come, with all her girlish, unconscious beguilements, and all her womanly cares, and anxieties too. He must strive against her sweetness, while he helped her to bear her burdens.

"Now about the boys, Dorothy," he said two hours later, as they stood together by the fire in the low, oak-finished room at the foot of the stairs, which was his office and book-room. The door was ajar, so Dorothy might hear her mother's bell. "Don't you think they had better be sent to school somewhere?"

"Yes," said Dorothy, "they _ought_ to go to school--but--well, I may as well tell thee the truth! There's very little to do it with. We've had a poor summer. I suppose I've managed badly, and mother has been sick a good while."

"You've forgotten about the pond-rent, Dorothy."

"No," she said, with a quick flush; "I hadn't forgotten it; but I couldn't _ask_ thee for it!"

"I spoke to your father about monthly payments; but he said better leave it to acc.u.mulate for emergencies. Shouldn't you call this an 'emergency,' Dorothy?"

"But does thee think we ought to ask rent for a pond that has all leaked away?"

"Oh, there's pond enough left, and I've used it a dozen times over this summer! I would be ashamed to tell you, Dorothy, how my horn has been exalted in your father's absence. However, retribution has overtaken me at last; I'm responsible, you know, for all the damage last night. It was in the agreement that I should keep up the dams."

"Oh!" said Dorothy; "is thee sure?"

Evesham laughed.

"If your father were like any other man, Dorothy, he'd make me 'sure,'

when he gets home! I will defend myself to this extent: I've patched and propped them all summer, after every rain, and tried to provide for the fall storms; but there's a flaw in the original plan--"

"Thee said that once before," said Dorothy. "I wish thee wouldn't say it again."

"Why not?"

"Because I love those old mill-dams! I've trotted over them ever since I could walk alone!"

"You shall trot over them still! We will make them as strong as the everlasting hills. They shall outlast our time, Dorothy."

"Well, about the rent," said Dorothy. "I'm afraid it will not take us through the winter, unless there is something I can do. Mother couldn't possibly be moved now, and if she could, it will be months before the house is fit to live in. But we cannot stay here in comfort, unless thy mother will let me make up in some way. Mother will not need me all the time, and I know thy mother hires women to spin."

"She'll let you do all you like, if it will make you any happier. But you don't know how much money is coming to you. Come, let us look over the figures."

He lowered the lid of the black mahogany secretary, placed a chair for Dorothy, and opened a great ledger before her, bending down, with one hand on the back of the chair, the other turning the leaves of the ledger. Considering the index, and the position of the letter B in the alphabet, he was a long time finding his place. Dorothy looked out of the window, over the tops of the yellowing woods, to the gray and turbid river below. Where the hemlocks darkened the channel of the glen, she heard the angry floods rus.h.i.+ng down. The formless rain mists hung low, and hid the opposite sh.o.r.e.

"See!" said Evesham, with his finger wandering rather vaguely down the page. "Your father went away on the third of May. The first month's rent came due on the third of June. That was the day I opened the gate and let the water down on you, Dorothy. I'm responsible for everything, you see,--even for the old ewe that was drowned!"

His words came in a dream as he bent over her, resting his unsteady hand heavily on the ledger.

Dorothy laid her cheek on the date she could not see, and burst into tears.

"Don't--please don't!" he said, straightening himself, and locking his hands behind him. "I am human, Dorothy!"

The weeks of Rachel's sickness that followed were perhaps the best discipline Evesham's life had ever known. He held the perfect flower of his bliss, unclosing in his hand; yet he might barely permit himself to breathe its fragrance! His mother had been a strong and prosperous woman; there was little he could ever do for her. It was well for him to feel the weight of helpless infirmity in his arms, as he lifted Dorothy's mother from side to side of her bed, while Dorothy's hands smoothed the coverings. It was well for him to see the patient endurance of suffering, such as his youth and strength defied. It was bliss to wait on Dorothy, and follow her with little watchful homages, received with a shy wonder which was delicious to him,--for Dorothy's nineteen years had been too full of service to others to leave much room for dreams of a kingdom of her own. Her silent presence in her mother's sick-room awed him. Her gentle, decisive voice and ways, her composure and unshaken endurance through nights of watching and days of anxious confinement and toil, gave him a new reverence for the mysteries of her unfathomable womanhood.

The time of Friend Barton's return drew near. It must be confessed that Dorothy welcomed it with a little dread, and Evesham did not welcome it at all. On the contrary, the thought of it roused all his latent obstinacy and aggressiveness. The first day or two after the momentous arrival wore a good deal upon every member of the family, except Margaret Evesham, who was provided with a philosophy of her own, which amounted almost to a gentle obtuseness, and made her a comfortable non-conductor, preventing more electric souls from shocking each other.

On the morning of the fourth day, Dorothy came out of her mother's room with a tray of empty dishes in her hands. She saw Evesham at the stair-head and hovered about in the shadowy part of the hall till he should go down.

"Dorothy," he said, "I'm waiting for you." He took the tray from her and rested it on the banisters. "Your father and I have talked over all the business. He's got the impression I'm one of the most generous fellows in the world. I intend to let him rest in that delusion for the present. Now may I speak to him about something else, Dorothy? Have I not waited long enough for my heart's desire?"

"Take care!" said Dorothy, softly,--"thee'll upset the tea-cups!"

"Confound the tea-cups!" He stooped to place the irrelevant tray on the floor, but now Dorothy was half-way down the staircase. He caught her on the landing, and taking both her hands, drew her down on the step beside him.

"Dorothy, this is the second time you've taken advantage of my unsuspicious nature! This time you shall be punished! You needn't try to hide your face, you little traitor! There's no repentance in you!"

"If I'm to be punished there's no need of repentance."

"Dorothy, do you know, I've never heard you speak my name, except once, when you were angry with me."

"When was that?"

"The night I caught you at the gate. You said, 'I would rather have one of those dumb brutes for company than thee, Walter Evesham.' You said it in the fiercest little voice! Even the 'thee' sounded as if you hated me."

"I did," said Dorothy promptly. "I had reason to."

"Do you hate me now, Dorothy?"