Wheat and Huckleberries Part 25

The old man's eyes turned to Esther with a peculiar tenderness. "No, I don't want for anything," he said. "Elsie manages everything just right, and Esther here seems to know what I need before I get a chance to speak of it. It's queer now how she puts me in mind of her mother," he went on musingly. "Sometimes I can't get it out of my mind that it's Lucia sitting right here by me. And I hain't been out of my head either, have I?"

The girl did not answer the question, but she stooped and kissed his forehead. "It's nice to have you think I'm mother," she said. "Do it all you please."

He smiled at her, then turned with a sudden wistfulness to his sister.

"Katharine," he said, "I've been thinking a lot about you, and how much harder 'twould be for you than 'tis for me, if you should be taken sick down there all by yourself. There wouldn't be anybody to take care of you as the folks take care of me. I wish you lived up here with us. I've wanted it this good while; and Elsie'd be willing, you know she would."

"She wouldn't like it, Ruel, and you wouldn't either, after a little while," said the old woman, her swift honesty throwing a note that was a trifle harsh into her voice. "You and I never did see things the same way, and we should see 'em more contrariwise than ever, if we had to stand on just the same piece o' ground to look at 'em."

The old man lifted his head with an obvious effort, and his breath came quick for a moment. "No," he said, "we never did look at things just alike, you 'n' I, and I guess 'twas natural to us both to want to pull the other round to our way. But I've been thinking about that too, Katharine, and I'm-I'm afraid I've riled you up sometimes when I hadn't or' to. You've got just as good a right to your way of looking at things as I have to mine, and I'm afraid I've said things to you sometimes that warn't becoming."

What she might have replied to this, if a neighbor, with Aunt Elsie, had not entered the room at that moment, is not certain. A pallor had swept suddenly across her face, and her eyes, wide and startled, were fixed with a frightened look upon her brother. She rose from her chair as the others drew near, and without responding to their greeting stepped swiftly outside the door. Then she beckoned to her niece with a trembling gesture.

"Elsie," she whispered, when the other had crossed the threshold, "I'll be obliged to you if you'll let Tom hitch up and drive me down to the house. I want to get a few things and come right back. If you don't mind I'll stay here a while. Ruel's a dreadful sick man."

CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH SEVERAL PEOPLE GET HOME

She had guessed the truth first, but they knew it, all of them, in a few days more. They knew that Ruel Saxon's feet were set on the downward path to the valley from which there is no return.

They did not send for Stella. She had her work, and there were enough in the home to do all that could be done for him. Still there was little pain, a growing weakness, and the mind wandering more and more often, but always peacefully, and oftenest over the years that lay far, far behind him. Of Esther he seemed almost to have lost knowledge. He called her Lucia constantly now, and liked no one so much at his bedside.

And she kept her place, with no regret for any employment she might have had in its stead. There came a letter from Mr. Philip Hadley, with messages for her grandfather, and though the latter but half understood as she read them, he seemed touched and pleased. The young man had learned, through a call on Stella, of the old gentleman's illness and the consequent delay in the carrying out of Esther's plan, and he wrote, earnestly hoping it might not be for long, with kindest expressions of sympathy for his aged friend.

And then there came another, but this Esther did not read aloud. The reading to herself alone left a troubled look in her eyes as she laid it down. It seemed that Mr. Hadley's plans had suffered change, too. His father was not bearing the Boston November well, and California for the winter was the doctor's prescription. He must go with them, the young man wrote, to see his father and mother well settled, but it would be only for a few weeks, and by the time he returned surely Esther herself would be in Boston. "I confess," he added, "that anxious as I am to do what I can for my father, I could hardly bear it to be away from Boston if you were here now."

They objected to her sitting up with her grandfather that night on the ground that she was not looking as well as usual, but Esther protested.

It was her turn, she pleaded. She had had the promise of staying with him till midnight, and indeed, she was perfectly able. So they let her have her way, and left her alone with him in the dear, familiar room, with the lamp burning low on the table, and everything ready to her hand. She could call the others in a moment if she needed them. He had been easier than usual during the day, sleeping most of the time, and again at moments seeming so like himself that, in spite of them all, she could not believe he was going away soon. Why should he? Life was sweet to him still, and his body, till now, had seemed strong and active. What was that length of years which people named with a shake of the head as they mentioned his illness? It was not years that counted in making men old. It was labor and loss and heartache. The labor was joy to one who loved it as he did, the simple labor of the fields, and of friendly service among his fellows. And of loss and heartache there could be none to sap the springs of life for one whose cheerful faith laid hold of the eternities like his. It was not time, surely it was not time yet, for the silver cord to be loosed which bound Ruel Saxon to his work and his friends.

So she said to herself with the easy hopefulness of youth, as she watched the old man lying there with his face on the pillow. He grew more restless as the hours went on. Memory, while all the other faculties lay sleeping, seemed to bestir itself with unwonted vigor.

Hymns, quaint and long-forgotten in the churches, rolled one after another from his lips, and Psalms, so many and with such unhesitating sureness, that the girl listened marvelling, and wondered if he knew them all.

Then there came a change in his voice, and his tone grew more appealing.

It was not recitation now, it was exhortation. He seemed to be warning sinners, pleading with fellow-Christians. Ah, she caught the meaning. He thought he was in prayer-meeting again, and the zeal of the place had eaten him up with its old delight and fervor. She smiled, remembering that last meeting, and bent her head closer to catch the words.

A strain of tenderness crept through them now. Solemnly and very slowly he repeated, "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation." He paused for a moment, then, in a voice that was low but strangely clear, went on, "Oh, my friends, do you mark the word? That precious stone, that head of the corner, is a _tried_ stone, tried through all the years and proven sure.

_Tried_"-he lingered on the word with unspeakable earnestness-"by whom?

By Abraham, by Moses, and by all the prophets, men who heard the voice of G.o.d and followed where it led them; tried by Peter, by James, and John, men who saw his face in the face of his Son, and leaned upon his breast and loved him; tried by all the host of martyrs, who laid down their lives for his sake, counting it gain for the joy that was set before them; tried by"-the voice sank almost to a whisper, and the names of old neighbors and friends fell lovingly one after another, the names of fellow-farers with him in the journey of life who had pa.s.sed to their rest before him. Listening intently, the girl knew them at the last for some of her own kindred, as he murmured softly, "by Caleb Saxon, by Joel and Mary, by Rachel my wife," and then, after longer pause, with his eyes opening wide and a tremor of unutterable joy and humility in the low glad murmur, "_tried-by-me_."

A smile flitted over his face, and the eyelids dropped. She thought he was asleep, and moved noiselessly away lest even her breathing should disturb him. It was almost an hour later, and the watch on the table told her it was time for his medicine, when she went again to his side.

"Grandfather," she said, bending over him; but he did not stir. She laid her hand on his, and the chill struck to her heart. She started back, and for a moment stood in her place, almost as white and motionless as he. Then, with a cry, she flew out of the room, calling to the others to come, the others who, with all their haste, could never again in the old way catch word or look of his.

For he was gone. With that last word, the spirit so bright and eager-ah, yes! so impatient at moments, so p.r.o.ne to the hasty word, so open to the little vanities, but sound at the core, and steadfast to bear its part in sun and storm as any oak on the hills-had stolen away. It was of himself he had spoken last. They mused on it a little as she told them; but they knew it was of himself as the humble, the rich recipient of grace unspeakable, and in that great gladness had pa.s.sed on to the Giver.

They bent around him weeping, the older women, but Esther was too stunned for tears. She had been alone with Death and had caught no hint of his presence. She had never guessed that he could come and go as stealthily as this. There was nothing more that she could do, and they sent her away, not letting her reproach herself that she had not known.

"It was not strange," they said; and Aunt Elsie added, steadying her voice for the girl's sake, "It was better so; the kindest way it could have come."

It was a wonderful night. The first snow of the season had fallen while the old man lay dying, and now the moon shone out with a still, white glory, in which all the world lay new and clean. In the orchard beyond her window some boughs of trees, cut by the saw of the pruner and not yet gathered from the ground, lay glistening like great branches of coral; and the old stone wall had been builded anew, touched with masonry of silver. Strange how every detail of the scene swept in upon the girl, as she stood there looking out upon it, wide-eyed and silent!

It was a picture in which her thoughts would frame themselves again and again in the years that were coming, when the solemn moods of life should bring her face to face with the things of the soul. And in that clearness and stillness, things which had puzzled her grew plain, and she knew her own heart as she had not known it before. She could not have explained how it came; but before that great reality of death, the unrealities of life slipped noiselessly away. The things which had been of the surface fell off, and the needs, the loves, that were deepest only were left. To have seen them once in that clear light was to know them for what they were, and she could not afterward forget.

They sent word to Stella in the morning, and late that night Tom brought her from the station. She had not loved her grandfather as Esther had-she had not so enjoyed his companionship; but the knowledge that he was gone brought tears and genuine sorrow.

"Dear old grandfather!" she said, looking down at the still face. "How we shall miss him! It won't seem like home with him gone." And then she drew her mother away to talk over the details of the event that was coming. There must be no flowers about his coffin, only one long beautiful sheaf of wheat; and she would have no c.r.a.pe on the door, only a branch of evergreen from the woods he had planted, with a sprig of myrtle.

It was at the church that the last services were held. The rooms at the old house could not have contained the throng that gathered to do him honor. He had been a diligent attendant at funerals himself, and had been frankly in favor of extended remarks on the character of the deceased, even though the custom put the preacher to sore straits sometimes, when the virtues of the departed were not too many or luminous.

Indeed, he had been known to excuse the preacher under such circ.u.mstances for blinking the facts a little. At least he had called the attention of captious critics to that funeral lament of David's, in which he distinctly alluded to a very persistent persecutor of his as "lovely and pleasant,"-language which, to tell the truth, had really seemed to Ruel Saxon a little excessive, and had led him to wonder at times what the generous psalmist would have done if he had not been able to couple Saul's name with Jonathan's.

There was no lack of words at his own funeral, words spoken with impressive earnestness and warmth, and it was a tribute to the wide regard in which Ruel Saxon was held that not only the minister of his own church, but others from towns around, begged the privilege of a part in the service.

"He would have liked it if he had been there; it was a funeral after his own heart," Stella said, talking it over that evening with Esther. She drew a long soft sigh, and added, "I declare I can't realize yet that it was actually grandfather himself. He was trying sometimes, but never tiresome; and life will lose part of its spice here at home, with him gone out of it."

Esther did not reply. Somehow she could not talk about things which were close to her heart in the cool way Stella could. After a little silence the latter said: "You'll go to Boston with me, of course, when I go back. I shall stay at home long enough to get things settled for mother, and there'll be no need of either of us staying after that."

"Stella," said Esther, speaking very quietly, "I suppose you'll think it's strange, but I've decided not to go to Boston." The other started, and she went on hurriedly, "I should like to be with _you_, and I know there'd be a great deal to enjoy, but grandfather's dying has changed everything for the present, and honestly, there's nothing I want now so much as to be at home."

For a minute Stella seemed too much surprised to speak. Then she said, with a peculiar look at her cousin, "There's somebody besides me who'll be dreadfully disappointed if you don't come."

Esther returned the look without flinching, though her color rose a little. "If you mean Mr. Hadley," she said, "I should be very sorry to think he'd care much, and truly I don't think he would; at least not after the very first. I shall write to him. I must; for he sent such kind messages to grandfather, and he'd want to know how it all was at the last. I think he'll understand how I feel. I can't quite explain it, but it's home and the home people I want. There's nothing here now that I care for as I care for them."

Stella's eyes were on the floor, and she did not raise them as she said, after a long pause, "I don't quite make you out, Esther, but you are an awfully nice girl. I wish it wasn't so far between here and Indiana."

"I shall never think it's far after this," said Esther, giving her cousin's hand a little squeeze. And then she added cheerfully, "Don't you think it would be nice to give Mr. Hadley one of grandfather's old books? There are some of them, you know, that are really very curious, and he's so fond of those rare old things. I'll tell him that you've taken one for him; I believe it would please him."

She had more misgiving as to how Aunt Katharine would receive the news of her changed intention, but not from her either did she meet any entreaties. The old woman seemed strangely broken by her brother's death. It was she beyond all others who had been stricken. An apathy which was wholly new had settled upon her, and was only shaken off at moments when she talked of him.

"I thought he'd outlive me by years," she said to Esther. "I always twitted him with thinking that he was so much smarter than the rest of us; but he was, and I used to think, as he did, that he might live to see his hundred years. I don't know why he shouldn't have had 'em." And then she added, with a quaver in her voice: "I wish I'd spoke up when he said what he did the day I came in. I've riled him too, sometimes, when I needn't, but it took me so by surprise that I couldn't answer then.

All I could think of was that he was going to die." She drew a long sigh, and ended, "You must do as you think best, child, about going home. I don't blame you any for changing your plans."

She went back to her own house the day after the funeral, in spite of Aunt Elsie's entreaty that she should stay. "It's good of you, Elsie,"

she said, with a shake of her head, "and I guess I could live with you as easy as I could with anybody; but I should miss him more here than I should anywhere else, and I'd rather be in my own place."

They let her go, but Aunt Elsie said the last word with affectionate earnestness, as she pa.s.sed out at the door: "Don't be sick or in any kind of trouble without letting us know. I'll do for you there just as willingly as here if you should happen to need me."

Three days later Esther was gone too. She took a silent farewell of her grandfather's room, looked long from the windows at the hills she had come to love so much and stepped out of the family circle like a daughter of the house whose place no one else would ever quite fill.

Stella went with her to the depot, and their hands unclasped reluctantly when the last moment came. There were thoughts which neither whispered to the other, and they wondered as they looked in each other's eyes whether the time would ever come when they could fully tell them, but Esther understood best what the silence held.

It was that other day over again when she came home to her own, but the welcome lacked something of the boisterous gladness which had greeted Kate, and the mother's smile was full of tears as she clasped the girl in her arms. No one, not even Mrs. Northmore, understood exactly why she had given up the Boston plan. The grandfather's going away, in the fullness of his ripe old age, hardly seemed a reason why she should relinquish pleasures which had looked so bright, and an opportunity which had meant so much to her. However, they were all most heartily glad to have her at home again, especially Kate, and the latter felt a little foolish, remembering that morning at Aunt Katharine's, when it appeared from Esther's report that the old woman had not objected at all to her giving up the engagement which she had believed to be planned with such deep and deadly designs. Really, it seemed that she had lashed herself up to that affair and been disagreeable on quite gratuitous grounds. She admitted it, to herself, with her usual frankness, and thanked her stars, in a strictly private manner, that no one but Aunt Katharine and herself knew it, save Tom.

To Mrs. Northmore, watching Esther thoughtfully by the steady light of mother-love, it seemed that the girl had found real value in the summer.

She seemed somehow older, looking at things more quietly, and with a leisure from herself which, in spite of her ready sympathy for others, had too often been wanting in the past. It was an aid against the restlessness which might have come when a sudden vacancy in one of the Rushmore schools brought her at Christmas an unexpected offer of the position. She accepted it with her mother's quick consent, doing good work and enjoying it, as well as the pay that came with it. Indeed, as she carried home her check at the end of each month, she was impressed more than ever with the soundness of certain views of Aunt Katharine's on the moral value of earning and owning. She wrote to the latter repeatedly, and once Aunt Katharine replied; but she was not fond of her pen, and the letter, though affectionate, was brief.