Mabel Osgood Wright

“ Putting on coat and hat and turning up the wick of his lantern, Jim once more faced Randy, who stood with her hands clenched in the fringe of her long cape.
“Well, it’s good-night for now,” he said cheerfully; then as her eyes met his he added, “Don’t say it’s good-by, girl; for God’s sake, think it over.”
“It’s—it ought—it must be good-by,” she whispered; “but oh, Jim, I do care, care so much; if only something stronger than either of us could decide and say it would be right.”
“Good-night, Randy,” said Jim, and the swing of his lantern was answered by the train’s whistle. ”

“ It seemed a pity to undeceive him; it is always a pity to blast a man’s enthusiasm when he has prepared, what he considers, a pleasant surprise for the woman he loves. Many a separation has started with such a repulse from the thin edge of the wedge.
Margaret gave a rapid summary of Andrea’s feeling, softening and smoothing everything, and adding that the best thing would be to take her up to the Hill Farm after tea. The sight of her future home would do more to reassure her, and give her a feeling of confidence, than any words. ”

“ Clad in a soft white gown that had belonged to summer, Rosalind was garlanding the slender rails at top and foot of bed; yet as Catharine looked, the words of reproof she meant to say, halted and remained unuttered, and she crept down the stairs again, realizing for the first time in her life the loneliness of heart that was hers.
While daylight stayed, Rosalind never faltered, and a sort of exaltation took the place of tears. “How do you keepers of the faith reconcile the going of those whose lives are not lived out?” ”

“ When this tree opens its buds, we know that its kindred of the hill country will also be decked, and it is our time to go forth, for here the Maying is the festival of the Apple Blossoms, and the blushing snow of it veils the grim gray hills, and brocades the silken emerald of the grassy lowlands every May as completely as the gold and purple of golden-rod and aster mantle the land in autumn.
People make journeys to the Orient to see the Festival of Fruit Blossoms, where many of the trees enclosed in gardens are shown with suggestion both of art and artifice ”

“ Margaret noticed with pleasure the various details and changes in Waldsen’s attic, where she went occasionally to dust, and thought that they betokened contentment. The room was no longer bare, festoons of ground pine hung from the rafters and canopied the windows, a half-dozen home-made cages filled the dormer nearest the stove, and sheltered a collection of wild birds rescued from cold and hunger, which chirped from them merrily, while a little screech-owl blinked sleepily from a perch in the corner. Books lay on the table and filled a rough shelf under the eaves. ”

“ A year had passed, and now when Jim Bradley ran his train into the siding at Hattertown, he could not have told which light he saw first, the railway signal or the well-trimmed lamp in the Widow Banks’ kitchen; this light, being always kept bright and clear, was lit at sunset with the regularity of a lighthouse beacon, the reflector improvised from a tin plate being turned so that the welcoming rays met the milk train as it rounded the hills and left solid ground for the trestles between eight and half-past every evening. ”

“ For a full minute Tom Scott stood with his hands in his pockets looking into the show window and whistling softly to himself as if he were alone; then squaring about he almost called, so loud was his voice, “I’ve time on my hands now, and I’m going to take up that challenge, boys: if I make the rats go in my traps, I’ll give the hundred to the Bridgeton Hospital; if they don’t, I’ll add a hundred to the sum to make it bigger bait for a smarter fellow.” ”

“ For several moments no one moved; then Hasleton replaced the candle on the table, as he saw the outlines of the man’s face, young in spite of gauntness and close-cropped gray hair, and in his astonishment almost whispered, “John Anthony!”
“Father John,” corrected the voice calmly, but in a tone that forbade further questioning, though recognition gleamed in his own eyes; for John Anthony had been a college mate of Hasleton’s, who, though always serious, had, ten years before, suddenly, and to the world in general unaccountably, given up the brilliant promise of public life for the priesthood. ”

“ On the edge of the berry fields the cherry trees were shaking down a rain of petals, and bluebirds were murmuring about in pairs, while the song-sparrows kept up their sweet, persistent song from the meadow bushes.
Margaret tried to fix her thoughts on the scene before her. Would the orioles come back to the elm that touched the roof? She hoped so, for Waldsen was so anxious to see them weave their nest. And the fly-catcher with the leather-coloured back—she wondered if he would again leave snake-skins hanging from his nest-hole in the old apple tree, as he did last year. ”

“ John Hale held a branch of the winged seeds in his hand and looked from it again to her face. “If glory is given to a bush in autumn that is denied summer beauty, why may it not be so with people as well? Being under a spell we have spent the best part of the day in the valley, but now that we have seen the full light of the afternoon sun, we can never go down again, you and I. Jane, you must marry me now, to-day; not even the shadow of one more nightfall shall come between, and, moreover, you shall never go back to the black clothes that speak of the valley. ”

“ But before Ivan hid his face in his arms, Peter saw the tears and a reserve fell upon him.
“The wheat, the hut, Maria, and I make no place for her,” Ivan explained, piecing out his few words of English with direct gestures.
“Homesick?” shouted Peter; “want to go home?” making the common mistake of thinking loud tones help to interpret a strange tongue. “What are you, a Polack or a Slav?”
Ivan understood, and a sadness deeper than tears came to him, almost giving dignity to his hunched form. “Me? There is no go home for me, I am a Russe!” ”

“ As the stocking ate up the yarn, I found myself getting nearer to Mrs. Terry, father drew his chair close, and Evan leaned against the fireplace.
“Why are we all so breathlessly interested?” I asked, addressing the ball of yarn as much as anything.
“Because,” answered father, “of the possibility of unearthing romance, and twist, distort, and disguise it as we will, simple love is the most interesting thing to every one of us.” ”

“ Raised well above them, it was bounded on the western side by the river and the mill-pond that always held the sunset reflections until the twilight absorbed them, while the old red mill with its moss-mottled roof focussed the view. Toward the north and east the meadows ran slantwise up a hillside, where, dotted here and there like grazing sheep, you could see the stones of the burying-ground, where the inhabitants of the glen took their final rest, as if their friends had left them as near heaven as possible, and safe from the floods that used once to sweep the valley. ”

“ Waldsen was most contented when employed at the mill. Birds that braved the winter gathered about it for scraps of grain. Nuthatches pried under the mossy shingles, meadow-larks stalked solemnly in the stubbly grass for sweepings, and robins fed upon the berries of many bushes that hedged the pond. Wild geese rested there, and for days at a time flocks of ducks would pass and pause for shelter, and owls roosted nightly in the mill loft, making hearty meals of mice. ”

“ Aggressively devoted to what she considered her husband’s best interests, had she lived, it is very doubtful if John Hewlett would either have gained fame as a scholar, or won a host of friends by his delightful personality. In half a dozen years he found himself alone with a little daughter Catharine, who was turning four, a beautiful child, but having the ice of her mother’s blood in her veins, and rigid even at that tender age, sitting bolt upright in her father’s lap and checking him with wide-eyed reproof if, in clasping her to him, her gown or hair was rumpled. ”

“ The ancients had it that every child was born under the influence of a particular star; a more spiritual age, that each child has its guardian angel. I have always believed that my particular guardian is a tree, and that one an apple, for this was the first tree that I remember lying under and looking up through the flower-laden branches at the sky, as mother sat upon the round seat that encircled the big trunk, the great fragrant Russian violets growing at her feet. ”

“ Here in Oaklands whoever sets a drinking trough before his door in summer-time to succour man and thirsty beasts receives so much a year from the town fathers. Why should not those who, in the dark season, set a row of jovial red geraniums behind the window-pane by day or a well-trimmed light by night, be equally rewarded? Is not the thirst for light, colour, and other home symbols as keen a desire of the winter wayfarer as his thirst for water in the torrid season? ”

“ The reeds shaking in the wind, perhaps; the bluebirds that nest in the hollow tree trunks; the flaming orioles that, grown wanton with spring joy, rifle the honeyed blossoms; but people, where are they? No parties of school children playing in the abandoned orchards, no others sauntering along the highways like ourselves. For the twenty years that we have gone up through the hill country for this Maying, we have never met any others bent upon the same errand. So we call this festival our own, and as we stray along, we conjure up companions from the past to bear us company ”

“ The love that had entered her heart unasked could not be driven out by argument. She must go on living as if nothing had happened; perhaps years hence when the children at the Hill Farm called her aunty, it might be different, but not now—not now!
The train was already in sight when Margaret drove up to the little brown station at Glen Village. She was alone, as at the last moment her father had been obliged to go to the mill. The horses were restless, and they furnished Margaret with an excuse for remaining in the wagon where she could see Andrea from a distance. ”

“ The coffee-pot upon the new stove in the far corner brooded comfortably and gave little gasps before being fully minded to excite itself to boiling, while the wild blood, even a few drops of which often makes its owners think such long, long thoughts that stretch back to the dawn of things, coursed evenly on its way until a delicious sleep, such as had been unknown for months, laid its fingers on the eyelids of the Markis. ”

“ Far overhead, a second, nearer, clear and sonorous, then a dark arrow clove the dusk, fell swiftly, broke into feathered fragments, as with some little manœuvring and splashing, the wild-goose flock settled upon the forge pond. Then the pendulum of hope swung back toward Ivan. At the same time, the postman’s white-topped wagon with its sliding door stopped at the four corners. Peter Salop, preparatory to his evening gossip, shuffled his mail deftly in his big hands as one who had been in the haste of commercial life, at the same time giving a whistle and then calling, “Hi, Ivan, are you there? ”

“ It all happened in August, the limp and lazy month of the year abhorred by Martha Saunders, born Corkle. It surely requires a certain amount of natural philosophy, adaptability to fruit and salad lunches, and an aptitude for lounging in shady places and watching the grass grow, or gazing through the trees skyward from the depth of a hammock, to make August even a mildly pleasurable month. Night is August’s strong point; her full moon sheds a placid coppery light, making the glistening green of the cornfields, heavy in ear, look wet and cool ”

“ There are all the signs, the lilac bushes, stones that might have been a chimney, and there are new horse tracks in the turf, and colts pasturing yonder in that field. The way is pretty enough to lead to the land of Forbidden Fruit, and we may find the Tree of Life we are looking for at the end. Do let us go in; as we are only children, no one will have the heart to scold us if we should find ourselves in some one’s yard. ”

“ Two kinds of people traverse the country nowadays, reviving the dead and dying farms: the idealists with money (more or less) in pocket, seeking to find homes on the old lines wherein to spend it; the immigrant looking for a foothold where he may wrest a living from soil whereon the native would starve.
The house, with its three rooms and loft above, was the ruin clinging about its stone chimney that Ivan had spied across the corn field that summer day three years before, one of a dozen such lonely places that had fallen to the town for taxes. ”

“ So what was my surprise this afternoon to see Albert and Victoria crawl unchidden across the grass plot between the rear porch and dividing fence, and exchange much unintelligible gossip with a group of young Potowskis on the other side, while the new Martha sat under the bell pear tree fashioning some small creeping aprons with fingers that trembled strangely, too worn out either to chide or follow. ”

“ Jim Bradley started as if a broken rail had suddenly confronted his engine on a curve, then he answered quietly: “Yes, uncle was. I’m not either, Randy, I’m a Roman Catholic. You see mother was out of Irish stock and she kept to her religion, and I, well, I held to it as long as she lived, and after because it held to me. It’s a good religion for us knock-about men,” he added half-appealingly. “It never forgets you and it’s always there.” But Miranda sat silent and drooping, white to the lips. ”

“ Think a little before you condemn Waldsen. You are tired and excited, and also unjust to say that I sent for you out of charity. I needed a helper, and I also wished a companion. I was sure, from what we have seen of him during these months, that the woman for whom Gurth Waldsen had left his home and fortune would easily understand his present position, and the feelings that prevented him from allowing her to place herself out as a drudge. The idea of keeping your secret was natural, but impossible; you must accept things as they now are, and thus begin the reality. ”

“ For no matter whether a man marries once or thrice, there is but one real marriage, be it the first or the last, and no one knows this better than himself.
Miss Hewlett and Catharine went up from Oaklands to the wedding—the sister, in a flutter of mixed feelings in which sorrow at the probable ceasing to be mistress of the homestead, and delight at having new life come into the house, were mingled. ”