Books: Nature\'s Serial Story

E >> E. P. Roe >> Nature\'s Serial Story

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34

"No, Amy."

"Think how much faster I could learn this winter if you would direct my
reading, and explain what is obscure!"

"I will very gladly do anything you wish. You underrate yourself, Amy.
You have woman's highest charm. There is a stupidity of heart which is
far worse than that of the mind, a selfish callousness in regard to
others and their rights and feelings, which mars the beauty of some women
worse than physical deformity. From the day you entered our home as a
stranger, graceful tact, sincerity, and the impulse of ministry have
characterized your life. Can you imagine that mere cleverness, trained
mental acuteness, and a knowledge of facts can take the place of these
traits? No man can love unless he imagines that a woman has these
qualities, and bitter will be his disappointment if he finds them
wanting."

Her laugh rang out musically on the still air. "Hear the old bachelor
talk!" she cried. "I believe you have constructed an ideally perfect
creature out of nature, and that you hold trysts with her on moonlight
nights, you go out to walk so often alone. Well, well, I won't be jealous
of such a sister-in-law, but I want to keep you a little while longer
before you follow Burt's example."

"I shall never give you a sister-in-law, Amy."

"You don't know what you'll do. How sure Burt was of himself!"

"Burt and I are different."

"Yes, Webb, you are. If you ever love, it will be for always; and I don't
like to think of it. I'd like to keep you just as you are. Now that you
see how selfish I am, where is woman's highest charm?"

Webb laughed, and urged his horse into a sharp trot. "I am unchangeable
in my opinions too, as far as you are concerned," he remarked. "She is
not ready yet," was his silent thought.

When she came down to the late supper her eyes were shining with
happiness, and Maggie thought the decisive hour had come; but in answer
to a question about the drive, Amy said, "I couldn't have believed that
so much enjoyment was to be had in one afternoon. Webb is a brother worth
having, and I'm sorry I'm going to New York."

"Am I not a brother worth having?" Leonard asked.

"Oh, you are excellent, as far as you go, but you are so wrapped up in
Maggie that you are not of much account; and as for Burt, he is more over
head and ears than you are. Even if a woman was in love, I should think
she would like a man to be sensible."

"Pshaw, Amy! you don't know what you are talking About," said Maggie.

"Probably not. I suppose it is a kind of disease, and that all are more
or less out of their heads."

"We've been out of our heads a good many years, mother, haven't we?" said
Mr. Clifford, laughing.

"Well," said Leonard, "I just hope Amy will catch the disease, and have
it very bad some day."

"Thank you. When I do, I'll send for Dr. Marvin."

A few days later Webb took her to New York, and left her with her friend.
"Don't be persuaded into staying very long," he found opportunity to say,
in a low tone.

"Indeed I won't; I'm homesick already;" and she looked after him very
wistfully. But she was mistaken. Gertrude looked so hurt and disappointed
when she spoke of returning, and had planned so much, that days
lengthened into weeks.

CHAPTER LIX

THE HOSE REVEALS ITS HEART

Webb returned to a region that was haunted. Wherever he went, a presence
was there before him. In every room, on the lawn, in the garden, in lanes
no longer shaded, but carpeted with brown, rustling leaves, on mountain
roads, he saw Amy with almost the vividness of actual vision, as he had
seen her in these places from the time of her first coming. At church he
created her form in her accustomed seat, and his worship was a little
confused. She had asked him to write, and he made home life and the
varying aspects of nature real to her. His letters, however, were so
impersonal that she could read the greater part of them to Gertrude, who
had resolved to be pleased out of good-will to Webb, and with the
intention of aiding his cause. But she soon found herself expressing
genuine wonder and delight at their simple, vigorous diction, their
subtile humor, and the fine poetic images they often suggested. "Oh,
Amy," she said, "I couldn't have believed it. I don't think he himself is
aware of his power of expression."

"He has read and observed so much," Amy replied, "that he has much to
express."

"It's more than that," said Gertrude; "there are touches here and there
which mere knowledge can't account for. They have a delicacy and beauty
which seem the result of woman's influence, and I believe it is yours. I
should think you would be proud of him."

"I am," she answered, with exultation and heightened color, "but it seems
absurd to suppose that such a little ignoramus as I am can help him
much."

Meanwhile, to all appearance, Webb maintained the even tenor of his way.
He had been so long schooled in patience that he waited and hoped on in
silence as before, and busied himself incessantly. The last of the corn
was husked, and the golden treasure stored. The stalks were stacked near
the barn for winter use, and all the labors of the year were rounded out
and completed. Twice he went to the city to see Amy, and on one of these
occasions he was a guest at a large party given in her honor. During much
of the evening he was dazzled by her beauty, and dazed by her
surroundings. Her father had had her instructed carefully in dancing, and
she and Burt had often waltzed together, but he could scarcely believe
his eyes as she appeared on the floor unsurpassed in beauty and grace,
her favor sought by all. Was that the simple girl who on the shaggy sides
of Storm King had leaned against his shoulder?

Miss Hargrove gave him little time for such musings. She, as hostess,
often took his arm and made him useful. The ladies found him reserved
rather than shy, but he was not long among the more mature and thoughtful
men present before a knot gathered around him, and some of Mr. Hargrove's
more intimate friends ventured to say, "There seems to be plenty of
brains in the family into which your daughter is to enter."

After an hour or two had passed, and Amy had not had a chance to speak to
him, he began to look so disconsolate that she came and whispered,
"What's the matter, old fellow?"

"Oh, Amy," he replied, discontentedly, "I wish we were back on Storm
King. I'm out of place here."

"So do I," she said, "and so we will be many a time again. But you are
not out of place here. I heard one lady remarking how 'reserved and
_distingue_ you were, and another," she added, with a flash of her
ever-ready mirthfulness, "said you were 'deliciously homely.' I was just
delighted with that compliment," and she flitted away to join her partner
in the dance. Webb brightened up amazingly after this, and before he
departed in the "wee sma' hours," when the rooms were empty, Gertrude
gave him a chance for a brief, quiet talk, which proved that Amy's heart
was still in the Highlands, even if he did not yet possess it.

Burt would not return till late in December; but Amy came home about the
middle of the month, and received an ovation that was enough "to turn any
one's head," she declared. Their old quiet life was resumed, and Webb
watched keenly for any discontent with it. Her tranquil satisfaction was
undoubted. "I've had my little fling," she said, "and I suppose it was
time I saw more of the world and society, but oh, what a refuge and haven
of rest the old place is! Gertrude is lovely, her father very gallant and
polite, but Mrs. Hargrove's stateliness oppresses me, and in society I
felt that I had to take a grain of salt with everything said to me.
Gertrude showed her sense in preferring a home. I was in some superb
houses in the city that did not seem like homes."

Webb, in his solicitude that the country-house should not appear dull,
found time to go out with her on pleasant days, and to interest her
deeply in a course of reading. It was a season of leisure; but his mother
began to smile to herself as she saw how absorbed he was in his pupil.

The nights grew colder, the stars gained a frosty glitter, the ground was
rock-like, and the ponds were covered with a glare of black ice. Amy was
eager to learn to skate, and Webb found his duty of instructor
delightful. Little danger of her falling, although, with a beginner's
awkwardness, she essayed to do so often; strong arms were ever near and
ready, and any one would have been glad to catch Amy in such peril.

They were now looking forward to Burt's return and the holiday season,
which Gertrude would spend with them. Mystery lurked behind every door.
Not merely the shops, but busy and stealthy fingers, would furnish the
gifts. Webb had bought his present for Amy, but had also burned the
midnight oil in the preparation of another--a paper for a magazine, and
it had been accepted. He had planned and composed it while at work
stripping the husks from the yellow corn, superintending the wood teams
and the choppers in the mountain, and aiding in cutting from an adjacent
pond the crystal blocks of ice--the stored coolness for the coming
summer. Then while others thought him sleeping he wrote and rewrote the
thoughts he had harvested during the day.

One of his most delightful tasks, however, was in aiding Amy to embower
the old house in wreaths and festoons of evergreens. The rooms grew into
aromatic bowers. Autumn leaves and ferns gave to the heavier decorations
a light, airy beauty which he had never seen before. Grace itself Amy
appeared as she mounted the step-ladder and reached here and there,
twining and coaxing everything into harmony.

What was the effect of all this companionship on her mind? She least of
all could have answered: she did not analyze. Each day was full and
joyous. She was being carried forward on a shining tide of happiness, and
yet its motion was so even, quiet, and strong that there was nothing to
disturb her maidenly serenity. If Webb had been any one but Webb, and if
she had been in the habit of regarding all men as possible admirers, she
would have understood herself long before this. If she had been brought
up with brothers in her own home she would have known that she welcomed
this quiet brother with a gladness that had a deeper root than sisterly
affection. But the fact that he was Webb, the quiet, self-controlled man
who had called her sister Amy for a year, made his presence, his deep
sympathy with her and for her, seem natural. His approaches had been so
gradual that he was stealing into her heart as spring enters a flower.
You can never name the first hour of its presence; you take no note of
the imperceptible yet steady development. The process is quiet, yet vital
and sure, and at last there comes an hour when the bud is ready to open.
That time was near, and Webb hoped that it was. His tones were now and
then so tender and gentle that she looked at him a little wonderingly,
but his manner was quiet and far removed from that of the impetuous Burt.
There was a warmth in it, however, like the increasing power of the sun,
and in human hearts bleak December can be the spring-time as truly as
May.

It was the twenty-third--one of the stormiest days of a stormy month. The
snowflakes were whirling without, and making many a circle in the gale
before joining their innumerable comrades that whitened the ground. The
wind sighed and soughed about the old house as it had done a year before,
but Webb and Amy were armed against its mournfulness. They were in the
parlor, on whose wide hearth glowed an ample fire. Burt and Gertrude were
expected on the evening train.

"Gertie is coming home through the snow just as I did," said Amy,
fastening a spray of mistletoe that a friend had sent her from England to
the chandelier; "and the same old warm welcome awaits her."

"What a marvellous year it has been!" Webb remarked.

"It has, indeed. Just think of it! Burt is engaged to one of whose
existence he did not know a year ago. He has been out West, and found
that you have land that will make you all rich."

"Are these the greatest marvels of the year, Amy?"

"No, there is a greater one. I didn't know you a year ago to-day, and now
I seem to have known you always, you great patient, homely old
fellow--'deliciously homely.' I shall never get over that."

"The eyes of scores of young fellows looked at you that evening as if you
were deliciously handsome."

"And you looked at me one time as if you hadn't a friend in the world,
and you wanted to be back in your native wilds."

"Not without you, Amy; and you said you wished you were looking at the
rainbow shield with me again."

"Oh, I didn't say all that; and then I saw you needed heartening up a
little."

"I did indeed. You were dancing with a terrible swell, worth, it was
said, half a million, who was devouring you with his eyes."

"I'm all here, thank you, and you look as if you were doing some
devouring yourself. What makes you look at me so? Is there anything on my
face?"

"Yes, some color, but it's just as Nature arranged it, and you know
Nature's best work always fascinates me."

"What a gallant you are becoming! There, don't you think that is arranged
well?" and she stood beneath the mistletoe looking up critically at it.

"Let me see if it is," and he advanced to her side. "This is the only
test," he said, and quick as a flash he encircled her with his arm and
pressed a kiss upon her lips.

She sprang aloof and looked at him with dilating eyes. He had often
kissed her before, and she had thought nothing more of it than of a
brother's salute. Was it a subtile, mysterious power in the mistletoe
itself with which it had been endowed by ages of superstition? Was that
kiss like the final ray of the Jane sun that opens the heart of the rose
when at last it is ready to expand? She looked at him wonderingly,
tremblingly, the color of the rose mounting higher and higher, and
deepening as if the blood were coming from the depths of her heart. He
did not speak. In answer to her wondering, questioning look, he only bent
full upon her his dark eyes that had held hers once before in a moment of
terror. She saw his secret in their depths at last, the devotion, the
love, which she herself had unsuspectingly said would "last always." She
took a faltering step toward him, then covered her burning face with her
hands.

"Amy," he said, taking her gently in his arms, "do you understand me now?
Dear, blind little girl, I have been worshipping all these months, and
you have not known it."

"I--I thought you were in love with nature," she whispered.

"So I am, and you are nature in its sweetest and highest embodiment.
Every beautiful thing in nature has long suggested you to me. Amy, I
_can_ wait. You shall have your girlhood. It seems to me now that I
have loved you almost from the first hour I saw you. I have known that I
loved you ever since that June evening when you left me in the rose
garden. Have I not proved that I can be patient and wait?"

She only pressed her burning face closer upon his shoulder. "It's all
growing clear now," she again whispered. "How blind I've been! I thought
you were only my brother."

"I can be 'only your brother,' if you so wish," he said, gravely. "Your
happiness is my first thought."

She looked up at him shyly, tears in her eyes, and a smile hovering about
her tremulous lips. "I don't think I understood myself any better than I
did you. I never had a brother, and--and--I don't believe I loved you
just right for a brother;" and her face was hidden again.

His eyes went up to heaven, as if he meant that his mating should be
recognized there. Then gently stroking her brown hair, he asked, "Then I
shan't have to wait, Amy?"

"Am I keeping you waiting, Webb?" she faltered from her deep seclusion.

"Oh, that blessed mistletoe!" cried Webb, lifting the dewy, flower-like
face and kissing it again and again. "You are my Christmas gift, Amy."

"Oh, I beg your pardon; I didn't know," began Mr. Clifford from the
doorway, and was about to make a hasty and excited retreat.

"Stay, father!" cried Webb. "A year ago you received this dear girl as
your daughter. She has consented to make the tie closer still if
possible."

The old gentleman took Amy in his arms for a moment, and then said, "This
is too good to keep to myself for a moment," and he hastened the
blushing, laughing girl to his wife, and exclaimed, "See what I've
brought you for a Christmas present. See what that sly, silent Webb has
been up to. He has been making love to our Amy right under our noses, and
we didn't know it,"

"_You_ didn't know it, father; mother's eyes are not so blind. Amy,
darling, I've been hoping and praying for this. You have made a good
choice, my dear, if it is his mother that says it. Webb will never
change, and he will always be as gentle and good to you as he has been to
me."

"Well, well, well," said Mr. Clifford, "our cup is running over, sure
enough. Maggie, come here," he called, as he heard her step in the hall.
"Here is a new relative. I once felt a little like grumbling because we
hadn't a daughter, and now I have three, and the best and prettiest in
the land. You didn't know what Webb was about."

"Didn't I, Webb--as long ago as last October, too?"

"Oh, Webb, you ought to have told me first," said Amy, reproachfully,
when they were alone.

"I did not tell Maggie; she saw," Webb answered. Then, taking a rosebud
which she had been wearing, he pushed open the petals with his finger,
and asked, "Who told me that 'this is no way for a flower to bloom'? I've
watched and waited till your heart was ready, Amy." And so the time flew
in mutual confidences, and the past grew clear when illumined by love.

"Poor old Webb!" said Amy, with a mingled sigh and laugh. "There you were
growing as gaunt as a scarecrow, and I loving you all the time. What a
little goose I was! If you had looked at Gertrude as Burt did I should
have found myself out long ago. Why hadn't you the sense to employ Burt's
tactics?"

"Because I had resolved that nature should be my sole ally. Was not my
kiss under the mistletoe a better way of awakening my sleeping beauty
than a stab of jealousy?"

"Yes, Webb, dear, patient Webb. The rainbow shield was a true omen, and I
am sheltered indeed."

CHAPTER LX

CHRISTMAS LIGHTS AND SHADOWS

Leonard had long since gone to the depot, and now the chimes of his
returning bells announced that Burt and Gertrude were near. To them both
it was in truth a coming home. Gertrude rushed in, followed by the
exultant Burt, her brilliant eyes and tropical beauty rendered tenfold
more effective by the wintry twilight without; and she received a welcome
that accorded with her nature. She was hardly in Amy's room, which she
was to share, before she looked in eager scrutiny at her friend. "What's
in the air?" she asked. "What has transfigured Webb? Oh, you little
wild-flower, you've found out that he is saying his prayers to you at
last, have you? Evidently he hasn't said them in vain. You are very
happy, dear?"

"Yes, happier than you are."

"I deny that point-blank. Oh, Amy darling, I was true to you and didn't
lose Burt either."

Maggie had provided a feast, and Leonard beamed on the table and on every
one, when something in Webb and Amy's manner caught his attention. "This
occasion," he began, "reminds me of a somewhat similar one a year ago
to-morrow night. It is my good fortune to bring lovely women into this
household. My first and best effort was made when I brought Maggie. Then
I picked up a little girl at the depot, and she grew into a tall, lovely
creature on the way home, didn't she, Johnnie? And now to-night I've
brought in a princess from the snow, and one of these days poor Webb will
be captured by a female of the MacStinger type, for he will never muster
up courage enough--What on earth are you all laughing about?"

"Thank you," said Amy, looking like a peony.

"You had better put your head under Maggie's wing and subside," Webb
added. Then, putting his arm about Amy, he asked, "Is this a female of
the MacStinger type?"

Leonard stared in blank amazement. "Well," said he, at last, "when
_did_ this happen? I give up now. The times have changed. When I was
courting, the whole neighborhood was talking about it, and knew I was
accepted long before I did. Did you see all this going on, Maggie?"

"Certainly," she answered.

"Now, I don't believe Amy saw it herself," cried Leonard, half
desperately, and laughter broke out anew.

"Oh, Amy, I'm so glad!" said Burt, and he gave her the counterpart of the
embrace that had turned the bright October evening black to Webb.

"To think that Webb should have got such a prize!" ejaculated Leonard.
"Well, well, the boys in this family are in luck."

"It will be my turn next," cried Johnnie.

"No, sir; I'm the oldest," Alf protested.

"Let's have supper," Ned remarked, removing his thumb from his mouth.

"Score one for Ned," said Burt. "There is at least one member of the
family whose head is not turned by all these marvellous events."

Can the sunshine and fragrance of a June day be photographed? No more can
the light and gladness of that long, happy evening be portrayed. Mrs.
Clifford held Gertrude's hand as she had Amy's when receiving her as a
daughter. The beautiful girl, whose unmistakable metropolitan air was
blended with gentle womanly grace, had a strong fascination for the
invalid. She kindled the imagination of the recluse, and gave her a
glimpse into a world she had never known.

"Webb," said Amy, as they were parting for the night, "I can see a sad,
pale orphan girl clad in mourning. I can see you kissing her for the
first time. Don't you remember? I had a strange little thrill at heart
then, and you said, 'Come to me, Amy, when you are in trouble.' There is
one thing that troubles me to-night. All whom I so dearly love know of my
happiness but papa. I wish he knew."

"Tell it to him, Amy," he answered, gently, "and tell it to God."

There were bustle and renewed mystery on the following day.
Astonishing-looking packages were smuggled from one room to another.
Ned created a succession of panics, and at last the ubiquitous and
garrulous little urchin had to be tied into a chair. Johnnie and Alf
were in the seventh heaven of anticipation, and when Webb brought Amy
a check for fifty dollars, and told her that it was the proceeds of
his first crop from his brains, and that she must spend the money, she
went into Mr. Clifford's room waving it as if it were a trophy such as
no knight had ever brought to his lady-love.

"Of course, I'll spend it," she cried. "I know just how to spend it. It
shall go into books that we can read together. What's that agricultural
jargon of yours, Webb, about returning as much as possible to the soil?
We'll return this to the soil," she said, kissing his forehead, "although
I think it is too rich for me already."

In the afternoon she and Webb, with a sleigh well laden, drove into the
mountains on a visit to Lumley. He had repaired the rough, rocky lane
leading through the wood to what was no longer a wretched hovel. The
inmates had been expecting this visit, and Lumley rushed bareheaded
out-of-doors the moment he heard the bells. Although he had swept a path
from his door again and again, the high wind would almost instantly drift
in the snow. Poor Lumley had never heard of Sir Walter Raleigh or Queen
Elizabeth, but he had given his homage to a better queen, and with loyal
impulse he instantly threw off his coat, and laid it on the snow, that
Amy might walk dry-shod into the single room that formed his home. She
and Webb smiled significantly at each other, and then the young girl put
her hand into that of the mountaineer as he helped her from the sleigh,
and said "Merry Christmas!" with a smile that brought tears into the eyes
of the grateful man.

"Yer making no empty wish, Miss Amy. I never thought sich a Christmas 'ud
ever come to me or mine. But come in, come in out of the cold wind, an'
see how you've changed everything. Go in with her, Mr. Webb, and I'll tie
an' blanket your hoss. Lord, to think that sich a May blossom 'ud go into
my hut!"

They entered, and Mrs. Lumley, neatly clad in some dark woollen material,
made a queer, old-fashioned courtesy that her husband had had her
practice for the occasion. But the baby, now grown into a plump, healthy
child, greeted her benefactress with nature's own grace, crowing,
laughing, and calling, "Pitty lady; nice lady," with exuberant welcome.
The inmates did not now depend for precarious warmth upon two logs,
reaching across a dirty floor and pushed together, but a neat box,
painted green, was filled with billets of wood. The carpeted floor was
scrupulously clean, and so was the bright new furniture. A few evergreen
wreaths hung on the walls with the pictures that Amy had given, and on
the mantel was her photograph--poor Lumley's patron saint.

Webb brought in his armful of gifts, and Amy took the child on her lap
and opened a volume of dear old "Mother Goose," profusely illustrated in
colored prints--that classic that appeals alike to the hearts of
children, whether in mountain hovels or city palaces. The man looked on
as if dazed. "Mr. Webb," he said, in his loud whisper, "I once saw a
picter of the Virgin and Child. Oh, golly, how she favors it!"

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34