Part 3 (1/2)

Precise Sue took him up at once. ”Of course she isn't. Aunt Jane's very, very old, Pell. She's 'mos' a hunderd. Aren't you, Aunt Jane?”

The aged cook snorted contemptuously. ”What I is, I is, Miss Susie. I'se gwine ter yer Uncle Derrell's, _I_ is.”

The children gazed open-eyed. ”Are you goin' to cook for him 'n' Aunt Eloise?” asked Pelham.

”Sho' I is, honey! Dey gotter have mah cookin', Mister Derrell he says.”

The noise of the creaking wagons drawn up at the side door claimed the children's attention. They ran out to watch the first loading, hoping to be allowed to help.

Paul followed briskly, thoroughly at home as an executive, issuing his orders with precision. His active mind ranged even at this absorbing moment. Well, he was leaving a slate wiped clean! All of the Jackson investments had turned out finely; he has sold the real estate to advantage, so as to cover a large part of the mountain purchase money.

The street railway stock he was still carrying; its regular income furnished a safe fund to fall back upon.

After the last load had been urged away, he walked with Mary through the echoing emptiness.

”We've been happy here, Paul,” she observed quietly.

”Mm ... yes. Did that box of books in the spare room go with the last load?”

He hurried up to make sure.

Mary saw the children into their heavy wraps--it was unusually chilly for a Jackson October--and young Ike drove them down to the Great Southern station in the old carriage. It had been sold to Shanley's Livery Stable--it would hardly be the thing in Adamsville; but the wife had had her way for once more, due to Paul's expansive satisfaction at the smooth-running plans, and they were to make their last trip as citizens of Jackson in the accustomed conveyance.

When they became settled in the train, Pelham retold to the sisters the story of his trip to the mountain. They had never seen it, and his colorful narrative fascinated. Mary listened attentively, adding an occasional touch.

Paul went forward into the smoking car. The Dixie Flier was a political exchange for the state, just before the legislature met. There was always some one to listen, though usually unconvinced, to his insistence on the future prosperity of this dormant section. Mary heard his nervous, energetic laugh sound out, when the train stopped at some crossroads station to pick up a giggling group of ginghamed farm-girls and stooped country elders.

The children were quiet now. Across the aisle the baby lay with his head in Nell's lap; Sue was stretched out on the seat facing them, flushed cheek pillowed on cindery hand, brown eyes closed. Pell sat beside his mother, his dreamy face pressed against the smudged car pane, watching the flickering landscape sway by.

They were beautiful ... her children. But the cost to her ambitions had been heavy. Her vague dreams of a career, cherished while she was at art school, had been shoved far into the future. She realized, with a sigh, that she could never overtake them. Perhaps some one of the children,--perhaps the little son at her side,--would show the same talent; in him she might realize her own hid longings.

It hurt her to leave the quiet home town she had always known and loved, for the restless, youthful city, big with the future. It was the second time that she had felt wholly uprooted from her former life. Home days with Paul and his urging aggressiveness were vastly different from the placid, considerate atmosphere of the old Barbour plantation. There, a sharp word had been unknown. Her kindly, courtly father, the sweet quiet mother, the gay-hearted brothers and sisters,--there was an unbridgeable chasm between these and the push of her married life.

And now again a change....

Paul had a grasp of things, a will to shove his way over all obstacles, a single-ideaed vision of a high goal, that, she believed, could not fail to win for him the success that he sought. She sometimes wondered if the gentler bringing-up that had been hers would not have been better for the children. But that could not happen. They, she, were to be a part of the swell, the hurried, a.s.sertive course of Adamsville. She was glad she would be there to guard her little ones: they would need all she could do.

A long whistle woke her from her reverie. She looked out; the dusk had softened the countryside until it was a dull blur, shot with irregular streaky lights.

Her husband shouldered briskly back from the smoking car. ”This is Hazelton, Mary,” he said eagerly. ”Adamsville next!”

IV

The Judsons blended easily into the life on the mountain.

Paul took it upon himself to plan and arrange all the details of the new home. Mary found her wishes unconsulted, when furniture was to be placed or purchased.

Much of the furnis.h.i.+ngs of the Jackson house he used in the new ”Hillcrest Cottage.” The dining-room suite, with its stately, ornate sideboard and carved chairs, was rearranged in the bay-windowed corner room, overlooking the long vista of Bragg Valley. The diners looked out on the pigmy furnace smokestacks punctuating the dun smoke-mist. The children's rooms, the three chief bedrooms, and the living-room furniture remained unaltered.