Part 6 (1/2)
The journey to New England was more than a mere interlude for the girls.
It was a distinct pleasure in itself. To watch the low, rich landscape which had lain around them from their infancy change imperceptibly to one different and bolder; the broad fields narrowing; the long, rolling swells lifting into clear-cut hills; the forests of beech and oak, with smooth, sunlighted floors, giving place to woods filled with a bewitching tangle of vines and ferns-all this was a constant delight to travellers as fresh and unsated as ours.
”I like the wide, open stretches better,” said Kate once, when they were winding with many turns between the close-set hills. But Esther did not a.s.sent to this. It seemed to her that nature had heaped the measure of her bounty here,-the bounty which is beauty,-not spread it out in even level, and something in her heart responded to the change.
The hills had sharpened to a rugged sternness, the fields were checkered off in little plots by lines of gray stone walls, plots in which men were gathering hay behind oxen instead of horses, when at last they reached the village of Esterly.
They had pa.s.sed a succession of such villages, catching just a glimpse of pretty homes and shaded streets, with always a spire or two lifted above them,-an endless number it seemed to the girls,-but this was the name for which they had been breathlessly waiting, and it was no sooner spoken than they rose unsteadily in their places and turned their faces toward the door.
”They'll be here, of course. I only hope we shall know them,” murmured Esther, anxiously.
She need have had no fear. Aside from some functionaries of the station there were but two persons on the platform of the Esterly depot when the Western train drew in, and these two were unmistakable. One of them was an old man, leaning eagerly forward, with his hands clasped on the top of his cane; a small, spare man, with clean-shaven face, and a touch of ruddy color in his cheeks, hair but slightly gray, and bright blue eyes which searched the faces before him without the aid of spectacles. The other was a pet.i.te young lady, in a stylish dress, with a mist of golden hair about her face, and a hat, which seemed to belong exactly with the face, tied in a gauzy mesh of something under her chin. She did not look in the least like a G.o.ddess, she was too slight and genteel; but she was clearly Stella Saxon.
”Grandfather! Stella!” came from the one side in a moment, and ”Girls!
Girls!” from the other, as the four met and embraced.
”We knew somebody would be here to meet us,” said Esther, when they had taken another breath and a good look at each other; ”but I'd no idea it would be you, grandfather.”
”Hm,” said the old gentleman, evidently enjoying her surprise. ”Mebbe you thought I'd be propped up in a big chair waiting for you at the house.”
”If you knew the state of mind he's been in since morning!” said Stella.
”We got Uncle Doctor's telegram early, saying you'd be here on this train, and grandfather seemed to regard it as a summons to start for you at once. Mother and I had hard work to hold him back at all, and in spite of us he would start an hour before time this afternoon; actually hurried his horse to get here, too,” she added, glancing with a little grimace at the fattest of family horses which was standing before the two-seated carriage at the side of the depot. ”I shudder to think what would have happened to him if you hadn't come.”
She was saying this last to Esther privately. The old gentleman had started briskly off with Kate to look after the trunks. These were to follow to the farm in a spring wagon, and securing them was a matter involving so little delay at this quiet station that the four were very shortly on their way behind the gray nag, which, after receiving an admonis.h.i.+ng ”cluck” at starting off, was allowed to settle to his own jog-trot without further attention. They made a long circuit through the main street of the village, the old gentleman bowing and smiling to every one he met, and obviously eager to attract attention. But as the houses grew more scattering he laid the reins across his lap, put on a pair of spectacles, and for a full minute gazed through them steadily at his granddaughters.
”You look as your mother did at your age; wonderfully like,” he said, with his eyes on Esther's face, ”and you, too, but not so much,” he added more slowly, turning to Kate. He took off his spectacles and returned them to an old-fas.h.i.+oned steel case; then asked, with much deliberation, ”And what do you think of your old grandfather?”
”Why, you look just as I thought you did, only so very much younger,”
replied Esther. ”I'd no idea you were so strong and active.” She paused an instant, then, with a charming eagerness in her voice, added: ”You make me think of the 'Farmer of Tilsbury Vale.' You know the poem says,-
”'His bright eyes look brighter, set off by the streak Of the unfaded rose that still blooms on his cheek.'”
The old gentleman made no attempt to conceal his elation. He fairly beamed; and Stella murmured in Esther's ear: ”You've done it! His youthful looks are his particular vanity; and to have a fresh quotation brought to bear upon the subject!” She lifted her hands as if in despair of expressing the effect on her grandfather, and settled back in her seat. He had turned to Kate and was plainly waiting for her to speak now.
”Well,” said that young lady, regarding him with cheerful scrutiny, ”I can't quote any poetry about it. It's always Esther who puts in the fine strokes with that sort of thing; but I must say I think you look mighty young for a man of your age.”
In its way this was equally good. Ruel Saxon evidently considered that she had used a very strong expression.
”Well,” he said with complacence, ”I guess there ain't much doubt but what I do bear my age better 'n most men at my time of life. I guess I'm some like Moses about that. You know it says, 'his eye was not dim nor his natural force abated,' when he got to be a very old man.”
There was such evident surprise on the part of his granddaughters at this remark that he added: ”To be sure, Moses was a good deal older 'n I am; he was a hundred and twenty years old when that was said of him, and I hain't got to _that_ yet by considerable. But I'm past the time of life that most men get to, a good deal past. I was born in the year seventeen hundred and ninety-one, and if I live till the twenty-first day of next June I shall be eighty-nine years old.”
He paused to let the statement take full effect, and Stella remarked: ”That's the way grandfather always tells his age. He names that year, away back in the last century, and then he tells what his birthday next year will make him. I don't mind his keeping account for himself that way, but he has the same style of reckoning for the rest of us.”
”Well,” he said, with a twinkle in his eyes, ”the women would forget their own ages if it warn't for me and the big Bible. Now Stella here was born in the year-”
”There,” cried the girl, ”what did I tell you! And isn't it enough to make one feel ancient, the way he rolls out the syllables? Never you mind about me, grandfather. Tell the girls when they were born. I'm sure they've forgotten.”
They admitted the fact promptly, but he had not yet exhausted the subject of his own exceptional fortune in withstanding the ravages of age. It was a theme of which he was never weary, largely no doubt from a certain vanity, which time had spared to him in a somewhat unusual measure, along with his physical powers. To have a fresh and interested audience was inspiration enough.