Part 24 (2/2)

Perhaps his secret knowledge of that interview in which she had worsted Kate, and an impression that she had a special grudge against the girl, inclined him to the unusual emphasis with which he answered the question.

”I never saw a girl I liked so well in my life,” he said. ”She's made of the right sort of stuff, and she's game clear through.”

”Hm,” grunted Miss Saxon again, beginning to look very much interested.

”I understand you 'n' she did a sight of quarrelling. She generally got ahead of you, didn't she?”

”No marm, she didn't,” said Tom, promptly. ”I generally got ahead of her, only she'd never own it.”

Aunt Katharine laughed. If anything could please her more than to have a girl get the best of a controversy it was to know that she had kept on after getting the worst. She had always approved the spirit of those old Britons, of whom Caesar complained that they never knew when they were beaten.

”What do you mean by saying she's made of the right sort of stuff?” she asked suddenly.

”Why, I mean,” said Tom, hesitating a little,-he was not a.n.a.lytical in his turn of mind,-”I mean she's plucky, and she's out-and-out about everything. I'd trust her as quick as I would a boy.”

”As quick as you would a boy!” repeated Aunt Katharine, bristling; ”what do you mean by that, I'd like to know.”

Tom had not come for a controversy with Aunt Katharine, and she really looked a little dangerous at that moment. But he remembered suddenly that word of Kate's, that the old woman's manner didn't ”faze” her, after the first, and he determined, as far as in him lay, not to be fazed either.

”Why, I didn't mean anything bad,” he said, drawing a little nearer the edge of his chair, ”but there's a difference, you know. At least you would know if you were a boy. Most girls are sort of sly when they want to get anything out of you, and they do things they wouldn't think were fair for you to do. But she wasn't that way. She always let you know what she was up to, and when it came to fighting she struck right out from the shoulder. But I wasn't blaming the rest of 'em. I guess it's all right, being girls,” he added, rising and beginning to move toward the door.

Aunt Katharine rose too, and brought her cane down on the floor with a sharp thud. ”That's it!” she said, fiercely. ”Boys 'n' men, you're all alike, and you've got the notion already. You act as if we women folks were weaker creatures than you are. You make us think we are; and then you look for all the tricks that weaker creatures use when they defend themselves. It serves you right if we _do_ use 'em. But it's a lie all the same, for both of us.”

She drew her lips hard, then, as she saw his hand on the k.n.o.b of the door, she said, ”Tell your grandfather I'll be up to see him to-morrow.”

She did not keep the promise. The rain, which had been threatening for days, falling now and then in drizzling showers, then stopping again, as if, though still in sullen mood, some vacillating purpose held it, settled down at last for steady work. There was a week of leaden days, with the rain beating out all that was left of the color in the woods, and changing the world into one brown monotony which melancholy seemed to have marked for her own.

And through it all, at the old house, Ruel Saxon kept his bed, and as the days went on grew no better. There was not much pain: a little fever, a growing drowsiness, a failing appet.i.te, a little swelling of the limbs. Even the doctor seemed not to know what it was that had crept so suddenly upon the active frame, but he looked graver with every visit. Once, as he added another vial to the little row on the stand by the bed, he mentioned a name which the sick man, opening his eyes a little wider, repeated, adding, ”That was what ailed my grandfather;”

and then he closed his eyes without sign of uneasiness. Perhaps he remembered how much stronger in all its seeming powers was this body of his than that worn-out form from which the spirit of the grandfather stole away at last.

But a change came over him in these days. He lost the querulous tone of inquiry about things at the barn. He seemed to have forgotten that suspicion of his that Tom was liable to let Dobbin's manger go empty.

Once he said to the boy instead, ”It's a little hard on you and Mike to have it all to do, Tom. I wish I could help you with the husking.”

At last there came a day when the rain ceased to fall. The sun shone out clear and bright, and the clouds went stately across the sky, to the measure of marches they had kept in October. Mists rose from the earth, not heavily, but with a lightness suggestive of warmth still in the breast of the earth, and Esther, standing on the doorstep of the old house, noted that there was even yet a little greenness among the limp stalks in the garden where a flock of birds were twittering over the seeds they had found for their breakfast. ”I'm so glad the rain has gone,” she said, drawing a long breath. ”It's pleasant weather that grandfather needs.”

And then she went softly into his room to tell him how the sun was s.h.i.+ning, and smiled as he murmured in reply, ”Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.”

It was that day in the afternoon that Aunt Katharine came across the fields. The door of the kitchen was on the latch, and she lifted it and stepped in without knocking. Perhaps she expected to see him sitting by the fire, for she looked before her eagerly, but even Aunt Elsie was not in sight, and she pa.s.sed on without greeting to her brother's room. He looked quite bright as he lay with his face toward Esther, who had just been giving him a cup of broth.

”Why, Aunt Katharine!” exclaimed the girl, rising to her feet, and the old man, lifting his head, put out his hand with an eager welcome.

”So you hain't managed to get out of bed yet?” she said, taking the chair from which Esther had risen, and looking down at her brother with an affectionate smile. ”Well, I'm sorry for you, Ruel.” Then, a half whimsical expression creeping over her smile, she added: ”'Pears to me you don't hold up so much better'n some of us that don't claim to be so stout. I've owned up to it for a good while that I ain't as young as I used to be, and there's no denying that I make a pretty fair showing with most old women when it comes to aches and pains, but they hain't brought me onto the flat of my back for the last ten years.”

”I've been favored above most, Katharine,” said the old man, mildly.

”I've had my strength and faculties spared to me beyond the common, and I can't complain of anything now. 'Shall we receive good at the hand of G.o.d and shall we not receive evil?' It is the Lord's will, let him do what seemeth him good.”

She was evidently struck with his reply, and for a moment looked at him keenly. ”I should have come up before this, if it hadn't rained all the time,” she said, ”and I took it for granted you was getting along. But I guess you hain't needed me any, with those that are here to wait on you.”

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