Part 26 (1/2)

There were longer letters from Stella, letters of the chatty, personal sort, with a generous sprinkling of family news. Mr. Hadley was calling often. If he had sustained any disappointment that the cousins were not in Boston together, he was apparently consoling himself with the company of the one who was left. They were going to art lectures and symphony concerts together, and the married sister had called.

”It's precisely what ought to happen,” Esther said to herself more than once; and the smile in her eyes as she said it suggested that there was no vagueness in her mind as to what the happening should be. Sometimes when the smile was gone a wistful look came in its place, but if she had any regrets or longings of her own, she told them to no one.

The spring vacation in the schools came with the Easter, early that year. Esther laid plans valiantly at the outset for work to be accomplished in the s.p.a.ce between terms, but she had grown thoroughly tired of her needle on the afternoon of the second day, when her father announced suddenly that he was going to drive out to the farm. There were matters connected with the spring planting to be talked over with Jake Erlock.

”What do you say to my going with you?” she exclaimed, dropping her work. ”It's ever so long since I went out there, and I feel just like it.”

There was nothing Dr. Northmore enjoyed more than having one of his daughters with him when he took a long drive. ”That's a capital idea,”

he said. ”Get your things on quick.”

Spring was coming along the track of the wide straight road by which they took their way to the pretty uplands which were the doctor's pride and care.

Here and there broad fields of wheat were already showing a tender green from the springing of the grain which had lain all winter under frost and snow, and between them new-ploughed fields sent up a pleasant smell, the wholesome smell of the kindly earth turning itself again to the sun and the rain.

The little gray house, set back from the road, wore its old shy look, and the occupant, who greeted them as they drove up to the door, seemed like one who, in his solitary wintering, might have sat asleep on his hearth, coming out half timidly now to greet the warmth and stir of the world. He lost his air of uncertainty as he saw his callers, and welcomed them to his kitchen, which was orderly as ever, setting chairs for them about his fire with a bustling hospitality. Esther did not keep her place long. A few kindly inquiries, a polite listening to his report of the winter, and then she left the two men together, and slipped away for a stroll by herself through the orchard and along the edge of the field where the thres.h.i.+ng had gone on so blithely in the summer past.

The straw-stack was there to remind of it still, not fair and golden now, but gray and weather-beaten from the winter storms. It had grown smaller with the pa.s.sing months, and a great hollow had been worn in its side by the browsing cattle. On the soft matted floor of this inner shelter lay two calves, one with its pretty, fawn-like head resting on the dark red neck of the other. They turned soft wondering eyes to the girl as she looked in upon them, and a sitting hen, so near the color of the straw that at first she did not see her, ruffled warningly from her nest in the side.

She did not disturb them in their quiet retreat, but sat down for a little while in the warm friendliness beside their open door, and thought half-dreamily of that day that was gone. What a bustle of work had filled the place! She could see the puffing engine sending up its quick black breath against the sky, and the great crimson machine, like a chariot, at its back, with Morton Elwell at the front, a charioteer holding the car of plenty on its way, amid a score of sunburnt outriders. How confident he had looked as he stood there in his workman's dress, bare-armed and bare-throated, how strong and steady!

She smiled at her own fancy. And then the rest of the picture faded, leaving the one figure alone; but it was not at the thres.h.i.+ng she saw him now, it was at home, at school, on the playground, and everywhere her comrade, her champion, her friend. Had he been something more in those old days, and was he still? Ah, if she could be sure of _that_!

The letters had lost the old boyish freedom in these last months. She had complained once that Morton Elwell took too much for granted. He was taking nothing now.

Her father's voice calling from the house roused her at last from her revery, and they were off again for home. He was thinking too busily of his summer plans to talk, and she, wrapped in her own thoughts, was glad of the silence. But she broke it suddenly as they drew near the substantial brick house which belonged to the Elwells, almost at the end of the ride.

”Suppose you let me out here, father,” she said. ”I haven't been in to see Mrs. Elwell for weeks, and I've been thinking all the afternoon how good she was to us last summer at the thres.h.i.+ng. I want to go in and thank her for it over again. I'll come home by myself in a little while.”

She hesitated a moment whether or not to go in by the back way in the old familiar fas.h.i.+on, then, for some reason, walked to the front door and rang the bell. The mistress herself opened it, her hands a little floury, and a clean gingham ap.r.o.n over her afternoon dress.

”Well, upon my word!” she exclaimed, starting at the sight of her caller. ”If we weren't talking about you, Esther Northmore, this blessed minute! Come in, come in. Who do you think is here?”

She had not time to guess. She had not time to speak the name which rose with wondering incredulity to her lips when the owner of it himself came hurrying through the hall to meet her.

”You!” she cried, fairly springing to meet Morton Elwell. ”Why, how does this happen?”

”It's vacation for me too,” he said, beaming at her in the most radiant manner. ”And-yes, I'll own it. It was a genuine fit of homesickness that brought me. I've been struggling with it all winter, but it was simply too much for me when there actually came a halt in the school work. I _had_ to come. There was no other way.”

”Think of it,” said Mrs. Elwell, who looked so happy that there was almost a halo round her head; ”think of his taking that journey and coming home for a week's vacation, when he could hardly afford a day off for us all last summer.”

”It does seem as if I'd grown to be something of a spendthrift, doesn't it?” said the young man. ”But you can't hold yourself down all the time.

You have to break loose now and then. And let me tell you,”-they had reached the sitting room now, and he was sitting between them, looking from one to the other like a happy child-”let me tell you that I've taken the Lisper scholars.h.i.+p, and that means my tuition all the rest of my course. Don't you think I could afford to give myself a glimpse of home when I wanted it so desperately?”

They cried, ”Oh!” in concert, Mrs. Elwell, whose ideas were a little vague in regard to scholars.h.i.+ps, prolonging hers as if to cover the comments she ought to make, and Esther adding, with the color sweeping over her face, ”Why, that is splendid, perfectly splendid! I can't tell you how glad I am.”

”And won't you have to work your way any more?” asked Mrs. Elwell, when she could get her breath.

”Oh, yes. I shall have to turn an honest penny for myself now and then,”

said her nephew, smiling. ”Tuition doesn't cover all the expenses by a good deal, but it's a big help. Why, I feel quite like a nabob.”