Part 4 (1/2)
Eunice smiled, and shook her head.
”I think not, doctor. My bread is not all baked yet.”
”What is this I hear about the garden? Are you going to let Jabez have it, as he wishes it so much?”
”Hadn't I better, doctor? Without Fidelia it would be too much for me, I am afraid. I could work in it a little for exercise, even if Jabez had it.”
”Yes, I see. I should not wonder,” said the doctor; but his eyes were turned to the clouds that hung over the distant mountains, and he was thinking not at all of Jabez and the garden. His face was very grave.
”What a good face it is!” thought Eunice, as she watched it--”a true friend's face!”
It was a good face, strong and kindly--a face to inspire confidence. It was brown and weather-beaten, and showed many wrinkles, and the soft waving hair above it was as white as snow. But it was not an old face.
The eyes were soft and bright, and the smile that came and went so readily upon it gave it a look of youth. Eunice could not remember the time when he had not been good and kind to her, and she loved him dearly. But she was a little afraid of him to-day. In a little, his eyes returned to her, standing at the gate.
”Miss Eunice, what am I thinking about? You must not stand there in the wind. I will go in with you. I am not in haste to-day. What is this I hear about your garden?”
But Eunice knew that it was not of Jabez or the garden he was thinking, as he followed her into the house. She went out of the room, and returned with a gla.s.s of milk on a tray, and her hand trembled as she set it down.
It was of Jabez and the garden that they spoke first, however. Eunice told all that he had said, and the good reason he had for wis.h.i.+ng to make money during the summer.
”And he'll do it too--school and college and all--I should not wonder!”
said the doctor. ”There seems to be a terrible hunger for knowledge among our young people these days. I am not sure that I like it. I am afraid of it.”
”Oh, doctor, you do not mean that?” said Eunice.
”In a way I do. Knowledge! No, I don't object to the knowledge. But I have a great respect for many of the tanned faces about us, and for the hands that have been hardened by the plough and the axe. 'The profit of the earth is for all. The king himself is served by the field.' And I have no respect at all for those lads who take to their books and to a profession because it seems a step upward, or because such a life seems to promise an easier time. I don't like to see our farmers' boys turning their backs on the fields their fathers have tilled.”
”But there are more boys than there are farms, I doubt,” said Eunice, with a smile.
”Yes, that is so. But there are farms enough in the country for them all. And there is no one to take the deacon's farm but Jabez. However, we may hope that 'the profit of the earth' will seem more to him after he has sowed and reaped for his own benefit.”
”I think Jabez would make a scholar. It is in him to succeed.”
”Possibly. Oh, yes, he is a smart boy! If he has got the notion, he'll go ahead with it. He's not a bad boy either, though the grandfather has had--or rather has dreaded--trouble with him!”
And so they talked on for a while about the garden and other things, till the doctor rose as if to go away; and then he said, speaking very gently, just what Eunice had all along known that he came to say--”Do you think you had better wait any longer, Eunice?”
”I suppose it will make me no worse to know just how it is,” she said faintly.
”It will be far better to know all that can be known. I cannot but think you may be dreading what will never come to you. You have had a lonesome winter. And you have had a hard life, dear.” Eunice smiled, but shook her head. ”I don't think I have been very lonesome. And I have not had a hard life--taking it all together. Think how happy my life was till I was twenty!”
”Yes, dear, I know. And since then it has been more than happy. It has been a blessed life of help to others. But it has been a hard life too, in one way. Let us see now how it is with you.”
”But first let me say one word,” said Eunice, laying her hand on the doctor's arm. ”I don't think I am afraid. I think I am willing that it shall be as G.o.d wills. But it may be long; and I will not, while I can help it, have my Fidelia know what is before me. And, doctor, I shall need your silence and your help--”
”To deceive her?”
The doctor sat down again and covered his eyes with his hand for a moment.