Part 4 (1/2)

After a day or two of search in the country, he found a place that he thought would answer, and the family prepared as quickly as possible for what seemed to them like a journey to Siberia.

Mildred's farewell to her own private apartment was full of touching pathos. This room was the outward expression not merely of a refined taste, but of some of the deepest feelings and characteristics of her nature. In its furniture and adornment it was as dainty as her own delicate beauty. She had been allowed to fit it up as she wished, and had lavished upon it the greater part of her spending money. She had also bestowed upon it much thought, and the skilful work of her own hands had eked out to a marvellous extent the limited sums that her father had been able to give her. The result was a prettiness and light, airy grace which did not suggest the resting-place of an ordinary flesh-and-blood girl, but of one in whom the spiritual and the love of the beautiful were the ruling forces of life.

It is surprising how character impresses itself on one's surroundings.

Mrs. Arnold's elegant home was a correct expression of herself.

Stately, formal, slightly rigid, decidedly cold, it suggested to the visitor that he would receive the courtesy to which his social position ent.i.tled him, and nothing more. It was the result of an exact and logical mind, and could no more unbend into a little comfortable disorder than the lady herself. She bestowed upon its costly appointments the scrupulous care which she gave to her children, and her manner was much the same in each instance. She was justly called a strong character, but she made herself felt after the fas.h.i.+on of an artist with his hammer and chisel. Carved work is cold and rigid at best.

Mildred had not as yet impressed people as a strong character. On the contrary, she had seemed peculiarly gentle and yielding. Vinton Arnold, however, in his deep need had instinctively half guessed the truth, for her influence was like that of a warm day in spring, undemonstrative, not self-a.s.serting, but most powerful. The tongue-tied could speak in her presence; the diffident found in her a kindly sympathy which gave confidence; men were peculiarly drawn toward her because she was so essentially womanly without being silly. Although as sprightly and fond of fun as most young girls of her age, they recognized that she was perfectly truthful and loyal to all that men--even bad men--most honor in a woman.

They always had a good time in her society, and yet felt the better and purer for it. Life blossomed and grew bright about her from some innate influence that she exerted unconsciously. After all there was no mystery about it. She had her faults like others, but at heart she was genuinely good and unselfish. The gentle mother had taught her woman's best graces of speech and manner; nature had endowed her with beauty, and to that the world always renders homage.

There are thousands of very pretty girls who have no love for beauty save their own, which they do their best to spoil by self-homage.

To Mildred, on the contrary, the beautiful was as essential as her daily food, and she excelled in all the dainty handicrafts by which women can make a home attractive. Therefore her own little sanctum had developed like an exquisite flower, and had become, as we have said, an expression of herself. An auctioneer, in dismantling her apartment, would not have found much more to sell than if he had pulled a rose to pieces, but left intact it was as full of beauty and fragrance as the flower itself. And yet her own hands must destroy it, and in a brief time she must exchange its airy loveliness for a bare room in a farmhouse. After that the future was as vague as it was clouded. The pretty trifles were taken down and packed away, with tears, as if she were laying them in graves.

CHAPTER V

THE RUDIMENTS OF A MAN

”Mother, I hain't no unison with it at all,” said Farmer Atwood, leaning on the breakfast table and holding aloft a knife and fork--formidable implements in his hands, but now unemployed through perturbation of mind. ”I hain't no unison with it--this havin'

fine city folk right in the family. 'Twill be pretty nigh as bad as visiting one's rich relations. I had a week of that once, but, thank the Lord, I hain't been so afflicted since. I've seen 'em up at the hotel and riding by too often not to know 'em. They are half conceit and half fine feathers, and that doesn't leave many qualities as are suited to a farmhouse. Roger and me will have to be--what was it that lecturin' professor called it--'deodorized'

every mornin' after feedin' and cleanin' the critters. We'll have to put on our go-to-meetin's, instead of sittin' down in our s.h.i.+rt-sleeves comfortable like. I hain't no unison with it, and it's been a-growing on me ever since that city chap persuaded you into being cook and chambermaid for his family.” And Farmer Atwood's knife and fork came down into the dish of ham with an onslaught that would have appalled a Jew.

”The governor is right, mother,” said the young man referred to as Roger. ”We shall all be in strait-jackets for the summer.”

The speaker could not have been much more than twenty years old, although in form he appeared a full-grown man. As he stood wiping his hands on a towel that hung in a corner of the large kitchen, which, except on state occasions, also served as dining and sitting-room, it might be noted that he was above medium height, broad-shouldered, and strongly built. When he crossed the room his coa.r.s.e working dress could not disguise the fact that he had a fine figure and an easy bearing of the rustic, rough-and-ready style.

He had been out in the tall, dew-drenched gra.s.s, and therefore had tucked the lower part of his trousers in his boot tops, and, like his father, dispensed with his coat in the warm June morning. As he drew a chair noisily across the floor and sat down at the table, it was evident that he had a good though undeveloped face. His upper lip was deeply shadowed by a coming event, to which he looked forward with no little pride, and his well-tanned cheeks could not hide a faint glow of youthful color. One felt at a glance that his varying expressions could scarcely fail to reveal all that the young man was now or could ever become, for his face suggested a nature peculiarly frank and rather matter-of-fact, or at least unawakened. The traits of careless good-nature and self-confidence were now most apparent. He had always been regarded as a clever boy at home, and his rustic gallantry was well received by the farmers' daughters in the neighborhood. What better proofs that he was about right could a young fellow ask? He was on such good terms with himself and the world that even the event which his father so deprecated did not much disturb his easy-going a.s.surance.

He doubted, in his thoughts, whether the city girls would ”turn up their noses” at him, and if they did, they might, for all that he cared, for there were plenty of rural beauties with whom he could console himself. But, like his father, he felt that the careless undress and freedom of their farm life would be criticised by the new-comers. He proposed, however, to make as little change as possible in his habits and dress, and to teach the Jocelyns that country people had ”as good a right to their ways as city people to theirs.” Therefore the threatened invasion did not in the least prevent him from making havoc in the substantial breakfast that Mrs. Atwood and her daughter Susan put on the table in a haphazard manner, taking it from the adjacent stove as fast as it was ready.

A stolid-looking hired man sat opposite to Roger, and shovelled in his food with his knife, with a monotonous a.s.siduity that suggested a laborer filling a coal-bin. He seemed oblivious to everything save the breakfast, and with the exception of heaping his plate from time to time he was ignored by the family.

The men-folk were quite well along with their meal before Mrs.

Atwood and Susan, flushed with their labors about the stove, were ready to sit down. They were accustomed to hear the farmer grumble, and, having carried their point, were in no haste to reply or to fight over a battle that had been won already. Roger led to a slight resumption of hostilities, however, by a disposition--well-nigh universal in brothers--to tease.

”Sue,” he said, ”will soon be wanting to get some feathers like those of the fine birds that will light in our door-yard this evening.”

”That's it,” snarled the farmer; ”what little you make will soon be on your backs or streamin' away in ribbons.”

”Well,” said Mrs. Atwood, a little sharply, ”it's quite proper that we should have something on our backs, and if we earn the money to put it there ourselves, I don't see why you should complain; as for ribbons, Sue has as good right to 'em as Roger to a span-new buggy that ain't good for anything but taking girls out in.”

”What made you have the seat so narrow, Roger?” asked Sue; ”you couldn't squeeze three people in to save your life.”

”I'm content with one girl at a time,” replied Roger, with a complacent shrug.

”And the same girl only one time, too, from what I hear. You've taken out all there are in Forestville haven't you?”

”Haven't got quite around yet. And then some prudent mothers do think the seat a trifle narrow, and the ones I'd like to take out most can't go. But there's plenty that can.”