Wheat and Huckleberries; Or, Dr. Northmore's Daughters, Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  TALKING IT OVER

  Mrs. Northmore was at the gate to greet her daughters when the greatwagon stopped.

  "We knew you would find some one to bring you home," she said, smilingup at them. "Your father was disappointed that he couldn't come for youhimself, but he took our friends to the station, and then, just as hewas ready to start for you, he was called to the other end of the town.Come in, Morton," she added, turning to the young man, who was helpingthe girls over the wheel; "I must have a full account of the doingsto-day, and it may be a one-sided report if I have only the familyversion of it."

  "But there is only one side, Mrs. Northmore," said the young man."Everything went gloriously,--specially the dinner,--and everybody behavedbeautifully except me. Kate'll tell you how bad I was. No, I can't stay.There's an errand I must do before dark."

  "I shan't take anybody's report against _you_, Morton, unless it's yourown, and I'm not sure that I'll admit even that," said Mrs. Northmore.It was in her eyes as well as her voice how much she liked the big brownfellow. "Well, if you must go--but come and see us soon. Don't work sohard this summer that you'll have no time for your friends."

  She took an arm of each of the girls and walked with them up the gravelpath between the rows of blossoming catalpas. "So the day has gonewell?" she said, glancing from one to the other.

  "As if you had been there yourself, mother," said Esther, and Kateadded: "It's been a regular picnic. I never enjoyed a day more in mylife."

  In different ways each of the girls resembled her strongly. Esther hadthe broad, low forehead and serious eyes, but Kate had the resolutemouth with a touch of playfulness lurking at the corners. A girl, muchyounger than either, rolled sleepily out of the hammock as they steppedon the veranda.

  "Oh, I'm glad you've come," she said, rubbing her eyes. "This has beenthe longest, stupidest day I ever saw. Papa's been away, and mamma'sbeen busy with the company, and Aunt Milly's been so cross because shecouldn't go out to the farm, that she's been ready to snap my head offevery time I looked in at the kitchen. Even the cat went off visiting."

  "What a dull day you've had of it, Virgie!" said Esther, kissing thechild's flushed cheek. "But what ailed Aunt Milly? She knows shecouldn't be spared to go out there to-day."

  "Of course she knows it," said Mrs. Northmore, "and she would have felteven worse to be spared from here, but I suspect the real grievance wasthe cheerfulness with which you girls left her behind. She wanted tofeel that she was needed in both places. Poor old Milly, she can'treconcile herself to the idea that we can really get along without heranywhere."

  "Why didn't we think of that?" cried Kate. "If we'd asked her adviceabout a lot of things, and shaken our heads over the difficulties weshould get into, with her out of our reach, she'd have been happy allday. Esther, you and I are a pair of stupids, but I'll make it up to heryet."

  "Oh, she's forgiven you already," said Mrs. Northmore; "and if shepunishes you at all, it'll be by way of showing you some special favors,you may be sure of that."

  "There she comes now," said Kate, as footsteps were heard approaching onthe tiled floor of the hall; and she added, listening to the thud of theheavy feet, whose stout slippers dropping at the heels doubled the fallwith a solemn tap, "walking as if she went on two wooden legs and a pairof crutches."

  The comparison was not bad, and the laugh that followed it had hardlyended when the old servant showed a lugubrious face at the door.

  "Howdy, Aunt Milly?" cried Kate before the other had a chance to speak."Here we are, you see, home again. I was just coming out to the kitchento tell you how we got along, and see if you could give us a bite toeat. I suppose you think we had our suppers at the farm, and so we did;but it wasn't like one of your suppers, and I guess you know how muchappetite you have when you're all mixed up with the cooking. Don'tbother to bring anything in here, but just let us sit out in the kitchenwith you."

  At this artful proposal Milly's face shortened unmistakably. "Don'tknow's I've got anything you'd keer about," she began with a show ofreluctance, "but I'll knock round and see what I can find for you."

  "Oh, you'll find something--you always do," said Kate. "By the way, Ithought I smelled something good when I was coming up to the house."

  "It was the catalpa blossoms, and you know it," said Esther, laughing,and looking at her sister with a reproving glance, when the door hadclosed behind Milly.

  "Well, but she did make a spice cake, and it smells awfully good," saidVirgie. "It's warm now, and she wouldn't break a crumb of it for me."

  "There!" said Kate, triumphantly. "You see how people are helped out,when they prevaricate for high moral ends. Come on to the kitchen. I'llnever pretend to be smart again if I can't put Aunt Milly in goodspirits before we've been there long."

  It would have been an incomplete picture indeed of the Northmorehousehold which did not include old Aunt Milly. An important figure shewas and had been ever since the girls could remember. But in truth herconnection with the family was of much older date than that. She hadbeen born and reared a slave on the Kentucky plantation which had beenthe home of Dr. Northmore's boyhood. He had left it earlier than she,having before the war gone out from the large circle of brothers toestablish himself in his profession in a neighboring state. But when, inthe changed times, the servants had scattered from the old place, Millyhad made her way to the home of her favorite, and urged with manyentreaties that she might fill a post of service there.

  Dr. Northmore could not resist the appeal, nor his young wife his wishin the matter, and though the service had been a trying one at first tothe energetic Northern girl, yet, as time went on, and children, oneafter another, were added to the household, she learned to set truervalue on the faithful, affectionate servant, whose devotion nothingcould tire; and now, when Milly was old and infirm, her place was assecure as it had been in her palmiest days. She herself had fullconfidence in her ability to fill it still, and her one fear for thefuture was that she might be forced to share it with one of those"transients" who rendered their service by the week,--a class for whichher high-bred contempt knew no bounds.

  Kate had not misjudged the effect of her stratagem on the simple oldsoul. It was a long time since her young ladies had done her the honorof eating at her own pine table, and Milly forgot the grief of the dayin the zest of her hospitality, and accepted their praises for the feastshe furnished, with a delight quite different from the forgiving dignitywith which she had meant to pierce the hearts of her darlings.

  "Well, yes, I did stir up a little cake for you," she admitted, whenKate, after due admiration of the fresh and fragrant loaf, accused herof misrepresenting the extent of her supplies. "Laws, I knew you'd bewantin' a bite of somethin' afore you went to bed. It allers makes mystomach feel powerful empty to ride in one o' them wagons, jouncin'round in them straight-backed cheers."

  "And you must have named it for me, Aunt Milly," said Kate, with hereyes on the cake.

  This was an allusion to one of Milly's culinary secrets, and shereceived it with a smile which fairly transfigured the dusky old face.She had her own theories of cake-making, theories which she maintainedwith the unanswerable logic of her own surpassing skill.

  "You see, Miss Kate," she had said years before, when the girl had cometo the kitchen with a request to be instructed in the mysteries of theart, "there's somethin' curus about makin' cake. It ain't all in havin'a good receipt, though it stan's to reason if you don't take the rightthings there's no use puttin' 'em together. An' it ain't all in the wayyou put 'em together neither, though I 'low that makes a heap o'difference. Folks has their 'pinions, an' there's some that says youmust take your hand to the mixin', an' some that says you must use awooden spoon, an' I knew one cook that would have it you must stir thebatter all one way, or 'twould be plumb ruined. But I can't say as I_jest_ hold with any o' them idees, nor yet with the notions folks hasabout the bakin', though it's true as you live, a body's got to bemighty keerful on that p'int. Laws, I'
ve known folks dassn't let a catrun across the kitchen floor while the cake's in the oven.

  "I tell you, Miss Kate," Milly had proceeded, growing more impressive,as the greatness of her subject loomed before her, "there's a heap o'things to be looked to in the makin' o' cake, but there's somethin'besides all them p'ints I've mentioned. It takes the _right person_ tomake it! There's some that's been 'lected to make cake an' some thathasn't. There ain't no other doctrine to account for the luck folks has.I'll show you my way, but I can't tell beforehand how it'll work withyou. There's one thing, though, I'll jest say private between you'n me,"she added, lowering her voice to a mysterious whisper, "an' I ain't oneto take up with no superstitious notions neither; when you want to makean extra fine cake, you name it for somebody that loves you jest asyou're shettin' the oven door, an' if you've made that cake all right,an' if you ain't deceived in that person, your cake'll come outsplendid."

  "But if you _are_ deceived?" Kate had suggested solemnly.

  "Then," said Milly, lifting her finger, and shaking it with slowemphasis, "as sure's you're born that cake'll fall in the pan an' besad. There can't nothin' on earth prevent it."

  "But that is such an uncertain way," Kate had objected. "You can'talways tell whether or not a person loves you. Why don't you name it forsomebody that you love yourself? Then you could be sure."

  But Milly had shaken her head wisely. It was the nature of cake, as itwas of love, to be uncertain, and she refused to reconstruct her charm.

  All this had happened years before, but when, by some lucky turn ofmemory, Kate recalled it now, and suggested that this perfect specimenof cake had been baked under the inspiration of her own love for Milly,the last shadow of the old woman's melancholy vanished. "Well, Honey,"she said radiantly, "I reckon I shouldn't have missed it fur if I had."

  She was prepared now to enjoy to the full the account which the girlsgave of the experiences at the farm, including everything of importance,from Kate's exaltation on the machine to Morton Elwell's capture of thedoughnuts. Over the latter incident her eyes fairly rolled with delight,and she interrupted the narrator to exclaim, "That chile's boun' to makea powerful smart man. Puts me in mind of Mars Clay, your uncle, youknow, what got to be kunnel in the army. That chile did have the most'mazin' faculty for comin' roun' when a body was cookin', an' thebeatin'est way findin' out where things was kep' an' helpin' hisselfthat ever I did see. I never will forgit how he fooled your grandma oneyear 'bout the jelly. Ole Miss she allus put her jelly in glasses withlids to 'em. She had a closet full that year, an' every glass of itwould turn out slick an' solid. Mars Clay, he foun' he could turn thejelly out on the lid, an' cut a slice off'm the bottom, an' jist slidethe jelly back again. I seed him do it one day, but I never let on, andyour grandma she never foun' out, but she 'lowed 'twas mighty strangehow her jelly did shwink that year."

  She shook with glee at that remembrance, and Kate forgave Morton Elwellover again for outwitting her, since the act had been the means ofgiving her one more story of the old days. But Milly's delight reachedits climax when Kate told of the favor with which the various dishes hadbeen received at dinner, and how Farmer Giles, after helping himself tothe third piece of corn-bread, had declared it the best he ever tasted,to which she had replied that it ought to be; it was made by AuntMilly's own receipt.

  "Bless your heart, chile," cried the old woman; "you didn't tell himthat now, did you? You mustn't make the old darky too proud!"

  She did not enter with quite as much enthusiasm into Kate's descriptionof the threshing machine, and reverted with a sigh to the days when thethresher was content with his flail, an instrument which she extolled asbeing "a heap safer than that great snorting machine" (she persisted inconfounding its functions with those of the engine); and she refused toshare in Kate's wonder that people didn't starve in those days waitingfor the grain to be threshed.

  The two were still discussing harvests past and present when Esther,feeling that she had done her full duty there, left the kitchen. She hadnever held quite the place in Milly's affections which Kate enjoyed, norhad she of late years listened with her sister's contentment to the oldwoman's thrice-told tales. She left them now and went to seek hermother.

  Mrs. Northmore was seated on the cool veranda with her hands in her lap,and that look of tired content which tells of a busy but successful day.A generous hospitality had left her a little worn. Esther sat down onthe step at her feet and leaned her arms across her lap in a childishfashion she had never outgrown.

  "I wish I didn't get so tired of people whom I really like," she said."It would break Aunt Milly's heart if she knew how she bores me. Itseems to me sometimes I get tired of everybody--everybody but you, motherdear."

  Mrs. Northmore looked into her daughter's eyes with a smile.

  "I don't think I should feel hurt, my dear, if you wanted to get awayfrom me, too, sometimes. Nobody quite suits all our moods. I wouldn'treproach myself on that score, if I were you."

  "But it seems so disloyal, when it's anybody--anybody that you reallycare a great deal about," said Esther. Her mother's smile kept its tingeof amusement, and the girl's face grew more serious.

  "I wonder sometimes if I'm made like other girls," she said. "It isn'tjust getting tired of people. It's getting tired of things in general,and longing for something larger than anything that comes into my life.I don't know as I can make you understand quite what I mean," she wenton, a strained note creeping into her voice, "but somehow it came overme to-day more strongly than it ever did before that I could never besatisfied just to live out my life in the common humdrum way. Perhaps itwas the talk of those women. I suppose they're just as good and usefulas the average, but it seemed as if they thought there was nothing inthe world for women to do but to be married, and keep house, and takecare of children. Even Mrs. Elwell, nice as she is, appeared to thinkso, and it all seemed to me so poor and small. I almost despised them,mother."

  The smile had gone now from Mrs. Northmore's eyes. "Oh, my dear!" shesaid; and then she was silent. Of what use would it be to tell thischild, with the experiences of life all untried, that the common lot,which she despised, had in its round the truest joys and deepestsatisfactions? Years and love and happy work must bring the knowledge ofthat. She stroked the brown head for a moment without speaking. It wasEsther who found words first.

  "You never felt like those women, did you, mother? You don't seem a bitlike them. You are always reading and thinking, and you know about athousand things they've never thought of."

  The smile came back to Mrs. Northmore's eyes, but there was a touch ofsadness in it. "My dear girl," she said, "I'm not half as wise as youthink I am; but if I have any wisdom I'm sure I've found most of it, andmy happiness too, in those same common things. There isn't such adifference between me and those friends of ours as you imagine."

  The girl looked unconvinced. Presently she said, with a sigh, "If onecould only _be_ something or _do_ something! When I think of the peoplewho have been great--the heroes, the poets, the artists, people who haveaccomplished something that lasted--they seem to me the only ones whohave been really happy. Just to be one of the mass, and live, and die,and be forgotten, seems so pitiful."

  There had never been any closed doors between Mrs. Northmore's heart andher daughters. She had been the friend and confidante of each, and sheknew this mood of Esther's; but the day had deepened its color to anunusual sombreness. The girl had never before disclosed a feeling quitelike this, and for once the mother was at a loss how to help her. To saythat all could not be great was trite, and had no comfort in it.

  "I think we often make a mistake in our envying of the great," she saidgently. "The happiness to them was not in being known and rememberedbeyond others; few of them knew in their lifetime that this would betrue of them, or even the value of their work to the world. The realhappiness lay in doing with success the thing they cared to do. To knowour work and do it, Esther, not the sort of work nor the reward, but thefinding and doing--_that_ is the
true joy of the greatest, and it is opento us all."

  She had spoken with simple seriousness, as she always did when othersbrought her their troubles, however fanciful. Perhaps the girl did notgrasp the thought, or, grasping, find the comfort in it.

  "But it seems to me that some of us have no special work to do, nor anyspecial faculty for doing it," she said. "Here am I, for instance. Whatam I good for? I seem to myself to be just one of those creatures whoare made for nothing but to fill up the spaces between the people whoamount to something."

  Mrs. Northmore pressed her hand for a moment lightly on the darkappealing eyes of the girl. "If we are in earnest," she said gently,"and if it is usefulness, not praise that we are caring about, we shallfind our work; and be sure it will seem special to us if we love it aswe ought."

  There were a few minutes of silence; then the girl said more quietly,but with a note of despondence in her voice: "If I had gone to schoollonger and tried to fit myself for something, perhaps I might have foundout what I was good for. I didn't care much when I left Lance Hall, andI never studied as hard as I might while I was there; but I've thoughtmore about it since then."

  A look of pain came into Mrs. Northmore's face. It was a regret the girlhad never expressed before, but one which had been often in her ownthoughts. Yet the year in boarding-school, which had followed Esther'sgraduation from the high school, had been all that Dr. Northmore couldafford to give his daughter. She was considered in the region quite anaccomplished girl, but her mother, at least, realized what a broader andmore serious education might have done for her. She realized it at thismoment with unusual force.

  "I wish you might have had the best the schools can give, and some otherthings you have missed, Esther," she said. And then she added, "If wewere only a little richer!"

  There was a tone in Mrs. Northmore's voice which one heard but seldom,and the girl noted it with a sudden compunction. "I haven't missedanything that I deserved to have," she said quickly, "and I've had morethan most girls. I know that. It's _you_ who go without things, mother.You're always planning and saving, and pretending you don't want to haveanything or go anywhere." And then the impatience came into her toneagain, though she was not thinking of herself, as she added, "SometimesI can't see how it is that we have so little money to spend, when fatherhas such a good practice."

  Mrs. Northmore sighed. "Your father has never looked very sharply afterhis own interests in money matters. He has been too busy with otherthings, and too generous, for that," she said. And then she added,almost gayly: "But I have never lacked for anything; and it is so mucheasier to bear the sort of mistakes your father makes than it would beto bear some others! The 'handle'--you remember what Epictetus says aboutthe 'two handles'--why, the handle to bear _our_ sort of trouble withstands out all round, and is so big one can't help laying hold of it."

  Perhaps it was the light-heartedness with which she spoke, more than theslight reproof which the words contained, that made Esther's head dropin her mother's lap. "I wish I were half as good as you are, mother,"she whispered.

  The voices of Kate and Virgie from the direction of the kitchen made herspring to her feet a minute later. "I don't want to be here when theycome," she said, dashing her handkerchief across her eyes. "I'm tiredand disagreeable. Good night."

  She was off before the others had reached the porch, and a half hourlater, when Kate followed her to her room, she was in bed, more thanwilling that her sister should think her closed eyelids drowsy withsleep, an impression which did not, however, prevent the other fromindulging in some lively monologue as she undressed. Her father had comehome, she said, and was delighted with the report of the day, but therewas a lot left to tell him in the morning. "Besides," she added, "Icould see there was something on mother's mind that she wanted to talkover with him alone, so I came away."

  She was silent for fully two minutes, then burst out, "I say, wasn't itgreat, what Mort Elwell said about Stella Saxon's picture?" She chuckledat the remembrance, then added: "By the way, did it occur to you that hewasn't particularly enthusiastic over the idea of our going tograndfather's? My, but I wish we could go."

  "I don't know what difference our plans make to him," said Esther, in atone which indicated that her sleepiness had not reached an acute stage.

  "Oh, they make plenty of difference to him; at least yours do," saidKate, sagely.

  "Well, he might spare himself the trouble," said Esther. "I must say Ithink Morton Elwell takes too much for granted, lately."

  Kate stopped braiding her hair and stared at her sister. "I don't knowwhat he takes for granted, except that old friends don't change," shesaid. She continued to stare for a minute, then remarked slowly: "I knowwhat ails you, Esther. You want to have a lot of romance and all thatsort of thing. For my part I never could see that romance amounted toanything but getting all mixed up and having a lot of trouble." Andhaving delivered herself of this she apparently resigned herself to herown reflections.

  On the porch, still sitting in the evening darkness, Mrs. Northmore wassaying to her husband at that moment: "Philip, what do you say toletting the girls go to New England? We've talked about it a good deal;why not settle on it? Now that the wheat has turned out so well,couldn't we afford it?"

  "Why, I think 'twould be an excellent plan, Lucia," said the doctor,cordially. "I've thought so all along, but I was under the impressionthat you wanted the wheat money to go another way."

  She gave a little sigh. "Yes," she said, "I did want to reduce thatmortgage, but some things can wait better than others. It would do thegirls good to go, and I believe Esther really needs a change."

  "You think the child is not well?" queried the doctor, with a note ofsurprise in his voice.

  "Oh, not ill," said Mrs. Northmore, quickly, "but"--she hesitated amoment, "she is rather restless and inclined to be a little morbid andmoody. It might be worth a good deal to her to have a change of scene,and get some new ideas."

  "By all means pack her off," said the doctor. "It's a prescription Ialways like to give my patients; and if that is yours for her I'll fillit with all confidence." He rose and stretched his long arms with atired gesture. "I believe it's bedtime for me," he said, "and I ratherthink it ought to be for you too."