Miss Prudence

"If you knew that you would know all. But _I_ know that your husband lost his small patrimony in it--twenty-five hundred dollars--"

"H"m," escaped Mrs. West"s closely pressed lips.

"And that is one strong reason why I want to educate your two daughters."

The knitting dropped from the unsteady fingers.

"And I"ve fretted and fretted about that money, and asked the Lord how my girls ever were to be educated."

"You know now," said Miss Prudence. "I had to tell you, for I feared that you would not listen to my plan. You may guess how I felt when your sister-in-law, Mrs. Easton, told me that she was to take Linnet for a year or two and let her go to school. At first I could not see my way clear, my money is all spent for a year to come--I only thought of taking Marjorie home with me--but, I have arranged it so that I can spare a little; I have been often applied to to take music pupils, and if I do that I can take one of the girls home with me and send her to school; next year I will take all the expense upon myself, wardrobe and all.

There is a cheap way of living in large cities as well as an expensive one. If Linnet goes to Boston with her aunt, she will be kept busy out of school hours. Mrs. Easton is very kindhearted but she considers no one where her children are concerned. If I wore diamonds that Linnet"s money purchased, aren"t you willing she shall eat bread and b.u.t.ter my money purchases?"

"But you gave the diamonds up?"

"I wore them, though."

"That diamond plea has done duty a good many times, I guess," said Mrs.

West, smiling down upon the head in her lap.

"No, it hasn"t. His brother has done many things for me; people are ready enough to take money from his brother, and the widows are my friends. It has not been difficult. It would have been without him."

"The nights I"ve laid awake and made plans. My little boys died in babyhood. I imagine their father and I would have mortgaged the farm, and I would have taken in washing, and he would have gone back to his trade to send those boys through college. But the girls don"t need a college education. The boys might have been ministers--one of them, at least. But I would like the girls to have a piano, they both play so well on the melodeon! I would like them to be--well, like you, Miss Prudence, and not like their rough, hardworking old mother. I"ve shed tears enough about their education, and told the Lord about it times enough. If the Boston plan didn"t suit, we had another, Graham and I--he always listens and depends upon my judgment. I"m afraid, sometimes, I depend upon my own judgment more than upon the Lord"s wisdom. But this plan was--" the knitting needle was being pushed vigorously through her back hair now, "to exchange the farm for a house and lot in town--Middlefield is quite a town, you know--and he was to go back to his trade, and I was to take boarders, and the girls were to take turns in schooling and accomplishments. I am not over young myself, and he isn"t over strong, but we had decided on that. I shed some tears over it, and he looked pale and couldn"t sleep, for we"ve counted on this place as the home of our old age which isn"t so far off as it was when he put that twenty-five hundred dollars into that bank. But I do breathe freer if I think we may have this place to live and die on, small as it is and the poor living it gives us. Father"s place isn"t much to speak of, and James will come in for his share of that, so we haven"t much to count on anywhere. I don"t know, though," the knitting needle was doing duty in the stocking again, "about taking _your_ money. You were not his wife, you hadn"t spent it or connived at his knavery."

"I felt myself to be his wife--I am happier in making all the reparation in my power. All I could do for one old lady was to place her in The Old Ladies" Home. I know very few of the instances; I would not harrow my soul with hearing of those I could not help. I have done very little, but that little has been my exceeding comfort."

"I guess so," said Mrs. West, in a husky voice. "I"ll tell father what you say, we"ll talk it over and see. I know you love my girls--especially Marjorie."

"I love them both," was the quick reply.

"Linnet is older, she ought to have the first chance."

Miss Prudence thought, but did not say, "As Laban said about Leah," she only said, "I do not object to that. We do Marjorie no injustice. This is Linnet"s schooltime. There does seem to be a justice in giving the first chance to the firstborn, although G.o.d chose Jacob instead of the elder Esau, and Joseph instead of his older brethren, and there was little David anointed when his brothers were refused."

Miss Prudence"s tone was most serious, but her eyes were full of fun. She was turning the partial mother"s weapons against herself.

"But David and Jacob and Joseph were different from the others," returned the mother, gravely, "and in this case, the elder is as good as the younger."

It almost slipped off Miss Prudence"s tongue, "But she will not take the education Marjorie will," but she wisely checked herself and replied that both the girls were as precious as precious could be.

"And now don"t you go home to-night, stay all night and I"ll talk to father," planned Mrs. West, briskly; "as Marjorie would say, Giant Despair will get Diffidence his wife to bed and they will talk the matter over. She doesn"t read _Pilgrim"s Progress_ as much as she used to, but she calls you Mercy yet. And you are a mercy to us."

With the tears rolling down her cheeks the mother stooped over and kissed the lover of her girls.

"Mr. Holmes is coming to see Marjorie to-night, he hasn"t called since her accident, and to talk to father, he likes to argue with him, and it will be pleasanter to have you here. And Will Rheid is home from a voyage, and he"ll be running in. It must be lonesome for you over there on the Point. It used to be for me when I was a girl."

"But I"m not a girl," smiled Miss Prudence.

"You"ll pa.s.s for one any day. And you can play and make it lively. I am not urging you with disinterested motives."

"I can see through you; and I _am_ anxious to know how Mr. West will receive my proposal."

"He will see through my eyes in the end, but he always likes to argue a while first. I want you to taste Linnet"s cream biscuit, too. She made them on purpose for you. There"s father, now, coming with African John, and there _is_ Will Rheid coming across lots. Well, I"m glad Linnet did make the biscuits."

Miss Prudence arose with a happy face, she did not go back to the girls at once, there was a nook to be quiet in at the foot of the kitchen garden, and she felt as if she must be alone awhile. Mrs. West, with her heart in a tremor that it had not known since Marjorie was born, tucked away her knitting behind the school-books on the dining-room table, tied on her blue checked ap.r.o.n, and went out to the kitchen to kindle the fire for tea, singing in her mellow voice, "Thus far the Lord hath led me on,"

suddenly stopping short as she crammed the stove with shavings to exclaim, "His name _was_ Holmes! And that"s the school-master"s name. And that"s why he"s in such a fume when the boys cheat at marbles. Well, did I _ever_!"

Linnet ran in to exchange her afternoon dress for a short, dark calico, and to put on her old shoes before she went into the barnyard to milk Bess and Brindle and Beauty. Will Rheid found her in time to persuade her to let him milk Brindle, for he was really afraid he would get his hand out, and it would never do to let his wife do all the milking when his father bequeathed him a fifth of his acres and two of his hardest-to-be-milked cows. Linnet laughed, gave him one of her pails, and found an other milking stool for him.

Marjorie wandered around disconsolate until she discovered Miss Prudence in the garden.

She was perplexed over a new difficulty which vented itself in the question propounded between tasting currants.

"Ought I--do you think I ought--talk to people--about--like the minister--about--"

"No, child!" and Miss Prudence laughed merrily. "You ought to talk to people like Marjorie West! Like a child and not like a minister."

IX.

JOHN HOLMES.

"Courage to endure and to obey."--_Tennyson._

It was vacation-time and yet John Holmes was at work. No one knew him to take a vacation, he had attempted to do it more than once and at the end of his stipulated time had found himself at work harder than ever. The last lazy, luxurious vacation that he remembered was his last college vacation. What a boyish, good-for-nothing, aimless fellow he was in those days! How his brother used to snap him up and ask if he had nothing better to do than to dawdle around into Maple Street and swing Prudence under the maples in that old garden, or to write rhymes with her and correct her German exercises! How he used to tease her about having by and by to color her hair white and put on spectacles, or else she would have to call her husband "papa." And she would dart after him and box his ears and laugh her happy laugh and look as proud as a queen over every teasing word. He had told her that she grew prettier every hour as her day of fate drew nearer, and then had audaciously kissed her as he bade her good-by, for, in one week would she not be his sister, the only sister he had ever had? He stood at the gate watching her as she tripped up to her father"s arm-chair on the piazza, and saw her bend her head down to his, and then he had gone off whistling and thinking that his brother certainly had a share of all of earth"s good things position, a good name, money, and now this sweet woman for a wife. Well, the world was all before _him_ where to choose, and he would have money and a position some day and the very happiest home in the land.

The next time he saw Prudence she looked like one just risen out of a grave: pallid, with purple, speechless lips, and eyes whose anguish rent his soul. Her father had been suddenly prostrated with hemorrhage and he stayed through the night with her, and afterward he made arrangements for the funeral, and his mother and himself stood at the grave with her. And then there was a prison, and after that a delirious fever for himself, when for days he had not known his mother"s face or Prudence"s voice.

The other boys had gone back to college, but his spirit was crushed, he could not hold up his head among men. He had lost his "ambition," people said. Since that time he had taught in country schools and written articles for the papers and magazines; he had done one thing beside, he had purchased books and studied them. In the desk in his chamber there were laid away to-day four returned ma.n.u.scripts, he was only waiting for leisure to exchange their addressee and send them forth into the world again to seek their fortunes. A rejection daunted him no more than a poor recitation in the schoolroom; where would be the zest in life if one had not the chance of trying again?

John Holmes was a hermit, but he was a hermit who loved boys; girls were too much like delicate bits of china, he was afraid of handling for fear of breaking. Girls grown up were not quite so much like bits of china, but he had no friend save one among womankind, his sister that was to have been, Prudence Pomeroy. He had not addressed her with the name his brother had given her since that last day in the garden; she was gravely Prudence to him, in her plain attire, her smooth hair and little unworldly ways, almost a veritable Puritan maiden.

As to her marrying--again (he always thought "again"), he had no more thought of it than she had. He had given to her every letter he had received from his brother, but they always avoided speaking his name; indeed Prudence, in her young reverence for his age and wisdom, had seldom named his Christian name to others or to himself, he was "Mr.

Holmes" to her.

John Holmes was her junior by three years, yet he had const.i.tuted himself friend, brother, guardian, and sometimes, he told her, she treated him as though he were her father, beside.

"It"s good to have all in one," she once replied, "for I can have you all with me at one time."

After being a year at Middlefield he had written to her about the secluded homestead and fine salt bathing at the "Point," urging her to spend her summer there. Marjorie had seen her face at church one day in early spring as she had stopped over the Sabbath at the small hotel in the town on her way on a journey farther north.

This afternoon, while Prudence had been under the apple-tree and in the front entry, he had bent over the desk in his chamber, writing. This chamber was a low, wide room, carpeted with matting, with neither shades nor curtains at the many-paned windows, containing only furniture that served a purpose--a washstand, with a small, gilt-framed gla.s.s hanging over it, one rush-bottomed chair beside the chair at the desk, that boasted arms and a leather cushion, a bureau, with two large bra.s.s rings to open each drawer, and a narrow cot covered with a white counterpane that his hostess had woven as a part of her wedding outfit before he was born, and books! There were books everywhere--in the long pine chest, on the high mantel, in the bookcase, under the bed, on the bureau, and on the carpet wherever it was not absolutely necessary for him to tread.

Prudence and Marjorie had climbed the narrow stairway once this summer to take a peep at his books, and Prudence had inquired if he intended to take them all out West when he accepted the presidency of the college that was waiting for him out there.

"I should have to come back to my den, I couldn"t write anywhere else."