Green Valley Part 1

Green Valley.

by Katharine Reynolds.

NOTE

This book was written to cure a heartache, to ease a very real and bad case of homesickness. I wrote it just for myself when I was very nearly ten thousand miles away from home and knew that I couldn't go back to the U. S. A. for two long years. It is a picture of a little Yankee town, the town I tried so hard to see over ten thousand miles of gray-green ocean.

When I was sailing from New York for South America that sunny June morning in 1913, about the last thing the last friend hurrying down the gangplank said was this:

"Of course you are going to be homesick. But it's worth it."

And I laughed.

But before that long stretch of gray-green ocean was plowed under I knew--oh, I knew--that I was going to be most woefully homesick for the U. S. A.

A certain tall Swede from New Jersey and I discovered that fact about the same minute Fourth of July morning. We were standing on the deck, staring miserably back over the awful miles to where somewhere in that lost north our town lay with flags fluttering, picnic baskets getting into trains and everybody out on their lawns and porches.

We didn't look at each other after that first glance--that Swede and I.

And we said the sunlight hurt our eyes.

Three months later I was sitting under the velvet-soft, star-sown night sky of the Argentine cattle country. I had seen volcano-scarred Martinique and had watched the beautiful island of Barbados rising like a fairy dream out of a foamy sea.

I had marveled at the endless beauties of Rio lying so picturesquely in its immense harbor and at the foot of its great, s.h.a.ggy, sun-splashed, smoke-wreathed mountains. I had tramped through unsanitary Santos and loved it because it looked like Chicago in spite of its mountains and banana trees. I had witnessed a wonderful fiesta in Buenos Aires and had churned two hundred miles up the La Plata when it was bubbling with rain. And I had had a tooth pulled in Paysandu, the second largest city in Uruguay.

All that in three months! And there were still a million wonders to see. I loved and shall always love these radiant, sun-drenched uncrowded lands. But my heart was heavy as lead. For I was homesick.

My eyes were tired of alien stars.h.i.+ne, of alien, unfamiliar things, and my heart cried out for the little home towns of my own country.

But I could not go back for many, many months. So I learned Spanish and hobn.o.bbed with wonderfully wise and delightful Spanish grandmothers. I grew to love some darling Indian babies. I interviewed interesting South American cowboys and discussed war and socialism with an Argentine navy officer. I exchanged calls and true blue friends.h.i.+ps with soft-voiced Englishwomen. And I took tea and dinner aboard the s.h.i.+ps of Welsh sea captains from Cardiff.

I had a wonderful time. I filled my notebook, took pictures and collected souvenirs. I laughed and told stories. Folks down there said I was good company.

But oh! In the hush of a rain-splashed night, when the fire in the grate dozed and dreamed and a boat siren somewhere out on the inky La Plata wailed and moaned through the black night, my heart flew back over those gray-green waves to a little town that I knew in the U. S.

A. And to ease my longing I wrote Green Valley.

KATHARINE REYNOLDS.

GREEN VALLEY

CHAPTER I

EAST AND WEST

"Joshua Churchill's dying in California and Nanny Ainslee's leaving to-night for j.a.pan! And there's been a wreck between here and Spring Road!"

f.a.n.n.y fairly gasped out the astounding news. Then she sank down into Grandma Wentworth's comfortable kitchen rocker and went into details.

"The two telegrams just came through. Uncle Tony's gone down to the wreck. I happened to be standing talking to him when Denny came running out of the station. Isn't it too bad Denny's so bow-legged?

Though I don't know as it hinders him from running to any noticeable extent. I had an awful time trying to keep up so's to find out what had happened. I bet you Nan's packing right this minute and just loving it. My--ain't some people born lucky? Think of having the whole world to run around in!"

The telephone tinkled.

"Yes, Nan," Grandma smiled as she answered, "I know. f.a.n.n.y's just this minute telling me. Yes, of course I can. I'll be over as soon as my bread's done baking. Yes--I'll bring along some of my lavender to pack in with your things."

"Land sakes, Grandma," exclaimed f.a.n.n.y, "don't stop for the bread.

I'll see to that. Just you git that lavender and go. And tell Nanny I'll be at the station to see her off."

Up-stairs in a big sunny room of the Ainslee house Grandma Wentworth looked reproachfully at a flushed, busy girl who was laughing and singing s.n.a.t.c.hes of droll ditties the while she emptied closets and dresser drawers and tucked things into four trunks, two suitcases and a handbag.

"Nanny, are you never going to settle down and stay at home?" sighed Grandma.

"Yes, ma'am," Nanny's eyes danced, "some day when a man makes me fall in love with him and there are no more new places to go to. But so long as I am heartfree and footfree, and there's one alien sh.o.r.e calling, I'll have the wanderl.u.s.t. I declare, Grandma, if that man doesn't turn up soon there will be no new places left for a honeymoon!"

Grandma smiled in spite of herself. There were things she wanted very much to say and other things she wanted very much to ask; but the trunks had to get down to the station and already the afternoon sun was low.

The two women worked feverishly and almost in silence so that when the packing was done they might get in the little visit both craved before the months of separation.

Nanny finally jumped on the trunks, snapped them shut, locked them and watched the expressman carry them down and out into his waiting dray.

Then she sat down with a trembling little laugh.

"There--it's over and I'm really going! I have been to just about every country but j.a.pan. I believe father would rather have skipped off alone this time. It seems to be some suddenly important international crisis that we are going over to settle. That's why we are going East the roundabout way. We must stop at Was.h.i.+ngton for instructions, then again at London and Paris."

"Nanny," mused Grandma, "there's a good many years difference in our ages but there's only one woman I ever loved as I love you. I think I might have loved your mother but she died the very first year your father brought her here. And she was ailing when she came. The other woman that meant so much to me used to go traveling too. I always helped her with her packing. Then one day she packed and went away, never to come back."

"Was that Cynthia Churchill?" Nan asked gently.

"Yes--Cynthia. She was dearer than a sister to me, and neither of us dreamed that a whole wide world would divide us."

"Why did she go, Grandma?"

"Because a Green Valley man well-nigh broke her heart."

"A Green Valley man did--_that_? Oh, dear! And here I have been hoping that some day I might marry a Green Valley man myself."

"Nanny, I expect I'm old and foolish but I've been hoping and hoping that you'd marry a home boy and fearing you'd meet up with some one on your travels who would take you away from us forever. It would be hard to see you go."

The last sunbeam had faded away and golden twilight filled the room.

Outside little day noises were dying out.

"Grandma dear, don't you worry about me. I intend to marry a Green Valley man if possible. But even if I didn't I'd always come back to Green Valley."

"No, you wouldn't. You couldn't, any more than Cynthia could. Cynthia loved this town better even than you love it. Yet she is lying under strange stars in a foreign land, far from her old home. Her father, they say, is dying in California. I suppose the old Churchill place will go now unless Cynthia's son comes back to take it over. But that isn't likely."

"Why--did Cynthia Churchill leave a son?" wondered Nanny.

"Yes. He must be a few years older than you. He was born and raised in India. 'Tisn't likely he'd come to Green Valley now that he's a man grown. Still, if Joshua Churchill dies out there in California, that boy will come into all his grandfather's property."