Wheat and Huckleberries Part 5

"There'll be plenty of your friends left," said Esther. She had half turned her head, and was looking wonderfully pretty in her new leghorn hat with the corn-flowers and poppies.

"Oh!" he said, reproachfully; but he had no chance to say anything more just then, for the preacher claimed her attention.

"How far East are you going?" he asked.

"To mother's old home in New England," said the girl. The preacher gave a surprised whistle. "Was your mother raised back there?" he demanded.

"Well, I never should have known but she was a born Hoosier."

As a born Hoosier herself the young lady appreciated the compliment.

"No," she said, "mother came from Ma.s.sachusetts; but she's lived here twenty years, and I don't suppose there's much difference now."

"Oh, we'll let her have the name now," said the preacher, good-naturedly. "But it's queer I never heard her say a word about 'Boston.'"

"She didn't come from Boston," said Esther. "There's ever so much of New England outside of Boston, you know."

"'Pears to cover the whole ground for most Yankees," said the preacher, dryly. "I don't recollect as I ever talked with any of 'em-except your mother-that it didn't leak out mighty quick if they'd come from anywheres near the 'Hub.' 'Peared to carry it round as a sort of measuring stick, to size up everything else by."

His figure was a trifle mixed, but it met the case. After a moment he added: "Well, I'm right glad you're going. It's a good thing for young folks to see something of the world outside of the home corner. I always thought I'd like to travel a bit myself, but I reckon I'll never get to do it any other way than going round with a thres.h.i.+ng machine, and that don't exactly hit my notion of travelling for pleasure. Eh, Mort?" he queried, turning to the young man behind him.

The latter was not in a mood to feel the full humor of the remark, which he had heard in spite of his apparent attention to Kate's lively chatter. "Can't say there's much variety in it," he replied rather absently.

"However," continued the preacher, turning again to Esther, "I did go to Kentucky once when I was a little chap. No," he said, shaking his head, as he caught the eager question in her eyes, "not in the Blue Gra.s.s country where your father was raised, but in among the k.n.o.bs where the c.u.mberlands begin. It was a mighty poor rough country. I reckon you'll see something of the same sort where you're going."

"Oh, but that is a beautiful country! Mother has always said so," cried the girl, looking quite distressed.

"Well, maybe you'd call that country down there pretty too," said the preacher, with easy accommodation, "though it's all in a heap, and rocks all over it. Reminds me of the story about a soldier from somewhere hereabouts that was going through there in the war-time, and stopped to talk a minute with a fellow that was hoeing corn. 'Well, stranger,' says he, 'reckon you're about ready to move out of here.' 'Why so?' says the fellow, looking sort of stupid. 'Why, I see you've got the land all rolled up ready to start,' says the soldier."

The preacher interrupted his mellow drawl for a moment to join in her laugh at the story, then went on: "Now my notion of a pretty country is one that looks as if you could raise something on it; the sort we've got round here, you know," he added, stretching out his arm with an inclusive gesture.

His idea of landscape beauty was not Esther Northmore's, but as she looked at that moment over the peaceful country, golden and green with its generous harvests, with here and there a stretch of forest rising tall and straight against the sky, she felt its quiet charm with a thrill of pride and gladness. "Yes; this is a beautiful country," she said softly. "I shall never change my mind about that."

They had reached a point where another road crossed the one they were following, and the preacher paused in his walk. "I must turn off here,"

he said. "Good-by! and take care of yourselves." He shook hands heartily with each of the girls, and added, with a nod at Esther: "Give my special regards to your mother. Tell her I've just found out that she's a Yankee, and I don't think any less of her for it."

He was an odd genius, this New Light preacher. The Northmores were by no means of his flock, but the feeling between them was most cordial. In his office of comforter he had touched that of the healer more than once among the families under his care, and the touch had left a mutual respect between him and the doctor. With Mrs. Northmore the feeling was even warmer. Rough and ill-educated as he was, there was a native force and shrewdness in the man by no means common, and they were joined with a frank honesty which would have attracted her in a far less interesting person than he.

Morton Elwell walked on to the house, but refused the girls' invitation to come in to supper. "You know mother would like to have you," Esther said, with polite urgence. "She was complaining the other day that we saw so little of you."

But Morton was resolute. Perhaps the thresher's costume in which he was arrayed, the blue flannel s.h.i.+rt, jean trousers, and heavy boots, none too black, helped him to stand by the promise he had given Mrs. Elwell.

"No," he said; "I told Aunt Jenny I wouldn't fail to come home to supper." But he leaned on the gate when he had opened it for the girls, and stood for a minute as if he found it hard to turn away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HE LEANED ON THE GATE WHEN HE HAD OPENED IT FOR THE GIRLS."]

"Of course you'll write to me first," he said, glancing from one to the other. There had been a correspondence of a desultory sort between them ever since he went away to college, and he seemed to take for granted that it would go on now. And then he added, looking to Esther, "You wrote to me real often when you were a little girl, and went to your grandfather's before."

Her color rose a trifle. "You have a remarkably good memory, Mort, to remember such little things when they happened so long ago," she said lightly.

"Why, I've got every one of them now," he replied. "I was looking them over not so very long ago, and they were the jolliest kind of letters, with little postscripts added by Kate in cipher. She was five, I believe, then. They were joint productions in those days, but you needn't feel obliged to make them so now."

"I suppose we needn't feel '_obliged_' to write them at all," she said, lifting her eyebrows a little.

"Oh, you wouldn't go back on a fellow like that!" said Morton. "Why, it would break me all up."

There was something so affectionately boyish in his manner that Kate said instantly: "Of course we'll write to you, and tell you everything that happens. You may wish my letters were postscripts again before you get through with them."

And Esther added cheerfully, "Yes, if you want to add a few more specimens of my handwriting to that ancient collection, you shall certainly have them."

"Maybe we'll send you our pictures too," said Kate. "We're going to have some taken after we get there, and if they're good-"

He broke in upon her with a sudden eagerness. "Well, don't let your cousin get you up like statues. I hate that kind."

Kate burst into a laugh, but Esther looked impatient. "Oh, dear, don't you know that common, everyday faces like ours can't be made to look that way?" she said.

"Can't they? Well, I'm awfully glad of it," he replied. "Good-by." And then he grasped their hands for a moment, and struck off at a long, swinging gait across the field that lay between their home and his uncle's.

The days that were left ran fast. They were full and hurried, as the last days of preparation are apt to be in spite of the best-laid plans.

But the girls managed to take some rides with their father, who, in view of the coming separation, seemed to expect more of their company than usual, and Kate contrived to hold some sittings in the kitchen with Aunt Milly, who had been in a depressed state of mind ever since the summer plan had been decided on. In spite of being one who held with no superst.i.tions, a fact she never failed to mention when she had anything of a mysterious nature to communicate, the number of dreams and presentiments she had in regard to this visit was remarkable, and they all tended to throw doubt on the probability of her darlings' return.

"Why, we came back when we were children," said Kate one evening, when the old woman was unusually depressed, "and it was just as far to grandfather's then as it is now. It's because you're getting old and rheumatic that you feel so blue about us, Aunt Milly."

But Milly sighed as she shook her head. "It was different in those days, honey," she said. "You couldn't help comin' back to your ole mammy when you were chil'en. But you're older now, an' a mighty good looking pair o' girls, if I do say it, an' there's no tellin' what may happen when you get to gallivantin' roun' with the young men in your mother's country."

"Now, Aunt Milly," laughed Kate, "you've always pretended to think we're only children still, and all at once you talk as if we were grown-up young ladies. It's no such thing. Besides," she added cunningly, "didn't we come back safe and sound from Kentucky last year? And you know there are no young men anywhere to hold a candle with those down there."

"That's a fac', honey," said Aunt Milly, lifting her head. "The ole Kentucky stock don't have to knock under yet, if some things is changed."

"Trust Milly to stand up for her own country," laughed Dr. Northmore, who had paused in his pa.s.sage through the kitchen, and caught the last remark.

"And me for mine, papa," cried Kate. "I shall always like it better than any other. I know I shall."

Apparently he did not disapprove the sentiment, but he added warningly, "Well, make it big enough." And then he took her away with him to join the family conclave in talking over the proposed journey.

They were small travellers, the Northmores, and the excursions from home had of late years been short. The length of the one about to be taken impressed them all. Mrs. Northmore spoke of it with manifest anxiety, and the doctor spent much time poring over the railroad guide and time-table. It was a work which, in spite of its fascination, hara.s.sed him, and he alternated between the exasperated opinion that it was impossible for any man not inspired to understand its vexatious figures, and a disposition to combat with vehemence any one who reached a conclusion different from his own on a single point. By this time the course of the journey had been fully decided on. There would be but one change of cars, and this had been hedged about with so much of explanation and admonition that no two girls of average sense could possibly go wrong.

The day came at last, and a perfect day it was, when they started off.

The doctor and Virgie accompanied them to the station, but Mrs.

Northmore preferred to say the last word quietly at home. There was a crowd of young people gathered at the station, but the time for good-bys was brief. The through train for the East was not a moment behind time.

There was a short impatient stop of the iron steed, a sudden crowding together for hurried farewells, then two flushed faces, half smiling, half tearful, pressed against the window, and the great wheels were in motion again and the travellers on their way.

They drew a long breath as they settled fairly into their seats. "I'm glad that part of it's over," said Kate.

"So am I," said Esther; and then she added: "I'm glad we don't get there right away. It's nice to have an interlude between the acts."

CHAPTER IV

AT THE OLD PLACE