Eunice Part 14

Mrs Stone was a small dark-eyed woman, thin and brown, with deeper wrinkles between her eyes than her forty years should have shown. When she sat with her eyes cast down on her work, and her lips firmly shut, one who did not know her well might be excused for saying that she looked "hard." But when she looked up, and spoke, or smiled, her face changed. She had a good and pleasant face, with some signs of trouble upon it.

Her married life had been a time of discipline to her, she owned to Eunice, when they first met, and to her she spoke of the troubles of the time; but she spoke to no one else of it. She was capable and active, and did what was to be done in the house with such evident pleasure and success that the housekeeping gradually fell into her hands, and Fidelia had more liberty than ever she had at home before. And she made a good use of her liberty. She had preparations for next year to make, and friends to visit, and began to feel more light-hearted--more like herself--than she had done for a good while.

There was much going on to make the time pa.s.s pleasantly. Nellie Austin and her brother Amos were visiting the Everetts; and in whatever was planned for their pleasure and the pleasure of the household Fidelia had a share. There were fis.h.i.+ng parties and berrying expeditions; and they went sometimes to the woods, or to visit some mountain or waterfall, or chasm among the hills.

Dr Everett himself, when one of his rare days of leisure came, liked nothing better than to go with the young folks; and it was a day to be marked with a white stone when he could make one of the party. Dr Justin had more leisure, and could go oftener. Dr Everett was as merry and as eager for adventures as any of them. Dr Justin was quiet, and took the place of a looker-on rather than a sharer in the amus.e.m.e.nts of the young people. Privately some of them were inclined to think him something of a tyrant, for he kept them in order, and did not hesitate to a.s.sume and exercise authority when occasion called for it, nor to reprove--and that with sufficient emphasis--any of them who through thoughtlessness or selfishness interfered with the pleasure of the rest.

But this did not often happen, and he was a favourite among them all.

Fidelia came to like Dr Justin better than at Eastwood she would have supposed possible. She went very often with the rest of the young people, and no one of them all enjoyed the delights of woods and fields and mountains more than she. Nellie Austin declared that she hardly recognised in her the dull, determined student of the first part of the year. She was light-hearted and happy; and she told Nellie, and herself as well, that she had good cause.

Eunice was well, and every day made it more clear to them that they had made no mistake in deciding to share their home with Mrs Stone. And then she was going back to the seminary and her beloved studies again.

Yes, Eunice was very well--"for her," Fidelia sometimes added with a sigh, which meant that Eunice might never be altogether well and strong again. But she was happy--there could be no doubt about that. Dr Justin came sometimes as a visitor to the house, quiet and grave there as elsewhere; and his quietness and gravity was the reason that Fidelia liked him better than she had liked him at Eastwood, she told herself.

Nothing could be more evident than that he exerted no disturbing influence on Eunice. They were friendly--they were even confidential, Fidelia sometimes thought. But she never spoke of Dr Justin to her sister, except as his name came in the account which Eunice always liked to hear of the expeditions in which she could take no part; and she day by day grew less afraid lest her sister might have something to tell her of him that she would not like to hear.

But she liked Mr Justin, she owned to herself; and after awhile she began to see that, though he had less to say to her than to Nellie and the rest, he was not less mindful of her than of them--that though he amused himself with them, and submitted to be teased by them, and even condescended to tease them in return, he had only grave respectful words for her, and indeed carried himself towards her as though he thought she might not care for friendly advances on his part; but he was always careful for her safety and comfort, and one day he told her why.

"I promised your sister that I would take care of you," said he one day, when he found it necessary to insist on helping her, as well as the others, over some difficulty in the way.

"Eunice?" said Fidelia, startled. "Eunice knows that I am quite able to take care of myself."

"But I thought you had been taken care of all your life?" said Dr Justin as she slowly followed the others up the steep ascent.

"By my Eunice! Yes."

It would not have been easy for either of them to say much of Eunice, so they were silent as they went slowly on.

This was one of the marked days of that happy time to them all. The young people had made their arrangements for a blackberrying excursion; but when it proved that Dr Everett had a day of leisure, and could go with them, it was proposed that the blackberries should be left for another day, and that they should all go to the Peak to see the view.

The young Austins were still there, and all the Everetts were to go except the mother. Jabez and young Mr Fuller, who had been teacher of last winter's school, and a few others, made up the party. To climb "the Peak" was a thing to be done at least once or twice in the lifetime of every dweller in Halsey, and it was worth the trouble it cost.

At the last moment Mrs Stone declared her intention of joining the party--"just to see how it would seem to be there again;" and Deacon Ainsworth for a minute or two entertained the idea of going also, but thought better of it. He had serious doubts as to the moral effect of so much tramping up hill and down again, just to look at things, in a world where there is so much work that needed to be done. Blackberrying parties and fis.h.i.+ng expeditions he could understand; but to give so much time to pleasure which generally turned out to be hard work that did not pay, was a doubtful matter to him.

All this was said to Jabez, who would have done better, he declared, to stick to the work he had undertaken. It would pay better.

"Well, but I don't seem to have anything that needs to be done just to-day, grandpa. And it will pay to go there. Oh, yes, it will pay to go up there with the two doctors! They'll have something to say about a good many things we'll see up there--botany, geology, mineralogy, and all the rest of it. Why, you would enjoy it, grandpa! If it wasn't for your rheumatism, I'd say, 'Go.' I expect to have a real good time."

So did they all. They made an early start, driving as far as horses could be taken; then, taking an irregular course northwards along the western side of the mountain, they gradually reached a point from which could be seen the commencement of the two mountain ranges which extend through two neighbouring states. It was early still, and here they were to rest for awhile. The real climbing of the day was still before them.

The view which they had come to see, was the view eastward from the Peak--the view of a long reach of the river, and the valley and the cultivated hill country beyond. Here they sat in the shadow of a great rock, looking northwards to the mountains.

There was little variety in the view--only a wide stretch of broken hill country, with the grey rock showing through in wide irregular patches, and along the dry water-courses--all changing into a haze of smoky blue in the distance, where the mountains seemed to touch the sky. Dr Justin and a friend, who in their boyish days had been often at the Peak, and through all the hills within sight of it, pointed out to each other, the position of their old familiar haunts--the best trout stream, Silver Lake, the Glen and the Gorge, and by the help of a field-gla.s.s tried to point them out to the others. They could see gleams of blue water here and there between the nearer hills; and higher up, a tinge of bright colour where the early frost had already been, but almost everywhere the summer green prevailed. It was a scene strange and beautiful; and to those who looked upon it for the first time, the charm and interest lay in its wide extent and in the utter silence and solitude resting upon it. There were farms and cottage homes, and even towns and mills and churches, scattered out of sight among the hills; workers and pleasure-seekers--the busy and idle--were going to and fro among them; but the only signs of human life or labour which came up to those who were gazing down on the wide expanse were the shriek of the locomotive and the wisp of vaunting vapour which for a moment lingered on its track.

Mrs Stone sat a little withdrawn from the rest, looking northward also, with a strange fixed look on her face--the look which made people who did not know her very well say she was hard. She shook her head, smiling a little, when Fidelia asked her if she would not like to look at the mountains through the gla.s.s.

"Well, no, I don't seem to care much about it. I didn't come to see anything in particular. I wanted to see how it would seem to be up here again--that is all."

"And how does it seem?" asked Dr Justin, who had drawn near with his gla.s.s in his hand.

"Well, I don't know as I could tell you. I am not sorry I came. I guess I have thought about this place as often as about any other place in the state in the last ten years. No; I am not sorry I came. I don't know as I'm sorry I came last time. It is all right, I expect."

"Tell us about last time," said Fidelia softly.

"Some time I'll tell you, maybe. I guess I shall need all my breath before I get up the Peak. I am not so spry as I was last time I came."

"I'll help you up," said Fidelia.

"Oh, I guess I shan't need any help! I'll start now, and take it slowly. I don't suppose I shall miss the way."

"I will go with you," said Fidelia.

Dr Justin looked as if he would like to go too, but he did not. He shut the gla.s.s with a snap, and turned to the group still standing on the edge of the rock looking northwards; and the two set off together.

They went on slowly and silently till they came to a point where the path they had followed became two paths, the one going up the steep side of the mountain, the other holding northward along the ledge.

"Now I ought to know which path to take, but I don't feel sure about this," said Mrs Stone meditatively. "They say the longest way round is the nearest way home; and according to that we should hold on round the ledge. The path will take us somewhere."

But it did not seem to do so, for in a little they came up against a steep rock, and Mrs Stone owned herself at a loss and out of breath.

Fidelia proposed that she should sit down and rest, while she went alone in search of the path.

"No; we'll keep together. I don't suppose we can be lost; at any rate two people are not so lost as one alone would be. We'll keep together."

They must have turned themselves round in some way, for they could not find the point where they had left the ascending path. By-and-by they came to a shelving rock where the bushes had been recently pressed down; some broken branches, still unwithered, lay near.

"This must be the near way that Jabez and the boys took," said Fidelia, "We ought to be able to find our way now."

But they did not find it after several attempts. Mrs Stone was firm in refusing to let Fidelia separate from her.

"Two are better than one," said she.

At last they came to a point where they got a glimpse of the valley lying west of the mountain. The land-marks were familiar, only it seemed as though north and south had changed places, Mrs Stone said.

Another attempt brought them back to the place where they had found the broken branches, and they had fancied themselves going in the other direction.

"Well, there! I guess we'd better sit down till some one comes to find us. Not that we are lost. I never heard yet of any one being lost on Shattuck Peak for more than an hour or two. Why didn't I think of it before, dear? Are you too hungry and tired to sing, Fidelia? I shouldn't wonder if they were beginning to worry about us up there.

They'll be listening."

Fidelia clambered a little higher, and sang "The Star-spangled Banner,"

smiling a little at the thought of the time when she sang it with the boys on Eastwood Hill. She wondered that she had not thought of lifting up her voice sooner.

But nothing came of it. Fidelia amused herself gathering some late flowers, and in searching about for other wild wood treasures, and then she sang again, and listened for an answering voice; but she listened in vain.

"I expect we _are_ lost for the time being," said Mrs Stone composedly.

"We'd as well make the best of it, and see what we can do to pa.s.s the time. I wish I had brought my knitting. They'll miss us pretty soon, and come to find us."

"Tell me about the last time you were on the mountain," said Fidelia.

"To pa.s.s the time? Well, that may do as well as anything. But it isn't much of a story, and what is of it is not very pleasant to tell or to hear."

The telling of that story involved the telling of much more; but there was time enough, before an answer came to Fidelia's next song, for all Mrs Stone had to tell.