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The Old Gray Homestead

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THE OLD GRAY HOMESTEAD

BY FRANCES PARKINSON KEYES

1919




To the farmers, and their mothers, wives, and daughters, who have been
my nearest neighbors and my best friends for the last fifteen years, and
who have taught me to love the country and the people in it, this quiet
story of a farm is affectionately and gratefully dedicated.




THE OLD GRAY HOMESTEAD




CHAPTER I


"For Heaven's sake, Sally, don't say, 'Isn't it hot?' or, 'Did you ever
know such weather for April?' or, 'Doesn't it seem as if the mud was just
as bad as it used to be before we had the State Road?' again. It _is_
hot. I never did see such weather. The mud is _worse_ if anything. I've
said all this several times, and if you can't think of anything more
interesting to talk about, I wish you'd keep still."

Sally Gray pushed back the lock of crinkly brown hair that was always
getting in her eyes, puckered her lips a little, and glanced at her
brother Austin without replying, but with a slight ripple of concern
disturbing her usual calm. She was plain and plump and placid, as sweet
and wholesome as clover, and as nerveless as a cow, and she secretly
envied her brother's lean, dark handsomeness; but she was conscious of a
little pang of regret that the young, eager face beside her was already
becoming furrowed with lines of discontent and bitterness, and that the
expression of the fine mouth was rapidly growing more and more hard and
sullen. Austin had been all the way from Hamstead to White Water that
day, stopping on his way back at Wallacetown, to bring Sally, who taught
school there, home for over Sunday; his little old horse, never either
strong or swift, was tired and hot and muddy, and hung its unkempt head
dejectedly, apparently having lost all willingness to drag the
dilapidated top-buggy and its two occupants another step. Austin's
manner, Sally reflected, was not much more cheerful than that of his
horse; while his clothes were certainly as dirty, as shabby, and as
out-of-date as the rest of his equipage.

"It's a shame," she thought, "that Austin takes everything so hard. The
rest of us don't mind half so much. If he could only have a little bit of
encouragement and help--something that would make him really happy! If he
could earn some money--or find out that, after all, money isn't
everything--or fall in love with some nice girl--" She checked herself,
blushing and sighing. The blush was occasioned by her own quiet happiness
in that direction; but the sigh was because Austin, though he was well
known to have been "rather wild," never paid any "nice girl" the
slightest attention, and jeered cynically at the mere suggestion that he
should do so.

"How lovely the valley is!" she said aloud at last; "I don't believe
there's a prettier stretch of road in the whole world than this between
Wallacetown and Hamstead, especially in the spring, when the river is so
high, and everything is looking so fresh and green."

"Fortunate it is pretty; probably it's the only thing we'll have to look
at as long as we live--and certainly it's about all we've seen so far! If
there'd been only you and I, Sally, we could have gone off to school, and
maybe to college, too, but with eight of us to feed and clothe, it's no
wonder that father is dead sunk in debt! Certainly I shan't travel much,"
he added, laughing bitterly, "when he thinks we can't have even one hired
man in the future--and certainly you won't either, if you're fool enough
to marry Fred, and go straight from the frying-pan of one
poverty-stricken home to the fire of another!"

"Oh, Austin, it's wrong of you to talk so! I'm going to be ever so
happy!"

"Wrong! How else do you expect me to talk?--if I talk at all! Doesn't it
mean anything to you that the farm's mortgaged to the very last cent, and
that it doesn't begin to produce what it ought to because we can't beg,
borrow, or steal the money that ought to be put into it? Can you just
shut your eyes to the fact that the house--the finest in the county when
Grandfather Gray built it--is falling to pieces for want of necessary
repairs? And look at our barns and sheds--or don't look at them if you
can help it! Doesn't it gall you to dress as you do, because you have to
turn over most of what you can earn teaching to the family--of course,
you never can earn much, because you haven't had a good enough education
yourself to get a first-class position--so that the younger girls can go
to school at all, instead of going out as hired help? Can't you feel the
injustice of being poor, and dirty, and ignorant, when thousands of other
people are just _rotten_ with money?"

"I've heard of such people, but I've never met any of them around here,"
returned his sister quietly. "We're no worse off than lots of people,
better off than some. I think we've got a good deal to be thankful for,
living where we can see green things growing, and being well, and having
a mother like ours. I wish you could come to feel that way. Perhaps you
will some day."

"Why don't you marry Fred's cousin, instead of Fred?" asked her brother,
changing the subject abruptly. "You could get him just as easy as not--I
could see that when he was here last summer. Then you could go to Boston
to live, get something out of life yourself, and help your family, too."

"No one in the family but you would want help from me--at that price,"
returned Sally, still speaking quietly, but betraying by the slight
unevenness of her voice that her quiet spirit was at last disturbed more
than she cared to show. "Why, Austin, you know how I lo--care for Fred,
and that I gave him my word more than two years ago! Besides, I heard you
say yourself, before you knew he fancied me, that Hugh Elliott drank--and
did all sorts of other dreadful things--he wouldn't be considered
respectable in Hamstead."

Austin laughed again. "All right. I won't bring up the subject again. Ten
years from now you may be sorry you wouldn't put up with an occasional
spree, and sacrifice a silly little love-affair, for the sake of
everything else you'd get. But suit yourself. Cook and wash and iron and
scrub, lose your color and your figure and your disposition, and bring
half-a-dozen children into the world with no better heritage than that,
if it's your idea of bliss--and it seems to be!"

"I didn't mean to be cross, Sally," he said, after they had driven along
in heavy silence for some minutes. "I've been trying to do a little
business for father in White Water to-day, and met with my usual run of
luck--none at all. Here comes one of the livery-stable teams ploughing
towards us through the mud. Who's in it, do you suppose? Doesn't look
familiar, some way."

As the livery-stable in Hamstead boasted only four turn-outs, it was not
strange that Austin recognized one of them at sight, and as strangers
were few and far between, they were objects of considerable interest.

Sally leaned forward.

"No, she doesn't. She's all in black--and my! isn't she pretty? She seems
to be stopping and looking around--why don't you ask her if you could be
of any help?"

Austin nodded, and pulled in his reins. "I wonder if I could--" he began,
but stopped abruptly, realizing that the lady in the buggy coming towards
them had also stopped, and spoken the very same words. Inevitably they
all smiled, and the stranger began again.

"I wonder if you could tell me how to get to Mr. Howard Gray's house,"
she said. "I was told at the hotel to drive along this road as far as a
large white house--the first one I came to--and then turn to the right.
But I don't see any road."

"There isn't any, at this time of year," said Sally, laughing,--"nothing
but mud. You have to wallow through that field, and go up a hill, and
down a hill, and along a little farther, and then you come to the house.
Just follow us--we're going there. I'm Howard Gray's eldest daughter
Sally, and this is my brother Austin."

"Oh! then perhaps you can tell me--before I intrude--if it would be any
use--whether you think that possibly--whether under any circumstances
--well, if your mother would be good enough to let me come and live
at her house a little while?"

By this time Sally and Austin had both realized two things: first, that
the person with whom they were talking belonged to quite a different
world from their own--the fact was written large in her clothing, in her
manner, in the very tones of her voice; and, second, that in spite of her
pale face and widow's veil, she was even younger than they were, a girl
hardly out of her teens.

"I'm not very well," she went on rapidly, before they could answer, "and
my doctor told me to go away to some quiet place in the country until I
could get--get rested a little. I spent a summer here with my mother when
I was a little girl, and I remembered how lovely it was, and so I came
back. But the hotel has run down so that I don't think I can possibly
stay there; and yet I can't bear to go away from this beautiful, peaceful
river-valley--it's just what I've been longing to find. I happened to
overhear some one talking about Mrs. Gray, and saying that she might
consider taking me in. So I hired this buggy and started out to find her
and ask. Oh, don't you think she would?"

Sally and Austin exchanged glances. "Mother never has taken any boarders,
she's always been too busy," began the former; then, seeing the swift
look of disappointment on the sad little face, "but she might. It
wouldn't do any harm to ask, anyway. We'll drive ahead, and show you how
to get there."

The Gray family had been one of local prominence ever since Colonial
days, and James Gray, who built the dignified, spacious homestead now
occupied by his grandson's family, had been a man of some education and
wealth. His son Thomas inherited the house, but only a fourth of the
fortune, as he had three sisters. Thomas had but one child, Howard, whose
prospects for prosperity seemed excellent; but he grew up a dreamy,
irresolute, studious chap, a striking contrast to the sturdy yeoman type
from which he had sprung--one of those freaks of heredity that are hard
to explain. He went to Dartmouth College, travelled a little, showed a
disposition to read--and even to write--verses. As a teacher he probably
would have been successful; but his father was determined that he should
become a farmer, and Howard had neither the energy nor the disposition to
oppose him; he proved a complete failure. He married young, and, it was
generally considered, beneath him; for Mary Austin, with a heart of gold
and a disposition like sunshine, had little wealth or breeding and less
education to commend her; and she was herself too easy-going and
contented to prove the prod that Howard sadly needed in his wife.
Children came thick and fast; the eldest, James, had now gone South; the
second daughter, Ruth, was already married to a struggling storekeeper
living in White Water; Sally taught school; but the others were all still
at home, and all, except Austin, too young to be self-supporting--Thomas,
Molly, Katherine, and Edith. They had all caught their father's facility
for correct speech, rare in northern New England; most of them his love
of books, his formless and unfulfilled ambitions; more than one the
shiftlessness and incompetence that come partly from natural bent and
partly from hopelessness; while Sally and Thomas alone possessed the
sunny disposition and the ability to see the bright side of everything
and the good in everybody which was their mother's legacy to them.

The old house, set well back from the main road and near the river, with
elms and maples and clumps of lilac bushes about it, was almost bare of
the cheerful white paint that had once adorned it, and the green blinds
were faded and broken; the barns never had been painted, and were
huddled close to the house, hiding its fine Colonial lines, black,
ungainly, and half fallen to pieces; all kinds of farm implements, rusty
from age and neglect, were scattered about, and two dogs and several
cats lay on the kitchen porch amidst the general litter of milk-pails,
half-broken chairs, and rush mats. There was no one in sight as the two
muddy buggies pulled up at the little-used front door. Howard Gray and
Thomas were milking, both somewhat out-of-sorts because of the
non-appearance of Austin, for there were too many cows for them to
manage alone--a long row of dirty, lean animals of uncertain age and
breed. Molly was helping her mother to "get supper," and the red
tablecloth and heavy white china, never removed from the kitchen table
except to be washed, were beginning to be heaped with pickles,
doughnuts, pie, and cake, and there were potatoes and pork frying on the
stove. Katherine was studying, and Edith had gone to hastily "spread up"
the beds that had not been made that morning.

On the whole, however, the inside of the house was more tidy than the
outside, and the girl in black was aware of the homely comfort and good
cheer of the living-room into which she was ushered (since there was no
time to open up the cold "parlor") more than she was of its shabbiness.

"Come right in an' set down," said Mrs. Gray cheerfully, leading the
way; "awful tryin' weather we're havin', ain't it? An' the mud--my, it's
somethin' fierce! The men-folks track it in so, there's no keepin' it
swept up, an' there's so many of us here! But there's nothin' like a
large family for keepin' things hummin' just the same, now, is there?"
Mrs. Gray had had scant time to prepare her mind either for her
unexpected visitor or the object of her visit; but her mother-wit was
ready, for all that; one glance at the slight, black-robed little
figure, and the thin white face, with its tired, dark-ringed eyes, was
enough for her. Here was need of help; and therefore help of some sort
she must certainly give. "Now, then," she went on quickly, "you look
just plum tuckered out; set down an' rest a spell, an' tell me what I
can do for you."

"My name is Sylvia Cary--Mrs. Mortimer Cary, I mean." She shivered,
paused, and went on. "I live in New York--that is, I always have--I'm
never going to any more, if I can help it. My husband died two months
ago, my baby--just before that. I've felt so--so--tired ever since, I
just had to get away somewhere--away from the noise, and the hurry, and
the crowds of people I know. I was in Hamstead once, ten years ago, and I
remembered it, and came back. I want most dreadfully to stay--could you
possibly make room for me here?"

"Oh, you poor lamb! I'd do anything I could for you--but this ain't the
sort of home you've been used to--" began Mrs. Gray; but she was
interrupted.

"No, no, of course it isn't! Don't you understand--I can't bear what I've
been used to another minute! And I'll honestly try not to be a bit of
trouble if you'll only let me stay!"

Mrs. Gray twisted in her chair, fingering her apron. "Well, now, I
don't know! You've come so sudden-like--if I'd only had a little
notice! There's no place fit for a lady like you; but there are two
rooms we never use--the northeast parlor and the parlor-chamber off it.
You could have one of them--after I got it cleaned up a mite--an' try
it here for a while."

"Couldn't I have them both? I'd like a sitting-room as well as a
bedroom."

"Land! You ain't even seen 'em yet! maybe they won't suit you at all!
But, come, I'll show 'em to you an' if you want to stay, you shan't go
back to that filthy hotel. I'll get the bedroom so's you can sleep in it
to-night--just a lick an' a promise; an' to-morrow I'll house-clean 'em
both thorough, if 't is the Sabbath--the 'better the day, the better the
deed,' I've heard some say, an' I believe that's true, don't you, Mrs.
Cary?" She bustled ahead, pulling up the shades, and flinging open the
windows in the unused rooms. "My, but the dust is thick! Don't you touch
a thing--just see if you think they'll do."

Sylvia Cary glanced quickly about the two great square rooms, with their
white wainscotting, and shutters, their large, stopped-up fireplaces,
dingy wall-paper, and beautiful, neglected furniture. "Indeed they will!"
she exclaimed; "they'll be lovely when we get them fixed. And may I
truly stay--right now? I brought my hand-bag with me, you see, hoping
that I might, and my trunks are still at the station--wait, I'll give you
the checks, and perhaps your son will get them after supper."

She put the bag on a chair, and began to open it, hurriedly, as if
unwilling to wait a minute longer before making sure of remaining. Mrs.
Gray, who was standing near her, drew back with a gasp of surprise. The
bag was lined with heavy purple silk, and elaborately fitted with toilet
articles of shining gold. Mrs. Cary plunged her hands in and tossed out
an embroidered white satin negligee, a pair of white satin bed-slippers,
and a nightgown that was a mere wisp of sheer silk and lace; then drew
forth three trunk-checks, and a bundle an inch thick of crisp, new
bank-notes, and pulled one out, blushing and hesitating.

"I don't know how to thank you for taking me in to-night," she said;
"some day I'll tell you all about myself, and why it means so much to
me to have a--a refuge like this; but I'm afraid I can't until--I've
got rested a little. Soon we must talk about arrangements and terms and
all that--oh, I'm awfully businesslike! But just let me give you this
to-night, to show you how grateful I am, and pay for the first two
weeks or so."

And she folded the bill into a tiny square, and crushed it into Mrs.
Gray's reluctant hand.

Fifteen minutes later, when Howard Gray and Thomas came into the kitchen
for their supper, bringing the last full milk-pails with them, they
found the pork and potatoes burnt to a frazzle, the girls all talking at
once, and Austin bending over his mother, who sat in the big rocker with
the tears rolling down her cheeks, and a hundred-dollar bill spread out
on her lap.




CHAPTER II


For several weeks the Grays did not see much of Mrs. Cary. She appeared
at dinner and supper, eating little and saying less. She rose very late,
having a cup of coffee in bed about ten; the afternoons she spent
rambling through the fields and along the river-bank, but never going
near the highroad on her long walks. She generally read until nearly
midnight, and the book-hungry Grays pounced like tigers on the newspapers
and magazines with which she heaped her scrap-baskets, and longed for the
time to come when she would offer to lend them some of the books piled
high all around her rooms.

Some years before, when vacationists demanded less in the way of
amusement, Hamstead had flourished in a mild way as a summer-resort; but
its brief day of prosperity in this respect had passed, and the advent
of a wealthy and mysterious stranger, whose mail was larger than that of
all the rest of the population put together, but who never appeared in
public, or even spoke, apparently, in private, threw the entire village
into a ferment of excitement. Fred Elliott, who, in his rôle of
prospective son-in-law, might be expected to know much that was going on
at the Grays', was "pumped" in vain; he was obliged to confess his
entire ignorance concerning the history, occupations, and future
intentions of the young widow. Mrs. Gray had to "house-clean" her parlor
a month earlier than she had intended, because she had so many callers
who came hoping to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Cary, and hear all about her,
besides; but they did not see her at all, and Mrs. Gray could tell them
but little.

"She ain't a mite of trouble," the good woman declared to every one, "an'
the simplest, gentlest creature I ever see in my life. The girls are all
just crazy over her. No, she ain't told me yet anything about herself,
an' I don't like to press her none. Poor lamb, with her heart buried in
the grave, at her age! No, I don't know how long she means to stay,
neither, but 'twould be a good while, if I had my way."

To Mrs. Elliott, her best friend and Fred's mother, she was slightly more
communicative, though she disclosed no vital statistics.

"Edith helped her unpack an' she said she never even imagined anything
equal to what come out of them three great trunks; she said it made her
just long to be a widow. The dresses was all black, of course, but they
had an awful expensive look, some way, just the same. An' underclothes!
Edith said there was at least a dozen of everything, an' two dozen of
most, lace an' handwork an' silk, from one end of 'em to the other. She
has a leather box most as big as a suitcase heaped with jewelry--it was
open one morning when I went in with her breakfast, an' I give you my
word, Eliza, that just the little glimpse I got of it was worth walkin'
miles to see! An' yet she never wears so much as the simplest ring or
pin. She has enough flowers for an elegant funeral sent to her three
times a week by express, an' throws 'em away before they're
half-faded--says she likes the little wild ones that are beginnin' to
come up around here better, anyway. Yes, I don't deny she has some real
queer notions--for instance, she puts all them flowers in plain green
glass vases, an' wouldn't so much as look at the elegant cut-glass ones
they keep up to Wallacetown. She don't eat a particle of breakfast, an'
she streaks off for a long walk every day, rain or shine, an' wants the
old tin tub carried in so's she can have a hot bath every single night,
besides takin' what she calls a 'cold sponge' when she gets up in the
mornin'--which ain't till nearly noon."

"Well, now, ain't all that strange! An' wouldn't I admire to see all them
elegant things! What board did you say she paid?"

"Twenty-five dollars a week for board an' washin' an' mendin'--just think
of it, Eliza! I feel like a robber, but she wouldn't hear of a cent less.
Howard wants I should save every penny, so's at least one of the younger
children can have more of an education than James an' Sally an' Austin
an' Ruth. I don't look at it that way--seems to me it ain't fair to give
one child more than another. I want to spruce up this place a little, an'
lay by to raise the mortgage if we can."

"Which way 've you decided?"

"We've kinder compromised. The house is goin' to be painted outside, an'
the kitchen done over. I've had the piano tuned for Molly already--the
poor child is plum crazy over music, but it's a long time since I've seen
the three dollars that I could hand over to a strange man just for comin'
an' makin' a lot of screechin' noises on it all day; an' we're goin' to
have a new carry-all to go to meetin' in--the old one is fair fallin' to
pieces. The rest of the money we're goin' to lay by, an' if it keeps on
comin' in, Thomas can go to the State Agricultural College in, the fall,
for a spell, anyway. We've told Sally that she can keep all she earns for
her weddin' things, too, as long as Mrs. Cary stays."

"My, she's a reg'lar goose layin' a golden egg for you, ain't she? Well,
I must be goin'; I'll be over again as soon as spring-cleanin' eases up a
little, but I'm terrible druv just now. Maybe next time I can see her."

"You an' Joe an' Fred all come to dinner on Sunday--then you will."

Mrs. Elliott accepted with alacrity; but alas, for the eager
guests! when Sunday came, Mrs. Cary had a severe headache and
remained in bed all day.

She was so "simple and gentle," as Mrs. Gray said, that it came as a
distinct shock when it was discovered that little as she talked, she
observed a great deal. Austin was the first member of the family to find
this out. All the others had gone to church, and he was lounging on the
porch one Sunday morning, when she came out of the house, supposing that
she was quite alone. On finding him there, she hesitated for a minute,
and then sat quietly down on the steps, made one or two pleasant,
commonplace remarks, and lapsed into silence, her chin resting on her
hands, looking out towards the barns. Her expression was non-committal;
but Austin's antagonistic spirit was quick to judge it to be critical.

"I suppose you've travelled a good deal, besides living in New York," he
said, in the bitter tone that was fast becoming his usual one.

"Yes, to a certain extent. I've been around the world once, and to Europe
several times, and I spent part of last winter South."

"How miserable and shabby this poverty-stricken place must look to you!"

She raised her head and leaned back against a post, looking fixedly at
him for a minute. He was conscious, for the first time, that the pale
face was extremely lovely, that the great dark eyes were not gray, as he
had supposed, but a very deep blue, and that the slim throat and neck,
left bare by the V-cut dress, were the color of a white rose. A swift
current of feeling that he had never known before passed through him like
an electric shock, bringing him involuntarily to his feet, in time to
hear her say:

"It's shabby, but it isn't miserable. I don't believe any place is
that, where there's a family, and enough food to eat and wood to
burn--if the family is happy in itself. Besides, with two hours' work,
and without spending one cent, you could make it much less shabby than
it is; and by saving what you already have, you could stave off
spending in the future."

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