Chapter II: The Homestead

It stood at the end of a grassy avenue or lane a little distance from the electric road between Worcester and Spencer, its outside chimneys covered with woodbine and its sharp gables distinctly visible as the cars wound up the steep Leicester hill. Just what its age was no one knew exactly. Relic-hunters who revel in antiquities put it at one hundred and fifty. But the oldest inhabitant in the town, who was an authority for everything ancient, said that when he was a small boy it was comparatively new, and considered very fine on account of its gables and brass knocker, and, as he was ninety-five or six, the house was probably over a hundred. It was built by a retired sea-captain from Boston, and after his death it changed hands several times until it was bought by the Hallams, who lived there so long and were so highly esteemed that it came to bear their name, and was known as the Hallam Homestead. After the death of Carter Hallam’s father it was occupied by different parties, and finally became the property of a Mr. Leighton, who rather late in life had married a girl from Georgia, where he had been for a time a teacher. Naturally scholarly and fond of books, he would have preferred teaching, but his young wife, accustomed to plantation life, said she should be happier in the country, and so he bought the Homestead and commenced farming, with very little knowledge of what ought to be done and very little means with which to do it. Under such circumstances he naturally grew poorer every year, while his wife’s artistic tastes did not help the matter. Remembering her father’s plantation with its handsome grounds and gardens, she instituted numerous changes in and about the house, which made it more attractive, but did not add to its value. The big chimney was taken down and others built upon the outside, after the Southern style. A wide hall was put through the centre where the chimney had been; a broad double piazza was built in front, while the ground was terraced down to the orchard below, where a rustic bridge was thrown across the little brook where Carter and Jack Hallam had built their water-wheel. Other changes the ambitious little Georgian was contemplating, when she died suddenly and was carried back to sleep under her native pines, leaving her husband utterly crushed at his loss, with the care of two little girls, Dorcas and Bertha, and a mortgage of two thousand dollars upon his farm. For some years he scrambled on as best he could with hired help, giving all his leisure time to educating and training his daughters, who were as unlike each other as two sisters well could be. Dorcas, the elder, was fair and blue-eyed, and round and short and matter-of-fact, caring more for the farm and the house than for books, while Bertha was just the opposite, and, with her soft brown hair, bright eyes, brilliant complexion, and graceful, slender figure, was the exact counterpart of her beautiful Southern mother when she first came to the Homestead; but otherwise she was like her father, caring more for books than for the details of every-day life.

“Dorcas is to be housekeeper, and I the wage-earner, to help pay off the mortgage which troubles father so much,” she said, and when she was through school she became book-keeper for the firm of Swartz & Co., of Boston, with a salary of four hundred dollars a year. Dorcas, who was two years older, remained at home as housekeeper. And a very thrifty one she made, seeing to everything and doing everything, from making butter to making beds, for she kept no help. The money thus saved was put carefully by towards paying the mortgage coming due in October. By the closest economy it had been reduced from two thousand to one thousand, and both Dorcas and Bertha were straining every nerve to increase the fund which was to liquidate the debt.

It was not very often that Bertha indulged in the luxury of coming home, for even that expense was something, and every dollar helped. But on the Saturday following the appearance of Mrs. Hallam’s advertisement in the New York _Herald_ she was coming to spend Sunday for the first time in several weeks. These visits were great events at the Homestead, and Dorcas was up as soon as the first robin chirped in his nest in the big apple-tree which shaded the rear of the house and was now odorous and beautiful with its clusters of pink-and-white blossoms. There was churning to do that morning, and butter to get off to market, besides the usual Saturday’s cleaning and baking, which included all Bertha’s favorite dishes. There was Bertha’s room to be gone over with broom and duster, and all the vases and handleless pitchers to be filled with daffies and tulips and great bunches of apple-blossoms and a clump or two of the trailing arbutus which had lingered late in the woods. But Dorcas’s work was one of love; if she were tired she scarcely thought of it at all, and kept steadily on until everything was done. In her afternoon gown and white apron she sat down to rest awhile on the piazza overlooking the valley, thinking as she did so what a lovely place it was, with its large, sunny rooms, wide hall, and fine view, and how dreadful it would be to lose it.

“Five hundred dollars more we must have, and where it is to come from I do not know. Bertha always says something will turn up, but I am not so hopeful,” she said, sadly. Then, glancing at the clock, she saw that it was nearly time for the car which would bring her sister from the Worcester station. “I’ll go out to the cross-road and meet her,” she thought, just as she heard the sharp clang of the bell and saw the trolley-pole as it came up the hill. A moment more, and Bertha alighted and came rapidly towards her.

“You dear old Dor, I’m so glad to see you and be home again,” Bertha said, giving up her satchel and umbrella and putting her arm caressingly around Dorcas’s neck as she walked, for she was much the taller of the two.

It was a lovely May afternoon, and the place was at its best in the warm sunlight, with the fresh green grass and the early flowers and the apple orchard full of blossoms which filled the air with perfume.

“Oh, this is delightful, and it is so good to get away from that close office and breathe this pure air,” Bertha said, as she went from room to room, and then out upon the piazza, where she stood taking in deep inhalations and seeming to Dorcas to grow brighter and fresher with each one. “Where is father?” she asked at last.

“Here, daughter,” was answered, as Mr. Leighton, who had been to the village, came through a rear door.

He was a tall, spare man, with snowy hair and a stoop in his shoulders, which told of many years of hard work. But the refinement in his manner and the gentleness in his face were indicative of good breeding, and a life somewhat different from that which he now led.

Bertha was at his side in a moment, and had him down in a rocking-chair, and was sitting on an arm of it, brushing the thin hair back from his forehead, while she looked anxiously into his face, which wore a more troubled expression than usual, although he evidently tried to hide it.

“What is it, father? Are you very tired?” she asked, at last, and he replied;

“No, daughter, not very; and if I were the sight of you would rest me.”

Catching sight of the corner of an envelope in his vest pocket, with a woman’s quick intuition, she guessed that it had something to do with his sadness.

“You have a letter. Is there anything in it about that hateful mortgage?” she said.

“It is all about the mortgage. There’s a way to get rid of it,” he answered, while his voice trembled, and something in his eyes, as he looked into Bertha’s, made her shiver a little; but she kissed him lovingly, and said very low:

“Yes, father. I know there is a way,” her lips quivering as she said it, and a lump rising in her throat as if she were smothering.

“Will you read the letter?” he asked, and she answered:

“Not now; let us have supper first. I am nearly famished, and long to get at Dor’s rolls and broiled chicken, which I smelled before I left the car at the cross-roads.”

She was very gay all through the supper, although a close observer might have seen a cloud cross her bright face occasionally, and a look of pain and preoccupation in her eyes; but she laughed and chatted merrily, asking about the neighbors and the farm, and when supper was over helped Dorcas with her dishes and the evening work, sang snatches of the last opera, and told her sister about the new bell skirt just coming into fashion, and how she could cut over her old ones like it. When everything was done she seemed to nerve herself to some great effort, and, going to her father said:

“Now for the letter. From whom is it?”

“Gorham, the man who holds the mortgage,” Mr. Leighton replied.

“Oh-h, Gorham!” and Bertha’s voice was full of intense relief. “I thought perhaps it was —— but no matter, that will come later. Let us hear what Mr. Gorham has to say. He cannot foreclose till October, anyhow.”

“And not then, if we do what he proposes. This is it,” Mr. Leighton said, as he began to read the letter, which was as follows:

“BROOKLYN, N. Y., May —, 18—.

“MR. LEIGHTON:

“DEAR SIR,—A gentleman in New York wishes to purchase a farm in the
country, where he can spend a part of the summer and autumn, fishing
and fox-hunting and so on. From what he has heard of your place and
the woods around it, he thinks it will suit him exactly, and in the
course of a few weeks proposes to go out and see it. As he has ample
means, he will undoubtedly pay you a good price, cash down, and that
will relieve you of all trouble with the mortgage. I still think I
must have my money in October, as I have promised it elsewhere.

“Very truly,
“JOHN GORHAM.”

“Well?” Mr. Leighton said, as he finished reading the letter, and looked inquiringly at his daughters.

Bertha, who was very pale, was the first to speak. “Do you want to leave the old home?” she asked, and her father replied, in a choking voice, “No, oh, no. I have lived here twenty-seven years, and know every rock and tree and shrub, and love them all. I brought your mother here a bride and a slip of a girl like you, who are so much like her that sometimes when I see you flitting around and hear your voice I think for a moment she has come back to me again. You were both born here. Your mother died here, and here I want to die. But what is the use of prolonging the struggle? I have raked and scraped and saved in every possible way to pay the debt contracted so long ago, the interest of which has eaten up all my profits, and I have got within five hundred dollars of it, but do not see how I can get any further. I may sell a few apples and some hay, but I’ll never borrow another dollar, and if this New York chap offers a good price we’d better sell. Dorcas and I can rent a few rooms somewhere in Boston, maybe, and we shall all be together till I die, which, please God, will not be very long.”

His face was white, with a tired, discouraged look upon it pitiful to see, while Dorcas, who cried easily, was sobbing aloud. But Bertha’s eyes were round and bright and dry, and there was a ring in her voice as she said, “You will _not_ die, and you will not sell the place. Horses and dogs and fox-hunts, indeed! I’d like to see that New Yorker plunging through the fields and farms with his horses and hounds, for that is what fox-hunting means. He would be mobbed in no time. Who is he, I wonder? I should like to meet him and give him a piece of my mind.”

She was getting excited, and her cheeks were scarlet as she kissed her father again and said, “Write and tell that New Yorker to stay where he is, and take his foxes to some other farm. He cannot have ours, nor any one else. Micawber-like, I believe something will turn up; I am sure of it; only give me time.”

Then, rising from her chair, she went swiftly out into the twilight, and, crossing the road, ran down the terrace to a bit of broken wall, where she sat down and watched the night gathering on the distant hills and over the woods, and fought the battle which more than one unselfish woman has fought,—a battle between inclination and what seemed to be duty. If she chose, she could save the farm with a word and make her father’s last days free from care. There was a handsome house in Boston of which she might be mistress any day, with plenty of money at her command to do with as she pleased. But the owner was old compared to herself, forty at least, and growing bald; he called her Berthy, and was not at all like the ideal she had in her mind of the man whom she could love,—who was really more like one who might hunt foxes and ride his horses through the fields, while she rode by his side, than like the commonplace Mr. Sinclair, who had asked her twice to be his wife. At her last refusal only a few days ago he had said he should not give her up yet, but should write her father for his co-operation, and it was from him she feared the New York letter had come when she saw it in her father’s pocket. She knew he was honorable and upright and would be kind and generous to her and her family, but she had dreamed of a different love, and she could not listen to his suit unless it were to save the old home for her father and Dorcas.

For a time she sat weighing in the balance her love for them and her love for herself, while darkness deepened around her and the air grew heavy with the scent of the apple-blossoms and the grove of pine-trees not far away; yet she was no nearer a decision than when she first sat down. It was strange that in the midst of her intense thinking, the baying of hounds, the tramp of horses’ feet, and the shout of many voices should ring in her ears so distinctly that once, as some bushes stirred near her, she turned, half expecting to see the hunted fox fleeing for his life, and, with an impulse to save him from his pursuers, put out both her hands.

“This is a queer sort of hallucination, and it comes from that New York letter,” she thought, just as from under a cloud where it had been hidden the new moon sailed out to the right of her. Bertha was not superstitious, but, like many others, she clung to some of the traditions of her childhood, and the new moon seen over the right shoulder was one of them. She always framed a wish when she saw it, and she did so now, involuntarily repeating the words she had so often used when a child:

“New moon, new moon, listen to me,
And grant the boon I ask of thee,”

and then, almost as seriously as if it were a prayer, she wished that something might occur to keep the home for her father and herself from Mr. Sinclair.

“I don’t believe much in the new moon, it has cheated me so often; but I do believe in presentiments, and I have one that something will turn up. I’ll wait awhile and see,” she said, as the silvery crescent was lost again under a cloud. Beginning to feel a little chilly, she went back to the house, where she found her father reading his evening paper.

This reminded her of a New York _Herald_ she had bought on the car of a little newsboy, whose ragged coat and pleasant face had decided her to refuse the chocolates offered her by a larger boy and take the paper instead. It was lying on the table, where she had put it when she first came in. Taking it up, she sat down and opened it. Glancing from page to page, she finally reached the advertisements, and her eye fell upon that of Mrs. Hallam.

“Oh, father, Dorcas, I told you something would turn up, and there has! Listen!” and she read the advertisement aloud. “The very thing I most desired has come. I have always wanted to go to Europe, but never thought I could, on account of the expense, and here it is, all paid, and five hundred dollars besides. That will save the place. I did not wish the new moon for nothing. Something has turned up.”

“But, Bertha,” said the more practical Dorcas, “what reason have you to think you will get the situation? There are probably more than five hundred applicants for it,—one for each dollar.”

“I know I shall. I feel it as I have felt other things which have come to me. Theosophic presentiments I call them.”

Dorcas went on: “And if it does come, I don’t see how it will help the mortgage due in October. You will not get your pay in advance, and possibly not until the end of the year.”

“I shall borrow the money and give my note,” Bertha answered, promptly. “Anybody will trust me. Swartz & Co. will, anyway, knowing that I shall come back and work it out if Mrs. Hallam fails me. By the way, that is the name of the people who lived here years ago. Perhaps Mrs. Carter belongs to the family. Do you know where they are, father?”

Mr. Leighton said he did not. He thought, however, they were all dead, while Dorcas asked, “If you are willing to borrow money of Swartz & Co., why don’t you try Cousin Louie, and pay her in installments?”

“Cousin Louie!” Bertha repeated. “That would be borrowing of her proud husband, Fred Thurston, who, since I have been a bread-winner, never sees me in the street if he can help it. I’d take in washing before I’d ask a favor of him. My heart is set upon Europe, if Mrs. Hallam will have me, and you do not oppose me too strongly.”

“But I must oppose you,” her father said; and then followed a long and earnest discussion between Mr. Leighton, Dorcas, and Bertha, the result of which was that Bertha was to wait a few days and consider the matter before writing to Mrs. Hallam.

That night, however, after her father had retired, she dashed off a rough draught of what she meant to say and submitted it to Dorcas for approval. It was as follows:

“MRS. HALLAM:

“MADAM,—I have seen your advertisement for a companion, and shall be
glad of the situation. My name is Bertha Leighton. I am twenty-two
years old, and was graduated at the Charlestown Seminary three years
ago. I am called a good reader, and ought to be a good accountant, as
for two years I have been book-keeper in the firm of Swartz & Co.,
Boston. I am not very handy with my needle, for want of practice, but
can soon learn. While in school I took lessons in French of a native
teacher, who complimented my pronunciation and quickness to
comprehend. Consequently I think I shall find no difficulty in
understanding the language after a little and making myself
understood. I enclose my photograph, which flatters me somewhat. My
address is

“BERTHA LEIGHTON,
“No. — Derring St., Boston, Mass.”

“I think it covers the whole business,” Bertha said to Dorcas, who objected to one point. “The photograph does not flatter you,” she said, while Bertha insisted that it did, as it represented a much more stylish-looking young woman than Mrs. Carter Hallam’s companion ought to be. “I wonder what sort of woman she is? I somehow fancy she is a snob,” she said; “but, snob me all she pleases, she cannot keep me from seeing Europe, and I don’t believe she will try to cheat me out of my wages.”