Chapter VII: Good-Bye

Kenneth said it to Connie with a swelling heart, just a week from the day when he first saw her at the station, in her blue cloak and hood. Mrs. Hart had stayed her allotted time, and had felt that each day she stayed grew longer and more tiresome. She had impressed upon Connie that, although the country might be nice in many respects, it was not a desirable place in which to stay, or to visit very often, and Connie was about equally divided between her love for the city and country. She had had a “jam up good time,” she said, remembering Harry’s letter, but before she could get farther, her aunt stopped her.

“You have learned a great deal of slang,” she said; “more than you will forget in a year. You have spoiled your blue cloak and two pairs of boots, besides romping quite too much with the cats and the dog and Kenneth. You are too familiar with him. I heard you ask him if he was never going to hear your prayers again. What did you mean?”

When Mrs. Hart assumed this tone and manner, Connie always succumbed, and she now told her aunt of that first night, when Kenneth heard her prayers, and that since then she had always asked a blessing on him, the “bestest boy in the world.”

“Yes, Kenneth, is a good boy,” Mrs. Hart said, “and when you get home you may send him a prayer-book. I dare say he never saw one. There is no church here.”

“Why, yes, there is,” Connie replied. “There is one close by, where Kenneth goes, and all of them. Haven’t you seen it?”

“Oh, the meeting-house. That’s different,” was Mrs. Hart’s reply, while Connie looked puzzled.

She had been puzzled a good deal of the time since she came to the country, and had learned many things she would not soon forget, and she was sorry to leave. But there was no alternative. They were going in the morning, and she bade good-bye to the cats and the cows and hens and Sorrel, but reserved her farewell to Chance for the station, as Kenneth said he was to go there with them. There had been one long sled ride in the mud and what little snow there was, and Connie had told Kenneth she would love him forever and ever, and that she was to send him a book with “I believe” and “Stir up” and “miserable sinners” and everything in it, and he was to read it through and know more the next time she saw him.

And Kenneth promised everything, and felt his heart grow heavier as he listened and remembered that to-morrow she would be gone, and probably that was the last of Connie he would see for years. She told him her auntie would invite him to New York, where she would show him things, not like cats and hens, but the Brooklyn Bridge and a ferry-boat. Kenneth had not much faith in being asked by Mrs. Hart to visit New York. He had read that lady pretty well, and guessed how glad she was to leave them and how little chance there was for him to see Connie often.

Mrs. Hart thought herself a very good woman, who tried to do her duty religiously. She had spent a week at the farmhouse and been treated like a queen, and was grateful for it, and meant at some future time to send a present to each of the family in token of her appreciation, but when Mrs. Stannard asked about Arnold’s in New York, and if it wasn’t the best place to buy a black cashmere such as she had in mind, and said she’d often thought she’d like to see the big stores, Mrs. Hart did not seem to take the hint. To shop at any fashionable place in New York with Mrs. Stannard was impossible, or to have her for a guest. She could give her the cashmere, but she could not help her buy it, or invite her to New York. Kenneth had been very nice to her and Connie, and she would send him something besides a prayer-book,—a silver-backed clothes-brush and possibly a manicure set. She had noticed that his hands were rough and his nails not what they should be. Perhaps he would not know what it was, but that other boy might. He was a Morris, and different. This was Mrs. Hart’s reasoning on the morning she made her preparations for leaving. She had had a very pleasant, restful time, and they had been so kind to her, she said to Mrs. Stannard, who was secretly hoping for an invitation to spend a few days in New York. There were several things besides a black cashmere which she would like to get, and she wanted to see the big city. But no hint that she was expected was given when Mrs. Hart finally said good-bye.

Connie had wanted to take her sled with her, but this her aunt had forbidden, as she did the taking of a kitten when Connie proposed it. She would not mind having Chance, she said, patting the beautiful dog, who was keeping close to Connie as if he knew she was going. “He would be splendid for the sea-shore next summer.”

But the dog was not for sale, the deacon said, and then it was time to go if they would catch the New York train. Kenneth went to the station with them, and felt as if his throat would burst when the last good-bye was said and Connie’s bright face had disappeared in the car which was taking her away “forever, I am afraid,” he said to himself, as he drove back to the house, which seemed so empty and still.

The little muddy sled on which he had drawn the child many a mile was standing on the front doorstep, and he took it to the pump and cleaned it and carried it to the garret and hung it away reverently, sadly, as we put aside some article the dead have worn. As he came down the stairs he met Chance, holding something white in his mouth, and shaking his head and stamping his feet, his way of attracting attention. It was one of Connie’s handkerchiefs, used on Christmas Day, and left in the inclosure to which Chance, on his way home from the station, had made a detour. It was stained with sugar and grape juice, but Kenneth washed it at the pump as he had the sled, and taking it to the garret, spread it over the sled to dry.

Two days later there came a letter from Mrs. Hart, telling of her safe arrival home, and saying Connie was well and sent her love and a prayer-book to Kenneth. It was a very handsome edition, and on the fly leaf Connie had printed in big letters, “TO KENNETH, FROM CONNIE.” She had wanted to add, “with love,” but her aunt objected. So she printed on a piece of paper which she put in the book: “With Connie’s love, and you’ll find ‘I believe’ and ‘stir up’ and ‘miserable sinners’ and everything in it.”

Kenneth read it through, and began, in a dim way, to understand what was done in churches like the one Connie attended, and the following Sunday he drove to St. Jude’s in Rocky Point, a distance of six or seven miles. He had seen but little of the world, and the pretty church, with its three or four memorial windows and candles on the altar, seemed a great contrast to the primitive building at The 4 Corners, where there was seldom even a flower to brighten it. The candles puzzled him, as he could not see why they were needed, when the sun was shining brightly. He was interested in the vested choir, in which he recognized one or two boys who attended the Millville Academy with him, but thought it would take a great deal to make him march with that white gown on, as they did. He was seated near the door, where he could see everything, and as he had brought his prayer-book, he tried to follow the service, succeeding pretty well, and finding the “I believe” and the “miserable sinners,” but failing in the “stir up.” It was all very new and very strange, but it was Connie’s church, and must be right, he said to his father when, on his return home, he told what he had seen and heard.

“All ceremony,” the deacon said, shaking his head. “All ceremony, except the ‘I believe’ you talk about. That’s our creed, too, though I don’t think it has been said in Sunday-school in years. It ought to be, and I’ll speak to the superintendent to have the children learn it. That’s all right, and the rest may be. I won’t judge too harsh. I wasn’t brought up that way, but I’ll see to that creed.”

As a result of the little mustard seed Connie had sown, the children in the church at The 4 Corners, and the grown people as well, were in a few weeks rehearsing what they believed in a manner which would have been highly satisfactory to Connie, could she have heard them. Kenneth’s voice usually took the lead, and there was always in his heart a thought of the little girl, and the prayer she had said, with her head in his lap, and the Christmas tree by the ledge of rocks, sacred to him now as the church itself, because Connie had been there and told him of things he was learning to understand.

Three weeks after Mrs. Hart’s departure there came an express package from New York directed to Mrs. Stannard, who, never having received one before, was in a state of great excitement until it was opened, and greater still when she saw the contents,—a dress pattern of black cashmere, finer and more expensive than she would ever have bought for herself, with all the linings and trimmings and directions how to have it made. There was also a silver-backed clothes brush for Kenneth, but the manicure set was omitted. These, Mrs. Hart wrote, were presents from Connie, who had been greatly interested in buying and sending them. They were going South for February and March, and she would possibly go abroad in the spring. This was late in January, and some time in February Kenneth received a newspaper from Jacksonville announcing the arrival of Mrs. Hart, niece and maid at the St. James, while the deacon received a few lines from Mrs. Hart, asking that Connie’s quarterly remittance be sent to St. Augustine, and that it be as large as possible, in order to meet the increase of expenses. The money was sent and a receipt returned, and then for years the chapter of Kenneth’s life, as connected directly with Connie, was closed.