Chapter III: Between Times

It was at breakfast the next morning that the great decision was announced.

“Well, young ladies,” said the doctor, looking from one to the other of his older daughters, “what do you think your mother and I have decided to do with you?” He paused for just an instant, then gave the answer himself without waiting for theirs. “Nothing short of sending you East for the rest of the summer. We’ve held a council, and decided that nothing else will do in your case.”

They caught their breath, gasping for a moment at the suddenness of it, then Kate brought her hands together with a clap. “Glorious!” she cried; “that’s the best news I ever heard. But, do you know, I felt in my bones last night that it was coming.”

The doctor laughed. The idea of this plump young creature deriving any premonitions from her bones amused him. “And what did yours indicate?” he asked, turning to Esther.

“Nothing as delightful as that,” she said. Her face was not as bright as Kate’s. She wondered, with a sudden misgiving, whether her discontented mood of the evening before had any share in bringing the decision, and the thought was in the glance which she sent at that moment toward her mother.

The latter met it with a smiling clearness. “Your father has been in favor of it for some time,” she said, “and now that the wheat has turned out so well there is really nothing in the way.”

The shadow flitted from Esther’s eyes. “Oh, it will be beautiful to go, perfectly beautiful! I only wish Virgie could go, too,” she said, with a glance at the little sister, whose face had grown very sober.

“Now you needn’t worry a bit about Virgie,” said the doctor, putting his arm around the child, who sat beside him. “Your mother and I couldn’t stand it without her, and we’re going to see that she has a good time. Just you wait, Virgie,” he added, lowering his voice confidentially, “I have a plan for this fall, and you’re going to be in it. There’ll be a fine slice of cake left for us three when the others have eaten theirs all up.”

He was exceedingly fond of his children. With their training, either physical or mental, he had never charged himself,—perhaps because they were girls,—but to gratify their wants, and to shield them as far as possible from the hardships of life, was a side of parental privilege to which he was keenly responsive.

“But when are we going?” Kate was already demanding.

“Just as soon as your mother can get you ready,” said the doctor; “and I shouldn’t think that need to take very long. I fancy she has your wardrobe planned already. Something kept her awake last night, and when I asked her, sometime in the small hours, what it was, she said she was contriving a new way to make over one of your old dresses. For your mother,” he added, smiling at that lady, “is like the wife of John Gilpin. Though bent on pleasure—yours, of course—she has ‘a frugal mind.’”

“Think of being likened to that immortal woman!” cried Mrs. Northmore. “I only hope my plans will work better than hers did.”

“Oh, your plans always work,” said the doctor. “But don’t tax your wits too far reconstructing old clothes. Get some new ones; get ’em pretty and stylish. I want the girls to be fixed up nice if they’re going to visit those Eastern relatives.”

“Hear! hear!” cried Kate. “Papa, your ideas and mine fit beautifully.”

He was in the best of spirits. The good wheat crop had already brought the payment of some long-standing medical bills, and Dr. Northmore could always adjust himself to a time of abundance more gracefully than to the day of small things.

“We shall treat you handsomely in the matter of our expenses, you may depend on that,” said his wife. She had no intention of relaxing her carefulness in the use of money; but she never wounded her husband’s pride, and she always indulged him in the amused smile with which, in times of comparative ease, he seemed to regard feminine economies.

There were plenty of them in the days that immediately followed, but the girls had most of the things they wanted, and their father was more than satisfied with the pretty becoming dresses in which they bloomed out, one after another, for his benefit. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Northmore was quite as desirous as he that her girls should be well provided for this summer outing. She was a bit of a philosopher, but she never affected the slightest indifference to the matter of dress. She had excellent taste herself, and had given it to her children.

Things moved so swiftly that in little more than a week they were ready. There were good-by calls to be made, and a host of others to be received from friends who came to offer their congratulations and express effusive hopes for their pleasure during the summer, for the news of their plan had spread rapidly. But there was one friend to whom word came late, and who, but for accident, might have missed it altogether.

This was Morton Elwell. The girls were walking home from the village late one afternoon, when Kate, glancing back, saw the young man with the New Light preacher. The two had been harvesting together at the other end of the county, and since that day at the farm neither of them had been in town.

“There’s Mort Elwell!” she exclaimed; and then she faced about, drawing her sister with her, and waited frankly for him to come up.

The two men quickened their steps instantly. “Upon my word, I didn’t know you till you turned,” said Morton. “My, how fine you look!”

Kate smiled, and Esther flushed. Perhaps it was one of the liberties she did not quite like his taking, that he should be so plainly observant of their new dresses.

“Well, it’s a wonder that anybody knows _you_, face to face, Mort,” said Kate. “I declare you’re as brown as a mulatto.”

“Am I?” said the young man cheerfully. “Well, I’m at the engine now, and what with smoke and sunburn it paints a fellow up in good style.”

“I suppose you know we’re going away next Wednesday,” said Kate. She had fallen behind with him, leaving Esther to walk with the preacher.

“Why, no, I didn’t know it,” said Morton, fairly stopping in his walk. “Is that so?”

“‘Certain true, black and blue,’ as we used to say when we were children,” replied Kate. “We’re going to Grandfather Saxon’s. It was all settled that night after we got home from the threshing.” She paused a moment; then, as he had not spoken, added, with a little pout: “I suppose you couldn’t strain a point to say you’re glad. Everybody else seems to say it easily enough.”

“Why, of course I’m glad,” said Morton, hastily, “and I hope you’ll have a tremendously good time; but it sort of takes a body’s breath away, it’s so sudden. When are you coming back?”

“We’re not thinking of that part yet,” said Kate; “but not before September.”

His face lengthened. “Why, I shan’t see anything of you girls all vacation,” he said. “I did think when the harvesting was over I should get an occasional glimpse of you. I wish threshing hadn’t begun so early this year.”

“What’s that?” said the preacher, turning his head. “Wanting seed time and harvest put off for your special benefit! That won’t do, Mort.”

“Oh, not that exactly,” said the young man. “But it _is_ sort of hard on a fellow not to get any chance of seeing his friends all summer, when that’s the only time in the year he’s at home.”

“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 Massachusetts; 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 threshing 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 Grass country where your father was raised, but in among the knobs where the Cumberlands 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 shirt, 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.

“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 superstitions, 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 passage 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, harassed 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.”