The Harvest of Years | Page 4

it would tell the secret on which I pondered, while I
wondered how I should tell my mother.
Hal came in late to supper. I rushed from the table when I heard his
footsteps, and sought my room until I heard him coming up to his room,
when I went down stairs and busied myself with my work as usual.
I washed the milk pans three or four times over that night, and was
about carrying them into the "best room," when mother said,
"Why, Emily, we keep our milk pans in the buttery."
"Oh!" I said, turning suddenly and letting my pans fall and scatter. And
when I picked them up and collected my senses, I thought, "I cannot
tell mother to-night after all, Hal will stay with us." When things were
at last in their places, I sauntered out through the lane in the beautiful
moonlight, and coming back met Hal who took my hand in his and
whispered,
"Tell mother to-morrow, please, I want to go away next month and
some things are necessary to be done."

"Have you told father yet?"
"No, but he will not care."
"Father will care," I replied, "but you know since his misfortune, and
his conclusion that he cannot do anything but carry on the farm, he
seems to have lost his sprightly step and his cheery ways of old."
"Well, Emily," said Hal, "I am no help to him on the farm, and could
not be if I tried, and the work I am doing now is anything but satisfying
to me."
Then the thought occurred to me, I had no idea of what the boy desired
to accomplish, and the question what would you do Hal? was answered
in this wise--
"Wait till I've been away six months."
"To build mud houses and fill them with mud people, was your favorite
amusement when you were a boy, I remember," I said, and he gave me
such a queer look that I started with the impression that came with it,
but said no more, and we walked along and went into the house
together.
The next day after dinner, when we were cleared up and alone in quiet,
I told mother. She was of course covered with surprise, but her words
came in wisdom and she said:
"I can imagine what Halbert desires to do, and although the way looks
anything but clear, still I know I can trust him anywhere. He is a
blessed son and brother, Emily, and I doubt not I am selfish to feel
saddened by the thought of his leaving home (and a tear drop fell as she
spoke). I only fear he may be sick. His lungs are not very strong."
"What will father say?" I asked.
"Father's heart will miss him but he will not seek to stay an endeavor of
his earnest, ambitious boy."

So my trial was not so hard as I had expected, and father was just as
wise as mother, and I alone rebellious concerning his departure. I cried
night and day whenever I could get a moment to cry in, and I could not
help it. How perverse I felt, although doing all I could to forward his
departure, which was daily coming nearer, and when the 4th of July
came and with it the gala day which the entire country about us enjoyed,
I could not and did not go to the pic-nic, or the speech ground, and I
succeeded in making all at home nearly as unhappy as myself.
CHAPTER III.
CHANGES.
Some people believe in predestination (or "fore-ordering," as Aunt
Ruth used to call it), and some do not. I never knew what I believed
about events and their happening, but it was certainly true I learned to
know that my efforts to hurry or retard anything were in one sense
entirely futile--that is, when I did not work in unison with my
surroundings, and made haste only when impelled. If I could have felt
thus concerning Hal's departure, I should have been of more service to
him, and saved myself from hearing "Oh, Emily, don't," falling as an
entreaty from his lips, at sight of my swelled eyes and woeful
countenance. I think he was heartily glad of the innovation made in our
family circle, which, of itself, was as wonderful to me as the story of
Aladdin's Lamp to the mind of a child. It happened so strangely too.
Before I tell you of this event I must explain that our family circle
consisted of father, mother, Halbert, Ben and myself. It was half past
six in the evening of July 8, 18--, and we had just finished supper,
when a loud knock was heard at the back door, and opening it we
received a