The Old Gray Homestead | Page 8

and I find I've a lot of superfluous energy at my disposal--your brother had a dose of it this morning! I want something to do--something to keep me busy--something to keep me from thinking. I haven't half as much talent as you, but I've had more chances to learn. Listen! This is the way that 'Serenade' ought to go"--and Mrs. Cary began to play. The dusk turned to moonlight around them, and the Grays sat in the dining-room, hesitating to intrude, and listening with all their ears; and still she sat, talking, explaining, illustrating to Molly, and finally ended by playing, one after another, the old familiar hymns which they all loved.
"It's settled, then--I'll give you your first real lesson to-morrow, and send to New York at once for music. You'll have to do lots of scales and finger-exercises, I warn you! Now come into my parlor--there's something else I wanted to talk to you about."
"Do you see that great trunk?" she went on, after she had drawn Molly in after her and lighted the lamp; "I sent for it a week ago, but it only got here yesterday. It's full of all my--all the clothes I had to stop wearing a little while ago."
Molly's heart began to thump with excitement.
"You and Edith are little, like me," whispered Mrs. Cary. "If you would take the dresses and use them, it would be--be such a favor to me! Some of them are brand-new! Some of them wouldn't be useful or suitable for you, but there are firms in every big city that buy such things, so you could sell those, if you care to; and, besides the made-up clothes there are several dress-lengths--a piece of pink silk that would be sweet for Sally, and some embroidered linens, and--and so on. I'm going to bed now--I've had so much exercise to-day, and you've given me such a pleasant evening that I shan't have to read myself to sleep to-night, and when I've shut my bedroom door, if you truly would like the trunk, have your brothers come in and carry it off, and promise me never--never to speak about it again."
Monday and Tuesday passed by without further excitement; but Wednesday morning, while Mr. Gray was planting his newly ploughed vegetable-garden, Mrs. Cary sauntered out, and sat down beside the place where he was working, apparently oblivious of the fact that damp ground is supposed to be as detrimental to feminine wearing apparel as it is to feminine constitutions.
"I've been watching you from the window as long as I could stand it," she said, "now I've come to beg. I want a garden, too, a flower-garden. Do you mind if I dig up your front yard?"
He laughed, supposing that she was joking. "Dig all you want to," he said; "I don't believe you'll do much harm."
"Thanks. I'll try not to. Have I your full permission to try my hand and see?"
"You certainly have."
"Is there some boy in the village I could hire to do the first heavy work and the mowing, and pull up the weeds from time to time if they get ahead of me?"
Howard Gray leaned on his hoe. "You don't need to hire a boy," he said gravely; "we'll be only too glad to help you all you need."
"Thank you. But, you see, you've got too much to do already, and I can't add to your burdens, or feel free to ask favors, unless you'll let me do it in a business way."
Mr. Gray turned his hoe over, and began to hack at the ground. "I see how you feel," he began, "but--"
"If Thomas could do it evenings, at whatever the rate is around here by the hour, I should be very glad. If not, please find me a boy."
"She has a way of saying things," explained Howard Gray, who had faltered along in a state of dreary indecision for nearly sixty years, in telling his wife about it afterwards,--"as if they were all settled already. What could I say, but 'Yes, Mrs. Cary'? And then she went on, as cool as a cucumber, 'As long as you've got an extra stall, may I send for one of my horses? The usual board around here is five dollars a week, isn't it?' And what could I say again but 'Yes, Mrs. Cary'? though you may believe I fairly itched to ask, 'Send _where_?' and, 'For the love of Heaven, how many horses have you?'"
"I could stand her actin' as if things was all settled," replied his wife; "I like to see folks up an' comin', even if I ain't made that way myself, an' it's a satisfaction to me to see the poor child kinder pickin' up an' takin' notice again; but what beats me is, she acts as if