The Old Gray Homestead

The Old Gray Homestead

Project Gutenberg's The Old Gray Homestead, by Frances Parkinson
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Title: The Old Gray Homestead
Author: Frances Parkinson Keyes
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THE OLD GRAY HOMESTEAD
BY FRANCES PARKINSON KEYES
1919

To the farmers, and their mothers, wives, and daughters, who have been
my nearest neighbors and my best friends for the last fifteen years, and
who have taught me to love the country and the people in it, this quiet
story of a farm is affectionately and gratefully dedicated.

THE OLD GRAY HOMESTEAD

CHAPTER I
"For Heaven's sake, Sally, don't say, 'Isn't it hot?' or, 'Did you ever
know such weather for April?' or, 'Doesn't it seem as if the mud was
just as bad as it used to be before we had the State Road?' again. It is
hot. I never did see such weather. The mud is worse if anything. I've
said all this several times, and if you can't think of anything more
interesting to talk about, I wish you'd keep still."
Sally Gray pushed back the lock of crinkly brown hair that was always
getting in her eyes, puckered her lips a little, and glanced at her brother
Austin without replying, but with a slight ripple of concern disturbing
her usual calm. She was plain and plump and placid, as sweet and
wholesome as clover, and as nerveless as a cow, and she secretly
envied her brother's lean, dark handsomeness; but she was conscious of
a little pang of regret that the young, eager face beside her was already
becoming furrowed with lines of discontent and bitterness, and that the
expression of the fine mouth was rapidly growing more and more hard

and sullen. Austin had been all the way from Hamstead to White Water
that day, stopping on his way back at Wallacetown, to bring Sally, who
taught school there, home for over Sunday; his little old horse, never
either strong or swift, was tired and hot and muddy, and hung its
unkempt head dejectedly, apparently having lost all willingness to drag
the dilapidated top-buggy and its two occupants another step. Austin's
manner, Sally reflected, was not much more cheerful than that of his
horse; while his clothes were certainly as dirty, as shabby, and as
out-of-date as the rest of his equipage.
"It's a shame," she thought, "that Austin takes everything so hard. The
rest of us don't mind half so much. If he could only have a little bit of
encouragement and help--something that would make him really happy!
If he could earn some money--or find out that, after all, money isn't
everything--or fall in love with some nice girl--" She checked herself,
blushing and sighing. The blush was occasioned by her own quiet
happiness in that direction; but the sigh was because Austin, though he
was well known to have been "rather wild," never paid any "nice girl"
the slightest attention, and jeered cynically at the mere suggestion that
he should do so.
"How lovely the valley is!" she said aloud at last; "I don't believe
there's a prettier stretch of road in the whole world than this between
Wallacetown and Hamstead, especially in the spring, when the river is
so high, and everything is looking so fresh and green."
"Fortunate it is pretty; probably it's the only thing we'll have to look at
as long as we live--and certainly it's about all we've seen so far! If
there'd been only you and I, Sally, we could have gone off to school,
and maybe to college, too, but with eight of us to feed and clothe, it's
no wonder that