The Old Gray Homestead | Page 2

father is dead sunk in debt! Certainly I shan't travel
much," he added, laughing bitterly, "when he thinks we can't have even
one hired man in the future--and certainly you won't either, if you're
fool enough to marry Fred, and go straight from the frying-pan of one
poverty-stricken home to the fire of another!"
"Oh, Austin, it's wrong of you to talk so! I'm going to be ever so
happy!"

"Wrong! How else do you expect me to talk?--if I talk at all! Doesn't it
mean anything to you that the farm's mortgaged to the very last cent,
and that it doesn't begin to produce what it ought to because we can't
beg, borrow, or steal the money that ought to be put into it? Can you
just shut your eyes to the fact that the house--the finest in the county
when Grandfather Gray built it--is falling to pieces for want of
necessary repairs? And look at our barns and sheds--or don't look at
them if you can help it! Doesn't it gall you to dress as you do, because
you have to turn over most of what you can earn teaching to the
family--of course, you never can earn much, because you haven't had a
good enough education yourself to get a first-class position--so that the
younger girls can go to school at all, instead of going out as hired help?
Can't you feel the injustice of being poor, and dirty, and ignorant, when
thousands of other people are just rotten with money?"
"I've heard of such people, but I've never met any of them around
here," returned his sister quietly. "We're no worse off than lots of
people, better off than some. I think we've got a good deal to be
thankful for, living where we can see green things growing, and being
well, and having a mother like ours. I wish you could come to feel that
way. Perhaps you will some day."
"Why don't you marry Fred's cousin, instead of Fred?" asked her
brother, changing the subject abruptly. "You could get him just as easy
as not--I could see that when he was here last summer. Then you could
go to Boston to live, get something out of life yourself, and help your
family, too."
"No one in the family but you would want help from me--at that price,"
returned Sally, still speaking quietly, but betraying by the slight
unevenness of her voice that her quiet spirit was at last disturbed more
than she cared to show. "Why, Austin, you know how I lo--care for
Fred, and that I gave him my word more than two years ago! Besides, I
heard you say yourself, before you knew he fancied me, that Hugh
Elliott drank--and did all sorts of other dreadful things--he wouldn't be
considered respectable in Hamstead."
Austin laughed again. "All right. I won't bring up the subject again. Ten

years from now you may be sorry you wouldn't put up with an
occasional spree, and sacrifice a silly little love-affair, for the sake of
everything else you'd get. But suit yourself. Cook and wash and iron
and scrub, lose your color and your figure and your disposition, and
bring half-a-dozen children into the world with no better heritage than
that, if it's your idea of bliss--and it seems to be!"
"I didn't mean to be cross, Sally," he said, after they had driven along in
heavy silence for some minutes. "I've been trying to do a little business
for father in White Water to-day, and met with my usual run of
luck--none at all. Here comes one of the livery-stable teams ploughing
towards us through the mud. Who's in it, do you suppose? Doesn't look
familiar, some way."
As the livery-stable in Hamstead boasted only four turn-outs, it was not
strange that Austin recognized one of them at sight, and as strangers
were few and far between, they were objects of considerable interest.
Sally leaned forward.
"No, she doesn't. She's all in black--and my! isn't she pretty? She seems
to be stopping and looking around--why don't you ask her if you could
be of any help?"
Austin nodded, and pulled in his reins. "I wonder if I could--" he began,
but stopped abruptly, realizing that the lady in the buggy coming
towards them had also stopped, and spoken the very same words.
Inevitably they all smiled, and the stranger began again.
"I wonder if you could tell me how to get to Mr. Howard Gray's
house," she said. "I was told at the hotel to drive along this road as far
as a large white house--the first one I came to--and then turn to the
right. But I don't see any road."
"There isn't any, at this time of year," said Sally, laughing,--"nothing
but mud. You have