The Old Gray Homestead | Page 3

to wallow through that field, and go up a hill, and
down a hill, and along a little farther, and then you come to the house.
Just follow us--we're going there. I'm Howard Gray's eldest daughter

Sally, and this is my brother Austin."
"Oh! then perhaps you can tell me--before I intrude--if it would be any
use--whether you think that possibly--whether under any circumstances
--well, if your mother would be good enough to let me come and live at
her house a little while?"
By this time Sally and Austin had both realized two things: first, that
the person with whom they were talking belonged to quite a different
world from their own--the fact was written large in her clothing, in her
manner, in the very tones of her voice; and, second, that in spite of her
pale face and widow's veil, she was even younger than they were, a girl
hardly out of her teens.
"I'm not very well," she went on rapidly, before they could answer,
"and my doctor told me to go away to some quiet place in the country
until I could get--get rested a little. I spent a summer here with my
mother when I was a little girl, and I remembered how lovely it was,
and so I came back. But the hotel has run down so that I don't think I
can possibly stay there; and yet I can't bear to go away from this
beautiful, peaceful river-valley--it's just what I've been longing to find.
I happened to overhear some one talking about Mrs. Gray, and saying
that she might consider taking me in. So I hired this buggy and started
out to find her and ask. Oh, don't you think she would?"
Sally and Austin exchanged glances. "Mother never has taken any
boarders, she's always been too busy," began the former; then, seeing
the swift look of disappointment on the sad little face, "but she might. It
wouldn't do any harm to ask, anyway. We'll drive ahead, and show you
how to get there."
The Gray family had been one of local prominence ever since Colonial
days, and James Gray, who built the dignified, spacious homestead
now occupied by his grandson's family, had been a man of some
education and wealth. His son Thomas inherited the house, but only a
fourth of the fortune, as he had three sisters. Thomas had but one child,
Howard, whose prospects for prosperity seemed excellent; but he grew
up a dreamy, irresolute, studious chap, a striking contrast to the sturdy

yeoman type from which he had sprung--one of those freaks of heredity
that are hard to explain. He went to Dartmouth College, travelled a
little, showed a disposition to read--and even to write--verses. As a
teacher he probably would have been successful; but his father was
determined that he should become a farmer, and Howard had neither
the energy nor the disposition to oppose him; he proved a complete
failure. He married young, and, it was generally considered, beneath
him; for Mary Austin, with a heart of gold and a disposition like
sunshine, had little wealth or breeding and less education to commend
her; and she was herself too easy-going and contented to prove the prod
that Howard sadly needed in his wife. Children came thick and fast; the
eldest, James, had now gone South; the second daughter, Ruth, was
already married to a struggling storekeeper living in White Water; Sally
taught school; but the others were all still at home, and all, except
Austin, too young to be self-supporting--Thomas, Molly, Katherine,
and Edith. They had all caught their father's facility for correct speech,
rare in northern New England; most of them his love of books, his
formless and unfulfilled ambitions; more than one the shiftlessness and
incompetence that come partly from natural bent and partly from
hopelessness; while Sally and Thomas alone possessed the sunny
disposition and the ability to see the bright side of everything and the
good in everybody which was their mother's legacy to them.
The old house, set well back from the main road and near the river,
with elms and maples and clumps of lilac bushes about it, was almost
bare of the cheerful white paint that had once adorned it, and the green
blinds were faded and broken; the barns never had been painted, and
were huddled close to the house, hiding its fine Colonial lines, black,
ungainly, and half fallen to pieces; all kinds of farm implements, rusty
from age and neglect, were scattered about, and two dogs and several
cats lay on the kitchen porch amidst the general litter of milk-pails,
half-broken chairs, and rush mats. There was no one in sight as the two
muddy buggies pulled up at the little-used front door. Howard Gray and
Thomas were