The Old Gray Homestead | Page 8

very best. She
chose the simple things she knew by heart, and put all her will-power
as well as all her skill into playing them well. It was only when she
stopped, confessing that she knew no more, that Mrs. Gary stirred.
"I used to play a good deal myself," she said, speaking very low;
"perhaps I could take it up again. Do you think you could help me,
Molly?"
"I! help you! However in the world--"
"By letting me be your teacher! I'm getting rested now, 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?