Phoebe Deane (8 page)

All at once she knew that her mother's prayer had been answered and that something beautiful had come into her life. It would not stay and grow as her mother had hoped. This stranger could be nothing to her, but the memory of his helpfulness and the smile of sympathy that had lighted his eyes would remain with her, a beautiful joy, always. It was something that had come to save her at the moment of her utter despair.

Meantime, under the chestnut-trees but a few rods away the baskets were being filled rapidly, for the nuts were many and the squirrels had been idle, thinking they owned them all. Nathaniel Graham helped each girl impartially, and seemed to be especially successful in finding the largest and shiniest nuts. The laughing and joking went on, but Nathaniel said little. Phoebe, from her covert could watch them, and felt that the young man would soon pilot them farther away. She could hear bits of their talk.

" What's the matter with Nathaniel ?" said Caroline Penfield. " He's hardly said a word since we started. What deep subject is your massive mind engaged upon, young man?"

" Oh, Nate is thinking about Texas," said Daniel West- gate, flippantly. " He has no thoughts or words for anything but setting Texas free. We'll hear of him joining the volunteers to help them fight Mexico the next thing. I wouldn't be one bit surprised.

" Don't, Daniel," said Janet Bristol, sharply. " Nathaniel has far more sense than that."

" I should hope so! " echoed Maria Finch. " Nathaniel isn't a hot-headed fanatic."

" Don't you be too sure!" said the irrepressible Daniel. " If you'd heard the fine heroics he was getting off to David Spafford yesterday you wouldn't be surprised at anything. Speak up, Nate, and tell them whether you are going or not."

" Perhaps," said Nathaniel, lifting pleasant eyes of amusement towards the company."

" Nonsense! " said Janet, sharply. " As if he would think of such a thing! Daniel, you ought to be ashamed to spoil the lovely afternoon with talk of politics. Come, let us move on to that next clump of trees. See, it is just loaded, and the nuts are falling with every breath of wind."

"Just look at that squirrel, leaning against his tail as if it were the back of an easy chair. He is mincing away at that nut as daintily as any lady," called Caroline.

The merry company picked up baskets and began to move out of sight, but the young man Nathaniel stood still thoughtfully and felt in his pockets, until Phoebe, from her hiding- place, could see none of the others. Then she heard him call in a pleasant voice, " Janet, I have dropped a letter. It cannot be far away. Go on without me for a moment. I will be with you right away."

Then came Janet's sweet, vexed tones:

" Oh, Nathaniel! How tiresome! Can't you let it go ? Was it of any consequence? Shall we come and help you find it?"

"No, Janet, thank you. I know just where I dropped it, and I will be with you again before you have missed me. Keep right on."

Then he turned, swiftly, and came back to the laurel, before the startled Phoebe, who had intended running away at once, could realize that he was coming.

She sprang up with the instinct of fleeing from him, but as if the laurel were loath to part with her, it reached out detaining fingers and caught her by the strands of her fine brown hair; and down came the soft, shining waves of hair, in shameless, lovely disorder about the flushed face, and rippling far below the waist of the buff frock. The sun caught it and kissed it into a thousand lights and shadows of brown and red and purple and gold. A strand here and there clung to the laurel as if the charm were mutual, and made a fine veil of spun gold before her face. Thus she stood abashed, with her hair unbound before the stranger, her face in a beautiful confusion.

Now this young man had gazed upon many a maiden's hair with entire indifference. In the days of his boyhood he had even dared to attach a paper kite to the yellow braids of a girl who sat in front of him in school, and laughed with the rest at recess, as after carefully following her with hidden kite and wound-up cord they had succeeded in launching the paper thing in the breeze till it lifted the astonished victim's yellow plaits high in air and she cried out angrily upon them. He had even pulled many a girl's hair. He had watched his cousin Janet brush and plait and curl her abundant locks into the various changing fashions, and criticized the effect freely. He had once untied a hard knot in a bonnet string among a mass of golden curls without a thrill. Why therefore did he feel such awe as he approached in deep embarrassment to offer his assistance! Why did his fingers tremble as he laid them reverently upon a strand of hair that had tangled itself in the laurel? Why did it bring a fine ecstasy into his being as the wind blew it across his face ? Did all hair have that delicate, indescribable perfume about it?

When he had set her free from the entangling bushes, he marveled at the dexterity with which she reduced the flying hair to order and imprisoned it meekly. It seemed like magic.

Then, before she had time to spring out of her covert, he took her hands, firmly, reverently, without undue familiarity, and helped her to the top of the log and thence to the ground. She liked him for the way he did it, so different from the way the other men she knew would have done it. She shuddered to think if it had been Hank, or Hiram Green.

" Come this way, it is nearer to the road," he said, quietly, parting the branches at his right to let her pass, and when she had gone a few steps, behold, not two rods below lay the cross road, which met the highway by which she had come, a quarter of a mile farther on.

" But you have forgotten your letter," she turned to say, as they came out of the woods and began to descend the hill; " and I can get out quite well now. You have been very kind "

" I will get the letter presently," he said, with a smile. " Just let me help you over the fence. I want to ask your pardon for my intrusion. I did not see you at first, the woods were so quiet, and you looked so much like the yellow leaves that lay all about—" and his eyes cast an admiring glance at the buff merino.

" Oh, it was not an intrusion," she exclaimed, her cheeks rosy with the remembrance, " and I am so grateful to you for telling me they were coming. I would not have liked to be found there—so." She looked shyly up. " I thank you very much!"

He saw that her eyes were beautiful, with ripples of laughter and shadows of sorrow in their glance. He experienced a deep and unnecessary satisfaction that his first impression of her face was verified, and he stood looking down upon her as if she were something he was proud of having discovered and rescued from an unpleasant fate.

Phoebe felt a warm glow like sunshine breaking over her in the kindness of his look.

" Don't thank me," he said. " I felt like a criminal, intruding so upon your trouble."

" But you must not feel so. It was only that I had been reading a letter from my mother, and it made me feel so lonely that I cried."

" That is trouble enough," he said, with quick sympathy. " Is your mother away from home, or are you ? "

" My mother is dead. She has been gone a good many years," she said, with quivering lips. " She wrote this letter long ago for me to read to-day, and I came away here by myself to read it. Now, you will understand."

He had helped her over the rail fence that separated the field from the road, and they were standing she on the road side, he on the field side of the fence as they talked. Neither of them saw a farm wagon coming down the road over the brow of the hill, a mere speck against the autumn sky when they came out of the woods. The young man's face kindled as he answered:

" Thank you for telling me. Yes, now I will understand. My mother has been gone a long time, too. I wish she had written me a letter to read to-day."

Then, as if he knew he must not stay longer, he lifted his hat, smiled, and walked quickly up the hill, while Phoebe sped swiftly down the road, not noticing the glories of the day, nor thinking so much of her own troubles, but marveling at what had happened and living it all over once more in imagination. She knew without thinking that a wagon was rumbling nearer and nearer, but she gave it no heed.

Nathaniel Graham, when he reached the edge of the wood, turned and looked back down the road; saw the girl in her yellow draperies moving in the autumn sunshine, and watched her intently. The driver of the farm wagon, now almost opposite to him, watched glumly from behind his bags of wheat, high piled, sneered under his breath at the fine attire, half guessed who he was; then wondered who the girl was who kept tryst so far from any houses, and with a last glance at the man just vanishing into the woods he whipped up his team, resolved to find out.

CHAPTER VI

Nathaniel Graham went to pick up the letter he had left behind the log, but as he did so his eye caught something brown, lying on the ground among the laurel near the letter. He reached out and took it. It was a bit of a bow of brown velvet, and seemed strangely a part of the girl who had been there but a few moments before. What part had this bit of velvet played in her make-up? Had it been worn at her throat, or in her wonderful hair? He never doubted that it was hers. As he raised it wonderingly in his hand to look at it more closely he fancied he caught the same subtle fragrance that had been in her hair. His fingers closed pleasantly about the soft little thing. For a moment he pondered whether he ought to go after her and give it to her. Then farther up the hill he heard the voices calling him, and with a pleasant smile he tucked it into his inner pocket beside the letter that had played so important a part in the little affair. He rather liked to think he had that bit of velvet himself, and perhaps it was not of much value to the owner. It might at least make another opportunity of seeing her. And so he passed on up the hill with something besides the freedom of Texas to think upon.

Meantime, the load of wheat went down the road after Phoebe at a lively pace, and its driver, in no pleasant mood because he had been all the way to Albany with his wheat and had been unable to sell it, studied the graceful sunlit figure ahead of him, and wondered what there was about it so strangely familiar.

Phoebe had just reached the highroad and paused to think which way she would go, when the wagon overtook her, and turning with her face bright with pleasure, and momentary forgetfulness, she faced the lowering astonishment of Hiram Green! Her face grew deadly white with the revulsion, and she caught at the fence to steady herself. She felt as if the earth were reeling under her unprotected feet. One hand flew to her heart and her frightened eyes, with a wild thought of her late protector, sought the way by which she had come; but the hill-side lay unresponsive in the late sunshine, and not a soul was to be seen. Nathaniel Graham had just picked up his cousin Janet's basket.

" Well, I swear!" said Hiram Green, pulling his horses up sharply. " It ain't you tricked out that way, away off here! " Then slowly his little pig eyes traveled to the lonely hill-side, gathered up an idea, came back to the girl's guilty face, and narrowed to a hateful slit through which shone a gleam of something that might be likely to illumine outer darkness. He brought his thin, cruel lips together with satisfaction. He felt that at last he had a hold upon the girl, but he could wait and use it to its best advantage.

She, poor child, never dreamed that he had seen the young man with her, and was only frightened for the moment with instinctive dread of being alone in an unfrequented spot with him. In an instant her courage came to her aid, and she steadied her voice to reply naturally:

" Oh, is that you, Mr. Green ? You almost frightened me. I was taking a walk and did not expect to see anyone I knew. This is the Albany road isn't it? Have you been to Albany?"

Her unusually friendly tones threw the man off his guard for a moment. He could not resist the charm of having her speak so pleasantly to him.

" Yes, been to Albany on business," he responded. " Won't you get up and ride ? 'Tain't a very pretty seat, but I guess it's clean and comfortable. Sorry I ain't got the carryall. You're a long piece from home."

" Oh, thank you, Mr. Green," she said, cordially. " I'm sure the seat would be very comfortable, and just as nice as the carryall, but I'm out taking a walk this beautiful afternoon, and I'm enjoying every minute of it. I would much rather walk. Besides, I am not going directly home. I may stop at Granny McVane's and perhaps another place before I get home. Thank you for the invitation."

Then without waiting for a reply she flew lightly in front of the horses and sped up the main highway toward the old red farm-house. It was not the direction she would have chosen, but there was no time to do anything else, and her frightened heart gave wings to her feet. She dared not look behind lest she was being pursued.

Hiram Green, thus left alone after his attempt at gallantry, looked after the flying maiden with venom in his little eyes. His mouth hardened once more into its cruel lines and he took up the reins again and said to his horses in no pleasant tones: " G'long there!" pointing his remark with a stinging cut of the whip, which made the weary beasts leap forward at a lively gait.

He did not watch Phoebe any longer, but once he turned his head and looked threateningly at the barren hill-side, and shook the fist that held his whip in a menacing way.

When Phoebe neared the old red house, where lived the two women who always saw and enlarged and told everything, she noted with relief that the shades were drawn down and there was a general air of not-at-home-ness about the place that betokened the inhabitants were away for the afternoon. With joy she went on by the house and turned down another cross road which would lead to a second road going into the village. On this road, just on the border of the town, lived Granny McVane all alone save for her silent old husband. She was a sweet old lady whom care and disappointment had not hardened, but only made more humble and patient. Phoebe had been there on occasional errands, and her kindness had won the girl's heart. From Granny McVane's it would be but a short run home across the fields, and she would thus escape meeting any more prying eyes. She was not accustomed to making calls on the neighbors without an errand, but the fancy came to her now that she would just stop and ask how Granny's rheumatism was, and wish her good-day. Perhaps, if she seemed glad to see her, she might tell her it was her birthday and this was the frock her mother had made. The girl had a longing to confide in some one.