by Nell Speed
CHAPTER VII.--PICTURES ON MEMORY'S WALL.
The next week was a very quiet and peaceful one at Chatsworth. There hadbeen so many excitements, with burglars and negro uprisings and whatnot, that Molly was afraid her visitors would think Kentucky deservedthe meaning the Indians attached to it--"the dark and bloodybattle-ground."
Ernest, home for a vacation from his labors in the West, endeavored tokeep Judy from missing the attentions of Kent, who was back at his grindin Louisville in the architect's office, and did not get home each dayuntil time for a late supper. Judy liked Ernest very well, as she didall of the Browns, but Kent and Molly were her favorites still, and theevenings were the best of all when Kent came home and, as he put it,"relieved Ernest."
Molly found herself on easier terms with Professor Green than she hadever imagined possible. If he did not consider her quite an old lady,she at least was beginning to look upon him as not such a very oldgentleman. He played what Kent designated as a "cracker-jack" game oftennis, and turned out to be as good a horseman as the Brown boysthemselves.
"If he only had a little more hair on his forehead," thought Molly, "hewould look right young."
Aunt Mary was the unconscious means of consoling her for his lack ofhair. "Honey, I likes yo' teacher mo'n any Yankee I ever seed. He'doughter rub onions on his haid to stimilate the roots. Not but what heain't han'some, baldish haid an' all, with them hones' eyes an' thatupstandin' look. I done took notice that brains don' make the best sileto grow ha'r on an' lots er smart folks is baldish. Mindjer, I wouldn'go so fer as to say bald haided folks is all smart. It looks like someer them is so hard-haided the ha'r can't break th'ough the scalp."
Of course, the first day at Chatsworth he had to be taken out to viewhis possessions, the two acres of orchard land. It was a possession forany man to be proud of. It lay on the side of a gently sloping hillcovered with blue grass and noble, venerable, twisted apple trees, thatMolly said reminded her of fine old hands that showed hard, useful work.
"And these trees always have done good work. You know my father calledthese his lucky acres. He was always certain of an income from theseapples. The trees have been taken care of and trimmed and not allowed torot away as some of the old orchards around here have, Aunt Clay's, forinstance. She is so afraid of doing something modern that she refused tospray her trees when the country was full of San Jose scale, and inconsequence lost her whole peach orchard and most of her apples. This iswhere our 'castle' used to be."
They were in a grassy space near the middle of the orchard, where astump of an old tree was still standing. The land, showing a beautifulsoft contour, sloped to the worm fence at the foot of the hill, wherethe grass changed its green to a brighter hue and a beautiful littlestream sparkled in the sun.
"All of us, even Sue, who is not given to such things, cried when in abig wind storm our beloved castle was twisted off of its roots. It was atree made for children to play in, with low spreading branches and greatcrotches, the limbs all twisted and bent and one of them curving down solow you could sit in it and touch your feet to the ground. We had ourregular apartments in that tree and kept our treasures in a hole toohigh up for thieves to have any suspicion of it. It was so shady andcool and breezy that on the hottest day we were comfortable and oftenhad lunch here. We played every kind of game known to children and madeup a lot more. 'Swiss Family Robinson' when they went to live up thetree was our best game. I remember once Kent gathered a lot ofpeach-tree gum and ruined my slippers trying to make rubber boots out ofthem as the father in Swiss Family Robinson did. Our castle hadwonderful apples on it, too. They grew to an enormous size, and if anyof them were ever allowed to get really ripe they turned pure gold andtasted--oh, how good they did taste."
Edwin Green listened, enchanted at Molly's description of her childhoodand the beloved play-house. He half shut his eyes and tried to pictureher as a little girl in a blue sun-bonnet--of course she must have had ablue bonnet--climbing nimbly up the old apple tree, entering as eagerlyinto the game of Swiss Family Robinson as she was now playing the gameof life, even letting her best little slippers be gummed over to playthe game true. He had a feeling of almost bitter regret that he hadn'tknown Molly as a little girl. "She must have been such a bully littlegirl," thought that highly educated teacher of English.
"Miss Molly, do you think that this would be the best place to build mybungalow? Place it right here where your castle stood? Maybe I couldcatch some of the breezes that you used to enjoy; and perhaps some ofthe happiness that you found here was spilled over and I might pick itup. It could not be so beautiful as your tree castle, but it is my'Castle in the Air.' If I put it here I should not have to sacrifice anyof the other trees; there is room enough where your old friend stood formy modest wants. Would it hurt your feelings to have me build a littlehouse where your childish mansion stood?"
"Why, Professor Green, the idea of such a thing! It would give me thegreatest happiness to have your bungalow right on this site. I would notbe a dog in the manger about it, anyhow. Are you really and truly goingto build?"
"I hope to. Of course, I shall have to ask your mother if she would mindhaving such a close neighbor."
"Well, I hardly think mother would expect to sell a lot and then not letthe purchaser build. She may have to sell some more of the place. I wishit could be that old stony strip over by Aunt Clay's. You know our home,Chatsworth, is a Brown inheritance, and the Carmichael place adjoiningbelonged to mother's people. They call it the Clay place now, but untilgrandfather died it was known as the Carmichael place. Aunt Clay marriedand lived there and somehow got hold of grandfather and made him appointher administratrix and executrix to his estate. She managed things sowell for herself that she got the house with everything in it and theimproved, cleared land, giving mother acres and acres of poor land whereeven blackberries don't flourish and the cows won't graze. The sheepwon't drink the water, but they do condescend to keep down the weeds. Ireally believe that Aunt Clay is the only person in the world that Ican't like even a little bit. I fancy it is because she has been so meanto mother. I believe I could get over her being cross and critical withme, but somehow I can't forgive the way she has always treated mother."
"I found her a very trying companion at your sister's wedding, and shelooks as though she had brains, too. But how anyone with sense could beanything but kind to your mother I cannot see."
Molly beamed with pleasure. "Ah, you see how wonderful mother is. Ithought you would appreciate her. She likes you, too, Professor Green.Mother says she believes she understands boys better than girls and canenter into their feelings more."
"Oh, what am I saying?" thought Molly. "I wonder what the Wellingtongirls would say if they could know I forgot and as good as called theirProfessor of English a boy! Well, he does look quite boyish out ofdoors, with his hat on."
They strolled on down toward the brook, Molly patting each tree as theypassed and telling some little incident of her childhood.
"I truly believe you love every one of these trees. You touch them aslovingly as you do President or the dogs, and look at them as fondly asyou do at old Aunt Mary."
"Indeed, I do; and, as for this little stream, it makes to me thesweetest music in the world."
"Miss Molly, when I build my little bungalow, will you come and havelunch with me as you used to with your brothers in the old castle? I'llpromise you not to let you eat at the second table as you did when youtook breakfast with me last Christmas."
They both laughed at the thought of that morning; and Molly rememberedthat it was then that she had overheard Professor Green tell hishousekeeper of his apple orchard out in Kentucky, and had realized forthe first time that it was he who had bought the orchard at Chatsworth.
"Indeed, I will take lunch with you, and would like to cook it, too, asI did your breakfast that cold morning. Do you know, when you camedownstairs and I peeped at you through the crack in the pantry door, youlooked and sounded almost as fierce as the mob of colored men who cam
ehungry from Aunt Clay's last week? The nice breakfast I fixed for youseemed to soften your temper just as mother's buttermilk did thedarkies'. Aunt Mary says, 'White men and black men is all the same onthe inside, and all of them is Hungarians.'"
Edwin Green laughed, as he always did when Molly got on the subject ofAunt Mary. The old woman was a never failing source of wonder andamusement to him; and Molly mimicked her so well that you could almostsee her short, fat figure with her head tied up in a bandannahandkerchief, vigorously nodding to punctuate each epigram.
"Next winter I hope to have my sister with me at Wellington, and shewill see that this 'Hungarian' is fed better than my housekeeper has.You will come to us a great deal, I hope. I am overjoyed that you are totake the postgraduate course. That was the one pleasant thing your aunt,Mrs. Clay, had to tell me when I conversed with her at the wedding, andshe little dreamed how pleasant it was, or I doubt her giving me thatjoy."
"I am truly glad. I hated to give up right now. It seemed to me asthough I could see the open door of culture but had not reached it, andhad a lot of things to learn before I had any right to consider myselffit to pass through it. Mother and Kent together decided it must bemanaged for me. They are both bricks, anyhow."
The young people had come to the little purling brook during thisconversation, and at Molly's instigation had turned down the stream andentered, through a break in the worm fence, a beautiful bit of woods.The beech woods in Kentucky are, when all is told, about the mostbeautiful woods in the world. No shade is so dense, no trees more noble,not even oaks. With the grace of an aspen and the dignity of an oak, thebeech to my mind is first among trees.
"Of all the beautiful pictures That hang on Memory's wall, Is one of a dim old forest That seemeth the best of all.
"Not for the gnarled oaks olden, Dark with the mistletoe, Not for the violets golden That sprinkle the vale below.
"Not for the milk-white lilies Leaning o'er the hedge, Coquetting all day with the sunbeams And stealing their golden edge."
Molly quoted the verses in her soft, clear voice, adding:
"I say 'gnarled oaks olden' for euphony, but I always think 'beech.' Idon't know what Miss Alice or Phoebe Gary, whichever one it was who wrotethose lovely verses, would think of my taking such a liberty, even in mymind."
"No doubt if Miss Alice or Phoebe Cary could have seen this wood, shewould have searched about in her mind for a line to fit beeches and letoaks go hang. This is really a wonderful spot. Can't we sit down awhile? I hope your mother will let me have right of way through thesewoods when I build my nest in the orchard. This makes my lot morevaluable than I thought. I have never seen such beech trees; why, in theEast a beech is not such a wonderful tree! We have an occasional bigone, but here are acres and acres of genuine first growth. You must loveit here even more than in the orchard, don't you?"
"Well, you see the orchard period is what might be known as my earlymanner; while the beech woods is my romantic era. I used to come hereafter I got old enough to roam around by myself, and a certain mysteryand gloom I felt in the air would so fill my soul with rapture that (Iknow you think this is silly) I would sit right where we are sitting nowand cry and cry just for the pure joy of having tears to shed, Isuppose! I know of no other reason."
Professor Green smiled, but his eyes had a mist in them as he looked atthe young girl, little more than a child now, with her sweet, wistfulexpression, already looking back on her childhood as a thing of the pastand her "romantic era" as though she had finished with it.
"Oh, Miss Molly, let's stay in the 'beech wood period' forever! None ofus can afford to give up romance or the dear delight of tears for tears'sake. I love to think of you as a little child playing in the appleorchard, and as a beautiful girl wandering in the woods. But do youknow, a still more beautiful picture comes to my inward eye, and that isan old Molly with white hair sitting where you are now, still in the'romantic era,' still in the beech woods; and, God willing, I'll bebeside you, only," he whimsically added, "I am afraid I'll bebald-headed instead of white-haired!"