A Story of St. Valentine's Day.
BY MRS. JOHN LILLIE.
"Mr. North!—please, Mr. North!"
The voice, a delicate, childish one, seemed to be almost caught up and whirled away in the snow-flakes. The speaker—a little boy of about twelve years, scantily clad, and carrying a heavy basket—was running as well as he could along the dreary country road, while he tried to make himself heard by the invisible occupant of a wagon lumbering ahead of him.
It was a covered wagon, and to the boy's eyes it seemed to be the embodiment of comfort and warmth. He was chilled to the bone, thoroughly tired, and disheartened. What could he do if Mr. North failed to hear him?
But he did not. Suddenly he pulled up his horses, and peered around him in the gloomy twilight.
"Be some one a-calling?" he said, loudly.
"Yes, sir, please." The boy's voice was just audible.
"Why," said Mr. North to himself, "derned if that bean't Miss Holsover's boy!"
It was Miss Holsover's nephew, Jesse Grey, and he was soon at the side of the wagon, looking up into the driver's kindly weather-beaten face.
"Oh, please, Mr. North," the little fellow said, trying to get his breath, "I'm so tired! and I thought, perhaps, you'd give me a lift."
"Of course I will," Mr. North answered, good-humoredly. "Come, can ye git in there?" and he lifted the little figure into the back of the wagon, where, with many bundles, there was a pile of straw. "You be about as wet as water. I declare to mercy! Where hev you been?"
Jesse was comfortably seated on the straw by this time behind Mr. North's burly figure, and as the wagon jogged on he almost forgot his fright and fatigue.
"I've been in to market with butter and eggs," he said, "and brought back a basketful of things for Aunt Jemima."
"Humph!" Mr. North's exclamation was characteristic as he looked around at the delicate face of the child, which had about it so many tokens of refinement that it was hard to believe he really was the nephew of the coarse, hard-featured woman who lived in grim seclusion at Holsover Farm.
"I say, Jesse," he said, shortly, "how comes it you be a relation o' hern?" He jerked his head toward the cross-roads they were approaching.
Jesse's face flushed. "I'm not, really," he said, with a little quiver of the lip. "I know I have a real aunt somewhere in Boston, if I could only find her; but Aunt Jemima never will tell me anything about her." There was a pause, and then Jesse added, quickly: "Oh, Mr. North, do you suppose you could hunt for her when you go to Boston next time? Oh, I know her name—Marian Lee. I know that because I have a book of hers. 'From Helen to Marian Lee,' it says in it, and Helen was my mother"—the child's eyes looked very wistful and pleading. "And when Bill was home he told me it was my aunt's, and she lived in Boston. I never could get him to say any more."
"Why, how come you to be up to Miss Holsover's?"
Jesse shook his head. "I don't know," he answered. "I've always been there."
They jogged on a few minutes in silence. Jesse felt the soothing effect of the warmth and stillness, and half dozed. Mr. North turned a compassionate gaze on the sad young face which in sleep showed such worn lines.
"No Holsover blood there!" he muttered.
Mr. North was the only expressman, or carrier, in this very obscure part of the country. Twice a week he came and went, carrying letters and packages, as well as occasionally a traveller, to the different villages of towns about. Once a month he visited Boston. His own house stood on a country road about three miles from Holsover Farm. There he lived almost alone, his widowed mother being too infirm to be considered very much of a companion for a hearty, burly, good-humored man like himself.
The old farm-house in which Miss Holsover lived stood near the cross-roads. It was a long low building with one story and an attic, above which rose the slanting roof. Some old trees grew at one side, but everything about it was dismal and uninviting to visitors. Miss Holsover said she was glad of this. She liked to shut herself away as much as possible from her fellow-creatures.
Not a human being in all the country about ever remembered a sympathetic word or look from her. She was a tall grim woman of sixty, with bushy eyebrows, gray hair, and thin, bluish lips. What comfort she could take in life every one wondered, but it was whispered that she was hoarding money; that if the truth was but known, untold sums lay hidden somewhere in the old house.
Certainly Jesse Grey saw nothing of the kind. As the boy had said to Mr. North, he did not know how he had come to Holsover Farm. Jesse only knew that he had "always been there." There were no dim remembrances in his mind of any past which did not include the desolate house, and Miss Holsover's cruel face and figure. The only variations in his surroundings had been visits from the one human being Miss Holsover had ever shown any fondness for. This was her reprobate nephew Bill.
The boy had appeared and disappeared so many times in the course of Jesse Grey's remembrance that he had felt as if he might expect him any particularly windy night, or any time when things were going on a little comfortably. For Bill's visits to the farm were his seasons of terror. Bill was a coarse, violent-tempered lad, who delighted in terrifying him in every way possible, who forced his so-called aunt into new cruelties to the helpless child, and who seemed only to know that he could suffer.
Of late Jesse had begun to wonder when Bill would reappear. Last year, just at this season, he had suddenly arrived, and how well Jesse remembered his saying with a coarse laugh that he had come back as a valentine! What was a valentine? Jesse wondered. He looked at Mr. North's spacious back a moment before he said,
"Mr. North, can you tell me what a valentine is like?"
Mr. North peered around with a queer smile at his little companion. "Wa'al," he said, slowly, "there's all kinds. I think it's sort o' good luck, or good wishes, like as if you wuz to do me a favor. I don't know as I've seen many in my day. They hev 'em in store winders—paper things, with Cupids; but they say on 'em, 'I'm your valentine.' Neow ef eny one wuz to say he wuz my valentine, he'd oughter do me a good turn; seems to me as if a valentine oughter be good luck."
It was a long speech, and Mr. North delivered it with some difficulty, flecking his horses with his whip now and then, and apparently taking a great interest in the weather.
"I wish I could have something like a valentine, then," sighed Jesse.
"Wa'al," said Mr. North, "ter-morrow's the day."
But the boy only laughed sadly.
The dark road suddenly seemed to come to an end. Jesse jumped up and looked out. There across the fields lay the gloomy brown farm-house. He felt his heart sink within him as he thanked Mr. North, got down from the wagon, and taking the basket turned in at the gate.
The door was opened with a click, and Miss Holsover stood there holding a candle-light above her head.
"'Sthat you?" she said, in a shrill voice.
"Yes," answered Jesse. His entrance into the house was helped by Miss Holsover giving him a decided push by the shoulders.
Jesse put the basket down, and began at once taking off his coat. In spite of his rest and little sleep, he was shivering with cold and fatigue.
"What's the matter?" said Miss Holsover, giving him another shake by the shoulder.
"I'm wet and tired," said Jesse, timidly.
"Wet and fiddlesticks!" retorted the old lady. "None of that nonsense! You've plenty to do to-night, let me tell you. I'm goin' across fields."
Jesse knew what this meant. Once in a while Miss Holsover took it into her head to pay a visit to a cousin of hers living at the next village—"across fields," as she called it. These nights were the child's especial horror. Unhappy as was the farm-house with Miss Holsover, it had an element of terror for the child when he was left alone—and then on such a night! Jesse stood still a moment looking at Miss Holsover with dilated eyes, anticipating all the horrors of the lonely evening; not all the work he knew there was left for him to do would keep him from being frightened at every gust of wind that blew around the old house, or moaned in the group of cedar-trees.
"Don't stand gapin' like that," exclaimed Miss Holsover. "Sit down and eat your tea, and then go out and do your chores."
Jesse obeyed. The supper—some weak milk and stale bread—was soon eaten, and then he followed Miss Holsover, who laid his work out, and gave him his instructions for the night. He was to perform the tasks she had set him, and not think of going to bed until she returned.
Jesse was too well accustomed to the hardships of his life to rebel against anything. He stood still, listening quietly, and even helped the old lady to go away in comfort.
Instead of going at once to work, he knelt down a moment before the fire, thinking about the questions Mr. North had asked him.
Jesse never knew how it came into his head that perhaps there might be some escape for him. I suppose that in the loneliness of his position that evening, and with the fear of being by himself in the desolate house, there came a certain sense that he could do as he pleased. Then, too, he knew absolutely nothing of the world, and it gradually seemed to him quite feasible that he should run away, and try to find his real aunt in Boston.
His plan, childish as it was, developed very quickly. Jesse had an idea that he could walk very far before morning, and that he might meet Mr. North somewhere on the way. He knew there was no time to lose, and so, running up to his little attic room, he began hastily putting together such things as seemed necessary for his long journey. The book with his aunt's name was carefully tied up in the bundle. Jesse thought that the name written there might perhaps help him in some way.
He had only a small bit of candle, and it so happened that this went out before he had quite finished his preparations. He was standing by the little dormer window, and almost at once he felt rather than saw the gleam of a lantern. It was moving, and seemed to come from the barn loft. In a moment there was a second flash, and this time it illumined a man's figure.
Jesse shrank back in fear and trembling. Who could it be? But though afraid of the lonely house, it frightened him still more to think of not finding out who was in the barn. He hesitated but a moment, and then sped down stairs, and creeping across the space between the house and barn, slowly unlatched the door. He was scarcely inside the barn before he caught the sound of voices. Two men were speaking, and Jesse's heart sank within him as he recognized one voice as that of Bill Holsover.
The boy's feet seemed rooted to the spot. He was standing just by the ladder leading to the loft, and in the absolute stillness and darkness it was easy to hear what the men were saying. The first sentences were of no importance, but suddenly the strange voice said,
"Do you know where she keeps it?"
Then came Bill's answer: "I'm most sure it's in the cupboard to the right of the fire-place, under the floor."
"Will there be trouble getting it?"
"Not if we make sure she's in bed. There's that little young 'un around; but we won't have any trouble keepin' him quiet."