When the long summer days came the next year, there was no end of spinning in the great house, where linen and woollen were made for the family use. The farmers' daughters used to be eager for the chances; and one day, when pretty Phebe Oakley's grandmother was going over to the great house, as it was so often called, the young girl begged her to speak a good word for her, as she could spin both wool and flax.
"They'll be glad to have you," said grandmother on her return. "But, Phebe, they have a young Woolf over there; so look out he doesn't catch you."
Phebe tossed her head. She was in no hurry to be caught. And yet it so fell out that when Anthony Woolf had saved up a little money, and negotiated for a farm over in the valley, he caught pretty Phebe Oakley, and built a house for her, and prospered.
They looked at the place where the Hessian Army had been encamped, and traced the course of the young fellow's daring swim. And here was the old part of the house he had built, and where he had outlived his own son, but left grandsons behind him, one of whom had married Cousin Jennie. Grandmother was still alive,—a little, rather-faded, and shrunken old lady who had once been pretty Phebe Oakley, who lived with her daughter in the old part.
"There are lots of romances lying about unused," said Ben. "I should like to have a story-teller's gift myself."
Hanny was so interested in young Mr. Woolf that she had to tell Joe all the story when she came home; and he said they must go up the historic Harlem some day. And he said Umscoota meant "Stream among the green sedge."
This year it had to be Rutger's Institute for Hanny. There were a great many new schools; but Dolly and Margaret carried the day. She thought at first she shouldn't like it at all; but when she came to know the girls, she began to feel quite at home, and, in some queer fashion, as if she were growing up. But she didn't seem to grow very fast.
Ben came to his twenty-first birthday. He was a tall, well-grown young fellow, and often surprised Jim by the amount of knowledge he possessed. And then he went over to the "Tribune" office, and sometimes tried his hand at queer, out-of-the-way bits of past lore that people were almost forgetting. Just how it came about, he never clearly remembered himself; but one night, when Delia had seemed unusually attractive to three or four young men who haunted the place, he rose abruptly and said he must go. There was a set look in his usually pleasant face, and he shut his lips, as if something had displeased him.
Delia went to the hall door. As he turned, she caught his arm.
"What is it, Ben?" she said in a hurried whisper. "Something has happened to vex you."