The Old Homestead

by Ann S. Stephens

All these objects, nothing in themselves, but so combined that an air of comfort and even elegance reigned over them, composed a most beautiful domestic picture; especially when Mrs. Chester, obeying the gentle sway of her Boston rocking-chair, passed to and fro before the lamp by which she was sewing—cutting off the light from some object, and then allowing it to flow back again—giving a sort of animation to the stillness, peculiarly cheerful.

Now and then Jane Chester would lift her eyes to the clock, which, with a tiny looking-glass, framed in the mahogany beneath its dial, stood directly before her upon the mantle-piece. As the pointer approached the half hour before midnight, she laid the child's dress which she had been mending upon the little oblong candle-stand that held her lamp, and put a shovelful of coal on the grate of her little cooking-stove. Then she took a tea-kettle bright as silver from the stove, and went into a closet room at hand, where you could hear the clink of thin ice as it flowed from the water-pail into the tea-kettle.

When Mrs. Chester entered the room again with the kettle in her hand, a soft glow was on her cheek, and it would be difficult to imagine a lovelier or more cheerful face than hers. You could see by the rising color and the sweet expression of her mouth, that her heart was beginning to beat in a sort of fond tumult, as the time of her husband's return drew near. The fire was darting in a thousand bright flashes, through the black mass that had just been cast upon it, shooting out here and there a gleam of gold on the polished blackness of the stove, and curling up in little prismatic eddies around the tea-kettle as she placed it on the grate. The lamp, clean and bright as crystal could be made, was urged to a more brilliant flame by the point of her scissors, and then with another glance at the clock, the pretty housekeeper sat down in her chair again, and with one finely-shaped foot laced in its trim gaiter resting upon the stove hearth, she began to rock to and fro just far enough to try the spring of her ankle, without, however, once removing her boot from its pressure on the hearth.

"In twenty minutes more," she said aloud, lifting her fine eyes to the dial with a smile that told how impatiently she was coquetting with the time. "In twenty minutes. There, one has gone—another—five!—so now I may go to work in earnest."

She started up as if it delighted her to be in a hurry, and rolling up the child's frock removed it with a little work basket to the table. Then she spread a spotless cloth upon the stand, smoothing it lightly about the edges with both hands, and opening a little cupboard where you might have caught glimpses of a tea-set, all of snow-white china, and six bright silver spoons in a tumbler, spread out like a fan, with various other neat and useful things, part of which she busily transferred to the stand.

By the time her little supper table was ready, the kettle began to throw up a cloud of steam from its bright spout. A soft, mellow hum arose with it, rushing out louder and louder, like an imprisoned bird carousing in the vapor. The fire glowed up around it red, and cheerfully throwing its light in a golden circle on the carpet, the stand, and on the placid face of Jane Chester as she knelt before the grate, holding a slice of bread before the coals, now a little nearer, then further off, that every inch of the white surface might be equally browned.

When everything was ready—the plate of toast neatly buttered—the tea put to soak in the drollest little china tea-pot you ever set eyes on, old fashioned, but bearing in every painted rose that clustered around it the most convincing evidence that Mrs. Chester must at least have had a grand mother—when all was ready, and while Mrs. Chester stood by the little supper stand pondering in her mind if anything had been omitted, she heard the turn of her husband's latchkey in the door.

"Just in time," she said, with one of those smiles which one never sees in perfect beauty away from home.

But as she leaned her head gently on one side to listen, the smile left her face. There was something heavy and unnatural in her husband's tread that troubled her. She was turning toward the door, when Chester opened it and entered the room with his overcoat off, and bearing in his arms a mysterious burden.

"Why, Chester, how is this?—the night so cold, and your forehead all in a perspiration. What is this wrapped in your coat?"