“Anything you please, Rob,” Rachel replied with such tender love in her eyes that he had half a mind to kiss her. But kissing was not common in Rumford or anywhere else in New England. Never had he seen his father give his mother such a token of affection. He had a dim recollection that his mother sometimes kissed him when he was a little fellow in frock and trousers, sitting in her lap. He never had kissed Rachel, but he would now, and gave her a hearty smack. He saw an unusual brightness in her eyes and a richer bloom upon her cheek as he stepped into the wagon.
“I’ll get something nice for her,” he said to himself as he rode away.
Besides the other articles in the wagon, there was a bag of wool, sheared from his own flock. Years before his father had given him a cosset lamb, and now he was the owner of a dozen sheep. Yes, he would get something for her.
The morning air was fresh and pure. He whistled a tune and watched the wild pigeons flying in great flocks here and there, and the red-winged blackbirds sweeping past him from their roosting in the alders along the meadow brook to the stubble field where the wheat had been harvested. Gray squirrels were barking in the woods, and their cousins the reds, less shy, were scurrying along the fence rails and up the chestnut-trees to send the prickly burrs to the ground. The first tinge of autumn was on the elms and maples. Jenny had been to market so many times she could be trusted to take the right road, and he could lie upon his sack of wool and enjoy the changing landscape.
Mrs. Stark was blowing the horn for dinner at John Stark’s tavern in Derryfield when Jenny came to a standstill by the stable door.[1] Robert put her in the stall, washed his face and hands in the basin on the bench by the bar-room door, and was ready for dinner. Captain Stark shook hands with him. Robert beheld a tall, broad-shouldered man, with a high forehead, bright blue eyes, and pleasant countenance, but with lines in his cheek indicating that he could be very firm and resolute. This was he under whom his father served at Ticonderoga and Crown Point.
“So you are the son of Josh Walden, eh? Well, you have your father’s eyes, nose, and mouth. If you have got the grit he had at Ti, I’ll bet on you.”
Many times Robert had heard his father tell the story of the Rifle Rangers, the service they performed, the hardships they endured, and the bravery and coolness of John Stark in battle.
Through the afternoon the mare trotted on, halting at sunset at Jacob Abbott’s stable in Andover.
It was noon the next day when Robert reached Cambridge. He had heard about Harvard College; now he saw the buildings. The students were having a game of football after dinner. The houses along the streets were larger than any he had ever seen before,—stately mansions with porticoes, pillars, pilasters, carved cornices, and verandas. The gardens were still bright with the flowers of autumn. Reaching Roxbury, he came across a man slowly making his way along the road with a cane.
“Let me give you a lift, sir,” Robert said.