They sent word to Stella in the morning, and late that night Tom brought her from the station. She had not loved her grandfather as Esther had—she had not so enjoyed his companionship; but the knowledge that he was gone brought tears and genuine sorrow.
“Dear old grandfather!” she said, looking down at the still face. “How we shall miss him! It won’t seem like home with him gone.” And then she drew her mother away to talk over the details of the event that was coming. There must be no flowers about his coffin, only one long beautiful sheaf of wheat; and she would have no crape on the door, only a branch of evergreen from the woods he had planted, with a sprig of myrtle.
It was at the church that the last services were held. The rooms at the old house could not have contained the throng that gathered to do him honor. He had been a diligent attendant at funerals himself, and had been frankly in favor of extended remarks on the character of the deceased, even though the custom put the preacher to sore straits sometimes, when the virtues of the departed were not too many or luminous.
Indeed, he had been known to excuse the preacher under such circumstances for blinking the facts a little. At least he had called the attention of captious critics to that funeral lament of David’s, in which he distinctly alluded to a very persistent persecutor of his as “lovely and pleasant,”—language which, to tell the truth, had really seemed to Ruel Saxon a little excessive, and had led him to wonder at times what the generous psalmist would have done if he had not been able to couple Saul’s name with Jonathan’s.
There was no lack of words at his own funeral, words spoken with impressive earnestness and warmth, and it was a tribute to the wide regard in which Ruel Saxon was held that not only the minister of his own church, but others from towns around, begged the privilege of a part in the service.
“He would have liked it if he had been there; it was a funeral after his own heart,” Stella said, talking it over that evening with Esther. She drew a long soft sigh, and added, “I declare I can’t realize yet that it was actually grandfather himself. He was trying sometimes, but never tiresome; and life will lose part of its spice here at home, with him gone out of it.”
Esther did not reply. Somehow she could not talk about things which were close to her heart in the cool way Stella could. After a little silence the latter said: “You’ll go to Boston with me, of course, when I go back. I shall stay at home long enough to get things settled for mother, and there’ll be no need of either of us staying after that.”
“Stella,” said Esther, speaking very quietly, “I suppose you’ll think it’s strange, but I’ve decided not to go to Boston.” The other started, and she went on hurriedly, “I should like to be with you, and I know there’d be a great deal to enjoy, but grandfather’s dying has changed everything for the present, and honestly, there’s nothing I want now so much as to be at home.”
For a minute Stella seemed too much surprised to speak. Then she said, with a peculiar look at her cousin, “There’s somebody besides me who’ll be dreadfully disappointed if you don’t come.”
Esther returned the look without flinching, though her color rose a little. “If you mean Mr. Hadley,” she said, “I should be very sorry to think he’d care much, and truly I don’t think he would; at least not after the very first. I shall write to him. I must; for he sent such kind messages to grandfather, and he’d want to know how it all was at the last. I think he’ll understand how I feel. I can’t quite explain it, but it’s home and the home people I want. There’s nothing here now that I care for as I care for them.”