The young man looked bewildered. In search of a country deacon of advanced years, at an old-fashioned farmhouse, to be ushered into one of the most attractive of parlors, with three charming young ladies in possession, was enough to bewilder. But he rose to the surprise gracefully in another moment.
“I must apologize for intruding myself in this way,” he said, “but I have heard that Deacon Saxon is quite an authority on Esterly antiquities, and I wanted to see him on a little matter of inquiry.”
“He will be delighted to talk with you. You may be sure of it,” said Stella.
It was only a minute before the old gentleman appeared, walking in his nimblest manner from his own room, whither Kate had gone in search of him. She had put him in possession of his caller’s name, and he extended his hand with an air of welcome and curiosity combined.
“Hadley? Did you say your name was Hadley? Well, I’m pleased to see you.”
“I’m very pleased to see you, sir,” said the young man, bowing with a deference of manner which was peculiarly pleasing. “I’m taking a liberty in calling on you, I’m well aware of it, but it’s the penalty one pays for having a reputation like yours. People say you know everything that ever happened in Esterly, and as I’m looking up our family history a little, I thought perhaps you could help me. I confess though,” he added with a smile, “I expected to see a much older person.”
“Older than eighty-eight?” quoth Ruel Saxon. “I was born in the year seventeen hundred and ninety-one, and if I live till the twenty-first day of next June I shall be eighty-nine.”
He was too much pleased with the young man’s errand, and himself as the person appealed to, to pause for a compliment at this point, and added briskly, “I shall be glad to tell you anything I know. ’Tisn’t many young men that go to the old men to inquire about things that are past. They did in Bible times. In fact, they were commanded to: ‘Ask thy father and he will show thee, thy elders and they will tell thee.’ That’s what it says; but they don’t do it much nowadays.”
“They have more books to go to now, you know, grandfather,” said Stella, glancing from the figure she was drawing, a charming little maid in a sunbonnet, and incidentally holding it up as she spoke.
“Yes, too many of ’em,” said her grandfather, rather grimly. “They’d go to the old folks more if they couldn’t get the printed stuff so easy.”