Wheat and Huckleberries; Or, Dr. Northmore's Daughters

by Charlotte M. Vaile

But when she was left alone she sank back in her chair, and there was almost a sob in her voice as she said, “If it were only that girl who saw things as I see them!”

[CHAPTER XIII—INTO THE WEST AGAIN]

The good cry which Kate had been longing for came before she got back to her grandfather’s that morning. She took it with a girlish abandon, sitting on the meadow bridge. Then she rose up, bathed her face in the brook and went on her way, half ashamed of what she had done, half wondering that she had dared to do it, and wholly glad that it was over. Tom was waiting for her at the bars below the barn. It helped the appearance of things that she should go in with him to breakfast, and, though he would have scorned to own it, Tom had a healthy curiosity as to the outcome of this interview with Aunt Katharine.

Kate’s report of it was meagre; but the impression was left on his mind that she had gotten rather the worst of it, especially as she made no concealment of the fact that she had been summarily dismissed at the end. She owned frankly that she had been crying, and then showed plainly that the spirit of controversy was not dead in her yet by the reckless manner in which she threw in her “Westernisms” and defended them during the rest of their talk. On the whole, Tom felt relieved as to her state of mind, and they went into the house quarrelling in the most natural manner; she having remarked that Aunt Katharine’s fierce manner didn’t “faze” her after she got started, and he protesting that there was no such word in the dictionary. He maintained his point as far as the old Webster in the house was concerned, but she at least proved that her word came of good respectable stock, and stood firm on the proposition that it ought to be there if it wasn’t.

It was the last time for many a day that Kate spoke to any one of that morning’s adventure. Not a suspicion of it dawned on Esther. The talk between the sisters the night before had been too nearly a quarrel for either of them to wish to reopen the subject which had so disturbed them, and it was out of consideration for Kate’s uneasiness over the intimacy with Aunt Katharine that Esther went to her house less often than usual during the next few days. But indeed it was not easy during the week that was left of Kate’s stay at her grandfather’s for either of the girls to find time for anything except the pleasurings which always crowd the last days of a visit. Everything which had been omitted before must be done now, and there were all the little gifts to be prepared for the family at home, tokens of special meaning for each one, and for Mrs. Northmore most of all.

She had asked for a piece of flag-root from the old spot in the meadow, and enough was dug to satisfy her appetite for years, Aunt Elsie preserving some of it in sugar, just as the grandmother used to in the old days, when children carried bits of it to church in their pockets to keep them awake during sermon time. She had mentioned an apple from the crooked tree in the lane, whose seeds always shook in their core like a rattlebox by the first of September, and every apple which ripened on the old farm in the summer had a place in Kate’s trunk. There were odors, too, which she loved; odors of pine, and sweet fern, and life everlasting, to be gathered and sewed into silken bags and pillows; and there was a little bunch—Aunt Elsie tucked it in—of dried hardhack and catnip and spearmint.

“I don’t suppose she ever steeped those things for her own babies, being a doctor’s wife,” she said; “but she knew the taste of them when she was a baby herself, and I guess it’ll bring back the old garret to her, and the bunches that hung from the rafters when she and I used to play there on rainy days.”

Such were the chief events of that last week, but there was one other of some importance, a call from Mr. Philip Hadley, who did not come this time to inquire for his ancestors, but very distinctly for the young ladies, and the fact that their grandfather was absent did not prevent his making a decidedly long call. He seemed extremely interested in all their doings since he saw them last, and the look of pleasure with which he heard the announcement that Esther was to spend the winter in Boston would have convinced Tom, had he seen it, of the correctness of an opinion he had lately expressed to Kate. It did not affect her, however. It was no young man with soft white hands, but only a grim old woman, whose influence she feared for her sister.

So the days went by, swift, hurrying days, and brought the morning of Kate’s departure. Tom would have liked to go with her to the depot, but it was the grandfather, with the girls, of course, who made the trip. They said good-by to each other in a last interview at the barn, and though each tried to be gay and off-hand, the effort was not very successful. They made solemn compact to write to each other often, Tom for his part agreeing to keep his “eye peeled” for any developments concerning Esther, and Kate for hers promising to “watch out” for anything that could interest him in affairs at the West.

“You must come out and see us, Tom,” she said earnestly. “I want to show you everything, and make you like our part of the country as well as—as well as I like this. Your ways are different from ours, of course; but I’ve got a lot of new ideas, and I’ve had an awfully good time with you, Tom. I didn’t know I could feel so bad to go away.”