“If I’d ’a’ knowed ’twas the Hon’rable Stephen Jarvis fer certain,” he went on, with an effort after careless ease of manner, “I b’lieve I’d ’a’ took the opportunity to talk over crops with him fer a spell. We’re goin’ to have a first-rate crop o’ buckwheat this year, an’ winter wheat’s lookin’ fine. The’d ought to be plenty of apples, too. I pruned the trees in the spring an’ manured ’em heavy last fall.”
Barbara gazed steadily at the table. She did not answer.
“I was thinkin’ some o’ plantin’ onions in the five acre field this year,” went on Peg, an agitated tremor in his voice. “They’re a heap o’ work, onions is, what with weedin’ ’em an’ cultivatin’ ’em; but the’s big money in ’em; white, red, an’ yellow sorts. What would you say to onions, Miss Barb’ry?”
“There’s no use,” said the girl, “of our planting—anything.” She turned her back abruptly on pretence of pulling down a window shade. “I’ll speak to you to-morrow—about the work.”
III
After Jimmy had said his prayers and was tucked up in bed, tired but happy, the book of “Vallable Information” under his pillow, Barbara sat for awhile by the open window in the dusk of the April night. The wind had gone down since sunset, and in the stillness she could hear the “peepers,” singing in the distant marshes, and the soft roar of the river, filled to its brim with the melted snows from the hills. Something in the sound of the swollen river and the gleam of a single star, seen dimly between drifting clouds, brought the remembrance of other April nights to Barbara’s mind.
Her thoughts went back to the day when her father, then a proud, handsome man in his prime, had brought his new wife to the farm. Her own passionately mourned mother seemed strangely forgotten in the joy of the home-coming and the girl had resented it in the dumb, pathetic fashion of childhood. After a little, though, she had come to love the gentle creature who had won her father’s heart. There followed a few happy years, regretfully remembered through a blur of tears, when the little mother, as Barbara learned to call her, filled the old house to overflowing with sunshine. Then on an April night when the river lifted up its plaintive voice in the stillness that fell after a wild, windy day, Jimmy came, and the little mother went—hastily, as if summoned out of the dark by some voice unheard by the others. Barbara remembered well the night of her going, and of how, with a last effort, she had lifted the tiny baby and placed him in her own strong young arms.
“Love—him—dear,” whispered the failing voice. Then she had smiled once, as if with a great content, and was gone.