The Old Gray Homestead

by Frances Parkinson Keyes

It is midnight, and—as you know—I am always up at five, but I must send you just a few words before I go to bed, for these last two days have been so full that it has seemed to be impossible to find a moment in which to write you. "Business is rushing" at the Gray Homestead these days, and everything going finely. The chickens and ducklings are all coming along well—about four hundred of them—and we've had three beautiful new heifer calves this week. Peter is beside himself with joy, for they're all Holsteins. I went to Wallacetown yesterday afternoon, and made another $200 payment on our note at the bank—at this rate we'll have that halfway behind us soon.

To-day I've been over at your house every minute that I could spare and succeeded in getting the last workman out—for good—at eight o'clock this evening. (I bribed him to stay overtime. There are a few little odd jobs left, but I can work those in myself in odd moments.) There is no reason now why you shouldn't begin to send furniture any time you like. I never would have believed that it would be possible to get three such good bedrooms—not to mention a bathroom and closets—out of the attic, or that tearing out partitions and unblocking fireplaces would work such wonders downstairs. It's all just as you planned it that first day we tramped over in the snow to see it—do you remember?—and it's all lovely, especially your bedroom on the right of the front door, and the big living-room on the left. The papers you chose are exactly right for the walls, and the white paint looks so fresh and clean, and I'm sure the piazza is deep enough to suit even you. I've ploughed and planted your flower- and vegetable-gardens, as well as those at the Homestead, and this warm, early spring is helping along the vegetation finely, so I think things will soon be coming up. We've decided to try both wheat and alfalfa as experiments this year, and I can hardly wait to see whether they'll turn out all right.

Katherine graduates from high school the eighteenth of June, and as Sally's teaching ends the same day, and Fred's patience has finally given out with a bang, she has fixed the twenty-fifth for her wedding. Won't she be busy, with just one week to get ready to be a bride, after she stops being a schoolmarm? But, of course, we'll all turn to and help her, and Molly will be home from the Conservatory ten days before that—you know how efficient she is. By the way, has she written you the good news about her scholarship? We may have a famous musician in the family yet, if some mere man doesn't step in and intervene. Speaking of lovers, Peter is teaching Edith Dutch! And when mother remonstrated with her, she flared up and asked if it was any different from having you teach me French! (I sometimes believe "the baby" is "onto us," though all the others are still entirely unsuspicious, and keep right on telling me I never half appreciated you!) So they spend a good deal of time at the living-room table, with their heads rather close together, but I haven't yet heard Edith conversing fluently in that useful and musical foreign language which she is supposed to be acquiring.

I haven't had a letter from you in nearly a week, but I'm sure, if you weren't well and happy, Mr. Stevens would let us know. I'm glad you're having such a good time—you certainly deserve it after being cooped up so long. Sorry you think it isn't suitable for you to dance yet, for, of course, you would enjoy that a lot, but you can pretty soon, can't you?

Good-night, darling. God bless you always!

AUSTIN

* * * * *

There was something in the quiet, restrained tone of the letter, with its details of homely, everyday news, and the tidings of his care and interest in her little house, that touched Sylvia far more than many pages of passionate outpouring of loneliness and longing could have done. She knew that the loneliness and longing were there, even though he would not say so, and she turned from the great bunch of American Beauties which had also come in with her breakfast-tray, with something akin almost to disgust as she thought of Austin's tiny bunch of arbutus—his "bouquet des fiançailles," as he had called it—the only thing, besides the little star, that he had ever given her. She called her maid, and announced that in the future she would never be at home to a certain caller; then she reached for the telephone beside her bed and cancelled all her engagements for the next few days, on the plea of not feeling well, which was perfectly true; and then she called up Western Union, and dispatched a long telegram, after which she indulged in a comforting and salutary outburst of tears.

"It will serve me quite right if he won't come," she sobbed. "I wouldn't if I were he, not one step—and he's just as stubborn as I am. I never was half good enough for him, and now I've neglected him, and frittered away my time, and even flirted with other men—when I'd scratch out the eyes of any other woman if she dared to look at him. It's to be hoped that he doesn't find out what a frivolous, empty-headed, silly, vain little fool I am—though it probably would be better for him in the end if he did."

Sylvia passed a very unhappy day, as she richly deserved to do. For the woman who gives a man a new ideal to live for, and then, carelessly, herself falls short of the standard she has set for him, often does as great and incalculable harm as the woman who has no standards at all.