The Old Gray Homestead

by Frances Parkinson Keyes

AUSTIN

P.S. Have you taken any more ladies to Moving-Picture Palaces lately?

Needless to say, if Sylvia had seen this epistle, it would not have gone. But she did not. Austin took good care of that. And Thomas did come home—without waiting for Sunday. He rushed to the Dean's office, and told him there had been a death in the family. It is probable that, at the moment, he felt that this was true. At any rate, the Dean, looking at the boy's flushed cheeks and heavy eyes, did not doubt it for an instant.

"Of course, you must go home at once," he said kindly; "wait a minute, my Ford's at the door. I'll run you down to the station—you can just catch the one o'clock. I'll tell one of the fellows to express a suit-case to you this evening."

Travel on the Central Vermont Railroad is safe, but its best friend cannot maintain that it is swift. To get from Lake Champlain to the Connecticut River requires several changes, much patient waiting in small and uninteresting stations for connections, and the consumption of considerable time. It was a little after seven when Thomas, dinnerless and supperless, reached Hamstead, and plodding doggedly up the road in a heavy rain, met Mr. and Mrs. Elliott just starting out in their buggy for Thursday evening prayer meeting.

"Pull up, Joe," the latter said excitedly, as she spied the boy advancing towards them. "I do declare, there's Thomas Gray comin' up the road. I wonder if he's been expelled, or only suspended. I must find out, so's I can tell the folks about it after meetin', an' go down an' comfort Mary the first thing in the mornin' after I get them tomato plants set out. I always thought Thomas was some steadier than Austin, but Burlington's a gay place, an' he's probably got in with wild companions up there. Do you suppose it's some cheap little show girl, or gettin' in liquor by express from over in New York State, or forgin' a check on account of gamblin' debts? I know how boys spend their time while they're gettin' educated, you can't tell me. Or maybe he hasn't passed some examination. He never was extra bright. Failed everything, probably.—Good-evenin', Thomas, it's nice to see you back, but quite a surprise, it not bein' vacation time or nothin'. I suppose everything's goin' fine at college, ain't it?"

Thomas had never loved Mrs. Elliott, and lately he had come as near hating her as he was capable of hating anybody. He longed inexpressibly to cast a withering scowl in her direction, and pass on without answering. But his inborn civility was greater than his aversion. He pulled off his cap and stopped.

"Yes, everything's all right—I guess," he said, rather stupidly. Then a brilliant inspiration struck him. "I've been doing so well in my studies that they've given me a few days off to come home. That doesn't often happen—they made an exception in my case."

It was seldom that the slow-witted Thomas was blessed with one of these flights of fancy. For a minute he felt almost cheered. Mrs. Elliott was baffled.

"Do tell," she exclaimed. "It must be a rare thing—I never hear the like of it before. I'm most surprised you didn't take advantage of such a chance to go down to Boston an' see Molly. Didn't feel's you could afford it, I suppose. I guess she's kinder lonely down there. She don't seem to get acquainted real fast. You'd think, with all the people there are in Boston, she wouldn't ha' had much trouble, but then Molly's manner ain't in her favor, an' I suppose folks in the city is real busy—must be awful hard to keep house, livin' the way they do. I don't think much of city life. The last time Joe an' I went down on the excursion, we see the Charles River, an' the Old Ladies' Home, an' the Chamber of Horrors down on Washington Street, but we was real glad to come home. There was somethin' the matter with the lock to our suit-case, an' we couldn't get it undone all the time we was there, but fortunately it was real warm weather, so we really didn't suffer none. I thought by this time Molly might have a beau, but then, Molly's real plain. If the looks could ha' ben divided up more even between her an' Edith, same's the brains between you an' Austin, 'twould ha' ben a good thing, wouldn't it? But then you say you're gettin' on well now, an' in time some man may marry her, so's he can set an' listen to her play when he comes in tired from his chores at night. I've heard of sech things. An' then there's quite a bunch of love-affairs in the family already, ain't there?"