Rags' visions were gloomy, for he knew not whether the Lady with the Firm Hand would free him from his prison in the morning, or whether he was there for all time ... But there were intervals of bliss when his fancies took a brighter turn ... when Hope smiled ... and he bit the white cat's tail ... and chased the infant turkeys ... and found sweet, juicy, delicious bones in unexpected places ... and even inhaled, in exquisite anticipation, the fragrance of one particularly succulent bone that he had hidden under Miss Vilda's bed.
Sleep carried Samantha so many years back into the past that she heard the blithe din of carpenters hammering and sawing on a little house that was to be hers, his, theirs. ... And as she watched them, with all sorts of maidenly hopes about the home that was to be ... some one stole up behind and caught her at it, and she ran away blushing ... and some one followed her ... and they watched the carpenters together. ... Somebody else lived in the little house now, and Samantha never blushed any more, but that part was mercifully hidden in the dream.
Miss Vilda's slumber was troubled. She seemed to be walking through peaceful meadows, brown with autumn, when all at once there rose in the path steep hills and rocky mountains ... She felt too tired and too old to climb, but there was nothing else to be done ... And just as she began the toilsome ascent, a little child appeared, and catching her helplessly by the skirts implored to be taken with her ... And she refused and went on alone ... but, miracle of miracles, when she reached the crest of the first hill the child was there before her, still beseeching to be carried ... And again she refused, and again she wearily climbed the heights alone, always meeting the child when she reached their summits, and always enacting the same scene.... At last she cried in despair, "Ask me no more, for I have not even strength enough for my own needs!" ... And the child said, "I will help you;" and straightway crept into her arms and nestled there as one who would not be denied ... and she took up her burden and walked.... And as she climbed the weight grew lighter and lighter, till at length the clinging arms seemed to give her peace and strength ... and when she neared the crest of the highest mountain she felt new life throbbing in her veins and new hopes stirring in her heart, and she remembered no more the pain and weariness of her journey.... And all at once a bright angel appeared to her and traced the letters of a word upon her forehead and took the child from her arms and disappeared.... And the angel had the lovely smile and sad eyes of Martha ... and the word she traced on Miss Vilda's forehead was "Inasmuch"!
SCENE VII.
The Old Homestead.
MISTRESS AND MAID FIND TO THEIR AMAZEMENT THAT A CHILD, MORE THAN ALL OTHER GIFTS, BRINGS HOPE WITH IT AND FORWARD LOOKING THOUGHTS.
It was called the White Farm, not because that was an unusual color in Pleasant River. Nineteen out of every twenty houses in the village were painted white, for it had not then entered the casual mind that any other course was desirable or possible. Occasionally, a man of riotous imagination would substitute two shades of buff, or make the back of his barn red, but the spirit of invention stopped there, and the majority of sane people went on painting white. But Miss Avilda Cummins was blessed with a larger income than most of the inhabitants of Pleasant River, and all her buildings, the great house, the sheds, the carriage and dairy houses, the fences and the barn, were always kept in a state of dazzling purity; "as if," the neighbors declared, "S'manthy Ann Ripley went over 'em every morning with a dust-cloth."
It was merely an accident that the carriage and work horses chanced to be white, and that the original white cats of the family kept on having white kittens to decorate the front doorsteps. It was not accident, however, but design, that caused Jabe Slocum to scour the country for a good white cow and persuade Miss Cummins to swap off the old red one, so that the "critters" in the barn should match.
Miss Avilda had been born at the White Farm; father and mother had been taken from there to the old country churchyard, and "Martha, aged 17," poor, pretty, willful Martha, the greatest pride and greatest sorrow of the family, was lying under the apple trees in the garden.