Across the fields and on a shady hillside, there were white headstones gleaming in the fading sunlight. He could count them all from where he sat,—could tell which was his mother's, which his father's, and which his fair-haired sister's. Then there came a blur before his eyes, and great tears rolled down his furrowed cheek, as he remembered that in that yard there were more graves of his loved ones than there were chairs around his fireside, even though he counted the one which for years had not been used, but stood in the dark corner of the kitchen, just where it had been left that dreadful night when his only son was taken from him. On the hillside there was no headstone for that boy, but there were two graves, which had been made just as many years as the arm-chair of oak had stood in the dark corner, and on the handsome monument which a stranger's hand had reared, was cut the name of the deacon's wife and the deacon's daughter-in-law.
Fourteen times the forest tree had cast its leaf since this last great sorrow came, and the old man had in a measure recovered from the stunning blow, for new joys, new cares, new loves had sprung into existence, and few who looked into his calm, unruffled face, ever dreamed of the anguish he had suffered. Time will soften the keenest grief, and in all the town there was not apparently a happier man than the deacon; though as often as the autumn came, bringing the frosty nights and hazy October days, there stole a look of sadness over his face, and the pipe, his never-failing friend, was brought into requisition more frequently than ever.
"It drove the blues away," he said; but on the afternoon of which we write, the blues must have dipped their garments in a deeper dye than usual, for though the thick smoke curled in graceful wreaths about his head, it did not dissipate the gloom which weighed upon his spirits as he sat beneath the maple, counting the distant graves, and then casting his eye down the long lane, through which a herd of cows was wending its homeward way. They were the deacon's cows, and he watched them as they came slowly on, now stopping to crop the tufts of grass growing by the wayside, now thrusting their slender horns over the low fence in quest of the juicy cornstalk, and then quickening their movements as they heard the loud, clear whistle of their driver, a lad of fourteen, and the deacon's only grandson.
Walter Marshall was a handsome boy, and none ever looked into his frank, open face, and clear, honest eyes, without turning to look again, he seemed so manly, so mature for his years, while about his slightly compressed lips there was an expression as if he were constantly seeking to force back some unpleasant memory, which had embittered his young life and fostered in his bosom a feeling of jealousy or distrust of those about him, lest they, too, were thinking of what was always uppermost in his mind.
To the deacon, Walter was dear as the apple of his eye, both for his noble qualities and the cloud of sorrow which had overshadowed his babyhood. A dying mother's tears had mingled with the baptismal waters sprinkled on his face, and the first sound to which he ever seemed to listen was that of the village bell tolling, as a funeral train wound slowly through the lane and across the field to the hillside, where the dead of the Marshall family were sleeping. He had lain in his grandmother's arms that day, but before a week went by, a stranger held him in her lap, while the deacon went again to the hillside and stood by an open grave. Then the remaining inmates of the farm-house fell back to their accustomed ways, and the prattle of the orphan boy,—for so they called him,—was the only sunshine which for many a weary month visited the old homestead.
Since that time the deacon's daughter had married, had wept over her dead husband, and smiled upon a little pale-faced, blue-eyed girl, to whom she gave the name of Ellen, for the sake of Walter's mother.
Aunt Debby, the deacon's maiden sister, occupied a prominent position in the family, who prized her virtues and humored her whims in a way which spoke volumes in her praise. Although unmarried, Aunt Debby declared that it was not her fault, and insisted that her husband, who was to have been, was killed in the war of 1812. Not that she ever saw him, but her fortune had been told for fifty cents by one who pretended to read the future, and as she placed implicit confidence in the words of the seer, she shed a few tears to the memory of the widower who marched bravely to his death, leaving to the world four little children, and to her a life of single-blessedness. For the sake of the four children whose step-mother she ought to have been, she professed a great affection for the entire race of little ones, and especially for Walter, whose father had been her pet.
"Walter was the very image of him," she said, and when, on the night of which we are writing, she heard his clear whistle in the distance, she drew her straight-backed chair nearer to the window, and watched for the first appearance of the boy. "That's Seth again all over," she thought, as she saw him make believe set the dog on Ellen, who had gone to meet him. "That's just the way Seth used to pester Mary," and she glanced at the meek-eyed woman, moulding biscuits on the pantry shelf. As was usual with Aunt Debby, when Seth was the burden of her thoughts, she finished her remarks with, "Seth allus was a good boy," and then, as she saw Walter take a letter from his pocket and pass it to his grandfather, she hastened to the door, while her pulses quickened with the hope that it might contain some tidings of the wanderer.
The letter bore the New York postmark, and glancing at the signature, the deacon said:
"It's from Richard Graham," while both Walter and Aunt Debby drew nearer to him, waiting patiently to know the nature of its contents.