How quiet and pleasant it looked, with its gables and picturesque chimneys under the shadow of the big apple-tree in the rear and the big elm in the front! He could see the out-buildings of which Phineas had told him,—the well-house, the hen-house, the smoke-house, the ice-house and stable,—and could hear the faint sound of the brook in the orchard falling over the dam into the basin below.
“I wish I had lived here when a boy, as my father and uncle did,” he thought, just as a few big drops of rain fell upon the grass, and he noticed for the first time how black it was overhead, and how threatening were the clouds rolling up so fast from the west.
It had been thundering at intervals ever since he left Worcester, and in the sultry air there was that stillness which portends the coming of a severe storm. But he had paid no attention to it, and now he did not hasten his steps until there came a deafening crash of thunder, followed instantaneously by a drenching downpour of rain, which seemed to come in sheets rather than in drops, and he knew that in a few minutes he would be wet through, as his coat was rather thin and he had no umbrella. He was still some little distance from the house, but by running swiftly he was soon under the shelter of the piazza, and knocking at the door, with a hope that it might be opened by the girl who Phineas had said “was handsome as blazes.”
CHAPTER VIII.
REX AT THE HOMESTEAD.
The day had been longer and lonelier to Dorcas than the previous one, for then she had gone with Bertha to the train in Worcester, and after saying good-bye, had done some shopping in town and made a few calls before returning home. She had then busied herself with clearing up Bertha’s room, which was not an altogether easy task. Bertha was never as orderly as her sister, and, in the confusion of packing, her room was in a worse condition than usual. But to clear it up was a labor of love, over which Dorcas lingered as long as possible. Then when all was done and she had closed the shutters and dropped the shades, she knelt by the white bed and amid a rain of tears prayed God to protect the dear sister on sea and land and bring her safely back to the home which was so desolate without her. That was yesterday; but to-day there had been comparatively nothing to do, for after an early breakfast her father had started for Boylston, hoping to collect a debt which had long been due and the payment of which would help towards the mortgage. After he had gone and her morning work was done, Dorcas sat down alone in the great, lonely house and began to cry, wondering what she should do to pass the long hours before her father’s return.
“I wish I had Bertha’s room to straighten up again,” she thought. “Any way I’ll go and look at it.” And, drying her eyes, she went up to the room, which seemed so dark and close and gloomy that she opened the windows and threw back the blinds, letting in the full sunlight and warm summer air. “She was fond of air and sunshine,” she said to herself, remembering the many times they had differed on that point, she insisting that so much sun faded the carpets, and Bertha insisting that she would have it, carpets or no carpets. Bertha was fond of flowers, too, and in their season kept the house full of them. This Dorcas also remembered, and, going to the garden, she gathered great clusters of roses and white lilies, which she arranged in two bouquets, putting one on the bureau and the other on the deep window-seat, where Bertha used to sit so often when at home, and where one of her favorite books was lying, with her work-basket and a bit of embroidery she had played at doing. The book and the basket Dorcas had left on the window-seat with something of the feeling which prompts us to keep the rooms of our dead as they left them. At the side of the bed and partly under it she had found a pair of half-worn slippers, which Bertha was in the habit of wearing at night while undressing, and these she had also left, they looked so much like Bertha, with their worn toes and high French heels. Now as she saw them she thought to put them away, but decided to leave them, as it was not likely any one would occupy the room in Bertha’s absence.
“There, it looks more cheerful now,” she said, surveying the apartment with its sunlight and flowers. Then, going down-stairs she whiled away the hours as best she could until it was time to prepare supper for her father, whose coming she watched for anxiously, hoping he would reach home before the storm which was fast gathering in the west and sending out flashes of lightning, with angry growls of thunder. “He will be hungry and tired, and I mean to give him his favorite dishes,” she thought, as she busied herself in the kitchen. With a view to make his home-coming as pleasant as possible, she laid the table with the best cloth and napkins and the gilt band china, used only on great occasions, and put on a plate for Bertha, and a bowl of roses in the centre, with one or two buds at each plate, “Now, that looks nice,” she thought, surveying her work, with a good deal of satisfaction, “and father will be pleased. I wish he would come. How black the sky is getting, and how angry the clouds look!” Then she thought of Bertha on the sea, and wondered if the storm would reach her, and was silently praying that it would not, when she saw old Bush and the buggy pass the windows, and in a few moments her father came in looking very pale and tired. He had had a long ride for nothing, as the man who owed him could not pay, but he brightened at once when he saw the attractive tea-table and divined why all the best things were out.
“You are a good girl, Dorcas, and I don’t know what I should do without you now,” he said, stroking Dorcas’s hair caressingly, and adding, “Now let us have supper. I am hungry as a bear, as Bertha would say.”
Dorcas started to leave the room just as she heard the sound of the bell and knew the electric car was coming up the hill. Though she had seen it so many times, she always stopped to look at it, and she stopped now and saw Reginald alight from it and saw the conductor point towards their house as if directing him to it. “Who can it be?” she thought, calling her father to the window, where they both stood watching the stranger as he came slowly along the avenue. “How queerly he acts, stopping so much to look around! Don’t he know it is beginning to rain?” she said, just as the crash and downpour came which sent Rex flying towards the house.
“Oh, father!” Dorcas exclaimed, clutching his arm, “don’t you know, Mr. Gorham wrote that the New Yorker who wanted to buy our farm might come to look at it? I believe this is he. What shall we do with him? Bertha told us to shut the door in his face.”