“‘Oh, I couldn’t,’ she answered, hastily; ‘I’m going away—I’m all dressed now. I’m sorry, too,’ she added, sympathetically, at something in my face, ‘but I can’t disappoint my grandmother; she sent for me because she is sick.’
‘Then, of course, you will have to go. (Then I began to know what ‘brave’ meant.) Thank you for the key.’
“Up the steep, weed-tangled drive we went to the side door; the boy-driver unlocked the door for us, giving a view of the moving times within. I paid him his dollar, and he drove away, leaving us in the wilderness.
“Elsie stood and looked around as usual.
“It was a wilderness, a wilderness everywhere; the two-story house, painted brown, with red trimmings, was set in the middle of a large field; it had been untenanted for two years; the hedgerows had grown luxuriant, the grass was knee-deep; the house faced the west (the driver told me that), and the west this August afternoon was an immense field of cabbages bordered by tall trees; above it was the sky, beyond that might be anything, or everything; at the east stretched a mown field, dotted with trees, an apple-tree that looked a hundred years old near the fence, then a thick woods, over the top of which ran a line of green, low hills; among the greenness a red slanting roof was visible; at the south stretched other fields, among the trees a white house, with outhouses, a well-sweep; at the north, beyond two fields, in which cows were pasturing, in a grove, a thick, green grove, was the churchyard, with rows and rows of white stones, now and then a white or a granite monument; the brown church-tower arose above the tree-tops. And this was my wilderness for a night, with the sky, the protecting, loving sky over all, and bending down to enfold us all into its sunshine.
“‘It’s pretty,’ said Elsie.
“‘Yes, it is pretty. Now we must go in and go to work.’
“The opened door led into the small dining-room; small and so crowded; as my big brother said, there was a place for everything, and everything was in it.
“The front parlor, back parlor, hall, all crowded; up stairs there was nothing but emptiness and roominess.
“The kitchen, such a pretty kitchen, was crowded with everything, too—and a pine table, a firkin, and an up-turned, or down-turned peach basket.