"She's a pore shiftless creature," Mrs. Martin hastened to say. "There, I thought o' the doctor, how he'd laugh, the last time I was in to see her; her baby was sick, and she sent up to know if I'd lend her a variety of herbs, and I didn't know but she might p'isen it, so I stepped down with something myself. She begun to flutter about like she always does, and I picked my way acrost the kitchen to the cradle. 'There,' says she, 'I have been laying out all this week to go up to the Corners and git me two new chairs.' 'I should think you had plenty of chairs now,' said I, and she looked at me sort of surprised, and says she, 'There ain't a chair in this house but what's full.'"
And Nan laughed as heartily as could have been desired before she asked Mrs. Jake a few more appreciative questions about her ailments, and then rose to go away. Mrs. Martin followed her out to the gate; she and Nan had always been very fond of each other, and the elder woman pointed to a field not far away where the brothers were watching a stubble-fire, which was sending up a thin blue thread of smoke into the still air. "They were over in your north lot yisterday," said Mrs. Martin. "They're fullest o' business nowadays when there's least to do. They took it pretty hard when they first had to come down to hiring help, but they kind of enjoy it now. We're all old folks together on the farm, and not good for much. It don't seem but a year or two since your poor mother was playing about here, and then you come along, and now you're the last o' your folks out of all the houseful of 'em I knew. I'll own up sometimes I've thought strange of your fancy for doctoring, but I never said a word to nobody against it, so I haven't got anything to take back as most folks have. I couldn't help thinking when you come in this afternoon and sat there along of us, that I'd give a good deal to have Mis' Thacher step in and see you and know what you've made o' yourself. She had it hard for a good many years, but I believe 't is all made up to her; I do certain."
Nan meant to go back to the village by the shorter way of the little foot-path, but first she went up the grass-grown lane toward the old farm-house. She stood for a minute looking about her and across the well-known fields, and then seated herself on the door-step, and stayed there for some time. There were two or three sheep near by, well covered and rounded by their soft new winter wool, and they all came as close as they dared and looked at her wonderingly. The narrow path that used to be worn to the door-step had been overgrown years ago with the short grass, and in it there was a late little dandelion with hardly any stem at all. The sunshine was warm, and all the country was wrapped in a thin, soft haze.
She thought of her grandmother Thacher, and of the words that had just been said; it was beginning to seem a very great while since the days of the old farm-life, and Nan smiled as she remembered with what tones of despair the good old woman used to repeat the well-worn phrase, that her grandchild would make either something or nothing. It seemed to her that she had brought all the success of the past and her hopes for the future to the dear old place that afternoon. Her early life was spreading itself out like a picture, and as she thought it over and looked back from year to year, she was more than ever before surprised to see the connection of one thing with another, and how some slight acts had been the planting of seeds which had grown and flourished long afterward. And as she tried to follow herself back into the cloudy days of her earliest spring, she rose without knowing why, and went down the pastures toward the river. She passed the old English apple-tree, which still held aloft a flourishing bough. Its fruit had been gathered, but there were one or two stray apples left, and Nan skillfully threw a stick at these by way of summons.
Along this path she had hurried or faltered many a time. She remembered her grandmother's funeral, and how she had walked, with an elderly cousin whom she did not know, at the head of the procession, and had seen Martin Dyer's small grandson peeping like a rabbit from among the underbrush near the shore. Poor little Nan! she was very lonely that day. She had been so glad when the doctor had wrapped her up and taken her home.
She saw the neighborly old hawthorn-tree that grew by a cellar, and stopped to listen to its rustling and to lay her hand upon the rough bark. It had been a cause of wonder once, for she knew no other tree of the kind. It was like a snow-drift when it was in bloom, and in the grass-grown cellar she had spent many an hour, for there was a good shelter from the wind and an excellent hiding-place, though it seemed very shallow now when she looked at it as she went by.
The burying-place was shut in by a plain stone wall, which she had long ago asked the Dyers to build for her, and she leaned over it now and looked at the smooth turf of the low graves. She had always thought she would like to lie there too when her work was done. There were some of the graves which she did not know, but one was her poor young mother's, who had left her no inheritance except some traits that had won Nan many friends; all her evil gifts had been buried with her, the neighbors had said, when the girl was out of hearing, that very afternoon.
There was a strange fascination about these river uplands; no place was so dear to Nan, and yet she often thought with a shudder of the story of those footprints which had sought the river's brink, and then turned back. Perhaps, made pure and strong in a better world, in which some lingering love and faith had given her the true direction at last, where even her love for her child had saved her, the mother had been still taking care of little Nan and guiding her. Perhaps she had helped to make sure of the blessings her own life had lost, of truth and whiteness of soul and usefulness; and so had been still bringing her child in her arms toward the great shelter and home, as she had toiled in her fright and weakness that dark and miserable night toward the house on the hill.
And Nan stood on the shore while the warm wind that gently blew her hair felt almost like a hand, and presently she went closer to the river, and looked far across it and beyond it to the hills. The eagles swung to and fro above the water, but she looked beyond them into the sky. The soft air and the sunshine came close to her; the trees stood about and seemed to watch her; and suddenly she reached her hands upward in an ecstasy of life and strength and gladness. "O God," she said, "I thank thee for my future."