least, before he went away to feed on artistic crusts.
“Being here, come in and spend the evening. The boys will like to
hear the news, and so will father. Do, now.”
It was impossible to refuse the invitation he had been longing for,
and in they went to the great delight of Roxy, who instantly retired
to the pantry, smiling significantly, and brought out the most
elaborate pie in honor of the occasion. Merry touched up the table,
and put a little vase of flowers in the middle to redeem the
vulgarity of doughnuts. Of course the boys upset it, but as there
was company nothing was said, and Ralph devoured his supper
with the appetite of a hungry boy, while watching Merry eat bread
and cream out of an old-fashioned silver porringer, and thinking it
the sweetest sight he ever beheld.
Then the young people gathered about the table, full of the new
plans, and the elders listened as they rested after the week’s work.
A pleasant evening, for they all liked Ralph, but as the parents
watched Merry sitting among the great lads like a little queen
among her subjects, half unconscious as yet of the power in her
hands, they nodded to one another, and then shook their heads as if
they said,
“I’m afraid the time is coming, mother.”
“No danger as long as she don’t know it, father.”
At nine the boys went off to the barn, the farmer to wind up the
eight-day clock, and the housewife to see how the baked beans and
Indian pudding for to-morrow were getting on in the oven. Ralph
took up his hat to go, saying as he looked at the shade on the tall
student lamp,
“What a good light that gives! I can see it as I go home every night,
and it burns up here like a beacon. I always look for it, and it
hardly ever fails to be burning. Sort of cheers up the way, you
know, when I’m tired or low in my mind.”
“Then I’m very glad I got it. I liked the shape, but the boys laughed
at it as they did at my buirushes in a ginger-jar over there. I’d been
reading about ‘household art,’ and I thought I’d try a little,”
answered Merry, laughing at her own whims.
“You’ve got a better sort of household art, I think, for you make
people happy and places pretty, without fussing over it. This room
is ever so much improved every time I come, though I hardly see
what it is except the flowers,” said Ralph, looking from the girl to
the tall calla that bent its white cup above her as if to pour its dew
upon her head.
“Isn’t that lovely? I tried to draw it–the shape was so graceful I
wanted to keep it. But I couldn’t. Isn’t it a pity such beautiful things
won’t last forever?” and Merry looked regretfully at the half-faded
one that grew beside the fresh blossom.
“I can keep it for you. It would look well in plaster. May I?” asked
Ralph.
“Thank you, I should like that very much. Take the real one as a
model–please do; there are more coming, and this will brighten up
your room for a day or two.”
As she spoke, Merry cut the stem, and, adding two or three of the
great green leaves, put the handsome flower in his hand with so
much good-will that he felt as if he had received a very precious
gift. Then he said good-night so gratefully that Merry’s hand quite
tingled with the grasp of his, and went away, often looking
backward through the darkness to where the light burned brightly
on the hill-top–the beacon kindled by an unconscious Hero for a
young Leander swimming gallantly against wind and tide toward
the goal of his ambition.
Chapter 17 Down at Molly’s
“Now, my dears, I’ve something very curious to tell you, so listen
quietly and then I’ll give you your dinners,” said Molly, addressing
the nine cats who came trooping after her as she went into the
shed-chamber with a bowl of milk and a plate of scraps in her