“I’m not such a nice little girl. I––I––love Satan––and they’re going to––to––supervise my reading.” She clung to his hand and nodded her head with finality. He swung her along, making her take long leaps as they walked.
“You love Satan? I thought you loved me!”
20
“It’s the same thing, Rich,” said Peter Junior, with a grin.
Bertrand had gone to the kitchen door. “Mary, my love, here’s Richard Kildene.” She entered the living room, carrying a plate of light, hot biscuit, and hurried out to Richard, greeting him warmly––even lovingly.
“Bertrand, won’t you and the boys carry the table out to the garden?” she suggested. “Open both doors and take it carefully. It will be pleasanter here in the shade.”
The young men sprang to do her bidding, and the small table was borne out under the trees, the lads enumerating with joy the articles of Mary Ballard’s simple menu.
“Hot biscuits and honey! My golly! Won’t we wish for this in about two months from now?” said Richard.
“Cream and caraway cookies!” shouted Peter Junior, turning back to the porch to help Bertrand carry the chairs. “Of course we’ll be wishing for this before long, but that’s part of soldiering.”
“We’re not looking forward to a well-fed, easy time of it, so we’ll just make the best of this to-night, and eat everything in sight,” said Richard.
Bertrand preferred to change the subject. “This is some of our new white clover honey,” he said. “I took it from that hive over there last evening, and they’ve been working all day as if they had had new life given them. All bees want is a lot of empty space for storing honey.”
Richard followed Mrs. Ballard into the kitchen for the tea. “Where are the other children?” he asked.
“Martha and Jamie are spending a week with my mother and father. They love to go there, and mother––and father, also, seem never to have enough of them. 21 Baby is still asleep, and I must waken him, too, or he won’t sleep to-night. I hung a pail of milk over the spring to keep it cool, and the butter is there also––and the Dutch cheese in a tin box. Can you––wait, I’d better go with you. We’ll leave the tea to steep a minute.”
They passed through the house and down toward the spring house under the maple and basswood trees at the back, walking between rows of currant bushes where the fruit hung red.
“I hate to leave all this––maybe forever,” said the boy. The corners of his mouth drooped a little, and he looked down at Mary Ballard with a tender glint in his deep blue eyes. His eyes were as blue as the lake on a summer’s evening, and they were shaded by heavy dark brown lashes, almost black. His brows and hair were the same deep brown. Peter Junior’s were a shade lighter, and his hair more curling. It was often a matter of discussion in the village as to which of the boys was the handsomer. That they were both fine-looking lads was always conceded.
Mary Ballard turned toward him impulsively. “Why did you do this, Richard? Why? I can’t feel that this fever for war is right. It is terrible. We are losing the best blood in the land in a wicked war.” She took his two hands in hers, and her eyes filled. “When we first came here, your mother was my dearest friend. You never knew her, but I loved her––and her loss was much to me. Richard, why didn’t you consult us?”
“I hadn’t any one but you and your husband to care. Oh, Aunt Hester loves me, of course, and is awfully good to me––but the Elder––I always feel somehow as if he expects me to go to the bad. He never had any use for my 22 father, I guess. Was my father––was––he no good? Don’t mind telling me the truth: I ought to know.”
“Your father was not so well known here, but he was, in Bertrand’s estimation, a royal Irish gentleman. We both liked him; no one could help it. Never think hardly of him.”
“Why has he never cared for me? Why have I never known him?”
“There was a quarrel––or––some unpleasantness between your uncle and him; it’s an old thing.”
Richard’s lip quivered an instant, then he drew himself up and smiled on her, then he stooped and kissed her. “Some of us must go; we can’t let this nation be broken up. Some men must give their lives for it; and I’m one of those who ought to go, for I have no one to mourn for me. Half the class has enlisted.”
“I venture to say you suggested it, too?”
“Well––yes.”
“And Peter Junior was the first to follow you?”
“Well, yes! I’m sorry––because of Aunt Hester––but we always do pull together, you know. See here, let’s not think of it in this way. There are other ways. Perhaps I’ll come back with straps on my shoulders and marry Betty some day.”
“God grant you may; that is, if you come back as you left us. You understand me? The same boy?”
“I do and I will,” he said gravely.
That was a happy hour they spent at the evening meal, and many an evening afterwards, when hardship and weariness had made the lads seem more rugged and years older, they spoke of it and lived it over.
23
CHAPTER III
A MOTHER’S STRUGGLE
“Come, Lady, come. You’re slow this morning.” Mary Ballard drove a steady, well-bred, chestnut mare with whom she was on most friendly terms. Usually her carryall was filled with children, for she kept no help, and when she went abroad, she must perforce take the children with her or spend an unquiet hour or two while leaving them behind. This morning she had left the children at home, and carried in their stead a basket of fruit and flowers on the seat beside her. “Come, Lady, come; just hurry a little.” She touched the mare with the whip, a delicate reminder to haste, which Lady assumed to be a fly and treated as such with a switch of her tail.
The way seemed long to Mary Ballard this morning, and the sun beating down on the parched fields made the air quiver with heat. The unpaved road was heavy with dust, and the mare seemed to drag her feet through it unnecessarily as she jogged along. Mary was anxious and dreaded the visit she must make. She would be glad when it was over. What could she say to the stricken woman who spent her time behind closed blinds? Presently she left the dust behind and drove along under the maple trees that lined the village street, over cool roads that were kept well sprinkled.
The Craigmiles lived on the main street of the town in 24 the most dignified of the well-built homes of cream-colored brick, with a wide front stoop and white columns at the entrance. Mary was shown into the parlor by a neat serving maid, who stepped softly as if she were afraid of waking some one. The room was dark and cool, but the air seemed heavy with a lingering musky odor. The dark furniture was set stiffly back against the walls, the floor was covered with a velvet carpet of rich, dark colors, and oil portraits were hung about in heavy gold frames.
Mary looked up at two of these portraits with pride, and rebelled that the light was so shut out that they must always be seen in the obscurity, for Bertrand had painted them, and she considered them her husband’s best work. In the painting of them and the long sittings required the intimacy between the two families had begun. Really it had begun before that, for there were other paintings in that home––portraits, old and fine, which Elder Craigmile’s father had brought over from Scotland