Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/25

1866.] gray head, was the father of Jenny,—angry and impatient, past doubt.

"Don't stand looking any longer, for mercy's sake!" called the querulous voice from the house. "You'll get your death of cold, and then what'll become of us all? Saddle your horse this minute, and ride over to John Walker's,—for there's where you'll find Jinny, the gad-about,—and bring her home at the tail of your critter. I'll see who is going to be mistress here!"

"She's had her own head too long a'ready, I'm afeard," replied the old man, turning from the gate, with intent, probably, to execute his wife's order.

Seeing this, and hearing this, Hobert, as we said, stood still and trembled, and could only ask, by a little pressure of the hand he held, what was to be said or done.

Jenny did not hesitate a moment. "I expected this or something worse," she said. "Don't mind, Hobert; so they don't see you, I don't care for the rest. You must not go one step farther: the lightning will betray us, you see. I will say I waited for the rain to slack, and the two storms will clear off about the same time, I dare say. There, good night!"—and she turned her cheek to him; for she was not one of those impossible maidens we read of in books, who don't know they are in love, until after the consent of parents is obtained, and blush themselves to ashes at the thought of a kiss. To love Hobert was to her the most natural and proper thing in the world, and she did not dream there was anything to blush for. It is probable, too, that his constitutional bashfulness and distrust of himself brought out her greater confidence and buoyancy.

"And how and where am I ever to see you again?" he asked, as he detained her, against her better judgment, if not against her will.

"Trust that to me,"—and she hurried away in time to meet and prevent her father from riding forth in search of her.

Of course there were fault-finding and quarrelling, accusations and protestations, hard demands and sullen pouting,—so that the home, at no time so attractive as we like to imagine the home of a young girl who has father and mother to provide for her and protect her, became to her like a prison-house. At the close of the first and second days after her meeting with Hobert, when the work was all faithfully done, she ventured to ask leave to go over to John Walker's and inquire how the sick man was; but so cold a refusal met her, that, on the evening of the third day, she sat down on the porch-side to while away the hour between working and sleeping, without having renewed her request.

The sun was down, and the first star began to show faintly above a strip of gray cloud in the west, when a voice, low and tender, called to her, "Come here, my child!" and looking up she saw Grandmother Walker sitting on her horse at the gate. She had in the saddle before her her youngest granddaughter, and on the bare back of the horse, behind her, a little grandson, both their young faces expressive of the sorrow at home. Jenny arose on the instant, betraying in every motion the interest and sympathy she felt, and was just stepping lightly from the porch to the ground, when a strong hand grasped her shoulder and turned her back. It was her father who had overtaken her. "Go into the house!" he said. "If the old woman has got any arrant at all, it's likely it's to your mother and me."

Nor was his heart melted in the least when he learned that his friend and neighbor was no more. He evinced surprise, and made some blunt and coarse inquiries, but that was the amount. "The widder is left purty destitute, I reckon," he said; and then he added, the Lord helped them that helped themselves, and we mustn't fly in the face of Providence. She had her son, strong and able-bodied; and of course he had no thoughts of encumbering himself with a family of his own,—young and poverty-struck as he was.

Mrs. Walker understood the