Jessie Graham

Old Deacon Marshall sat smoking beneath the maple tree which he had planted many years before, when he was scarcely older than the little girl sitting on the broad doorstep and watching the sun as it went down behind the western hills. The tree was a sapling then, and himself a mere boy.

The sapling now was a mighty tree, and its huge branches swept the gable roof of the time-worn building, while the boy was a gray-haired man, sitting there in the glorious sunset of that bright October day, and thinking of all which had come to him since the morning long ago, when, from the woods near by, he brought the little twig, and with his mother's help secured it in its place, watching anxiously for the first indications of its future growth.

Across the fields and on a shady hillside, there were white headstones gleaming in the fading sunlight. He could count them all from where he sat,-could tell which was his mother's, which his father's, and which his fair-haired sister's. Then there came a blur before his eyes, and great tears rolled down his furrowed cheek, as he remembered that in that yard there were more graves of his loved ones than there were chairs around his fireside, even though he counted the one which for years had not been used, but stood in the dark corner of the kitchen, just where it had been left that dreadful night when his only son was taken from him. On the hillside there was no headstone for that boy, but there were two graves, which had been made just as many years as the arm-chair of oak had stood in the dark corner, and on the handsome monument which a stranger's hand had reared, was cut the name of the deacon's wife and the deacon's daughter-in-law.

Fourteen times the forest tree had cast its leaf since this last great sorrow came, and the old man had in a measure recovered from the stunning blow, for new joys, new cares, new loves had sprung into existence, and few who looked into his calm, unruffled face, ever dreamed of the anguish he had suffered. Time will soften the keenest grief, and in all the town there was not apparently a happier man than the deacon; though as often as the autumn came, bringing the frosty nights and hazy October days, there stole a look of sadness over his face, and the pipe, his never-failing friend, was brought into requisition more frequently than ever.

"It drove the blues away," he said; but on the afternoon of which we write, the blues must have dipped their garments in a deeper dye than usual, for though the thick smoke curled in graceful wreaths about his head, it did not dissipate the gloom which weighed upon his spirits as he sat beneath the maple, counting the distant graves, and then casting his eye down the long lane, through which a herd of cows was wending its homeward way. They were the deacon's cows, and he watched them as they came slowly on, now stopping to crop the tufts of grass growing by the wayside, now thrusting their slender horns over the low fence in quest of the juicy cornstalk, and then quickening their movements as they heard the loud, clear whistle of their driver, a lad of fourteen, and the deacon's only grandson.

Walter Marshall was a handsome boy, and none ever looked into his frank, open face, and clear, honest eyes, without turning to look again, he seemed so manly, so mature for his years, while about his slightly compressed lips there was an expression as if he were constantly seeking to force back some unpleasant memory, which had embittered his young life and fostered in his bosom a feeling of jealousy or distrust of those about him, lest they, too, were thinking of what was always uppermost in his mind.

To the deacon, Walter was dear as the apple of his eye, both for his noble qualities and the cloud of sorrow which had overshadowed his babyhood. A dying mother's tears had mingled with the baptismal waters sprinkled on his face, and the first sound to which he ever seemed to listen was that of the village bell tolling, as a funeral train wound slowly through the lane and across the field to the hillside, where the dead of the Marshall family were sleeping. He had lain in his grandmother's arms that day, but before a week went by, a stranger held him in her lap, while the deacon went again to the hillside and stood by an open grave. Then the remaining inmates of the farm-house fell back to their accustomed ways, and the prattle of the orphan boy,-for so they called him,-was the only sunshine which for many a weary month visited the old homestead.

Since that time the deacon's daughter had married, had wept over her dead husband, and smiled upon a little pale-faced, blue-eyed girl, to whom she gave the name of Ellen, for the sake of Walter's mother.

Aunt Debby, the deacon's maiden sister, occupied a prominent position in the family, who prized her virtues and humored her whims in a way which spoke volumes in her praise. Although unmarried, Aunt Debby declared that it was not her fault, and insisted that her husband, who was to have been, was killed in the war of 1812. Not that she ever saw him, but her fortune had been told for fifty cents by one who pretended to read the future, and as she placed implicit confidence in the words of the seer, she shed a few tears to the memory of the widower who marched bravely to his death, leaving to the world four little children, and to her a life of single-blessedness. For the sake of the four children whose step-mother she ought to have been, she professed a great affection for the entire race of little ones, and especially for Walter, whose father had been her pet.

"Walter was the very image of him," she said, and when, on the night of which we are writing, she heard his clear whistle in the distance, she drew her straight-backed chair nearer to the window, and watched for the first appearance of the boy. "That's Seth again all over," she thought, as she saw him make believe set the dog on Ellen, who had gone to meet him. "That's just the way Seth used to pester Mary," and she glanced at the meek-eyed woman, moulding biscuits on the pantry shelf. As was usual with Aunt Debby, when Seth was the burden of her thoughts, she finished her remarks with, "Seth allus was a good boy," and then, as she saw Walter take a letter from his pocket and pass it to his grandfather, she hastened to the door, while her pulses quickened with the hope that it might contain some tidings of the wanderer.

The letter bore the New York postmark, and glancing at the signature, the deacon said:

"It's from Richard Graham," while both Walter and Aunt Debby drew nearer to him, waiting patiently to know the nature of its contents.

"There's nothing about my boy," the old man said, when he had finished reading, and with a gesture of impatience Walter turned away, saying to himself, "I'd thank him not to write if he can't tell us something we want to hear," while Aunt Debby went back to her knitting, and the polished needles were wet as they resumed their accustomed click.

"Mary," called the deacon, to his daughter, "this letter concerns you more than it does me. Richard's wife is dead,-killed herself with fashion and fooleries."

Advancing toward her father, Mary said:

"When did she die, and what will he do with his little girl?"

"That's it," returned the father, "that's the very thing he wrote about," and opening the letter a second time, he read that the fashionable and frivolous Mrs. Graham, worn out by a life of folly and dissipation, had died long before her time, and that the husband, warned by her example, wished to remove his daughter, a little girl eight years of age, from the city, or rather from the care of her maternal grandmother, who was sure to ruin her.

It is true the letter was not exactly worded thus, but that was what it meant. Mr. Graham had once lived in Deerwood, and knew the old Marshall homestead well,-knew how invigorating were the breezes from the mountains,-how sweet the breath of the newly mown hay, or soil freshly plowed,-knew how bracing were the winter winds which howled around the farm-house,-how healthful the influences within, and when he decided to shut up his grand house and go to Europe for an indefinite length of time, his thoughts turned toward rustic Deerwood as a safe asylum for his child. In the gentle Mary Howland she would find a mother's care, such as she had never known, and after a little hesitation, he wrote to know if at the deacon's fireside there was room for Jessie Graham.

"She is a wayward, high-spirited little thing," he wrote, "but warm-hearted, affectionate and truthful,-willing to confess her faults, though very apt to do the same thing again. If you take her, Mrs. Howland, treat her as if she were your own; punish her when she deserves it, and, in short, train her to be a healthy, useful woman."

The price offered in return for all this was exceedingly liberal, and would have tempted the deacon had there been no other inducement.

"That's an enormous sum to pay for one little girl," he said, when he finished reading the letter. "It will send Ellen through the seminary, and maybe, buy her a piano, if she's thinking she must have one to drum upon."

"Piano!" repeated Walter. "I'll earn one for her when she needs it. I don't like this Jessie with her city airs. Don't take her, Aunt Mary. We have suffered enough from the Grahams;" and Walter tossed his cap into the tree, with a low rejoinder, which sounded very much like "darn 'em!"

"Walter," said the deacon, "you do wrong to cherish such feelings toward Mr. Graham. He only did what he thought was right, and were your father here now, he'd say Richard was the best friend he ever had."

This was the place for Aunt Debby to put in her accustomed "Seth allus was a good boy," while Walter, not caring to discuss the matter, laughed good-humoredly, and said:

"But that's nothing to do with this minx of a Jessie. Why does he write her name s-i-e? Why don't he spell it s-y-sy, and be sensible? Of course she's as stuck up as she can be,-afraid of cows and snakes and everything," and Walter sneered at the idea of a girl who was afraid of snakes and everything.

"Yes," chimed in Ellen, who Aunt Debby said was born for no earthly use except to "take Walter down." "I shouldn't suppose you'd say anything, for don't you remember when you went to Boston with Mr. Smith to see the caravan, and stopped at the Tremont, and when they pounded that big thing for dinner you were scared almost to death, and hid behind the door screaming, 'The lion's out! the lion's out! Don't you hear him roar?'"

Walter colored crimson, and replied apologetically:

"Pshaw, Nell, I was a little shaver then, only ten years old. I'd never heard a gong before, and why shouldn't I think the lion out?"

"And why shouldn't Jessie be afraid of snakes if she never saw one? She's only eight, and you were ten," was the reply of Ellen, whose heart bounded at the thoughts of a companion, and who had unwittingly avowed herself the champion of the unknown Jessie Graham.

"Hush, children," interrupted the deacon. "It isn't worth while to quarrel. Folks raised in the city are sometimes green as well as country people, and this Jessie may be one of 'em. But the question now is, shall she come to Deerwood or not?" and he turned inquiringly toward his daughter. "Mary, are you willing to be a mother to Richard Graham's child?"

Mrs. Howland started, and sweeping her hand across her face, answered: "I am willing," while Aunt Debby, in her straight-backed chair mumbled:

"To think it should come to that,-Mary taking care of his and another woman's child; but, law! it's no more than I should have done if he hadn't been killed," and with a sigh for the widower and his four motherless offspring, Aunt Debby also gave her assent, thinking how she would knit lamb's-wool stockings for the little girl, whose feet she guessed were about the size of Ellen's.

"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Ellen, when it was settled, "for now there'll be somebody to play with when my head aches too hard to go to school. I hope she'll bring a lot of dolls; and, Walter, you won't ink their faces and break their legs as you did that cob baby Aunt Debby made for me?"

When thus appealed to, Walter was reading for himself the letter which had fallen at his grandfather's feet, and his clear hazel eyes were moist with tears, as he read the postscript:

"I have as yet heard nothing from Seth, poor fellow! I hoped he would come back ere this. It may be I shall meet him in my travels."

"He isn't so bad a man after all," thought Walter, and with his feelings softened toward the father, he was more favorably disposed toward the daughter's dolls, and to Ellen's question he replied, "Of course I shan't bother her if she lets me alone and don't put on too many airs."

"I can't see to write as well as I used to," said the deacon, after everything had been arranged, "and Walter must answer the letter."

"Walter won't do any such thing," was the mental comment of the boy, whose animosity began to return toward one who he fancied had done his father a wrong.

After a little, however, he relented, and going to his room wasted several sheets of paper before he was at all satisfied with the few brief lines which were to tell Mr. Graham that his daughter Jessie would be welcome at Deerwood. Great pains he took to spell her name according to his views of orthography, making an extra flourish to the "y" with which he finished up the "Jessy."

"Now, that's sensible," he said. "I wonder Aunt Debby don't spell her name b-i-e-by. She would, I dare say, if she lived in New York."

Walter's ideas of city people were formed entirely from the occasional glimpses he had received of his proud Boston relatives, who had been highly indignant at his mother's marriage with a country youth, the most of them resenting it so far as to absent themselves from her funeral. His lady grandmother, they told him, had been present, and had held him for a moment upon her rich black mourning dress, but from that day she had not looked upon his face. These things had tended to embitter Walter toward his mother's family, and judging all city people by them, it was hardly natural that he should be very favorably disposed toward little Jessie. Still, as the time for her arrival drew near, none watched for her more vigilantly or evinced a greater interest in her coming than himself, and on the day when she was expected, it was observed by his cousin Ellen that he took more than usual pains with his toilet, and even exchanged his cowhide boots for a lighter pair, which would make less noise in walking; then as he heard the whistle in the distance, he stationed himself by the gate, where he waited until the gray horses which drew the village omnibus appeared over the hill. The omnibus itself next came in sight, and the head of a little girl was thrust from the window, a profusion of curls falling from beneath her brown straw hat, and herself evidently on the lookout for her new home.

"Curls, of course," said Walter. "See if I don't cut some of 'em off," and he involuntarily felt for his jack-knife.

By this time the carriage was so near that he vacated his post, lest the strangers should think he was waiting for them, and returning to the house, looked out of the west window, whistling indifferently, and was apparently quite oblivious of the people alighting at the gate, or of the chubby form tripping up the walk, and with sunny face and laughing round bright eyes, winning at once the hearts of the four who, unlike himself, had gone out to receive her.