Chapter II: Where Archie Was

A long lane wound away to the westward across a strip of land called the mowing lot, through a bit of woods and on to a grassy hillside, where, under the shade of a butternut tree, a pair of fat, sleek oxen were standing with a look of content in their large, bright eyes as if well pleased with this unwonted freedom from the plough and the cart. Against the side of one of them a young girl was leaning, with her arm thrown across its neck and her hand caressing the long, white horn of the dumb creature which seemed to enjoy it. The girl was Maude Graham, and she made a very pretty picture as she stood there with her short, brown hair curling in soft rings about her forehead; her dark blue eyes, her bright, glowing face, and a mouth which looked as if made for kisses and sweetness rather than the angry words she was hurling at the young man, or boy, for he was only twenty, who stood before her.

“Archie More,” she was saying, “I don’t think it very nice in you to talk to me in that patronizing kind of way, as if you were so much my superior in everything, and trying to convince me that it is nothing for us to give up the dear old place where every stone and stump means somebody to me, for I know them all and have talked with them all, and called them by name, just as I know all the maiden ferns and water lilies and where the earliest arbutus blossoms in the spring. Oh, Archie, how can I leave Spring Farm and never come back again! I think I hate you all for taking it from us, and especially your uncle Max.”

Here she broke down entirely, and laying her face on the shining coat of the ox began to cry as if her heart would break, while Archie looked at her in real distress wondering what he should say. He was a city-bred young man, with a handsome, boyish face, and in a way very fond of Maude, whom he had known ever since he was thirteen and she eleven, and he first came to Merrivale to spend the summer. They had played and fished together in the brook, and rowed together on the pond and quarreled and made up, and latterly they had flirted a little, too, although Archie was careful that the flirting should not go too far, for he felt that there was a vast difference between Archie More, son of Mrs. Marshall-More, and Maude Graham, daughter of a country farmer. And still he thought her the sweetest, prettiest girl he had ever seen, a _jolly lot_ he called her, and he writhed under her bitter words, and when she cried he tried to comfort her and explain matters as best he could. But Maude was not to be appeased. She had felt all the time that the place need not have been sold, that it was a hasty thing, and though she did not blame Archie, she was very sore against Mrs. Marshall-More and her brother, and her only answer to all Archie could say, was:

“You needn’t talk. I hate you all, and your uncle Max the most, and if I ever see him I’ll tell him so, and if I don’t you may tell him for me.”

Archie could keep silent and hear his mother blamed and himself, but he roused in defense of his uncle Max.

“Hate my uncle Max,” he exclaimed. “Why, he is the best man that ever lived, and the kindest. He knew nothing of you, or how you’d feel, when he bought the place; if he had he wouldn’t have done it; and if he could see you now, crying on that ox’s neck, he would give it back to you. That would be just like him.”

“As if I’d take it,” Maude said, scornfully, as she lifted up her head and dashed the tears from her eyes with a rapid movement of both hands. “No, Archie More, I shall never take Spring Farm as a gift from any one, much less from your uncle Max; but I shall buy it of him some day if he keeps it long enough.”

“You?” Archie asked, and Maude replied, “Yes, I, why not? I know I am poor now, but I shall not always be so. People call me crazy, a dreamer, a crank, and all that, because they cannot see what I see; the people who are with me always, my friends; and I know their names and how they look and where they live; Mrs. Kimbrick, with her fifty daughters, all Eliza Anns, and Mrs. Webster, with her fifty daughters, all Ann Elizas, and Angeline Mason, who comes and talks to me in the twilight, wearing a yellow dress; they are real to me as you are, and do you think I am crazy and a crank because of that?”

Archie said he didn’t, but he looked a little suspiciously at the girl standing there so erect, her eyes shining with a strange light as she talked to him of things he could not understand. He had heard of this Mrs. Kimbrick and Mrs. Webster before, with their fifty daughters each, and had thought Maude queer, to say the least. He was sure of it now as she went on:

“Is the earth crazy because there is in it a little acorn which you can’t see, but which is still there, maturing and taking root for the grand old oak, whose branches will one day give shelter to many a tired head? Of course not; neither am I, and some time these brain children, or brain seeds, call them what you like, will take shape and grow, and the world will hear of them, and of me; and you and your mother will be proud to say you knew me once, when the people praise the book I am going to write.”

“A book!” and Archie laughed incredulously, it seemed so absurd that little Maude Graham should ever become an author of whom the world would hear.

“Yes,” she answered him decidedly. “A book! Why not? It is in me; it has been there always, and I can no more help writing it than you can help doing,—well, nothing, as you always have. Yes, I shall write a book, and you will read it, Archie More, and thousands more, too; and I shall put Spring Farm in it, and you, and your uncle Max. I think I shall make him the villain.”

She was very hard upon poor Max, whose only offense was that he had bidden off Spring Farm to please his sister, but Archie was ready to defend him again.

“If you knew uncle Max,” he said, “you would make him your hero instead of your villain, for a better man never lived. He is kindness itself and the soul of honor. Why, when he was very young he was engaged to a girl who fell from a horse and broke her leg, or her neck, or her back, I’ve forgotten which. Anyhow, she cannot walk and has to be wheeled in a chair, but Max sticks to her like a burr, because he thinks he ought. I am sure I hope he will never marry her.”

“Why not?” Maude asked, and he replied:

“Because, you see, Max has a heap of money, and if he never marries and I outlive him, some of it will come to me. Money is a good thing, I tell you.”

“I didn’t suppose you as mean as that, Archie More! and I hope Mr. Max will marry that broken-backed woman, and that she will live a thousand years! Yes, I do!”

The last three words were emphasized with so vigorous blows on the back of the ox, that he started away suddenly, and Maude would have fallen if Archie had not caught her in his arms.

“Now, Maude,” he said, as he held her for a moment closely to him, “don’t let’s quarrel any more. I’m going away to-morrow to the Adirondacks, then in the fall to college, and may not see you again for a long time; but I sha’n’t forget you. I like you the best of any girl in the world; I do, upon my honor.”

“No, you don’t. I know exactly what you think of me, and always have, but it does not matter now,” Maude answered vehemently. “You are going your way, and I am going mine, and the two ways will never meet.”

And so, quarreling and making up, but making up rather more than they quarreled, the two went slowly along the gravelly lane until they reached the house where Mrs. Marshall-More was standing with a very severe look upon her face, as she said to her son:

“Do you know how long you have kept me waiting?”

Then to Maude:

“Been crying? I am sorry you take it so hard. Believe me, you will be better off in the village. Neither your mother nor you could run the farm, and you will find some employment there. I hear that Mrs. Nipe is wanting an apprentice and that she will give small wages at first, which is not usual with dressmakers. You’d better apply at once.”

“Thank you,” Maude answered quickly. “I do not think I shall learn dressmaking,” and Maude looked at the lady as proudly as a queen might look upon her subject. “Mrs. More, do you think your brother would promise to keep Spring Farm until I can buy it back?” she continued.

The idea that Maude Graham could ever buy Spring Farm was so preposterous that Mrs. Marshall-More laughed immoderately, as she replied, “Perhaps so. I will ask him; or you can do it yourself. I don’t know where he is now. I seldom do know, but anything addressed to his club, No. —, —— Street, Boston, will reach him in time. And now we must go. Good-bye.”

She offered the tips of her fingers to the girl who just touched them, and then giving her hand to Archie said, “Good-bye, Archie, I am sorry we quarreled so, and I did not mean half I said to you. I hope you will forget it. Good-bye; I may never see you again.”

If Archie had dared he would have kissed the face which had never looked so sweet to him as now; but his mother’s eyes were upon him and so he only said “Good-bye,” and took his seat in the carriage with a feeling that something which had been very dear had dropped out of his life.