Chapter III: Expecting Connie

When Deacon Stannard was in the army, the colonel of his regiment was Mark Elliott, whom, at the battle of Gettysburg, he found lying on his face among the dead and dying. At the risk of his own life he took him to a place of safety, and stayed by him till consciousness returned and he was able to be removed to a greater distance from the field of carnage. This act the colonel never forgot, and he became Ephraim’s fast friend, corresponding with him and visiting him once or twice at The 4 Corners. Then both men married and their lives drifted apart. The city man was busy on Wall Street, in New York, and Ephraim was busy on the farm which had come to him at his father’s death. Years went by and they heard nothing of each other, until there came to Ephraim, who was now a deacon, a letter from his friend, written in St. Augustine, where he had gone for his health.

“Florida cannot help me, and I am dying,” he wrote. “I shall never go
back again. Since the death of my wife, two years ago, I have had no
wish to live except for my little girl, Constance. She is in New York
with my sister Mrs. Hart, who is a widow with no children, and would
like to take charge of her. She is a good woman and will be kind to
Connie, but she thinks a great deal of society and is rather
extravagant in her tastes. I’d like you to be joint guardian with Mrs.
Hart of my child. I shall leave her some money, and I wish you to see
to it. I can trust you, and know that anything placed in your hands
will be safe. If you think my present investments are not good, and
some of them are shaky, make others to suit you. I shall instruct my
sister to take Connie to the farmhouse on a visit, and if the child
likes the country better than the city, she is to stay with you as
much as you care to have her. I want her to be brought up a good and
sensible woman rather than a fashionable one. She will be beautiful,
like her mother. She will be sought after, and God only knows what her
future will be. I wish I could see you once more. A sight of your
honest face would do me good, and I could talk to you of Connie and
the money. I scarcely dare hope it, but if you can come, every expense
will be paid. I am too tired to write more. My hands shake and there
is a sound in my ears like the distant noise of the battles we fought
together. Well, they are over now, and the battle of life is nearly
ended.

“Good-by,
“MARK ELLIOTT.”

Deacon Stannard received this letter in January, and two days later he was on his way to St. Augustine, which he reached the day before the colonel’s death, and in time to hear his verbal instructions with regard to Connie and the money left to her. As there was no one else to do it, he went with the body to New York, and saw Connie, and offered to take her home with him at once, if she wished to go.

But Mrs. Hart said: “No, she belongs to me rather than to you, to whom, according to my brother’s wishes, I must look for money when she needs it. I have promised to bring her to your house, and shall do so, but naturally her place is with me.”

Evidently she did not like being made joint guardian with this plain country farmer. “He is such a codger,” she said before Connie, who opened wide her great blue eyes and asked: “What is a codger?”

Her aunt did not reply. She was wondering if the deacon would stay after the funeral, and how she could keep him in the background if he did. In his honest soul he felt that perhaps he ought to stay a few days and see to things and chirk her up a bit, he said, when apologizing for not doing so, and saying that he “s’posed Mary and the boys wanted him at home.”

There was a proud toss of the lady’s head as she thanked him and said he was very kind, but there was no need for him to stay on her account, as she had friends and was accustomed to manage her own affairs.

“Well, I guess then I’ll go to-night,” the deacon said, with a faint glimmering that “his room was better than his company,” and bidding the lady good-by, he started for The 4 Corners, which he reached two weeks after he left them.

It was like a journey round the world, that trip to St. Augustine and New York, and he talked of it for days, his voice trembling as he spoke of Colonel Elliott, and his manner becoming eloquent when he told them of Connie and described Mrs. Hart’s beautiful home and the number of servants employed.

“I didn’t s’pose anybody but the Queen lived that way; did you, Hal?” Kenneth said.

“Pshaw! yes. That’s nothing, and it’s the way I mean to live some time,” Harry answered, with the air of superior knowledge which always made Kenneth feel small and ignorant.

On one point they were agreed, and that was Connie, the little girl who was soon coming to visit them. Mrs. Stannard hoped she would stay a long time, and in her mind were visions of the little room next her own and the little bed she would fit up for her, while Kenneth thought of the sled he had seen in Millville and on which he would take her up and down the long hill and out upon the pond and everywhere. Harry thought of nothing except that it would be rather nice to have a little girl in the house, especially as she belonged to a swell family and had money. He was always thinking of money and swell people, and boasting of the Morrises, who belonged to that class. “Bred in his bone; takes it from his father, the proudest man I ever saw,” was Mrs. Stannard’s explanation, when her husband wondered where Hal got such notions.

For a time he was quite interested in Connie and her expected visit with her aunt. “Mrs. Hart can’t fail to see that I am a kick above the rest of ’em here, and I shall tell her who father was,” he thought, while Kenneth was planning how he could make it pleasant for the little girl.

It was decided at last that she was not to come that winter, and Kenneth, who had bought the sled at a reduced rate, put it away in the garret and began to plan for the summer, when the country would be so pleasant and the pond lilies so thick, and Hal would take her out in his boat and he would make her a swing in the barn and a _teater_ in the fence.

The summer went by and autumn came and Hal went away to Andover and Kenneth to Millville, and Connie did not come, and they had ceased to expect her until a wild day in December, when a western blizzard was careering over the hills. Kenneth, who had been to the office, brought home a letter from Mrs. Hart, saying that, if convenient, she would spend the holidays at the farmhouse. She did not add that she had recently met with some losses, and had given up a trip to the south which she had intended taking, and as the visit to The 4 Corners must be made, she had decided to have it off her mind. That Connie should wish to stay in the country any length of time was preposterous, nor was it at all desirable for herself that she should. She was fond of the child and meant to keep her with her. She had promised her brother to take her to the farmhouse and let her see country life, and she must keep her promise, but would do it in her own way. None knew better than herself the beauties of the country in summer. She could see the fresh green grass and foliage and smell the new-mown hay and the lilies in the pond and the roses in the garden, and hear the hum of happy insect life, and knew these things would appeal to Connie, who might insist upon staying longer than she cared to have her, for if Connie stayed she must stay, too, and see that she did not contract habits hard to be rid of. So she decided to go in the winter, guessing what accommodations she would find, and knowing what the cold would be up there in the hills. She would not take her maid, who would be out of place. Connie must wait upon herself, and if she found it a hardship all the better, as she would sooner tire of the country and never care to visit it again.

Connie was delighted with the prospect of seeing her _Guardy_, as she called Deacon Stannard, and talked of the trip constantly.

“You will find things quaint and old-fashioned,” her aunt said to her, “but you must be very nice, no matter what you see. Deacon Stannard manages your money, and if you are not nice it may be harder to get all you want. And don’t you tell that I gave twenty-five dollars for your doll-house. He is something of a hunks, and would not like it.”

Connie nodded her little wise head, wiser in some respects than her aunt suspected. She was wondering what the old-fashioned things were she was to see, and what _quaint_ and _hunks_ meant. She liked to know the meaning of things, and hunted for the words in a dictionary. She missed _hunks_, but found _quaint_, the multiplicity of whose definitions bewildered her. She fixed, however, upon two, _odd_ and _antique_. She knew what the latter meant. Her aunt had a craze for antiques, and gave a great price for them. Perhaps she could buy some at the farmhouse out of her pocket money, and give her aunt for a Christmas present. Hers, bought in advance, was the doll-house, for which twenty-five dollars had been paid. She was rather sorry to leave it, but a trip in the cars was always delightful to her, and it was a very happy child who, on the day before Christmas, started for The 4 Corners.

Meantime, at the farmhouse there had been a good deal of excitement on the receipt of Mrs. Hart’s letter.

“What shall we do with ’em if it stays as cold as it is now, and nothing but a fireplace in the best room and guest chamber? They’ll freeze to death. I wish they had come in the summer,” Mrs. Stannard said, while Kenneth took a more hopeful view of the situation.

He would much rather they had come in the summer, but would make the best of it and try to keep them warm, he said. If there was any work Kenneth hated it was splitting wood. Now, however, he put aside his dislike, and, remembering how cold the parlor and guest chamber were, he employed his leisure time when out of school in sawing and splitting wood, until his mother said he had enough “to roast an ox.” There were two piles, the parlor pile and the upstairs pile, the latter finer and of a kind which would kindle quickly.

“If Mrs. Hart doesn’t mind I shall creep into her room before she is wake and make a roaring fire. That’s the way Tom Haynes’ niggers do, and he thinks we are niggers,” Kenneth said to his mother, with some bitterness in his tone, for Harry’s letter rankled a little.

And still he wished his cousin was coming home to see Connie. But Harry was off for Kentucky, and did not know of Connie’s expected visit until it was too late to change his plan, if he had cared to do so. There were only a few days between Mrs. Hart’s letter and the day before Christmas, when she was expected, but in that time the house was put in perfect order, although where the disorder before was the deacon could not guess. But his wife knew, and went through a regular cleaning process, even to the big ball-room over the stable, which she swept and mopped and dusted, looking askance at the piles of butternuts and walnuts on the floor and wondering what Mrs. Hart would think of such litter should she chance to go in there. Fires were built in the parlor and guest chamber, with a view to thaw them out, when, fortunately, the weather changed, and the day before Christmas was ushered in with a warm rain, which threatened to take away all the snow. It cleared, however, in the afternoon, and Kenneth was at the station when the New York train came in, and a tall lady in black alighted, with a little girl, in blue cloak and hood trimmed with swan’s down, her lovely face looking out from the hood, and her blue eyes laughing up at Kenneth as he took her in his arms, while Mrs. Hart picked her way through the melting snow and slush.

“This is awful. Couldn’t you have gotten nearer the track?” she said, rather crossly, to Kenneth, as she looked down at her boots covered with mud.

“Perhaps I could, but Sorrel is young and don’t like the engine very well. I’m awfully sorry,” Kenneth replied, helping her into the sleigh and taking his seat beside her, with Connie in the middle.