Chapter VIII: After Many Years

Fourteen years is a long time to look forward to, but looking back it does not seem very long, since Kenneth bade good-bye to Connie, and hung her sled in the attic, with the stained handkerchief drying upon it. The sled is hanging there still, and the handkerchief is lying in one of Kenneth’s bureau drawers, yellow and soiled, for no water has touched it since he washed it at the pump and put it away to dry. The prayer-book shows marks of constant usage, and Kenneth goes regularly to St. Jude’s, which to himself he still calls Connie’s church. He has worked his way through college, and at his graduation no one stood higher in his class than Kenneth Stannard, the boy from The 4 Corners, who swept the halls and did many menial offices to help himself along.

Connie has been at the farmhouse but once since her first visit there, and that was in the summer eight years after the memorable Christmas, and when she was fourteen and Kenneth twenty-two. He had dreamed of her coming night after night, and always saw her in her blue cloak and hood, as she had been when he bade her good-by. He knew there must be a change, but was not quite prepared for the slender, dignified girl, who wore an enormous hat and called him Mr. Stannard. She was, however, inexpressibly lovely, he thought, with her flower-like face and great blue eyes, which laughed when she laughed, but oftener drooped shyly under long, thick lashes. But for the eyes, and the smile which lighted up her whole face, Kenneth would hardly have recognized in her the little girl of six whom he had drawn for miles and miles through slush and mud. Did she remember it, he wondered, and the Christmas tree? If she did, she made no sign, and he would not refer to it, or tell her that he knew the contents of the prayer-book now as well as she did. She could only spend a day, or a part of it, as her aunt had left her at the station, while she went on to Albany to visit a friend, and was to call for her in the evening. She was very sweet and gracious, but a little too dignified for her years, Kenneth thought, as he tried to entertain her.

“Would you like to go to the huckleberry pasture?” he asked, after dinner was over.

“Oh, yes,” she said, with the old eagerness of manner, and they were soon on their way to the spot where they had once had their Christmas tree.

It was no longer used for sheep, for the deacon had none. But Kenneth had kept the place up, and when the old chair fell to pieces he made another, in which he sometimes sat on Sunday afternoons, reading Connie’s prayer-book.

“Oh, I remember this place so well,” Connie said, sitting down in the chair, and drawing long breaths as she looked off across the stretches of woods and valleys and hills, bright in their summer robes and bathed in sunshine.

Kenneth was standing where the tree had stood, leaning on a timber which supported that side of the inclosure, and Connie thought what a fine face and figure he had, and felt a faint stir of something she could not define, as she met his eyes fixed so earnestly upon her.

“Tell me of your college life,” she said. “I was so glad when I heard you had gone. Was that cousin of yours there, too, and where is he? You know I have never seen him.”

Kenneth was glad to talk of his own college life, which had closed that summer, but had nothing good to say of Hal, who from Andover had entered Harvard, spending money so recklessly that the deacon had refused to meet his bills. There was lark after lark, as Hal called them, until at last there was one too many, and the deacon was notified to take the young man home, if he would prevent open disgrace. Hal came home, good-natured and silver-tongued as ever, and half made Mr. and Mrs. Stannard believe that the fault had been with the professor, who misunderstood him, and with his companions, who had let him take the blame in which they should have shared. He was of age now and in Boston, pretending to study law and coming home occasionally for a day or so, to be waited upon like a prince by his Aunt Mary, who always went down before his dark eyes and soft, musical voice, which seldom failed to stir the heart of women. Kenneth could not tell this to Connie, but he told her Hal had been in Harvard, and was now in Boston studying law, and then the conversation drifted away from him to Kenneth himself, Connie asking what he meant to do, now he was through college.

“Stay here on the farm?” and her voice implied that she thought he might do better.

Kenneth detected the tone, and answered quickly:

“Not on the farm, perhaps, but here in the country, as an M.D. I am to study medicine with Dr. Catherin at Rocky Point. He is the greatest doctor in these parts,—is sent for far and near for counsel. You’ve heard of him, perhaps?”

Connie believed she had, and was glad that Kenneth was to be with so eminent a man, and hoped he would become as celebrated. She certainly was a little stiff, and remained so the rest of the day, until they were on their way to the station, just as the sun was setting. Kenneth had proposed driving her down, but she insisted upon walking, the evening was so fine, and she wanted the exercise, she said. For a time she was very silent, but when they were half way down the hill, near a bit of broken wall, she said: “Let’s sit here and rest.”

The full moon was rising, and threw a flood of light on her face as she turned suddenly to Kenneth, calling him now by that name instead of Mr. Stannard, as she had done through the day.

“I _must_ call you Kenneth for once,” she said. “I wanted to all the time, but you seemed so big and so tall, with whiskers, and the boy Kenneth’s face was so smooth, and I thought maybe you wouldn’t like it, and I am fourteen, and must drop all my childish manners, auntie says. She tells me to be womanly, and not say out all I think and feel, and I do try to, and I have been trained into a kind of automaton; but it’s so hard, especially here, where I haven’t acted myself. But don’t think I’ve forgotten, for I haven’t. I remember the week spent here, and know I was a very pert, forward child, asking questions I ought not to have asked, and telling everything I knew. Don’t stop me,” she continued, as Kenneth began to protest. “I know what I did, and am ashamed of some things, but was so happy with the cats and in the barn and on that sled, and at the Christmas tree. Oh, that tree! How many times I have dreamed of it, and of the boy who gave everything and had nothing for himself.”

“Yes, I had,” Kenneth interrupted eagerly. “I had _you_! Don’t you remember? You called me up and gave yourself to me, and I said I’d keep you forever!”

There was a good deal of the woman in the young girl of fourteen and the bright color flamed into her cheeks as she replied:

“I was a child, and did not know any better. I have taken it back.”

“No, Connie. Don’t do that,” Kenneth said, impulsively, and laid his hand on hers.

For a moment Connie’s clear blue eyes looked at him with something like rebuke in them; then, with a toss of her head, which made her like the Connie of the sled, she said:

“It isn’t worth having. I am not what I was then. I have been moulded and trained till there is but little left of the Connie you used to know, though in some things I am unchanged. I told you you were the ‘_bestest boy_’ and had the ‘_goodest face_’ I ever saw, and—and—I think so still.”

The moon was shining full upon her, bringing out every point of her beauty, and Kenneth might have stooped and kissed her, as he did when she first told him her opinion of him, had it not been that just then the mail carrier from the post-office at The 4 Corners came down the hill:

“Hallo!” he called, stopping suddenly as he recognized Connie, who he knew had been spending the day at the farmhouse, and was presumably bound for the train. “If either of you is goin’ to the cars, you haven’t much time to spare. Better climb in here.”

“I must not be left. Let’s get in!” Connie exclaimed, and they were soon driving rapidly to the station, which they reached just as the train came up, and Mrs. Hart’s face looked from the window in quest of Connie.

There was only time for a hurried good-by, and then the train sped on its way, and Connie was gone for a second time.

Time passed, and news came that she had gone abroad and was in France, in a convent school, and the following autumn Kenneth entered the office of Dr. Catherin at Rocky Point, proving himself so apt a student and exercising so good judgment that before he was graduated the doctor gave him a part of his large practice. After his graduation he opened an office in Millville and another at his home at The 4 Corners, where the people were very proud of their young M.D. And Kenneth was a man to be proud of, whether as a citizen or physician or son. He was not exactly handsome, as we understand the term, but he had just the face which strangers trust, and which sick people like to see at their bedside. With his tall figure and fine physique, he was a man to be noticed among scores of other men, and one of whom Connie would say that he had more than the “goodest” face in the world, if she could see him now. She has been his guiding star, and not an honor has ever been conferred upon him that has not brought with it a thought of her and a wish that she knew. In the stable are two young horses, necessary for his practice, and he calls them Pro and Con, the latter being as near Connie’s name as he dares to come. She is a graceful, high-strung, nervous animal, full of capers and quirks, and rebelling against being hitched to a post, and usually running away if she is not. Pro is gentler and more quiet, and will stand unhitched for hours, while his master is visiting his patients. And yet Kenneth loves Con the best, and pets her the most, and talks sometimes to her of the Connie far away, whom he would give worlds to see, and from whom he seldom hears.

When Hal came of age, and the management of his property was turned over to him, he found everything straight to a penny, but was disappointed that his fortune was not larger. With his tastes and habits he wanted a great deal of money, and he spent a great deal, and would have borrowed of Kenneth, if his cousin would have loaned him. Once he offered to mortgage his house, but Kenneth refused, with the result that there sprung up a coolness on Harry’s part, and for a long time he neither came home nor wrote. Then suddenly he appeared one day, gracious and good-natured as ever, delighted to see the old place, proud of Kenneth’s success, and very affectionate to his aunt. Kenneth felt sure he had something in his mind. “Only wait and it will come out,” he thought, and that night, when they were seated upon the piazza, enjoying the cool breeze, he told them what he wanted.