Jessie Graham Part 2

There was a fierce struggle in the water, and the ice was broken up for many yards around, and then, just as those who stood upon the sh.o.r.e, breathlessly awaiting the result, were beginning to despair, the n.o.ble boy fell fainting in their midst, his arms clasped convulsively around Jessie, whose short black curls and dripping garments clung tightly to her face and form. Half an hour later and Deacon Marshall, smoking by his kitchen fire, looked from the western window, and, starting to his feet, exclaimed:

"Who are all those people coming this way, and what do they carry with them? It's Walter,-it's Walter!" he cried, as the setting sun shone on the white face, and hurrying out, he asked, huskily, "Is my boy dead?"

"No, not dead," answered one of the group, "his heart is beating yet, but she--" and he pointed to little Jessie, whom a strong man carried in his arms.

But Jessie was not dead, although for a long time they thought she was, and Walter, who had recovered from his fainting fit, was not ashamed to cry as he looked upon the still white face and wished he had never been harsh to the little girl, or shaken her so hard on that first day of her arrival at Deerwood. Slowly, as one wakes from a heavy slumber, Jessie came back to life, and the first words she uttered were:

"Tell Walter I did get his cap, but somebody took it from me and hurt my hand so bad," and she held up the tiny thing on which was a deep cut made by the sharp-pointed ice.

"Yes, darling, I know it," Walter whispered, and when no one saw him he pressed his lips to the wounded hand.

This was a good deal for Walter to do. Never had he called any one darling before, never kissed even his blue-eyed cousin Ellen, but the first taste inspired him with a desire for more, and he wondered at himself for having refrained so long.

"Will she live?" he asked eagerly of the physician, who replied:

"There is now no reason why she should not," and Walter hastened away to his own room, where, un.o.bserved, he could weep out his great joy.

Gradually, as the days went by, Jessie comprehended what Walter had done for her, and her first impulse was that some one should write to her father,-somebody who would say just what she told them to, and as Aunt Debby was the most likely to do this, the poor old lady was pressed into the service, groaning and sweating over the task.

"And now, pa," Aunt Debby wrote, after telling of the accident, "Walter must be paid, and I'll tell you how to pay him. I heard him one night talking with his grandpa about going to school and college, and his grandpa said he couldn't, they were not worth enough in the whole world for that. Then Walter said he should never know anything, and cried so hard that I was just going to cry too, when I fell asleep and forgot it.

You are rich, I know, for one of ma's rings cost five hundred dollars, and her shawl a thousand, and I want you to send me money enough for Walter to go to college. It will take a lot, I guess, for I heard him say he'd only studied the things they learn in district schools; but you have got enough. Let me give it to him with my own hands, because he saved me with his, will you, father? Walter is the nicest kind of a boy."

The letter was sent, and in course of time there came a response with a draft for two thousand dollars, the whole to be used for the n.o.ble lad who had saved the life of the father's only child. Wild with delight Jessie listened while Aunt Debby, the only one in the secret, spelled out the words, then seizing the draft, she hastened out in quest of Walter, whom she found in the barn, milking the speckled cow. Running up to him she cried:

"It's come,-the money! You're going to school,-to college, and to be a great big man like father. Here it is," and thrusting the paper into his hand she crouched so near to him that the milk-pail was upset, and the white drops spattered her jet black hair.

At first Walter could not understand it, but Jessie managed to explain how she had asked her father for money to pay for his education.

"Because," she said, "if it hadn't been for you I should have been a little dead girl now, and the boys, next winter, would have skated right over me lying there on the bottom of the pond."

Walter's first emotion was one of joy in having within his reach what he had so greatly desired, but considered impossible. Then there arose a feeling of unwillingness to receive his education from Mr. Graham, to whom they were already indebted. It seemed too much like charity, and that he could not endure. Still he did not say so to Jessie,-he would wait, he thought, until he had talked with his grandfather. Greatly surprised, Deacon Marshall listened to the story, saying, when it was finished:

"You'll accept it, of course."

"No, I shan't," returned Walter. "We owe Mr. Graham now more than we can ever pay, and I would rather work all my life on the old homestead than be dependent on his bounty. You may send it back to your father," he added, giving the draft to Jessie. "Tell him I thank him, but I can't accept his favor."

"Oh, Walter!" and climbing into a chair, for Walter was standing up, Jessie wound her arms around his neck and poured forth a torrent of entreaties which led him finally to waver, and at last to decide upon accepting it, provided Mr. Graham would allow him to pay it back as soon as he was able.

To this Mr. Graham, who was immediately written to upon the subject, a.s.sented, for he readily understood the feeling of pride which had prompted the suggestion.

"I do not respect you less," he wrote to Walter in reply, "for wis.h.i.+ng to take care of yourself, and the time may come when the money so cheerfully loaned to you now will be sorely needed by me and mine. Until then, give yourself no trouble about it, but devote all your energies to the acquirement of an education. Were my advice asked in reference to a college, I should tell you Yale, but you must do as you think best. I shall need a partner by-and-by, perhaps, and nothing could please me more than to see the names of Graham and Marshall a.s.sociated together in business again. G.o.d bless your father, wherever he may be."

This letter touched the right chord, and often in his sleep Walter saw the sign whose yellow letters read "Graham & Marshall," and the junior partner of this firm sometimes was himself, but oftener a mild-faced man wearing the sad, weary look he always saw in dreams upon his father's face. The day would come, too, he said, when the honor of the Marshall name would be redeemed, and he looked eagerly forward to the time when he was to enter as a student the Wilbraham Academy, where it was decided that he should fit himself for college.

Very delightful was the bustle and confusion attendant upon the preparations in the deacon's household, the entire family entering into the excitement with a zest which told how much the boy was beloved.

Every one wished to do something for him, even to little Jessie, who, having never been taught to do a really useful thing until she came to Deerwood, worked perseveringly, but with small hope of success, upon a pair of socks like those which Ellen had knit for the deacon the winter before. But alas for Jessie! knitting was not her forte, and Walter himself could not forbear a smile at the queer-looking thing which grew but slowly in her hands. At last, in despair, she gave it up, and one night, when no one was near, threw it into the fire.

"I must give him something for a keepsake," she thought, and remembering that he had sometimes smoothed her hair as if he liked it, she seized the shears, and cutting from her head the longest, handsomest curl, gave it to him with the explanation that "her father had taken a lock of her hair when he went away, and perhaps he would like one too."

Affecting an indifference he did not feel, Walter laughingly accepted a gift which in future years would be very dear to him, because of the fair donor.

The bright April morning came at last on which Walter left his home, and with tearful eyes the family watched him out of sight, and then, with saddened hearts, went back to their usual employments, feeling that the suns.h.i.+ne of the house had gone with the stirring, active boy, who, in one corner of the noisy car, was winking hard and counting the fence posts as they ran swiftly past, to keep himself from crying. Anon this feeling left him, and with the hopefulness of youth he looked eagerly into the far future, catching occasional glimpses of the day which would surely come to him when the names of Graham and Marshall would be a.s.sociated together again.

CHAPTER III.-EIGHT YEARS LATER.

It is the pleasant summer time, and on the college green groups of people hurry to and fro, some seeking their own pleasure beneath the grateful shade of the majestic elms, others wending their way to the hotel, while others still are hastening to the Center Church to hear the valedictory, which rumor says will be all the better received for the n.o.ble, manly beauty of the speaker chosen to this honor. Flushed with excitement, he stands before the people, his clear hazel eye wandering uneasily over the sea of upturned faces, as if in quest of one from whose presence he had hoped to catch his inspiration. But he looked in vain. Two figures alone met his view,-one a bent and gray-haired old man leaning on his staff, the other a mustached, stylish-looking youth of nearly his own age, who occupied a front seat, and with his gla.s.s coolly inspected the young orator.

With a calm, dignified mien, Walter returned the gaze, wondering where he had seen that face before. Suddenly it flashed upon him, and with a feeling of gratified pride that it was thus they met again, he glanced a second time at the calm, benignant expression of the old man, who had come many miles to hear the speech his boy was to make. In the looks of the latter there was that which kindled a thrill of enthusiasm in Walter's frame, and when at last he opened his lips, and the tide of eloquence burst forth, the audience hung upon his words with breathless interest, greeting him at the close with shouts of applause which shook the solid walls and brought the old man to his feet. Then the tumult ceased, and amid the throng the hero of the hour was seen piloting his aged grandfather across the green to the hotel.

"I wish your father was here to-day," the deacon said, as they reached the public parlor; but before Walter could reply he saw approaching them the stranger who had so leisurely inspected him with his quizzing-gla.s.s, and who now came forward, offering his hand and saying, laughingly:

"Allow me to congratulate you upon having become yourself a _lion_."

It did not need this speech to tell Walter that his visitor was William Bellenger, and he answered in the same light strain:

"Yes, I'm not afraid of the lion now;" "nor of the baboon, either," was his mental rejoinder, as he saw the wondrous amount of hair his cousin had brought back from Europe, where for the last two years he had been traveling.

William Bellenger could be very gracious when he tried, and as his object in introducing himself to Walter's notice was not so much to talk with him particularly, as to inquire after a certain young girl and heiress, whose bright, sparkling beauty was beginning to create something of a sensation, he a.s.sumed a friendliness he did not feel, and was soon conversing familiarly with Walter of the different people they both knew, mentioning incidentally Mr. Graham, the wealthy New York banker, whom he had met in Europe, for Mr. Graham had remained abroad six years. From him William had heard the warmest eulogies of Walter Marshall, and there had been kindled in his bosom a feeling of jealous enmity, which the events of the day had not in the least tended to diminish. Still if his cousin had not interfered with him in another matter of greater importance than the being praised by Mr. Graham and the people, he was satisfied, and it was to ascertain this fact that he had followed young Marshall to the hotel.

Before going to New Haven William had called at the home of Jessie's grandmother in the city, to inquire for the young lady. The house was shut up and the family were in the country, the servant said, who answered William's ring, but the sharp eyes of the young man caught the outline of a figure listening in the upper hall, and readily divining who the figure was, he answered:

"Yes, but Mrs. Bartow is here. Carry her my card and say that I will wait."

The name of Bellenger brought down at once a bundle of satin and lace, which Jessie called her grandmother, and which was supposed to be showing off its diamonds at some fas.h.i.+onable hotel, instead of fanning itself in the back chamber of that brownstone front. From her William learned that Jessie was in Deerwood, and would probably attend the commencement exercises at Yale, as a boy of some kind, whom Mr. Graham had taken up, was to be graduated at that time. To New Haven, then, he went, examining the books at every hotel, and scanning the faces of those he met with an eager gaze, and at last, as he became convinced she was not there, he determined to seek an interview with his cousin, and question him of her whereabouts. After speaking of the father as a man whose acquaintance every one was proud to claim, he said, quite indifferently:

"By the way, Walter, his daughter Jessie is in Deerwood, is she not?"

"Yes," returned Walter; "she has been there for some weeks. She lived with us all the time her father was in Europe, except when she was away at school," and Walter felt his pulses quicken, for he remembered what Mr. Graham had said of Mrs. Bartow's having set her heart on William as her future grandson.

William knew as well as Walter that Jessie had lived at Deerwood, but he seemed to be surprised, and continued:

"I wonder, then, she is not here to-day. She must feel quite a sisterly interest in you," and the eyes, not wholly unlike Walter's, save that they had in them a sinister expression, were fixed inquiringly upon young Marshall, who replied:

"I did expect her, and my cousin too; but my grandfather says that Ellen was not able to come, and Jessie would not leave her."

"She must be greatly attached to her country friends," returned William, and the slight sneer which accompanied the words prompted Walter to reply:

"She is attached to some of us, I trust. At all events, I love her as a sister, for such she has been to me, while Mr. Graham has been a second father. I owe him everything--"

"Not your education, certainly. You don't mean that?" interrupted William, who had from the first suspected as much, for he knew that Deacon Marshall was comparatively poor.

Walter hesitated, for he had not yet outlived the pride which caused him to shrink from blazoning it abroad that a stranger's money had made him what he was. Deacon Marshall, on the contrary, had no such sensitiveness, and observing Walter's embarra.s.sment, he answered for him:

"Yes, Mr. Graham did pay for his education, and an old man's blessing on his head for that same deed of his'n."