University of Virginia Library

27. CHAPTER XXVII.
AFFAIRS AT OLNEY.

RICHARD could not stay in Camden, where everything
reminded him so much of Ethelyn, and at
his mother's earnest solicitations he went back to
Olney, taking with him all the better articles of furniture
which Ethie had herself selected, and which converted the
plain farm-house into quite a palace, as both Andy and his
mother thought. The latter did not object to them in the
least, and was even conscious of a feeling of pride and satisfaction
when her neighbors came in to admire, and some
of them to envy her the handsome surroundings. Mrs. Dr.
Van Buren's lesson, though a very bitter one, was doing
Richard good, especially as it was adroitly followed up by
Melinda Jones, who, on the strength of her now being his
sister-elect, took the liberty of saying to him some pretty

plain things with regard to his former intercourse with
Ethie.

James had finally nerved himself to the point of asking
Melinda if she could be happy with such a homespun fellow
as himself, and Melinda had answered that she thought she
could, hinting that it was possible for him to overcome much
which was homespun about him.

“I do not expect you to leave off your heavy boots or
your coarse blue frock when your work requires you to
wear them,” she said, stealing her hand into his in a caressing
kind of way; “but a man can be a gentleman in any
dress.”

James promised to do his best, and, with Melinda for a
teacher, had no fears for his success. And so, some time
in August, when the summer work at the Joneses was nearly
done, Melinda came to the farm-house and was duly installed
as mistress of the chamber which James and John
had occupied,—the latter removing his Sunday clothes, and
rifle, and fishing lines, and tobacco, and the slippers Ethie
had given him, into Andy's room, which he shared with his
brother. Mrs. Markham, senior, got on better with Melinda
than she had with Ethelyn; Melinda knew exactly
how to manage her, and, indeed, how to manage the entire
household, from Richard down to Andy, who, though extremely
kind and attentive to her, never loved her as he did
Ethelyn.

“She was a nice, good girl,” he said, “but couldn't hold
a candle to Ethie. She was too dark complected, and had
altogether too thumpin' feet and ankles, besides wearin'
wrinkley stockings.”

This was Andy's criticism, confided to his brother John,
around whose grave mouth there was a faint glimmer of a

smile as he gave a hitch to his suspender and replied, “I
guess her stockin's do wrinkle some.”

A few of Melinda's ways Mrs. Markham designated as
high-flown, but one by one her prejudices gave way as Melinda
gained upon her step by step, until at last Ethelyn
would hardly have recognized the well-ordered household,
so different from what she had known it.

“The boys” no longer came to the table in their shirt-sleeves,
for Melinda always had their coats in sight, just
where it was handy to put them on; and the trousers were
slipped down over the boots while the boys ate, and the
soft brown Markham hair always looked smooth and shining,
and Mrs. Markham tidied herself a little before coming
to the table, no matter how heavy her work, and never but
once was she guilty of sitting down to her dinner in her
pasteboard sun-bonnet, giving as an excuse that her “hair
was at sixes and sevens.” She remembered seeing her
mother do this fifty years before, and she had clung to the
habit as one which must be right because they used to do
so in Vermont. Gradually, too, there came to be napkins
for tea, and James' Christmas present to his wife was a set
of silver forks, while John contributed a dozen individual
salts, and Andy bought a silver bell, to call he did not know
whom, only it looked pretty on the table, and he wanted
it there every meal, ringing it himself sometimes when
anything was needed, and himself answering the call. On
the whole, the Markhams were getting to be “dreadfully
stuck-up,” Eunice Plympton's mother said, while Eunice
doubted if she should like living there now as well as in the
days of Ethelyn. She had been a born lady, and Eunice
conceded everything to her; but “to see the airs that
Melinda Jones put on” was a little too much for Eunice's

democratic blood, and she and her mother made many
invidious remarks concerning “Mrs. Jim Markham,” who
wore such heavy silk to church, and sported such handsome
furs. One hundred and fifty dollars the cape alone had
cost, it was rumored, and when to this Richard added a
dark, rich muff to match, others than Eunice looked enviously
at Mrs. James, who, to all intents and purposes, was
the same frank, outspoken person that she was when she
wore a plain scarf around her neck, and rode to church in
her father's lumber-wagon instead of the handsome turn-out
James had bought since his marriage. Nothing could spoil
Melinda, and though she became quite the fashion in Olney,
and was frequently invited to Camden to meet the élite of
the town, she was up just as early on Monday mornings as
when she lived at home, and her young, strong arms saved
Mrs. Markham more work than Eunice's had done. She
would not dip candles, she said, nor burn them either, except
as a matter of convenience to carry around the house;
and so the tallows gave way to kerosene, and as Melinda
liked a great deal of light, the house was sometimes illuminated
so brilliantly that poor Mrs. Markham had either to
shade her eyes with her hands, or turn her back to the lamp.
She never thought of opposing Melinda; that would have
done no good; and she succumbed with the rest to the will
which was ruling them so effectually and so well.

Some very plain talks Melinda had with Richard with
regard to Ethelyn; and Richard, when he saw how anxious
James was to please his wife, even in little things which he
had once thought of no consequence, regretted so much
that his own course had not been different with Ethelyn.
“Poor, dear Ethie,” he called her to himself, as he sat alone
at night in the room where she used to be. At first, he

had freely talked of her with his family. That was when,
like Aunt Barbara, they were expecting her back, or rather
expecting constantly to hear from her through Aunt Barbara.
She would go to Chicopee first, they felt assured,
and then Aunt Barbara would write, and Richard would
start at once. How many castles he built of that second
bringing her home, where Melinda made everything so
pleasant, and where she could be happy for a little time,
when they would go where she liked,—it did not matter
where. Richard was willing for anything, only he did
want her to stay a little time at the farm-house, just to see
how they had improved, and to learn that his mother could
be kind if she tried. She meant to be so if Ethelyn ever
came back, for she had said as much to him on the receipt
of Ethie's message, sent in Andy's letter, and her tears had
fallen fast as she confessed to not always having felt or acted
right toward the young girl. With Melinda the ruling
spirit they would have made it very pleasant for Ethelyn,
and they waited for her so anxiously all through the autumnal
days till the early winter snow covered the prairies,
and the frost was on the window-panes, and the wind
howled dismally past the door, just as it did one year ago,
when Ethelyn went away. But, alas! no Ethie came, or
tidings of her either, and Richard ceased to speak of her at
last, and his face wore so sad a look whenever she was mentioned,
that the family stopped talking of her; or, if they
spoke her name, it was as they spoke of Daisy, or of one
that was dead.

For a time Richard kept up a correspondence with Aunt
Barbara; but that, too, gradually ceased, and as his uncle,
the old colonel, died in the spring, and the widow went to
her friends in Philadelphia, he seemed to be cut off from

any connection with Chicopee, and but for the sad, harassing
memory of what had been, he was to all intents and
purposes the same grave, silent bachelor as of yore, following
the bent of his own inclinations, coming and going as
he liked, sought after by those who wished for an honest
man to transact their business, and growing gradually more
and more popular with the people of his own and the adjoining
counties.