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Page 3
Dr. Woodburn entered as soon as tea was ready. He was the ideal father
one meets in books, and if there was one thing on earth Beth was proud
of it was "dear daddy." He was a fine, broad-browed man, strikingly like
Beth, but with hair silvery long before its time. His eyes were like
hers, too, though Beth's face had a little shadow of gloom that did not
belong to the doctor's genial countenance.
It was a pleasant little tea-table to which they sat down. Mrs Martin
always took tea with them, and as she talked over Briarsfield gossip to
the doctor, Beth, as was her custom, looked silently out of the window
upon the green sloping lawn.
"Well, Beth, dear," said Dr. Woodburn, "has Mrs. Martin told you that
young Arthur Grafton is coming to spend his holidays with us?"
"Arthur Grafton! Why, no!" said Beth with pleased surprise.
"He is coming. He may drop in any day. He graduated this spring, you
know. He's a fine young man, I'm told."
"Oh! Beth ain't got time to think about anything but that slim young
Mayfair, now-a-days," put in Mrs. Martin. "He's been out there with her
most of the afternoon, and me with all them cherries to tend to."
Beth saw a faint shadow cross her father's face, but put it aside as
fancy only and began to think of Arthur. He was an old play-fellow of
hers. An orphan at an early age, he had spent his childhood on his
uncle's farm, just beyond the pine wood to the north of her home. Her
father had always taken a deep interest in him, and when the death of
his uncle and aunt left him alone in the world, Dr. Woodburn had taken
him into his home for a couple of years until he had gone away to
school. Arthur had written once or twice, but Beth was staying with her
Aunt Margaret, near Welland, that summer, and she had seen fit, for
unexplained reasons, to stop the correspondence: so the friendship had
ended there. It was five years now since she had seen her old
play-fellow, and she found herself wondering if he would be greatly
changed.
After tea Beth took out her books, as usual, for an hour or two; then,
about eight o'clock, with her tin-pail on her arm, started up the road
for the milk. This was one of her childhood's tasks that she still took
pleasure in performing. She sauntered along in the sweet June twilight
past the fragrant clover meadow and through the pine wood, with the
fire-flies darting beneath the boughs. Some girls would have been
frightened, but Beth was not timid. She loved the still sweet solitude
of her evening walk. The old picket gate clicked behind her at the Birch
Farm, and she went up the path with its borders of four-o'clocks. It was
Arthur's old home, where he had passed his childhood at his uncle's--a
great cheery old farm-house, with morning-glory vines clinging to the
windows, and sun-flowers thrusting their great yellow faces over the
kitchen wall.
The door was open, but the kitchen empty, and she surmised that Mrs.
Birch had not finished milking; so Beth sat down on the rough bench
beneath the crab-apple tree and began to dream of the olden days. There
was the old chain swing where Arthur used to swing her, and the
cherry-trees where he filled her apron. She was seven and he was
ten--but such a man in her eyes, that sun-browned, dark-eyed boy. And
what a hero he was to her when she fell over the bridge, and he rescued
her! He used to get angry though sometimes. Dear, how he thrashed
Sammie Jones for calling her a "little snip." Arthur was good, though,
very good. He used to sit in that very bench where she was sitting, and
explain the Sunday-school lesson to her, and say such good things. Her
father had told her two or three years ago of Arthur's decision to be a
missionary. He was going away off to Palestine. "I wonder how he can do
it," she thought. "He has his B.A. now, too, and he was always so
clever. He must be a hero. I'm not good like that; I--I don't think I
want to be so good. Clarence isn't as good as that. But Clarence must be
good. His poetry shows it. I wonder if Arthur will like Clarence?"
Mrs. Birch, with a pail of fresh milk on each arm, interrupted her
reverie.
Beth enjoyed her walk home that night. The moon had just risen, and the
pale stars peeped through the patches of white cloud that to her fancy
looked like the foot-prints of angels here and there on the path of the
infinite. As she neared home a sound of music thrilled her. It was only
an old familiar tune, but she stopped as if in a trance. The touch
seemed to fill her very soul. It was so brave and yet so tender. The
music ceased; some sheep were bleating in the distance, the stars were
growing brighter, and she went on toward home.
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