Margaret Hill McCarter I love the world with all its brave endeavor, I love its winds and floods, its suns and sands, But, oh, I love most deeply and forever The clinging touch of timid little hands.

The Ohio woods were gorgeous with the October coloring. The oak in regal purple stood outlined against the beech in cloth-of-gold, while green-flecked hickory and elm, and iridescent silver and scarlet ash, and flaming maple added to the kaleidoscope of splendor.

The old National pike road leading down to Cloverdale was still flanked by little rail-fenced fields that were bordered by deep woodlands. The old Aydelot farmhouse was as neat and white, with gardens and flower beds as well kept, as if only a day had passed since the master and mistress thereof had gone out to their last earthly home in the Cloverdale graveyard.

Fifteen years had seen the frontier pushed westward with magic swiftness. The Grass River Valley, once a wide reach of emptiness and solitude, where only one homestead stood a lone bulwark against the forces of the wilderness, now, after a decade and a half, beheld its prairie dotted with freeholds, where the foundations of homes were laid.

Fifteen years marked little appreciable change in the heritage given up by Asher Aydelot out of his love for a girl and his dream of a larger opportunity in the new 156 West. For fifteen springtimes the old-fashioned sweet pinks had blossomed on the two mounds where his last service had been given to his native estate. Hardly a tree had been cut in the Aydelot woods. The marshes in the lower ground had not been drained. The only change in the landscape was the high grade of the railroad that cut a triangle from the northwest corner of the farm in its haste to reach Cloverdale and be done with it. The census of 1880, however, showed an increase in ten years of seventy-five citizens in Clover County, and the community felt satisfied with itself.

The afternoon train on the Cloverdale branch was late getting into town, but the station parasites were rewarded for their patience by the sight of a stranger following the usual two or three passengers who alighted. Strangers were not so common in Cloverdale that anyone’s face would be forgotten under ten years of time.

“That’s that same feller that come here ten year or mebby twelve year ago. I’d know him in Guinea,” one of the oldest station parasites declared.

“That’s him, sure as shootin’,” his comrade-in-laziness agreed. “A doctor, don’t you ricolleck? Name’s Corrie, no, Craney, no, that’s not it neither—A-ah!” trying hard to think a little.

“Carey. Don’t you remember?” the first speaker broke in, “Doc Carey. They say he doctored Miss Jane in Philadelphia, an’ got in good with her, more’n a dozen years ago.”

“Well,” drawled the second watcher of affairs, “if he thinks he can get anything out’n o’ her by hangin’ round Cloverdale, he’s barkin’ up the wrong saplin’. Miss Jane, 157 she’s close, an’ too set in her ways now. She must be nigh forty.”

“That’s right. But, I’ll bet he’s goin’ there now. Let’s see.”

The two moved to the end of the station, from which strategic point both the main street, the National pike road, of course, and the new street running “cat-i-cornered” from the station to the creek bridge could be commanded.

“Darned fool! is what he is! hikin’ straight as a plumbline fur the crick. If he was worth it, I’d foller him.”

“Oh, the ornery pup will be back all right. Lazy fellers waitin’ to marry rich old maids ain’t worth follerin’. Darn ’em! Slick skeezicks, tryin’ to git rich jes’ doin’ nothin’.”

So the two citizens agreed while they consigned a perfect stranger to a mild purgatory. His brisk wholesomeness offended them, and the narrowness of their own daily lives bred prejudice as the marshes breed mosquitoes.

Dr. Carey walked away with springing step. He was glad to be at his journey’s end; glad to be off the slow little train, and glad to see again the October woods of the Alleghany foothills. To the eastern-bred man, nothing in the grandeur of the prairie landscape can quite meet the craving for the autumn beauty of the eastern forests. The slanting rays of the late afternoon sun fell athwart the radiant foliage of the woods as Dr. Carey’s way led him between the two lines of flaming glory. When he had cleared the creek valley, his pace slackened. Something of the old boyhood joy of living, something of the sorrowful-sweet memory, the tender grace of a day that is dead, 158 but will never be forgotten, came with the pensive autumn mood of Nature to make the day sweet to the pensive mind.

Jane Aydelot sat on the veranda of the Aydelot home, looking eagerly toward Cloverdale, when she discovered Dr. Carey coming leisurely up the road. She was nearly forty years old, as the railroad station loafers had declared, but there was nothing about her to indicate the “old maid, set in her ways.” She might have passed for Asher’s sister, for she had a certain erect bearing and strong resemblance of feature. All single women were called old maids at twenty-five in those days. Else this fair-faced woman, with clear gray eyes and pink cheeks, and scarce a hint of white in her abundant brown hair, would not have been considered in the then ridiculed class. There was a mixture of resoluteness and of timidity in the expression of her face betokening a character at once determined of will but shrinking in action. And withal, she was daintily neat and well kept, like her neat and well-kept farm and home.

As Dr. Carey passed up the flower-bordered walk, she arose to greet him. If there was a look of glad expectancy in her eyes, the doctor did not notice it, for the whole setting of the scene was peacefully lovely, and the fresh-cheeked, white-handed woman was a joy to see. Some quick remembrance of the brown-handed claimholders’ wives crossed his mind at that instant, and like a cruel stab to his memory came unbidden the picture of Virginia Thaine in her dainty girlishness in the old mansion house of the years now dead. Was he to blame that the contrast between Asher Aydelot’s wife, now of Kansas, and Jane Aydelot of Ohio should throw the favor toward the latter, that he 159 should forget for the moment what the women of the frontier must sacrifice in the winning of the wilderness?

“I am glad to see you again, Doctor,” Jane Aydelot said in cordial greeting.

“This is a very great pleasure to me, I assure you, Miss Aydelot,” Horace Carey replied, grasping her hand.

Inside the house everything was as well appointed as the outside suggested. As the doctor was making himself more presentable after his long journey, he realized that the pretty, old-fashioned bedroom had evidently been a boy’s room once, Asher Aydelot’s room. And with a woman’s loving sentiment, neither Asher’s mother nor the present owner had changed it at all. The petals of a pink rose of the wallpaper by the old-styled dresser were written over in a boyish hand and the doctor read the names of “Jim and Alice,” and “Asher and Nell.”

“Old sweethearts of ’the Kerry Dancing’ days,” he thought to himself.

From the open window he looked out upon the magnificence of the autumn forests and saw the white pike road leading down to Clover Creek and the church spires and courthouse tower above the trees.

“The heir to all this comfort and beauty gave it up because he didn’t want to be a tavern-keeper here, and because he did want a girl—Virginia!” Horace Carey said the name softly. “I know what her jessamine-draped window looked out upon. I hardly realized when I was here before what Asher’s early home had been. Yet those two for love of each other are building their lives into the life of their chosen State. It is the tiller of the soil who must make the West. But how many times in the lonely days 160 in that little sod cabin must they have remembered their childhood homes! How many times when the hot fall winds swept across the dead brown prairie have their memories turned to the beauty of the October days here in the East! Oh, well, the heroes weren’t all killed at Lexington and Bunker Hill, nor at Bull Run and Gettysburg. Some of them got away, and with heroic wives went out to conquer the plains from the harsh rule of Nature there.”

When the doctor went downstairs again, a little girl met him, saying, “Miss Jane says you may sit in the parlor, or out on the meranda, till supper is ready.”

“How pleasant! Won’t you come and sit with me?” Doctor Carey replied.

“I must put the—the lap-robes on the tables to everybody’s plate, and the knives and forks and poons. Nen I’ll come,” she answered.

Carey sat on the veranda enjoying the minutes and waiting for the little girl.

“What is your name?” he asked when she appeared, and climbed into Miss Jane’s vacant chair.

“Leigh Shirley. What’s yours?”

“Horace Carey.”

The doctor could not keep from smiling as he looked at her. She was so little and pretty, with yellow hair, big blue eyes, china-doll cheeks, and with all the repose of manner that only childhood and innocence can bestow.

“I think I like you, Horace,” Leigh said frankly, after carefully looking Carey over.

“Then, we’ll be friends,” he declared.

“Not for so mery long.” Leigh could not master the V of the alphabet yet. “’Cause I’m going away pretty 161 soon, Miss Jane say. You know my mamma’s dead.” The little face was very grave now. “And my Uncle Jim out in Kansas wants me. I’m going to him.”

Even in her innocence, Doctor Carey noted the very definite tone and clear trend of the young mind.

“Miss Jane loves me and I love her,” Leigh explained further. “Don’t you love Miss Jane, Horace?”

“Certainly,” Carey said, with some hesitancy.

“I’ll tell her so. She will love you, too. She is mery sweet,” Leigh assured him. “Where are you going to?”

“I’m going back to Kansas soon.”

“Wim me?”

“I should like to. Let’s go together.”

Leigh slid quickly from the chair and ran inside, where Doctor Carey heard her clear childish voice saying, “He is going to Kansas, too, Miss Jane. He says he loves you. His name is Horace, and he’s mery nice. He’s not mery pretty, though, but you love him, too, don’t you, Miss Jane?”

Evidently the child was close to Miss Jane, for the doctor heard something like a kiss and low words that seemed to send her away on some errand. Presently he caught sight of a sunny head and two big blue eyes and a little hand beckoning to him, as Leigh peeped around the corner of the house.

“Miss Jane says I mustn’t talk too much and mustn’t call you Horace, but just Doctor Carey. Won’t you come with me to get flowers for supper?”

The two strolled together into the old flower garden where verbenas and phlox and late asters and early chrysanthemums and a few monthly roses under Miss Jane’s 162 careful covering had weathered the first frosts. Leigh knew each plant and shrub, and gave out information freely.

“Would you rather stay with Miss Jane?”

Doctor Carey knew he should not ask the question, but it came anyhow.

“Oh, no, I want to go to my Uncle Jim.” Leigh settled the matter once for all.

That night Leigh fell asleep early, for Miss Jane was methodical with children. Then she and Doctor Carey sat until late by the open wood fire and talked of many things, but first of Leigh and her future.

“You will miss her, I’m sure,” the doctor said.

“More than anyone will know,” Miss Jane replied. “But I could not be happy without fulfilling my promise. I wrote you to come soon because each day makes the giving up a little harder for me. But I must know the truth about this Uncle Jim. I cannot send Leigh out of my house to be neglected and unloved. She demands love above all things.”

The pink color deepened in Miss Jane’s fair cheek as she recalled what Leigh had said to Doctor Carey about loving her. The doctor remembered also, and knew why she blushed. Yet blushes, he thought, were becoming to her.

“I’ll tell you all I know of Mr. Shirley. We have been friends for many years,” he said.

Then as truthfully as possible he told her of the life and mind of the lonely loving plainsman. When he had finished, Miss Jane sat awhile in silent thought.

“It is right that you should know something of conditions here, Doctor,” she said at last. “The older 163 Shirleys are dead. Tank’s life hastened the end for them, the Cloverdale gossips say. And as I have owned the Shirley House for several years, I came to know them well, and I do not think the gossips were far out of the way.”

“What of Tank’s life?” Doctor Carey asked. “I have some personal reasons for asking.”

Miss Jane looked up quickly. She was a pretty woman, and a keenly intelligent one as well. To Horace Carey, she seemed most charming at that moment.

“Let me tell you of Alice first,” she said. “You know, of course, that she loved Jim. They were just suited to each other. But her mother and Tank’s mother planned otherwise. Alice was submissive. Tank was greedy. He wanted the old Leigh farm. And envious, for he seemed to hate Jim always. It grew to be the passion of his life to want to take whatever Jim had. His mother hated Jim before he was born. It was his pre-natal heritage, combined with a selfish nature. There was misrepresentation and deception enough to make a plot for a novel; a misunderstanding and brief estrangement, separating Jim and Alice forever—all managed by Tank and his mother, for the farm first, and the downfall of Jim second. They took no account of Alice, who must be the greatest loser. And after they were married, both mothers-in-law were disappointed, for the Leigh farm was heavily incumbered and sold by the sheriff the same fall, and the Shirley House fell into Uncle Francis Aydelot’s hands in about the same way. Love of property can be the root of much misery.” Miss Jane paused, for the story brought bitterness to her kindly soul.

“It is ended now,” Horace Carey said gently. “It is well that it is, I am sure.” 164

“Yes, Alice rests now beside her two little ones who went before her. She had no sorrow in going, except for Leigh. And”—

“And you lifted that, I know.” Doctor Carey finished the sentence.

“I tried to,” Miss Jane said, struggling between timidity and truthfulness. “I made her last hours peaceful, for she knew Leigh would be cared for and safe. I saw to that. Tank Shirley is bound to a surrender of all legal claim to her. It was left to Jim to take her, if he chose. If not, she belongs to me. She is a strange child, wise beyond her years, with a sort of power already for not telling all she knows. You can rely on her in almost anything. She will make a strong woman some day.”

Doctor Carey read the loving sacrifice back of the words, and his heart warmed toward this sweet-spirited, childless woman.

“Jim wants her, else I could not have come,” he said gently, “but you can come to Grass River to see her sometimes.”

“Oh, no, it is so far,” Jane Aydelot said, and Carey realized in how small an orbit her life revolved.

“But she does good in it. What does distance count, against that?” he thought to himself. Aloud he said:

“Tell me of Tank, Miss Aydelot.”

“He has run his course here, but he is shrewd enough to escape the law. His parents mortgaged the Shirley House to get money to keep his doings quiet. My Uncle Francis foreclosed on them at last. But by Jim’s abrupt leaving, Cloverdale blamed him for a long time for the family misfortunes. Tank broke every moral law; he invested his 165 money wildly in his greed to make more money, until finally the bank failure came. That is a long story, and it was a dead loss. But the cashier’s suicide stopped investigation. All blame was laid on him. And he, being dead, made no complaint and incriminated nobody.”

“Where is Tank now?” Carey asked.

He did not know why the image of Thomas Smith of Wilmington, Delaware, should come unbidden to his mind just now, nor why he should feel that the answer to his question held only a portion of what could have been told him then.

“Nobody knows exactly where,” Jane Aydelot replied. “He left his wife penniless. She lived here with me and died here. Tank hasn’t been seen in Cloverdale for a long time. It is strange how family ties get warped sometimes. And oftenest over property.”

Doctor Carey thought of Asher, and was silent. But Jane Aydelot divined his thought.

“I am thinking of our own family,” she said, looking into the heart of the wood fire. “I have my cousin Asher’s heritage, which by law now neither he nor any child of his can receive from me.”

“Miss Aydelot, he doesn’t want it. And there is no prejudice in him against you at all. Moreover, if his dreams come true, little Thaine Aydelot will never need it.” There was a sternness in Carey’s voice that pained his hostess.

“But, Doctor Carey!” she began hesitatingly. Then, as if to change the trend of thought, she added simply, “I try to use it well.”

Horace Carey was by nature and experience a keen 166 reader of human minds. As Jane Aydelot studied the burning coals in the grate, he studied her face, and what he read there gave him both pleasure and pain. Between him and that face came the image of Virginia Aydelot, who should be there instead; of the brown-handed farmer’s wife, who had given up so much for the West. And yet, that face, framed in its dark hair, lighted by luminous dark eyes, seemed to blot out the dainty pink and white Jane Aydelot. A strength of will, a view of life at wide angles of vision, a resourcefulness and power of sacrifice seemed to deify the plainly clad prairie home-maker, winning, not inheriting, her possessions. Had Jane been anywhere else save in the home that Virginia might have had, her future might have had another story. But why forecast the might-have-been?

“You do use your property well, I am sure,” Doctor Carey said, replying to the last words spoken between them, “and yet, you would give it up?” He knew her answer, or he would not have asked the question.

For reply, she rose and went to the little writing desk where the Aydelot papers were kept. Taking therefrom two documents, she placed them in Carey’s hands.

“Read these,” she said, “then promise me that in the hour when Leigh needs my help you will let me help her.”

They were the will of Francis Aydelot and her own will. How much of sacrifice lay in that act of hers, only Horace Carey could understand.

“Read these,” she said, “then promise me that in the hour when Leigh needs my help you will let me help her”