Jeff laughed, and said to the off horse, which seemed
to know that he was meant: “Get up, there!”
“And Cynthia? Is Cynthia at home?”
Westover asked.
“Yes; they’re all down in the little wood-colored
house yet. Cynthia teaches winters, and summers
she helps mother. She has charge of the dining-room.”
“Does Franky cry as much as ever?”
“No, Frank’s a fine boy. He’s
in the house, too. Kind of bell-boy.”
“And you haven’t worked Mr. Whitwell in
anywhere?”
“Well, he talks to the ladies, and takes parties
of ’em mountain-climbing. I guess we
couldn’t get along without Mr. Whitwell.
He talks religion to ’em.” He cast
a mocking glance at Westover over his shoulder.
“Women seem to like religion, whether they belong
to church or not.”
Westover laughed and asked: “And Fox?
How’s Fox?”
“Well,” said Jeff, “we had to give
Fox away. He was always cross with the boarders’
children. My brother was on from Colorado, and
he took Fox back with him.”
“I didn’t suppose,” said Westover,
“that I should have been sorry to miss Fox.
But I guess I shall be.”
Jeff seemed to enjoy the implication of his words.
“He wasn’t a bad dog. He was stupid.”
When they arrived at the foot of the lane, mounting
to the farm, Westover saw what changes had been made
in the house. There were large additions, tasteless
and characterless, but giving the rooms that were needed.
There was a vulgar modernity in the new parts, expressed
with a final intensity in the four-light windows,
which are esteemed the last word of domestic architecture
in the country. Jeff said nothing as they approached
the house, but Westover said: “Well, you’ve
certainly prospered. You’re quite magnificent.”
They reached the old level in front of the house,
artificially widened out of his remembrance, with
a white flag-pole planted at its edge, and he looked
up at the front of the house, which was unchanged,
except that it had been built a story higher back
of the old front, and discovered the window of his
old room. He could hardly wait to get his greetings
over with Mrs. Durgin and Jackson, who both showed
a decorous pleasure and surprise at his coming, before
he asked:
“And could you let me have my own room, Mrs.
Durgin?”
“Why, yes,” she said, “if you don’t
want something a little nicer.”
“I don’t believe you’ve got anything
nicer,” Westover said.
“All right, if you think so,” she retorted.
“You can have the old room, anyway.”
Westover could not have said he felt very much at
home on his first sojourn at the farm, or that he
had cared greatly for the Durgins. But now he
felt very much at home, and as if he were in the hands
of friends.
It was toward the close of the afternoon that he arrived,
and he went in promptly to the meal that was served
shortly after. He found that the farm-house
had not evolved so far in the direction of a hotel
as to have reached the stage of a late dinner.
It was tea that he sat down to, but when he asked
if there were not something hot, after listening to
a catalogue of the cold meats, the spectacled waitress
behind his chair demanded, with the air of putting
him on his honor:
