 A Real New England Girl by Anna I. Parsons 1. The Shower 2. Oxford County 3. The Stranger and the Girl 4. The Youth and the Girl 5. Pansy and Richard Go Trading 6. The Marvelous Storyteller 7. The Dinner 8. The The Minister Comes for Tea 9. Pansy's Father 10. Pansy and Her Mother 11. Poland Springs 12. The Birthday Cake 13. Ned Patterson Comes for a Visit 14. The Blue Berrying Party 15. The Beginning of Wisdom 16. The Tempted and the Penitent 17. The Concert 18. Stanley's Ride 19. The Bench by the Wayside 20. The Banker and the Widow 21. The Bag of Nuts 22. How They Kept Thanksgiving at Little Farm 23. Hardly a Merry Christimas 24. A Call Down and a Caller 25. The Pride of Mrs. Bradford 26. A Happy New Year 27. Amusement and Winter Sport 28. Kim 29. Richard, the Lion Hearted 30. A Tour of the White Mountains 31. Talking Over the Trip with Henry Bright 32. Thoughts That Lie Too Deep for Words 33. Economics 34. His Toast 35. The Busy Haunts of Man 36. Christmas in New York 37. The Last Night of Their Visit 38. The Language Understood by All 39. Sugaring Off 40. Correspondence 41. Commencement 42. Conclusion Afterward     |
The Bench by the Wayside "We look before and after And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those That tell of saddest thought." -- Shelley "I think it should be dedicated to something!" By the wayside in front of the half-way tree sat Stanley, Pansy, and Richard, their feet extending into the grassy ditch, their eyes centered on a new bench, built between two of the trees that shaded the roadway, and finished in the most workmanlike manner. It had been coated with leaden paint that nearly matched the tree trunks and that glistened still undried on the new acquisition. The western sky was resplendent with the rays of the setting sun, and the lofty mountains lifted their heads into a liquid sea of gold. Serene, sweet, peaceful and warm was the summer evening. The three brown heads nodded, twisted and swayed as though a momentous question were being debated, as indeed to them there was, for, after much planning and solicitation, Jerry Pike had built this bench half way between the Winthrop and Bradford homes, and so that it extended either side of the stone wall that divided the two farms. It had been conceived for the convenience of Stanley whose left lumbar was still well covered with surgeon's plaster and one ankle was in a bandage, though he insisted on being out and taking light exercise. "The ancients used to dedicate their temples to their gods and goddesses, and from then on through the ages people have been dedicating things to something or other, so I should think as useful a thing as this bench ought to be dedicated to some very noble and worthy object." Pansy's little brown hand waved frequently toward the bench as she argued in its behalf. "As it is because Stanley got busted and is now getted mended that Jerry built it for us, we might dedicate it to health," suggested Richard. "Hygeia was the goddess of health. Shall we dedicate it to Hygeia, Stanley?" asked Pansy. "No, no, that is too pagan, and besides, I don't want a monument to my foolhardiness. I have thought of something worthy if you will leave the choice to me." "Of course, we'll leave it to you. What is it you have in mind?" "I'll have to keep you waiting until tomorrow, and then the bench itself can answer you." "Why not let it answer us now so we won't keep guessing? We know you are very fond of Lucifer and of our rambunctious cosset sheep, and it's an even choice you have one or the other in mind." "So you see it a shrine to the animal kingdom? Already I feel the heathen in me doing homage as to a fetish." "No, Stanley, you are too much like ourselves to make it something we'd have to bow and kneel to, but I can't think of another thing. It is not to be pagank; it is to be worthy -- worthy of a good bench set between two nice maple trees and intended as a resting place for a young man who is 'mending' as Richard says." "What did you mean, Pansy, when you said, 'you are too much like ourselves?' " "Why, we are sort of simple people, and you put yourself on a level with us." Then she added with New England frankness: "Richard and I have made up our minds, that for a city boy and one that is going to college this fall, you are the least conceited of any one we've met." He controlled his risibles with some effort. "I'm the least conceited -- so I am some conceited, am I?" "Well, you realize you have more intellect than most folks, but that doesn't hurt you any. If people don't do as you suggest, you just sit up and look wise, as if you knew they'd come back and follow your advice after they had tired of their own way." "That doesn't change the fact that I met my Waterloo a short time ago." "But Lucifer didn't throw you off!" interposed Richard. "You stayed on until he took to the tall timbers, and if you hadn't jumped, you'd have been knocked off any way. Jerry says he doesn't know how you ever did it with that horse bucking and rearing every minute as if he'd been stung by a thousand hornets." "It is merely adjusting yourself to the horse's angle. Playing polo gives one good experience in horsemanship." "Aren't you going to tell us, Stanley?" Pansy's wide open blue eyes looked up at him with pleading hard to resist, but he smiled and shook his head. Further conversation on the subject was saved for the time being, for, tempted by the warm summer evening, Mrs. Bradford and Ruth had indulged in a walk and now joined the little group by the wayside. They had very much missed Stanley's friendly coming and going since his accident, and both shook his hand warmly as he leaned on a crutch for support, having arisen as they approached. "Pansy, I'm afraid you and Richard are keeping Stanley out too long," admonished Mrs. Bradford. "Mother, you and Ruth wait here for us while Richard and I go home with him. Now Stanley, you hobble in the middle of the road and Richard and I will hobble on one foot in the ruts down to your turn-in. Ready!" Ruth Bradford laughed softly as she watched the trio. "That is certainly making light of one's infirmities," she said. "In spite of all my calisthenic training, Pansy lapses into childish traits very easily." "Is it of the animal, mineral, or vegetable kingdom?" called Pansy to Stanley as they left him at his home. For answer he pointed to a single star glimmering in the deepening twilight. "What can it possibly be, Richard?" asked Pansy, as they walked up the gradient. "A star might mean so many things that I can't spell it out." "I think there are some lines which run, 'Fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky,' perhaps he has those in mind." "I believe you are right! He means it is something like a star, but still I can't think what it is." When Mrs. Bradford needed apples the next forenoon, she sent Pansy out to the Red Astrakan tree to gather some. Having filled her basket, the temptation to look again at the new bench was so strong that Pansy's feet were soon flying over the clover piece in its direction. As she raised her head above the stone wall that ran parallel with and a little back of it, on the topmost slat, in neat letters of white, she read the secret that had kept her guessing since the night before: TO A REAL NEW ENGLAND GIRL. She read it the second time, and her eyes grew misty and a lump began to rise in her throat. Aside from the honor so delicately conferred upon her, there was a pathos in the word 'real' that touched her. Stanley had often called himself a New Englander because the father he adored was of that sturdy stock, and met all objections to his doing so with some valid reason. "Consanguinity is reckoned only through the male line, and all of father's people being New Englanders, I am entitled to class myself as one also," he said with warmth one day when Pansy and Richard had accused him of claiming to be what he was not. "If you were thrown on your own resources, you'd go back to wearing wooden shoes and rearing windmills, like your Dutch ancestors; you'd never take to wearing felt boots and slaughtering pine trees, like your grandfather Winthrop." Pansy's retort was archly given, but he had answered seriously and with a sweeping glance from hilltop to horizon, "My heart will always be in these highlands no matter what I wear on my feet or do with my hands. Father is going to give me the deed to the place here when I reach my majority, and then you will have to recognize me as a neighbor, and help me keep the line fence in repair." How they laughed at the picture of this dapper young man assisting in closing gaps in the division fence. Back of all the banter, there was the suggestion that Stanley was not quite satisfied with the abundance at his command. From very humble circumstances, his father had arisen to a man of influence and power in a great city, and an ambitious son could hardly make such strides without the necessity for doing so. With her two brown fists, Pansy dashed the tears from her eyes. "I'm a real New England girl with all its traditions back of me and plenty of hard work in front of me, and he wishes he were a New Englander because he's such a manly boy. He wants to work and he wants to rise. Stanley's no hollyhock to just stand up and look handsome because he's well fertilized and cultivated. I guess he'll be a bank president some day like his father." Click Here for Chapter 20 |