The Old Stone House and Other Stories | Page 3

an imperative call for her presence without, and she hurried away.
She was no sooner gone than the old man exclaimed:
"I have it all written down. I wrote it years and years ago, at the very
time it happened. She cannot keep me from showing you that; no, no,
she cannot keep me from showing you that." And rising to his feet with
a difficulty that for the first time revealed to me the full extent of his
infirmity, he hobbled slowly across the floor to the open door, through
which he passed with many cunning winks and nods.
"It grows quite exciting," thought I, and half feared his daughter would
not allow him to return. But either she was too much engrossed to heed
him, or had been too much deceived by his seeming indifference when
she last entered the room, to suspect the errand which had taken him
out of it. For sooner than I had expected, and quite some few minutes
before she came back herself, he shuffled in again, carrying under his
coat a roll of yellow paper, which he thrust into my hand with a
gratified leer, saying:
"There it is. I was a gay young lad in those days, and could go and
come with the best. Read it, sir, read it; and if Maria says anything
against it, tell her it was written long before she was born and when I
was as pert as she is now, and a good deal more observing."
Chuckling with satisfaction, he turned away, and had barely
disappeared in the hall when she came in and saw me with the roll in
my hand.
"Well! I declare!" she exclaimed; "and has he been bringing you that?

What ever shall I do with him and his everlasting manuscript? You will
pardon him, sir; he is ninety and upwards, and thinks everybody is as
interested in the story of that old house as he is himself."
"And I, for one, am," was my hasty reply. "If the writing is at all legible,
I am anxious to read it. You won't object, will you?"
"Oh, no," was her good-humored rejoinder. "I won't object; I only hate
to have father's mind roused on this subject, because he is sure to be
sick after it. But now that you have the story, read it; whether you will
think as he did, on a certain point, is another question. I don't; but then
father always said I would never believe ill of anybody."
Her smile certainly bore out her words, it was so good-tempered and
confiding; and pleased with her manner in spite of myself, I accepted
her invitation to make use of her own little parlor, and sat down in the
glow of a brilliant autumn afternoon to read this old-time history.
* * * * *
Will Juliet be at home to-day? She must know that I am coming. When
I met her this morning, tripping back from the farm, I gave her a look
which, if she cares anything about me, must have told her that I would
be among the lads who would be sure to pay her their respects at early
candle-light. For I cannot resist her saucy pout and dancing dimples
any longer. Though I am barely twenty, I am a man, and one who is
quite forehanded and able to take unto himself a wife. Ralph
Urphistone has both wife and babe, and he was only twenty-one last
August. Why, then, should I not go courting, when the prettiest maid
that has graced the town for many a year holds out the guerdon of her
smiles to all who will vie for them?
To be sure, the fact that she has more than one wooer already may be
considered detrimental to my success. But love is fed by rivalry, and if
Colonel Schuyler does not pay her his addresses, I think my chances
may be considered as good as any one's. For am I not the tallest and
most straightly built man in town, and have I not a little cottage all my
own, with the neatest of gardens behind it, and an apple-tree in front

whose blossoms hang ready to shower themselves like rain upon the
head of her who will enter there as a bride? It is not yet dark, but I will
forestall the sunset by a half hour and begin my visit now. If I am first
at her gate, Lemuel Phillips may look less arrogant when he comes to
ask her company to the next singing school.
* * * * *
I was not first at her gate; two others were there before me. Ah, she is
prettier than ever I supposed, and chirper than the sparrow which builds
every year