CHAPTER XIII.DEVELOPMENT."Sits the wind in that corner?"Much Ado About Nothing."For courage mounteth with occasion."King John.
"Sits the wind in that corner?"
Much Ado About Nothing.
"For courage mounteth with occasion."
King John.
The lassitude that comes with spring had told upon Mr. Gartney. He had dyspepsia, too; and now and then came home early from the counting room with a headache that sent him to his bed. Dr. Gracie dropped in, friendly-wise, of an evening—said little that was strictly professional—but held his hand a second longer, perhaps, than he would have done for a mere greeting, and looked rather scrutinizingly at him when Mr. Gartney's eyes were turned another way. Frequently he made some slight suggestion of a journey, or other summer change.
"You must urge it, if you can, Mrs. Gartney," he said, privately, to the wife. "I don't quite like his looks. Get him away from business, atalmost anysacrifice," he came to add, at last.
"Ateverysacrifice?" asked Mrs. Gartney, anxious and perplexed. "Business is nearly all, you know."
"Life is more—reason is more," answered the doctor, gravely.
And the wife went about her daily task with a secret heaviness at her heart.
"Father," said Faith, one evening, after she had read to him the paper while he lay resting upon the sofa, "if you had money enough to live on, how long would it take you to wind up your business?"
"It's pretty nearly wound up now! But what's the use of asking such a question?"
"Because," said Faith, timidly, "I've got a little plan in my head, if you'll only listen to it."
"Well, Faithie, I'll listen. What is it?"
And then Faith spoke it all out, at once.
"That you should give up all your business, father, and let this house, and go to Cross Corners, and live at the farm."
Mr. Gartney started to his elbow. But a sudden pain that leaped in his temples sent him back again. For a minute or so, he did not speak at all. Then he said:
"Do you know what you are talking of, daughter?"
"Yes, father; I've been thinking it over a good while—since the night we wrote down these things."
And she drew from her pocket the memorandum of stocks and dividends.
"You see you have six hundred and fifty dollars a year from these, and this house would be six hundred more, and mother says she can manage on that, in the country, if I will help her."
Mr. Gartney shaded his eyes with his hand. Not wholly, perhaps, to shield them from the light.
"You're a good girl, Faithie," said he, presently; and there was assuredly a little tremble in his voice.
"And so, you and your mother have talked it over, together?"
"Yes; often, lately. And she said I had better ask you myself, if I wished it. She is perfectly willing. She thinks it would be good."
"Faithie," said her father, "you make me feel, more than ever, how much Ioughtto do for you!"
"You ought to get well and strong, father—that is all!" replied Faith, with a quiver in her own voice.
Mr. Gartney sighed.
"I'm no more than a mere useless block of wood!"
"We shall just have to set you up, and make an idol of you, then!" cried Faith, cheerily, with tears on her eyelashes, that she winked off.
There had been a ring at the bell while they were speaking; and now Mrs. Gartney entered, followed by Dr. Gracie.
"Well, Miss Faith," said the doctor, after the usual greetings, and a prolonged look at Mr. Gartney's flushed face, "what have you done to your father?"
"I've been reading the paper," answered Faith, quietly, "and talking a little."
"Mother!" said Mr. Gartney, catching his wife's hand, as shecame round to find a seat near him, "are you really in the plot, too?"
"I'm glad there is a plot," said the doctor, quickly, glancing round with a keen inquiry. "It's time!"
"Wait till you hear it," said Mr. Gartney. "Are you in a hurry to lose your patient?"
"Depends uponhow!" replied the doctor, touching the truth in a jest.
"This is how. Here's a little jade who has the conceit and audacity to propose to me to wind up my business (as if she understood the whole process!), and let my house, and go to my farm at Cross Corners. What do you think of that?"
"I think it would be the most sensible thing you ever did in your life!"
"Just exactly what Aunt Henderson said!" cried Faith, exultant.
"Aunt Faith, too! The conspiracy thickens! How long has all this been discussing?" continued Mr. Gartney, fairly roused, and springing, despite the doctor's request, to a sitting position, throwing off, as he did so, the afghan Faith had laid over his feet.
"There hasn't been much discussion," said Faith. "Only when I went out to Kinnicutt I got auntie to show me the house; and I asked her how she thought it would be if we were to do such a thing, and she said just what Dr. Gracie has said now. And, father, youdon'tknow how beautiful it is there!"
"So you really want to go? and it isn't drumsticks?" queried the doctor, turning round to Faith.
"Some drumsticks are very nice," said Faith.
"Gartney!" said Dr. Gracie, "you'd better mind what this girl of yours says. She's worth attending to."
The wedge had been entered, and Faith's hand had driven it.
The plan was taken into consideration. Of course, such a change could not be made without some pondering; but when almost the continual thought of a family is concentrated upon a single subject, a good deal of pondering and deciding can be done in three weeks. At the end of that time an advertisement appeared in the leading Mishaumok papers, offering the house in Hickory Street to be let; and Mrs. Gartney and Faith were busy packing boxes to go to Kinnicutt.
Only a passing shade had been flung on the project which seemed to brighten into sunshine, otherwise, the more they looked at it, when Mrs. Gartney suddenly said, after a long "talking over," the second evening after the proposal had been first broached:
"But what will Saidie say?"
Now Saidie—whom before it has been unnecessary to mention—wasFaith's elder sister, traveling at this moment in Europe, with a wealthy elder sister of Mrs. Gartney.
"I never thought of Saidie," cried Faith.
Saidie was pretty sure not to like Kinnicutt. A young lady, educated at a fashionable New York school—petted by an aunt who found nobody else to pet, and who had money enough to have petted a whole asylum of orphans—who had shone in London and Paris for two seasons past—was not exceedingly likely to discover all the possible delights that Faith had done, under the elms and chestnuts at Cross Corners.
But this could make no practical difference.
"She wouldn't like Hickory Street any better," said Faith, "if we couldn't have parties or new furniture any more. And she's only a visitor, at the best. Aunt Etherege will be sure to have her in New York, or traveling about, ten months out of twelve. She can come to us in June and October. I guess she'll like strawberries and cream, and—whatever comes at the other season, besides red leaves."
Now this was kind, sisterly consideration of Faith, however little so it seems, set down. It was very certain that no more acceptable provision could be made for Saidie Gartney in the family plan, than to leave her out, except where the strawberries and cream were concerned. In return, she wrote gay, entertaining letters home to her mother and young sister, and sent pretty French, or Florentine, or Roman ornaments for them to wear. Some persons are content to go through life with such exchange of sympathies as this.
By and by, Faith being in her own room, took out from her letter box the last missive from abroad. There was something in this which vexed Faith, and yet stirred her a little, obscurely.
All things are fair in love, war, and—story books! So, though she would never have shown the words to you or me, we will peep over her shoulder, and share them, "en rapport."
"And Paul Rushleigh, it seems, is as much as ever in Hickory Street! Well—my little Faithie might make a far worse 'parti' than that! Tell papa I think he may be satisfied there!"
Faith would have cut off her little finger, rather than have had her father dream that such a thing had been put into her head! But unfortunately it was there, now, and could not be helped. She could only—sitting there in her chamber window with the blood tingling to the hair upon her temples, as if from every neighboring window of the clustering houses about her, eyes could overlook and read what she was reading now—"wish that Saidie would not write such things as that!"
For all that, it was one pleasant thing Faith would have to lose in leaving Mishaumok. It was very agreeable to have him dropping in, with his gay college gossip; and to dance the "German"with the nicest partner in the Monday class; and to carry the flowers he so often sent her. Had she done things greater than she knew in shutting her eyes resolutely to all her city associations and enjoyments, and urging, for her father's sake, this exodus in the desert?
Only that means were actually wanting to continue on as they were, and that health must at any rate be first striven for as a condition to the future enlargement of means, her father and mother, in their thought for what their child hardly considered for herself, would surely have been more difficult to persuade. They hoped that a summer's rest might enable Mr. Gartney to undertake again some sort of lucrative business, after business should have revived from its present prostration; and that a year or two, perhaps, of economizing in the country, might make it possible for them to return, if they chose, to the house in Hickory Street.
There were leave takings to be gone through—questions to be answered, and reasons to be given; for Mrs. Gartney, the polite wishes of her visiting friends that "Mr. Gartney's health might allow them to return to the city in the winter," with the wonder, unexpressed, whether this were to be a final breakdown of the family, or not; and for Faith, the horror and extravagant lamentations of her youngcoterie, at her coming occultation—or setting, rather, out of their sky.
Paul Rushleigh demanded eagerly if there weren't any sober old minister out there, with whom he might be rusticated for his next college prank.
Everybody promised to come as far as Kinnicutt "some time" to see them; the good-bys were all said at last; the city cook had departed, and a woman had been taken in her place who "had no objections to the country"; and on one of the last bright days of May they skimmed, steam-sped, over the intervening country between the brick-and-stone-encrusted hills of Mishaumok and the fair meadow reaches of Kinnicutt; and so disappeared out of the places that had known them so long, and could yet, alas! do so exceedingly well without them.
By the first of June nobody in the great city remembered, or remembered very seriously to regard, the little gap that had been made in its midst.
CHAPTER XIV.A DRIVE WITH THE DOCTOR."And what is so rare as a day in June?Then, if ever, come perfect days;Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,And over it softly her warm ear lays."Lowell.
"And what is so rare as a day in June?Then, if ever, come perfect days;Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,And over it softly her warm ear lays."
Lowell.
"All lives have their prose translation as well as their ideal meaning."—Charles Auchester.
But Kinnicutt opened wider to receive them than Mishaumok had to let them go.
If Mr. Gartney's invalidism had to be pleaded to get away with dignity, it was even more needed to shield with anything of quietness their entrance into the new sphere they had chosen.
Faith, with her young adaptability, found great fund of entertainment in the new social developments that unfolded themselves at Cross Corners.
All sorts of quaint vehicles drove up under the elms in the afternoon visiting hours, day after day—hitched horses, and unladed passengers. Both doctors and their wives came promptly, of course; the "old doctor" from the village, and the "young doctor" from "over at Lakeside." Quiet Mrs. Holland walked in at the twilight, by herself, one day, to explain that her husband, the minister, was too unwell to visit, and to say her pleasant, unpretentious words of welcome. Squire Leatherbee's daughters made themselves fine in lilac silks and green Estella shawls, to offer acquaintance to the new "city people." Aunt Faith came over, once or twice a week, at times when "nobody else would be round under foot," and always with some dainty offering from dairy, garden, or kitchen. At other hours, Glory was fain to seize all opportunity of errands that Miss Henderson could not do, and irradiate the kitchen, lingeringly, until she herself might be more ecstatically irradiated with a glance and smile from Miss Faith.
There was need enough of Aunt Faith's ministrations during these first, few, unsettled weeks. The young woman who "had no objections to the country," objected no more to these pleasant country fashions of neighborly kindness. She had reason. Aunt Faith's "thirds bread," or crisp "vanity cakes," or "velvet creams," were no sooner disposed of than there surely came a starvation interval of sour biscuits, heavy gingerbread, and tough pie crust, and dinners feebly cooked, with no attempt at desserts, at all.
This was gloomy. This was the first trial of their countrylife. Plainly, this cook was no cook. Mr. Gartney's dyspepsia must be considered. Kinnicutt air and June sunshine would not do all the curative work. The healthy appetite they stimulated must be wholesomely supplied.
Faith took to the kitchen. To Glory's mute and rapturous delight, she began to come almost daily up the field path, in her pretty round hat and morning wrapper, to waylay her aunt in the tidy kitchen at the early hour when her cookery was sure to be going on, to ask questions and investigate, and "help a little," and then to go home and repeat the operation as nearly as she could for their somewhat later dinner.
"Miss McGonegal seems to be improving," observed Mr. Gartney, complacently, one day, as he partook of a simple, but favorite pudding, nicely flavored and compounded; "or is this a charity of Aunt Henderson's?"
"No," replied his wife, "it is home manufacture," and she glanced at Faith without dropping her tone to a period. Faith shook her head, and the sentence hung in the air, unfinished.
Mrs. Gartney had not been strong for years. Moreover, she had not a genius for cooking. That is a real gift, as much as a genius for poetry or painting. Faith was finding out, suddenly, that she had it. But she was quite willing that her father should rest in the satisfactory belief that Miss McGonegal, in whom it never, by any possibility, could be developed, was improving; and that the good things that found their way to his table had a paid and permanent origin. He was more comfortable so, she thought. Meanwhile, they would inquire if the region round about Kinnicutt might be expected to afford a substitute.
Dr. Wasgatt's wife told Mrs. Gartney of a young American woman who was staying in the "factory village" beyond Lakeside, and who had asked her husband if he knew of any place where she could "hire out." Dr. Wasgatt would be very glad to take her or Miss Faith over there, of a morning, to see if she would answer.
Faith was very glad to go.
Dr. Wasgatt was the "old doctor." A benign man, as old doctors—when they don't grow contrariwise, and become unspeakably gruff and crusty—are apt to be. A benign old doctor, a docile old horse, an old-fashioned two-wheeled chaise that springs to the motion like a bough at a bird flitting, and an indescribable June morning wherein to drive four miles and back—well! Faith couldn't help exulting in her heart that they wanted a cook.
The way was very lovely toward Lakeside, and across to factory village. It crossed the capricious windings of Wachaug two or three times within the distance, and then bore round the Pond Road, which kept its old traditional cognomen, thoughthe new neighborhood that had grown up at its farther bend had got a modern name, and the beautiful pond itself had come to be known with a legitimate dignity as Lake Wachaug.
Graceful birches, with a spring, and a joyous, whispered secret in every glossy leaf, leaned over the road toward the water; and close down to its ripples grew wild shrubs and flowers, and lush grass, and lady bracken, while out over the still depths rested green lily pads, like floating thrones waiting the fair water queens who, a few weeks hence, should rise to claim them. Back, behind the birches, reached the fringe of woodland that melted away, presently, in the sunny pastures, and held in bush and branch hundreds of little mother birds, brooding in a still rapture, like separate embodied pulses of the Universal Love, over a coming life and joy.
Life and joy were everywhere. Faith's heart danced and glowed within her. She had thought, many a time before, that she was getting somewhat of the joy of the country, when, after dinner and business were over, she had come out from Mishaumok, in proper fashionable toilet, with her father and mother, for an afternoon airing in the city environs. But here, in the old doctor's "one-hoss shay," and with her round straw hat and chintz wrapper on, she was finding out what a rapturously different thing it is to go out into the bountiful morning, and identify oneself therewith.
She had almost forgotten that she had any other errand when they turned away from the lake, and took a little side road that wound off from it, and struck the river again, and brought them at last to the Wachaug Mills and the little factory settlement around them.
"This is Mrs. Pranker's," said the doctor, stopping at the third door in a block of factory houses, "and it's a sister-in-law of hers who wants to 'hire out.' I've a patient in the next row, and if you like, I'll leave you here a few minutes."
Faith's foot was instantly on the chaise step, and she sprang to the ground with only an acknowledging touch of the good doctor's hand, upheld to aid her.
A white-haired boy of three, making gravel puddings in a scalloped tin dish at the door, scrambled up as she approached, upset his pudding, and sidled up the steps in a scared fashion, with a finger in his mouth, and his round gray eyes sending apprehensive peeps at her through the linty locks.
"Well, tow-head!" ejaculated an energetic female voice within, to an accompaniment of swashing water, and a scrape of a bucket along the floor; "what's wanting now? Can't you stay put, nohow?"
An unintelligible jargon of baby chatter followed, which seemed, however, to have conveyed an idea to the mother'smind, for she appeared immediately in the passage, drying her wet arms upon her apron.
"Mrs. Pranker?" asked Faith.
"That's my name," replied the woman, as who should say, peremptorily, "what then?"
"I was told—my mother heard—that a sister of yours was looking for a place."
"She hain't done much aboutlookin'," was the reply, "but she was sayin' she didn't know but what she'd hire out for a spell, if anybody wanted her. She's in the keepin' room. You can come in and speak to her, if you're a mind to. The kitchen floor's wet. I'm jest a-washin' of it. You little sperrit!" This to the child, who was amusing himself with the floor cloth which he had fished out of the bucket, and held up, dripping, letting a stream of dirty water run down the front of his red calico frock. "If children ain't the biggest torments! Talk about Job! His wife had to have more patience than he did, I'll be bound! And patience ain't any use, either! The more you have, the more you're took advantage of! I declare and testify, it makes me as cross as sin, jest to think how good-natured I be!" And with this, she snatched the cloth from the boy's hands, shook first him and then his frock, to get rid, in so far as a shake might accomplish it, of original depravity and sandy soapsuds, and carried him, vociferant, to the door, where she set him down to the consolation of gravel pudding again.
Meanwhile Faith crossed the sloppy kitchen, on tiptoe, toward an open door, that revealed a room within.
Here a very fat young woman, with a rather pleasant face, was seated, sewing, in a rocking-chair.
She did not rise, or move, at Faith's entrance, otherwise than to look up, composedly, and let fall her arms along those of the chair, retaining the needle in one hand and her work in the other.
"I came to see," said Faith—obliged to say something to explain her presence, but secretly appalled at the magnitude of the subject she had to deal with—"if you wanted a place in a family."
"Take a seat," said the young woman.
Faith availed herself of one, and, doubtful what to say next, waited for indications from the other party.
"Well—Iwascalc'latin' to hire out this summer, but I ain't very partic'ler about it, neither."
"Can you cook?"
"Most kinds. I can't do much fancy cookin'. Guess I can make bread—all sorts—and roast, and bile, and see to common fixin's, though, as well as the next one!"
"We like plain country cooking," said Faith, thinking ofAunt Henderson's delicious, though simple, preparations. "And I suppose you can make new things if you have direction."
"Well—I'm pretty good at workin' out a resate, too. But then, I ain't anyways partic'ler 'bout hirin' out, as I said afore."
Faith judged rightly that this was a salvo put in for pride. The Yankee girl would not appear anxious for a servile situation. All the while the conversation went on, she sat tilting herself gently back and forth in the rocking-chair, with a lazy touching of her toes to the floor. Her veryvis inertiæwould not let her stop.
Faith's only question, now, was with herself—how she should get away again. She had no idea that this huge, indolent creature would be at all suitable as their servant. And then, her utter want of manners!
"I'll tell my mother what you say," said she, rising.
"What's your mother's name, and where d'ye live?"
"We live at Kinnicutt Cross Corners. My mother is Mrs. Henderson Gartney."
"'M!"
Faith turned toward the kitchen.
"Look here!" called the stout young woman after her; "you may jest say if she wants me she can send for me. I don't mind if I try it a spell."
"I didn't askyourname," remarked Faith.
"Oh! my name's Mis' Battis!"
Faith escaped over the wet floor, sprang past the white-haired child at the doorstep, and was just in time to be put into the chaise by Dr. Wasgatt, who drove up as she came out. She did not dare trust her voice to speak within hearing of the house; but when they had come round the mills again, into the secluded river road, she startled its quietness and the doctor's composure, with a laugh that rang out clear and overflowing like the very soul of fun.
"So that's all you've got out of your visit?"
"Yes, that is all," said Faith. "But it's a great deal!" And she laughed again—such a merry little waterfall of a laugh.
When she reached home, Mrs. Gartney met her at the door.
"Well, Faithie," she cried, somewhat eagerly, "what have you found?"
Faith's eyes danced with merriment.
"I don't know, mother! A—hippopotamus, I think!"
"Won't she do? What do you mean?"
"Why she's as big! I can't tell you how big! And she sat in a rocking-chair and rocked all the time—and she says her name is Miss Battis!"
Mrs. Gartney looked rather perplexed than amused.
"But, Faith!—I can't think how she knew—she must have been, listening—Norah has been so horribly angry! And she's upstairs packing her things to go right off. Howcanwe be left without a cook?"
"It seems Miss McGonegal means to demonstrate that we can! Perhaps—the hippopotamusmightbe trained to domestic service! She said you could send if you wanted her."
"I don't see anything else to do. Norah won't even stay till morning. And there isn't a bit of bread in the house. I can't send this afternoon, though, for your father has driven over to Sedgely about some celery and tomato plants, and won't be home till tea time."
"I'll make some cream biscuits like Aunt Faith's. And I'll go out into the garden and find Luther. If he can't carry us through the Reformation, somehow, he doesn't deserve his name."
Luther was found—thought Jerry Blanchard wouldn't "value lettin' him have his old horse and shay for an hour." And he wouldn't "be mor'n that goin'." He could "fetch her, easy enough, if that was all."
Mis' Battis came.
She entered Mrs. Gartney's presence with nonchalance, and "flumped" incontinently into the easiest and nearest chair.
Mrs. Gartney began with the common preliminary—the name. Mis' Battis introduced herself as before.
"But your first name?" proceeded the lady.
"My first name was Parthenia Franker. I'm a relic'."
Mrs. Gartney experienced an internal convulsion, but retained her outward composure.
"I suppose you would quite as lief be called Parthenia?"
"Ruther," replied the relict, laconically.
And Mrs. Parthenia Battis was forthwith installed—pro tem.—in the Cross Corners kitchen.
"She's got considerable gumption," was the opinion Luther volunteered, of his own previous knowledge—for Mrs. Battis was an old schoolmate and neighbor—"but she's powerful slow."
CHAPTER XV.NEW DUTIES."Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."—Ecc. 9:10."A servant with this clauseMakes drudgery divine;—Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,Makes that and the action fine."George Herbert.
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."—Ecc. 9:10.
"A servant with this clauseMakes drudgery divine;—Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,Makes that and the action fine."
George Herbert.
Mis' Battis's "gumption" was a relief—conjoined, even, as it was, to a mightyinertia—after the experience of Norah McGonegal's utter incapacity; and her admission,pro tempore,came to be tacitly looked upon as a permanent adoption, for want of a better alternative. She continued to seat herself, unabashed, whenever opportunity offered, in the presence of the family; and invariably did so, when Mrs. Gartney either sent for, or came to her, to give orders. She always spoke of Mr. Gartney as "he," addressed her mistress as Miss Gartney, and ignored all prefix to the gentle name of Faith. Mrs. Gartney at last remedied the pronominal difficulty by invariably applying all remarks bearing no other indication, to that other "he" of the household—Luther. Her own claim to the matronly title she gave up all hope of establishing; for, if the "relic'" abbreviated her own wifely distinction, how should she be expected to dignify other people?
As to Faith, her mother ventured one day, sensitively and timidly, to speak directly to the point.
"My daughter has always been accustomed to be calledMissFaith," she said, gently, in reply to an observation of Parthenia's, in which the ungarnished name had twice been used. "It isn't averyimportant matter—still, it would be pleasanter to us, and I dare say you won't mind trying to remember it?"
"'M! No—I ain't partic'ler. Faith ain't a long name, and 'twon't be much trouble to put a handle on, if that's what you want. It's English fashion, ain't it?"
Parthenia's coolness enabled Mrs. Gartney to assert, somewhat more confidently, her own dignity.
"It is a fashion of respect and courtesy, everywhere, I believe."
"'M!" reëjaculated the relict.
Thereafter, Faith was "Miss," with a slight pressure of emphasis upon the handle.
"Mamma!" cried Hendie, impetuously, one day, as he rushed in from a walk with his attendant, "IhateMahalaHarris! I wish you'd let me dress myself, and go to walk alone, and send her off to Jericho!"
"Whereabouts do you suppose Jericho to be?" asked Faith, laughing.
"I don't know. It's where she keeps wishing I was, when she's cross, and I want anything. I wish she was there!—and I mean to ask papa to send her!"
"Go and take your hat off, Hendie, and have your hair brushed, and your hands washed, and then come back in a nice quiet little temper, and we'll talk about it," said Mrs. Gartney.
"I think," said Faith to her mother, as the boy was heard mounting the stairs to the nursery, right foot foremost all the way, "that Mahala doesn't manage Hendie as she ought. She keeps him in a fret. I hear them in the morning while I am dressing. She seems to talk to him in a taunting sort of way."
"What can we do?" exclaimed Mrs. Gartney, worriedly. "These changes are dreadful. We might get some one worse. And then we can't afford to pay extravagantly. Mahala has been content to take less wages, and I think she means to be faithful. Perhaps if I make her understand how important it is, she will try a different manner."
"Only it might be too late to do much good, if Hendie has really got to dislike her. And—besides—I've been thinking—only, you will say I'm so full of projects——"
But what the project was, Mrs. Gartney did not hear at once, for just then Hendie's voice was heard again at the head of the stairs.
"I tell you, mother said I might! I'm going—down—in a nice—little temper—to ask her—to send you—to Jericho!" Left foot foremost, a drop between each few syllables, he came stumping, defiantly, down the stairs, and appeared with all his eager story in his eyes.
"She plagues me, mamma! She tells me to see who'll get dressed first; and ifshedoes, she says:
"'The first's the best,The second's the same;The last's the worstOf all the game!'
"And ifIget dressed first—all but the buttoning, you know—she says:
"'The last's the best,The second's the same;The first's the worstOf all the game!'
"And then she keeps telling me 'her little sister never behaved like me.' I asked her where her little sister was, and she saidshe'd gone over Jordan. I'm glad of it! I wish Mahala would go too!"
Mrs. Gartney smiled, and Faith could not help laughing outright.
Hendie burst into a passion of tears.
"Everybody keeps plaguing me! It's too bad!" he cried, with tumultuous sobs.
Faith checked her laughter instantly. She took the indignant little fellow on her lap, in despite of some slight, implacable struggle on his part, and kissed his pouting lips.
"No, indeed, Hendie! We wouldn't plague you for all the world! And you don't know what I've got for you, just as soon as you're ready for it!"
Hendie took his little knuckles out of his eyes.
"A bunch of great red cherries, as big as your two hands!"
"Where?"
"I'll get them, if you're good. And then you can go out in the front yard, and eat them, so that you can drop the stones on the grass."
Hendie was soon established on a flat stone under the old chestnut trees, in a happy oblivion of Mahala's injustice, and her little sister's perfections.
"I'll tell you, mamma. I've been thinking we need not keep Mahala, if you don't wish. She has been so used to do nothing but run round after Hendie, that, really, she isn't much good about the house; and I'll take Hendie's trundle bed into my room, and there'll be one less chamber to take care of; and you know we always dust and arrange down here."
"Yes—but the sweeping, Faithie! And the washing! Parthenia never would get through with it all."
"Well, somebody might come and help wash. And I guess I can sweep."
"But I can't bear to put you to such work, darling! You need your time for other things."
"I have ever so much time, mother! And, besides, as Aunt Faith says, I don't believe it makes so very much matterwhatwe do. I was talking to her, the other day, about doing coarse work, and living a narrow, common kind of life, and what do you think she said?"
"I can't tell, of course. Something blunt and original."
"We were out in the garden. She pointed to some plants that were coming up from seeds, that had just two tough, clumsy, coarse leaves. 'What do you call them?' said auntie. 'Cotyledons, aren't they?' said I. 'I don't know what they are in botany,' said she; 'but I know the use of 'em. They'll last a while, and help feed up what's growing inside and underneath, and by and by they'll drop off, when they're done with, and you'll see what's been coming of it. Folks can't live the best right out at first, any more than plants can. I guess we all want some kind of—cotyledons.'"
Mrs. Gartney's eyes shone with affection, and something that affection called there, as she looked upon her daughter.
"I guess the cotyledons won't hinder your growing," said she.
And so, in a few days after, Mahala was dismissed, and Faith took upon herself new duties.
It was a bright, happy face that glanced hither and thither, about the house, those fair summer mornings; and it wasn't the hands alone that were busy, as under their dexterous and delicate touch all things arranged themselves in attractive and graceful order. Thought straightened and cleared itself, as furniture and books were dusted and set right; and while the carpet brightened under the broom, something else brightened and strengthened, also, within.
It is so true, what the author of "Euthanasy" tells us, that exercise of limb and muscle develops not only themselves, but what is in us as we work.
"Every stroke of the hammer upon the anvil hardens a little what is at the time the temper of the smith's mind."
"The toil of the plowman furrows the ground, and so it does his brow with wrinkles, visibly; and invisibly, but quite as certainly, it furrows the current of feeling, common with him at his work, into an almost unchangeable channel."
Faith's life purpose deepened as she did each daily task. She had hold, already, of the "high and holy work of love" that had been prophesied.
"I am sure of one thing, mother," said she, gayly; "if I don't learn much that is new, I am bringing old knowledge into play. It's the same thing, taken hold of at different ends. I've learned to draw straight lines, and shape pictures; and so there isn't any difficulty in sweeping a carpet clean, or setting chairs straight. I never shall wonder again that a woman who never heard of a right angle can't lay a table even."
CHAPTER XVI."BLESSED BE YE, POOR.""And so we yearn, and so we sigh,And reach for more than we can see;And, witless of our folded wings,Walk Paradise, unconsciously."
"And so we yearn, and so we sigh,And reach for more than we can see;And, witless of our folded wings,Walk Paradise, unconsciously."
October came, and brought small dividends. The expenses upon the farm had necessarily been considerable, also, to putthings in "good running order." Mr. Gartney's health, though greatly improved, was not yet so confidently to be relied on, as to make it advisable for him to think of any change, as yet, with a view to business. Indeed, there was little opportunity for business, to tempt him. Everything was flat. Mr. Gartney must wait. Mrs. Gartney and Faith felt, though they talked of waiting, that the prospect really before them was that of a careful, obscure life, upon a very limited income. The house in Mishaumok had stood vacant all the summer. There was hope, of course, of letting it now, as the winter season came on, but rents were falling, and people were timid and discouraged.
October was beautiful at Kinnicutt. And Faith, when she looked out over the glory of woods and sky, felt rich with the great wealth of the world, and forgot about economies and privations. She was so glad they had come here with their altered plans, and had not struggled shabbily and drearily on in Mishaumok!
It was only when some chance bit of news from the city, or a girlish, gossipy note from some school friend found its way to Cross Corners, that she felt, a little keenly, her denials—realized how the world she had lived in all her life was going on without her.
It was the old plaint that Glory made, in her dark days of childhood—this feeling of despondency and loss that assailed Faith now and then—"such lots of good times in the world, and she not in 'em!"
Mrs. Etherege and Saidie were coming home. Gertrude Rushleigh, Saidie's old intimate, was to be married on the twenty-eighth, and had fixed her wedding thus for the last of the month, that Miss Gartney might arrive to keep her promise of long time, by officiating as bridesmaid.
The family eclipse would not overshadow Saidie. She had made her place in the world now, and with her aunt's aid and countenance, would keep it. It was quite different with Faith—disappearing, as she had done, from notice, before ever actually "coming out."
"It was a thousand pities," Aunt Etherege said, when she and Saidie discussed with Mrs. Gartney, at Cross Corners, the family affairs. "And things just as they were, too! Why, another year might have settled matters for her, so that this need never have happened! At any rate, the child shouldn't be moped up here, all winter!"
Mrs. Etherege had engaged rooms, on her arrival, at the Mishaumok House; and it seemed to be taken for granted by her, and by Saidie as well, that this coming home was a mere visit; that Miss Gartney would, of course, spend the greater part of the winter with her aunt; and that lady extended alsoan invitation to Mishaumok for a month—including the wedding festivities at the Rushleighs'—to Faith.
Faith shook her head. She "knew she couldn't be spared so long." Secretly, she doubted whether it would be a good plan to go back and get a peep at things that might send her home discontented and unhappy.
But her mother reasoned otherwise. Faithie must go. "The child mustn't be moped up." She would get on, somehow, without her. Mothers always can. So Faith, by a compromise, went for a fortnight. She couldn't quite resist her newly returned sister.
Besides, a pressing personal invitation had come from Margaret Rushleigh to Faith herself, with a little private announcement at the end, that "Paul was refractory, and utterly refused to act as fourth groomsman, unless Faith Gartney were got to come and stand with him."
Faith tore off the postscript, and might have lit it at her cheeks, but dropped it, of habit, into the fire; and then the note was at the disposal of the family.
It was a whirl of wonderful excitement to Faith—that fortnight! So many people to see, so much to hear, and in the midst of all, the gorgeous wedding festival!
What wonder if a little dream flitted through her head, as she stood there, in the marriage group, at Paul Rushleigh's side, and looked about her on the magnificent fashion, wherein the affection of new relatives and old friends had made itself tangible; and heard the kindly words of the elder Mr. Rushleigh to Kate Livingston, who stood with his son Philip, and whose bridal, it was well known, was to come next? Jewels, and silver, and gold, are such flashing, concrete evidences of love! And the courtly condescension of an old and world-honored man to the young girl whom his son has chosen, is such a winning and distinguishing thing!
Paul Rushleigh had finished his college course, and was to go abroad this winter—between the weddings, as he said—for his brother Philip's was to take place in the coming spring. After that—things were not quite settled, but something was to be arranged for him meanwhile—he would have to begin his work in the world; and then—he supposed it would be time for him to find a helpmate. Marrying was like dying, he believed; when a family once began to go off there was soon an end of it!
Blushes were the livery of the evening, and Faith's deeper glow at this audacious rattle passed unheeded, except, perhaps, as it might be somewhat willfully interpreted.
There were two or three parties made for the newly married couple in the week that followed. The week after, Paul Rushleigh, with the bride and groom, was to sail for Europe. Ateach of these brilliant entertainments he constituted himself, as in duty bound, Faith's knight and sworn attendant; and a superb bouquet for each occasion, the result of the ransack of successive greenhouses, came punctually, from him, to her door. For years afterwards—perhaps for all her life—Faith couldn't smell heliotrope, and geranium, and orange flowers, without floating back, momentarily, into the dream of those few, enchanted days!
She stayed in Mishaumok a little beyond the limit she had fixed for herself, to go, with the others, on board the steamer at the time of her sailing, and see the gay party off. Paul Rushleigh had more significant words, and another gift of flowers as a farewell.
When she carried these last to her own room, to put them in water, on her return, something she had not noticed before glittered among their stems. It was a delicate little ring, of twisted gold, with a forget-me-not in turquoise and enamel upon the top.
Faith was half pleased, half frightened, and wholly ashamed.
Paul Rushleigh was miles out on the Atlantic. There was no help for it, she thought. It had been cunningly done.
And so, in the short November days, she went back to Kinnicutt.
The east parlor had to be shut up now, for the winter. The family gathering place was the sunny little sitting room; and with closed doors and doubled windows, they began, for the first time, to find that they were really living in a little bit of a house.
It was very pretty, though, with the rich carpet and the crimson curtains that had come from Hickory Street, replacing the white muslin draperies and straw matting of the summer; and the books and vases, and statuettes and pictures, gathered into so small space, seemed to fill the room with luxury and beauty.
Faith nestled her little workstand into a nook between the windows. Hendie's blocks and picture books were stowed in a corner cupboard. Mr. Gartney's newspapers and pamphlets, as they came, found room in a deep drawer below; and so, through the wintry drifts and gales, they were "close hauled" and comfortable.
Faith was happy; yet she thought, now and then, when the whistling wind broke the stillness of the dark evenings, of light and music elsewhere; and how, a year ago, there had always been the chance of a visitor or two to drop in, and while away the hours. Nobody lifted the old-fashioned knocker, here at Cross Corners.
By day, even, it was scarcely different. Kinnicutt was hibernating. Each household had drawn into its shell. And thehuge drifts, lying defiant against the fences in the short, ineffectual winter sunlight, held out little hope of reanimation. Aunt Faith, in her pumpkin hood, and Rob Roy cloak, and carpet moccasins, came over once in two or three days, and even occasionally stayed to tea, and helped make up a rubber of whist for Mr. Gartney's amusement; but, beyond this, they had no social excitement.
January brought a thaw; and, still further to break the monotony, there arose a stir and an anxiety in the parish.
Good Mr. Holland, its minister of thirty years, whose health had been failing for many months, was at last compelled to relinquish the duties of his pulpit for a time; and a supply was sought with the ultimate probability of a succession. A new minister came to preach, who was to fill the pastor's place for the ensuing three months. On his first Sunday among them, Faith heard a wonderful sermon.
I indicate thus, not the oratory, nor the rhetoric; but thesermon, of which these were the mere vehicle—the word of truth itself—which was spoken, seemingly, to her very thought.
So also, as certainly, to the long life-thought of one other. Glory McWhirk sat in Miss Henderson's corner pew, and drank it in, as a soul athirst.
A man of middle age, one might have said, at first sight—there was, here and there, a silver gleam in the dark hair and beard; yet a fire and earnestness of youth in the deep, beautiful eye, and a look in the face as of life's first flush and glow not lost, but rather merged in broader light, still climbing to its culmination, belied these tokens, and made it as if a white frost had fallen in June—rising up before the crowded village congregation, looked round upon the upturned faces, as One had looked before who brought the bread of Life to men's eager asking; and uttered the selfsame simple words.
It was a certain pause and emphasis he made—a slight new rendering of punctuation—that sent home the force of those words to the people who heard them, as if it had been for the first time, and fresh from the lips of the Great Teacher.
"'Blessed are the poor:in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'
"Herein Christ spoke, not to a class, only, but to the world! A world of souls, wrestling with the poverty of life!
"In that whole assemblage—that great concourse—that had thronged from cities and villages to hear His words upon the mountainside—was there, think you,one satisfied nature?
"Friends—areyesatisfied?
· · · · ·
"Or, does every life come to know, at first or at last, how something—a hope, or a possibility, or the fulfillment of a purpose—hasgot dropped out of it, or has even never entered, so that an emptiness yawns, craving, therein, forever?
"How many souls hunger till they are past their appetite! Go on—down through the years—needy and waiting, and never find or grasp that which a sure instinct tells them they were made for?
"This, this is the poverty of life! These are the poor, to whom God's Gospel was preached in Christ! And to these denied and waiting ones the first words of Christ's preaching—as I read them—were spoken in blessing.
"Because, elsewhere, he blesses the meek; elsewhere and presently, he tells us how the lowly in spirit shall inherit the earth; so, when I open to this, his earliest uttered benediction upon our race, I read it with an interpretation that includes all humanity:
"'Blessed, in spirit, are the poor. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'
· · · · ·
"What is this Kingdom of Heaven? 'It is within you.' It is that which you hold, and live in spiritually; thereal, of which all earthly, outward being and having are but the show. It is the region wherein little children 'do always behold the Face of my Father which is in Heaven.' It is where we are when we shut our eyes and pray in the words that Christ taught us.
· · · · ·
"What matters, then, where your feet stand, or wherewith your hands are busy? So that it is the spot where God has put you, and the work He has given you to do? Your real life is within—hid in God with Christ—ripening, and strengthening, and waiting, as through the long, geologic ages of night and incompleteness waited the germs of all that was to unfold into this actual, green, and bounteous earth!
· · · · ·
"The narrower your daily round, the wider, maybe, the outreach. Isolated upon a barren mountain peak, you may take in river and lake—forest, field, and valley. A hundred gardens and harvests lift their bloom and fullness to your single eye.
"There is a sunlight that contracts the vision; there is a starlight that enlarges it to take in infinite space.
"'God sets some souls in shade, alone.They have no daylight of their own.Only in lives of happier onesThey see the shine of distant suns.
"'God knows. Content thee with thy night.Thy greater heaven hath grander light,To-day is close. The hours are small.Thou sit'st afar, and hast them all.
"'Lose the less joy that doth but blind;Reach forth a larger bliss to find.To-day is brief: the inclusive spheresRain raptures of a thousand years.'"
Faith could not tell what hymn was sung, or what were the words of the prayer that followed the sermon. There was a music and an uplifting in her own soul that made them needless, but for the pause they gave her.
She hardly knew that a notice was read as the people rose before the benediction, when the minister gave out, as requested, that "the Village Dorcas Society would meet on Wednesday of the coming week, at Mrs. Parley Gimp's."
She was made aware that it had fallen upon her ears, though heard unconsciously, when Serena Gimp caught her by the sleeve in the church porch.
"Ain't it awful," said she, with a simper and a flutter of importance, "to have your name called right out so in the pulpit? I declare, if it hadn't been for seeing the new minister, I wouldn't have come to meeting, I dreaded it so! Ain't he handsome? He's old, though—thirty-five! He's broken-hearted, too! Somebody died, or something else, that he was going to be married to, ever so many years ago; and they say he hasn't hardly spoken to a lady since. That's so romantic! I don't wonder he preaches such low-spirited kind of sermons. Only I wish they warn't quite so. I suppose it's beautiful, and heavenly minded, and all that; but yet I'd rather hear something a little kind of cheerful. Don't you think so? But the poetry was elegant--warn't it? I guess it's original, too. They say he puts things in theMishaumok Monthly. Come Wednesday, won't you? We shall depend, you know."
To Miss Gimp, the one salient point, amidst the solemnities of the day, had been that pulpit notice. She had put new strings to her bonnet for the occasion. Mrs. Gimp, being more immediately and personally affected, had modestly remained away from church.
Glory McWhirk went straight through the village, home; and out to her little room in the sunny side of the low, sloping roof. This was her winter nook. She had a shadier one, looking the other way, for summer.
"I wonder if it's all true!" she cried, silently, in her soul, while she stood for a minute with bonnet and shawl still on, looking out from her little window, dreamily, over the dazzle of the snow, even as her half-blinded thought peered out from its own narrowness into the infinite splendor of the promise of God—"I wonder if God will ever make me beautiful! I wonder if I shall ever have a real, great joyfulness, that isn't a make believe!"
Glory called her fancies so. They followed her still. She lived yet in an ideal world. The real world—that is, the best good of it—had not come close enough to her, even in this, her widely amended condition, to displace the other. Remember—this child of eighteen had missed her childhood; had known neither father nor mother, sister nor brother.
Don't think her simple, in the pitiful meaning of the word; but she still enacted, in the midst of her plain, daily life, wonderful dreams that nobody could have ever suspected; and here, in her solitary chamber, called up at will creatures of imagination who were to her what human creatures, alas! had never been. Above all, she had a sister here, to whom she told all her secrets. This sister's name was Leonora.