SEVEN DAUGHTERS.
SEVEN DAUGHTERS.
“‘How many? Seven in all,’ she said,And wondering looked at me.”Wordsworth.
“‘How many? Seven in all,’ she said,And wondering looked at me.”Wordsworth.
“‘How many? Seven in all,’ she said,And wondering looked at me.”Wordsworth.
“‘How many? Seven in all,’ she said,
And wondering looked at me.”
Wordsworth.
drop-cap
“Anothergirl!”
“Seven of ’em!”
“What a pity!”
“The land sakes alive! Brother Endicott will have to buy calico by the piece for their gowns! He might get a little throwed off, or a spool of cotton extry. He, he! ho, ho! Well, children are a great risk! You don’t s’pose there’ll be a donation party right away—do you!”
“There is donation enough for the present, I think; and the sewing society will not be called upon.”
I liked that soft, silvery voice of Mrs. Whitcomb.It was just like her pretty light hair, beginning to be plentifully sprinkled with silver, and her clear peachy skin, that was just a little wrinkled. Her touch was so gentle, her motions so graceful and pleasing!
“I was only joking about it. They’ll miss her in the s’ciety—that’s what they will.”
Aunt Letty Perkins was—dreadful! a thorn in the flesh; a sort of bitter, puckery presence, as if you had just tasted an unripe persimmon.
“And it’ll be a puzzle to get husbands for ’em all. That’s the most unfort’net thing about girls.”
I suppose she meantus, not the society. My face was in a blaze of indignation. Then the door was shut, and I went on with my dusting.
It was a sunny April morning, and a pair of swallows were twittering about the windows.
Another girl and therewereseven of us. Some one in the parish had said that Mrs. Endicott would always be sure of a Sunday school class, for she could fill it up with her own children. I couldn’t help wishing that there was justoneboy among us, even if it were that wee bairnie they had been discussing. Boys are nice—in some ways.
I don’t know that I should have modified my opinion so suddenly but for two things. My eye happened to fall on my pretty pearl paper-cutter, that had been sent to me at Christmas. On one side of the handle was my monogram, done in scarlet and gold, on the other a little trail of blue forget-me-nots. A few weeks ago Harry Denham had been in spending the evening with us,—that means Fan and I, the elders. He and Fanny were having a little scrimmage, and, in a half tragic manner, he seized my pretty gift, pretending to arm himself with a dagger, and, somehow, in themelee, the poor thing snapped in twain.
Hal was very sorry. Then he had such great, beseeching brown eyes, that when he turned them so appealingly to me, I pitied him more than I did myself. It was very foolish, I know. I ought to have scolded. I should have said,—
“You great, rough, careless boy! now see what you have done! I wish you would never come here again!”
“I can get it mended, I know. There is some beautiful white cement used for such articles. O, Rose, I amsosorry! I’d get you another one, only it wouldn’t beit.”
“Never mind,” I said, meekly, with a wonderful tendency towards tears, though whether they would have been for Harry, or the knife, or myself, I could not exactly tell.
So he had it mended, and itlookedas good as new. But little Frank Mortimer came to call with his mother, and brought it to grief again.
The other event that reconciled me to the advent of my little sister, whom I had not yet seen, was Tabby, who sprang up on the window sill, with her cunning salutation, like three or four n’s, strung together in a prolonged musical fashion, not quite a mew. I don’t want you to think the word back there was meant for a pun, for it wasn’t. I’ll tell you in the beginning that I am not a bit bright, or sharp, or funny. I have even heard jokes that I did not see the point of until the next day.
Tabby is just as beautiful as she can be. A Maltese cat, with a white nose and two white front paws. She is very cunning, and knows almost everything within the domain of cat knowledge. If there is one thing I do love better than another, in the way of pets, it is cats. A clean-faced, sleek cat, sitting on the hearth-rug before the grate, is enough to give the wholehousehold a feeling of contentment. Then the kittens are always so funny and frolicksome!
“Tabby,” I said, as she arched her back and rubbed her head against my sleeve,—“Tabby,youwouldn’t be half so happy if there was a boy in the house. He would lift you by the tail, turn your ears back, put walnut shells on your feet, and make you dance on your hind legs. Then he would be forever tormenting your kittens. Boys are bad naturally. Maybe they are born so, and can’t help it,” I continued, reflectively. “I suppose theydohave a good deal more of the old Adam in them than girls, because, you see, we inherit Eve’s propensity to curiosity; but then boys are fully as curious—aren’t they, Tabby? and as full of curiosity!”
“Yes,” answered Tabby.
She says it as plainly as you do. In fact, we sometimes hold quite lengthy conversations.
“So we don’t care—do we? If Aunt Letty Perkins would not make such a row about it! How wouldshelike to have a lot of boys, I wonder?”
Tabby shook her head sagely, and scratched her left ear. I knew she felt just the same as I did.
I finished the parlor, and shut down the windows. Then I went to papa’s study, took the ashes softly out of the grate, and laid another fire, in case the evening should be cool, picked up papers and magazines, and dusted with the very lightest of touches. It was my part of the work to look after the study. I was so glad to be able to suit papa!
Just then the door opened. It was papa himself, fresh from a walk.Ithink him ever and ever so handsome, though sometimes I wish he was not quite so thin. He is rather tall, has a fine chest and shoulders; but it is his sweet, dear old face that I like so much. It’s a little wrinkled, to be sure, and may be his mouthisa trifle wide. I never considered it any defect, however, for he shuts his lips together with such a cordial smile! He has lovely deep-gray eyes, and his hair, which was once a bright brown, begins to be toned with silvery threads, as well as his soft brown beard, which he wears full, except a mustache.
“O, papa!” I cried, clasping my arms around his neck, “areyou very sorry?”
“Sorry for what, my daughter?” And he looked a good deal surprised.
“That we haven’t a boy. There are so many of us girls!”
“My dear, I have always had a great fancy for little girls, as you know. And we take whatever God sends. She is very pretty.”
“O, you dear, blessed papa!”
“You will have to be the mother now, for a little while, Rose. You must try to manage the children nicely.”
“Indeed, I will do my best. Papa, do you not believe that I could go in and see her? Aunt Letty Perkins is there.”
“O, how could Mrs. Whitcomb! Yes; come along, child.”
I followed him to the sitting-room. The Rectory was a great, rambling old house, with a wide hall through the middle. Back of the parlor, quite shut off, indeed, were the dining-room and the two kitchens; on the other side, study, sitting-room, nursery, and mamma’s sleeping apartment.
Mamma’s door was shut. Mrs. Whitcomb was wise enough to keep guard over that. There was a little fire in the Franklin stove, and before it sat Mrs. Perkins, though everybody called her Aunt Letty. Her feet were on the fender,her brown stuff dress turned up over her knees, her black alpaca skirt not quite so high, and a faded quilted petticoat taking the heat of the fire. She always wore substantial gray yarn stockings in the winter, and lead-colored cotton in summer, except on state occasions. Her bonnet was always a little awry, and the parting of her hair invariably crooked. I’m sure I don’t know what she did, except to attend to other people’s affairs.
Mrs. Downs was beside her, a helpless-looking little fat woman, who, Fan declared, looked like a feather pillow with a checked apron tied around it. She was always out of breath, had always just left her work, and was never going to stay more than a moment.
“O, brother Endicott!” exclaimed Aunt Letty, reaching her hand out so far that she nearly tipped her chair over; “I s’spose you ought to be congratyourlated.” (She always putyourin the word, and always saidequinomical, regardless of Noah Webster.) “What does the Bible say about a man having his quiver full of olive branches? or is it that they sit round the table? now I disremember. I don’t go much according to Old Testament. It was well enough for themheathenish Jews and the old times; but I want the livin’ breathin’ gospel. What you goin’ to call her?”
Papa smiled, at the absurd transition, I suppose. Fan said Aunt Letty had only one resemblance to a dictionary—she changed her subjects without any warning.
“Would Keren-happuch do?” papa asked, with a droll twinkle in his eye.
“O, now, Mr. Endicott!”
“It’s a nice little thing,” put in Mrs. Downs. “Favors its mar I think.”
“Come and see it, Rose.—May we, Mrs. Whitcomb?”
“O, yes, indeed,” with her sweet smile.
She led me to the corner of the room, between the stove and mamma’s door. There, on two chairs, was a tiny bed, and under the blanket a tiny baby with a broad forehead, black, silky hair, a cunning little mouth, but no nose to speak of. Yet shewaspretty. I thought I should like to squeeze her to a jelly, and cover her with kisses, though I don’t know as that would be orthodox jelly-cake for any but a cannibal.
Papa glanced at her with a tender smile, thensighed. Perhaps he was thinking of the long way the little feet would have to travel. It is a great journey, after all, from the City of Destruction to the New Jerusalem. Something in the baby-face brought to mind Christiana and the children.
“Great pity ’tisn’t a boy,” persisted Aunt Letty.
“O, I don’t know about that. They are so handy to take one another’s clothes,” said papa, humorously.
“To be sure. But yours could be cut over,” returned the literal woman.
“I am afraid that I shall always need mine to the last thread. I have lost the trick of outgrowing them. O, have you heard that Mrs. Bowers’s sister has come from the west? Arrived last evening.”
“Land sakes alive! Why, I guess I’ll run right over. Sally and me was thick as peas in our young days. And her husband’s been a what you call it out there, senate, or constitution, or something.”
“Member of the legislature,” corrected father, quietly.
“O, yes. Some folksdoget along. There’sthe middle of my needle. I should knit there if the house was afire!”
She brushed down her skirts, put her knitting in her satchel, jerked her shawl up, and pinned it, and settled her old black bonnet more askew than ever. Mrs. Whitcomb kindly pulled it straight for her.
“Thank’ee. If you want any help, Mrs. Whitcomb, send right straight over. Ministers are always the chosen of the Lord, and I feel as if one ought to come at their call.”
“I am much obliged,” returned Mrs. Whitcomb, in her quiet, lady-like way.
Mrs. Downs took her departure at the same moment. There was a great bustle, and talking; but father finally succeeded in getting them to the porch. When Aunt Letty was safely off the steps, she turned and said,—
“I’m glad you are so well satisfied, Mr. Endicott. It’s a sure sign of grace to take thankfully what the Lord sends.”
“O, dear,” said papa, with a sigh; “I am afraid I don’t give thanks forquiteeverything. ‘Tribulation worketh patience.’ But didn’t those women almost set you crazy? If I thought another sermon on bridling the tongue would doany good; I should preach it next Sunday.”
Mrs. Whitcomb smiled and said, in her cool, silvery voice,—
“It takes a great deal of powder and shot to kill a man in battle, and it takes a great deal of preaching to save a soul.”
“Yes. I get almost discouraged when I find how strong the old Adam is in human souls.”
I looked at papa rather reproachfully; but just then he opened the door of mamma’s room, and called me thither.
Mamma was very sweet and lovely. She kissed me many times, and hoped I would prove a trusty house-keeper, and see that papa had everything he needed, especially to notice that his cuffs and handkerchiefs were clean, and that he was in nice order on Sunday.
“And—did I like the baby?” She asked it almost bashfully.
“It is just as sweet as it can be. I only wish it was large enough to hold and to carry about.”
“Thank you, dear.”
Years afterwards I knew what that meant.
I went out to the kitchen to see about the dinner. We never had regular servants like other people. It was the lame, and the halt,and the blind, and the ignorant, metaphorically speaking. Papa brought them home and mamma took pity on them. Now it was Becky Sill, a great, overgrown girl of sixteen, whose intemperate father had just died in the poorhouse, where the three younger children—boys—were waiting for a chance to be put out to the farmers.
“Look at this ’ere floor, Miss Rose! I’ve scrubbed it white as snow. And I’ve been a peelin’ of pertaters.”
“Thisfloor is sufficient, Becky; andpeeling, andpotatoes.”
“O, law, you’re just like your mother. Some people are born ladies and have fine ways. I wasn’t.”
“You have been very industrious,” I returned, cheerfully; and then I went at the dinner.
The hungry, noisy troop came home from school. What if they wereallboys!
Do you want a photograph of us? I was past seventeen, not very tall, with a round sort of figure, and dimples everywhere in my face, where one could have been put by accident or design. My skin was fair, my hair—that was my sore point. I may as well tell the truth; itwasred, a sort of deep mahogany red, andcurled. My features were just passable. So, you see, I was not likely to set up for a beauty. Fan was sixteen, taller than I, slender, blonde, with saucy blue eyes and golden hair, and given to rather coquettish ways. Nelly was fourteen, almost as tall as I, with papa’s gray eyes,—only hers had a violet tint,—and mamma’s dark hair. Daisy was next, eleven, and on the blonde order. Lily, whose name was Elizabeth, and Tim, aged seven. Her real cognomen was Gertrude; but we began to call her Tiny Tim, and the name, somehow stuck to her. What a host of girls, to be sure!
“Papa,” I said that evening, going to the study for a good night kiss, where he was writing in the quiet,—“papa,areyou sorry to have so many girls?”
I had been exercised on the subject all day, and I wanted to dispose of it before I slept.
“Why, my dear! no;” with a sweet gravity.
“But, papa,”—and I stumbled a little,—“it isn’t likely that—that—we shall all—get married—”
I could not proceed any farther, and hid my face on his shoulder.
“Married! What ever put such an absurdidea into your head, Rosalind? A parcel of children—married!”
I knew papa was displeased, or he would never have called me Rosalind.
“O, dear papa, don’t be angry!” I cried. “I was not thinking of being married, I’m sure. I don’t believe any one will ever like me very much, because my hair is red, and I may be fat as Mrs. Downs. And if I should be an old maid,—and I know I shall,—I want you to love me a little; and if I’m queer and fussy, and all that, you must be patient with me. I will try to do my best always.”
“My dear darling! what a foolish little thing you are! Some of the old women have been talking to you, I know. I shall certainly have to turn the barrel upside down, and find the sermon on bridling the tongue. You are all little girls, and I will not have the bloom rudely rubbed off of my peaches. There don’t cry about it;” and he kissed my wet face so tenderly that Ididcry more than ever.
“My little girl, I want us to have a good many years of happiness together,” he said, with solemn tenderness. “Put all these things out of your head, and love your mother and me, and doyour duty in that state of life to which it shall please God to call you. I want you to be like Martin Luther’s bird, who sat on the tree and sang, and let God think for him. And now, run to bed, for I wish to finish this sermon while I am in the humor.”
I kissed him many, many times. I was so sure of his sweet, never-failing love. And I suppose fathers and mothers neverdoget tired of us!