"That is a good girl, Mary," he said at last. "But here we are at your new home. Wipe up your tears and look cheerful."
Mary obeyed, and her effort to smile was a pleasant tribute to her noble friend, as he lifted her tenderly from the carriage.
'Twas a picturesque old homestead,With a low moss-covered roof;And trumpet vines flung over itTheir green and crimson woof.
The house at which Judge Sharp stopped was long, low, and terribly weather-beaten. Once a coating of red paint had ornamented it, but time had beaten this off in some places, and washed it together in others, till the color was now a dull brown, with patches of red here and there, visible beneath the eaves and around the windows. The highway separated this dwelling from the river, which took a bold, graceful curve just below the house; leaving a broad expanse of meadow-land and some fine clumps of trees in full view on the opposite shore.
Directly in front, ran a picket-fence, old, uneven and dilapidated, but in picturesque keeping with the building. The gate hung loosely on its hinges, just opposite an old-fashioned porch, that shot over the front door, much after the fashion of that hideous thing called a poke, with which English women disfigure their pretty travelling bonnets and protect themselves from the sun.
An immense trumpet-flower overran this porch, whose antique massiveness harmonized with the building, for the straggling branches shot out in all directions, and its coarse blossoms, then in season, seemed to have drank up all the red paint as it vanished from the clapboards. Long, uncut grass, set thick with dandelions, filled the narrow strip between the front fence and the house, except just under the eaves, where it was worn away into a little, pebble-lined gutter, by the water-drops that poured from the roof every rainy day.
A few of those old-fashioned roses, broad and red, but almost single, so common about old houses beyond the reach of nursery gardens, struggled up through the grass, along the lower portions of the fences, and on each side the porch. A garden, at one end of the house, was red with love-lies-bleeding and coxcombs, their deep hues contrasting with great clumps of marigolds and bachelor's-buttons, all claiming a preemption right over innumerable weeds and any amount of ribbon grass, that struggled hard to drive them out.
With all its dilapidation, there was something picturesque and attractive about the old homestead—a mingling of rude taste and neglect, unthrifty, but suggestive of innate character. Mary Fuller looked around her, with that keen relish of gay colors and rude outline, that a rich uncultivated taste appreciates best. The glow of those warmly-tinted, bold garden flowers seemed like a welcome; and the soft rush of the river, which she had so feared to love, seemed like the voice of an old friend following her among strangers.
She had some little time for observation, for the gate opened with difficulty, groaning on its hinges, scraping its way in the segment of a circle upon the ground, and tearing up grass by the roots in its progress. Evidently the front door was not in very frequent use, and the stubborn old gate seemed determined that it never should be again. A wren shot away from the porch, as the Judge and his protege entered it, and went fluttering in and out through the green branches waving over it quite distractedly, as if she had never seen a human being there in her whole birdhood before.
"Poor little coward," said the Judge, "it's afraid we shall drive its young ones from their old home."
Mary had followed the fugitive with sparkling eyes, and she now began peering among the leaves, expecting to find a nest full of darling little birdlings chirping for food. For aught she knew, poor alley-bred child, the birds built nests and filled them with eggs all the year round.
Judge Sharp rapped upon the door with his knuckles, for the old iron knocker groaned worse than the gate when he attempted to raise it.
After a little, the door opened with a jerk; for, like the gate, it swung low, grating upon the threshold.
In the entry stood a woman, tall beyond what is common in her sex, square built and slightly stooping, not from feebleness, however, but habit. The woman might have been handsome in her youth, for there still existed a remnant of beauty in that cold, grave face, threaded with wrinkles, and shaded by hair of a dull iron grey. Her eyes were keen, and intensely black; they must have had fire in them once; if so, it had burned itself out years before; for now they seemed clear and cold as ice.
"How do you do, aunt Hannah?" said the Judge, reaching forth his hands. "I have brought the little girl, you see."
"What little girl?" inquired the woman, casting her cold eyes on MaryFuller. "I know nothing about any little girl."
"Then uncle Nathan didn't get my letter," said the Judge, a little anxiously.
"He hasn't had a letter these three years," was the concise reply.
"Well, I must see him then. Where is he, aunt Hannah?"
"In his old place."
"Where, on the back porch?"
"Yes."
"Well, aunt Hannah, just see to my little girl, while I go and speak with uncle Nathan," and the Judge disappeared from the entry, through a side door.
"Come into the out room," said aunt Hannah to Mary, leading the way through an opposite door.
Mary followed in silence, chilled through and through by this iron coldness.
The room was chilly and meagre of comforts like its mistress. A home-made carpet, striped in red and green, but greatly faded by time, covered the floor. A tall, mahogany bureau, with a back-piece and top-drawers, stood on one side, and a long, narrow dining-table of black wood, with slender legs and claw-feet, grasping each a small globe, stood between the two front windows. Over these windows were paper curtains of pale blue, rolled up with strings and tassels of twisted cotton, just far enough to leave the lower panes visible. Half a dozen chairs of dark brown wood touched with green, stood around the room; and over the dining-table hung an antique looking-glass, in a mahogany frame, rendered black by time.
Mary sat down by an end window that overlooked the garden, and peered through the little panes to avoid the steady gaze that the woman fixed upon her. A sweet-briar bush grew against the window; and she caught bright glimpses of marigolds and asparagus laden with red berries, through the fragrant leaves.
All at once she started and turned suddenly in her chair. The woman had spoken.
"Who are you?" was the curt question that aroused her.
"I—I—ma'am?"
"Yes, I mean you. What's your name?"
"Mary Fuller, ma'am."
"What brought you in these parts?"
"I came with Isabel and Judge Sharp."
"What for?"
"To live with somebody, ma'am, I—I thought at first it was here!"
"Where did you come from?"
Mary blushed. Poor child! She had a vague idea that there was something to be ashamed of in coming from the Alms House. As she hesitated the woman repeated her question, but more briefly, only saying:
"Where?"
"From the Alms House!"
Aunt Hannah's eyes fell. A faint color crept through the wrinkles on her forehead, and for a few moments she ceased to interrogate the child. But she spoke at length in the same impassive voice as before:
"Have you a father?"
"No, ma'am."
"A mother?"
"She is dead."
"Who is Isabel?"
"A little girl that was with me in"—she was about to say in the Alms House; but more sensitive regarding Isabel than herself, she changed the term and said, "that was with me in the carriage."
"The carriage," repeated aunt Hannah, moving toward a window and lifting the paper blind, "did it take four horses to drag you and another little girl over the mountains?"
"Oh! no, ma'am, there was a lady."
"A lady! Who?"
"A lady who lives down the river in a great square house, with a sort of short steeple on the roof."
"What, Mrs. Farnham?" said the woman, dropping the blind as if it had been a roll of fire, while her face turned white to the lips, and a glow came into her eyes that made Mary's heart beat quick, for there was something startling in it, as the woman stood searching her face for the answer.
"Yes, that is the name, ma'am."
Aunt Hannah's lips grew colder and whiter, while the glow concentrated in her eyes like a ray of fire.
"Is she coming here to live?" broke in low, stern tones from those cold lips.
"Yes, I heard her say that she was," replied the little girl, gently, warmed by a touch of sympathy; for even this stern betrayal of feeling was less repulsive than the chill apathy of her previous manner.
"And this Isabel. Is the girl hers?"
"No, not hers, she is like me—no, not like me—only in having no father and mother—for Isabel is—oh, how beautiful."
"And what is she doing here?" questioned the woman, still in her stern, low tones.
"Mrs. Farnham has adopted her," answered the child, "and no wonder; anybody would like to have Isabel for a child."
"Why?"
"Because she is lovely."
"Why didn't she adopt you?" said the woman, without a change in her voice.
"Me, ma'am! Oh, how could she?"
The child, as she spoke, spread her little hands abroad, and looked downward as was her touching habit, when her person was brought in question.
The woman stood in the centre of the room, pale, and still gazing upon that singular little face, with a degree of intensity of which its former coldness seemed incapable. At last she strode up to the window, and putting her hand on Mary's forehead, bent back her head, while she perused her face.
"And who will adopt you?" she said, at length, as if communing with herself.
"I don't know," said the child, sadly. "When I came here I thought perhaps this house was the one that Mr. Sharp expected me to live in."
The woman continued her gaze during some seconds, then her hand dropped away from the throbbing little forehead, and she returned to her seat.
That moment the door opened, and Enoch Sharp looked through, with a smile that penetrated into the room like a sunbeam.
"Come, aunt Hannah," he said, "we can do nothing without you."
The apple trees were all growing old,And old was the house that sheltered him;But that brave, warm heart, was a heart of gold!Though his head was grey, and his eyes were dim.
Aunt Hannah arose, and walked with a precise and firm step from the room. Enoch Sharp led the way into a low back porch that overlooked that portion of the garden devoted to vegetables. In one end of this porch stood a huge cheese-press; and on the dresser opposite, a wooden churn was turned bottom up, with the dasher leaning against it. Several milking-pails of wood, scoured to a spotless whiteness, were ranged on each side, while nicely kept strainers hung over them. There was a faint, pure smell of the dairy near, as if the porch opened to a butter and cheese-room; but the exquisite cleanliness of everything around made this rather agreeable than otherwise.
The principal object in the porch, however, was an old man seated in a huge armed-chair of unpainted oak, with a splint bottom worn smooth by constant use. The chair stood near the back entrance, and the old man seemed quite too large and unwieldy for any attempt at exercise; but his broad, rosy face was turned toward the door, as he heard Enoch Sharp and his sister coming through the kitchen; and one of the frankest smiles you ever beheld, beamed from his soft brown eyes over the benevolent expanse of his face.
"Well, Nathan, what do you want of me?" inquired the austere lady in her usual cold tones.
The good man seemed taken aback by this short address. He looked at the Judge as if for help, saying,
"Hasn't he told you, Hannah?"
"Yes, he wants us to keep this little thing in yonder, and let others pay us for it. I don't sell kindness—do you, Nathan?"
"No, no, certainly not; but then, Hannah, you must reflect; the Judge's own house is not exactly suited for a person like this little girl; and if we don't take her who will?"
The woman stood musing, her cold face unchanged, her eyes cast thoughtfully downward.
"You see, sister," persisted uncle Nathan, "this little girl isn't as the Judge says, a sort of person to make a pet of, like the one Mrs. Farnham has adopted."
Aunt Hannah started, and looked up with one of those sharp glances, that we have once seen disturb the cold monotony of her face. There was something in the name of Mrs. Farnham, that seemed to sting her into life.
"She isn't handsome, you know," persisted the good man, "but you won't care for that, Hannah. The Judge says she's a bright, good little creature, and she'll be company for us, don't you think so?"
Aunt Hannah looked at the Judge, who stood regarding her with some degree of anxiety.
"Judge," she said, "that woman yonder? She is rich, and these two children loved each other—why did she send this girl to me?"
"She did not; I brought her without her knowledge," said the Judge."Young Farnham first suggested it."
"Young Farnham?" said the woman, and a glow came to her forehead.
"But why were they put asunder?"
"Mrs. Farnham seems to have taken a dislike to poor Mary," was the reply. "The other child is very pretty, and this was a great recommendation, for a lady like her, you know; besides my ward was very anxious that you should take charge of her."
The quick fire once more came to aunt Hannah's eyes. She drew herself up, and looking at Enoch Sharp, said, with a degree of feeling very unusual to her,
"Judge Sharp, you can go home. I will take the girl and bring her up after my own fashion; but, as for your money, we are not poor enough—my brother and I—to sell kindness—not, not even to him."
The Judge would have spoken, but aunt Hannah waved her hand, after her usual cold, stately fashion, saying, "take the girl—or leave her with me."
"But she will be a burden upon you!" he began to say.
Aunt Hannah did not answer, but going into "the out room," removed Mary's bonnet and mantilla, then, taking her by the hand, she led her into the porch directly before uncle Nathan.
"Talk with her," she said; "I have the chores to do up yet."
"Yes, yes, talk with uncle Nathan, Mary; you will feel at home at once," cried the Judge, somewhat annoyed that all his benevolent plans could not be carried out, but glad, nevertheless, that his poor favorite had found a home.
There are faces in the world which a warm-hearted person cannot look upon without a glow of generous emotion. Those faces are seldom among the most beautiful. Certainly, I have never found them so; but, this power of waking up all the sweet emotions of an irrepressible nature is worth all the beauty on earth. Uncle Nathan Heap's face was of this character. Full and ruddy, it beamed with an expression so benevolent, so warm and true, that you were ready to love and trust him at the first glance.
Mary Fuller had too much character in herself not to feel all that was noble in his. Her eye lighted up, the color came in a faint hue to her cheeks, and, without a word, she placed her little hands between the plump brown palms that were extended to receive her.
Uncle Nathan drew her close up to his knees, pressing her little hands kindly between his, and perusing her face with his friendly brown eyes.
"There, that will do, you are a nice little girl," he said, "I'm glad the Judge thought of bringing you here."
Mary was ready to cry. This reception was so cheering, after the cold interrogations of aunt Hannah.
"Go, bring that milking-stool, yonder, and sit down here while I talk with you a little," said uncle Nathan, pointing toward three or four stools, that hung on the picket fence in the back garden.
Mary ran across the cabbage patch, and brought the milking-stool, which she placed near the old man.
"Close up, close up," he said, patting his fat knee, as if he expected her to lean against it. "There, now, this will do. Sit still and see how you like the garden while the sunshine strikes it."
Mary looked around full of serious curiosity. The sunshine was falling across the cabbage patch, which she had just crossed, tinging the great heads with gold. The massive effect of this blended green and gold; the deep tints of the outer leaves, lined and crimped into a curious network; the inner leaves folded so hard and crisp, in their lighter green; all struck the child as singularly beautiful. Then the dun red of the beet leaves, that took up the slanting sunbeams as they strayed over the garden, scattering gold everywhere; and the delicate and feathery green of the parsnip beds: these all had a charm for her young eyes, a charm that one must feel for the first time to appreciate.
"Don't you think it a pleasant place out here?" said uncle Nathan, looking blandly down upon her.
"Oh! yes, very, very nice. I never saw so many things growing at once before."
"No! Don't they have gardens in New York then?"
"Some persons do, but not with these things in them: but they have beautiful roses and honeysuckles, and sights of flowers; don't you like flowers, sir?"
"Like flowers? Why, yes. Didn't you see the coxcombs and marigolds in the front garden?"
"Yes," said Mary, a little disappointed; for, to say the truth, she found more beauty in the nicely arranged vegetable beds, with their rich variety of tints, just then bathed in the sunset; besides, a taste for rare flowers had been excited, by many a childish visit to those pretty angles and grass plats, bright with choice flowers, that beautify many of our up-town dwellings in New York. "Yes, they are large and grand, but I like little tiny flowers, with stems that shake when you only touch them."
"Oh, you'll find lots of flowers like that in the spring time, I can tell you. Among the rocks and trees up there, the ground is covered with them."
"And can I pick them?" asked the child, lifting her brightening eyes on uncle Nathan, with a world of confiding earnestness in them, but still doubtful if she would dare to touch even a wild blossom without permission.
"Pick them!" repeated the old man, laughing till his double chin trembled like a jelly. "Why the cattle tramp over thousands of them every day. You may pick aprons full, if you have a mind to."
"I shouldn't like much to pick them in that way," said the child, thoughtfully.
"Why not, ha?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Call me uncle Nathan!"
"Well, I don't know, uncle Nathan," repeated the child, blushing, "but it seems to me as if it must hurt the pretty flowers to be picked, as if they had feeling like us, and would cry out in my fingers."
"That is a queer thought," said uncle Nathan, and he looked curiously on the child.
"Is it? I don't know," was the modest reply, "but I always feel that way about flowers."
"She is a strange little creature," thought uncle Nathan, who had a world of sympathy for every generous emotion the human soul ever knew, "what company she will be here in the old stoop nights like this."
Then in a quiet, gentle way, uncle Nathan began to question the child, as his sister had done; but Mary did not shrink from him as she had from his relative; and the sunset gathered around them, while she was telling her mournful little history.
The old man's eyes filled with tears more than once, as he listened. Mary saw it and drew close to him as she spoke, till her little clasped hands rested on his knees.
Just then aunt Hannah came into the porch with a pail in her hand, foaming over with milk.
"Oh!" exclaimed uncle Nathan, lifting himself from the arm-chair with a heavy sigh, "I oughtn't to have been sitting here, in this way, while you are doing up the chores, Hannah. Give me the stool, little darter, I must do my share of the milking, any how."
"Sit still! The child's strange yet; I can do up the chores for once, I suppose," answered aunt Hannah, placing a bright tin pan on the dresser, and tightening a snow-white strainer over the pail. "Sit down, I say."
Uncle Nathan dropped into his capacious chair, with a relieving sigh, though half the authority in aunt Hannah's command was lost in the flow of a pearly torrent of milk which soon filled the pan.
"Can't I help?" inquired Mary, going up to aunt Hannah, as she lifted the brimming pan with both hands, and bore it toward a swinging shelf in the pantry.
"Not now; when you are rested. Go back to Nathan," answered auntHannah, looking sideway over the uplifted milk pan.
Mary drew back to her place by the old man, and they watched the sun as it set redly behind the hills, covering the garden and all the hills with its dusky gold.
"See!" said uncle Nathan, pointing to an immense sun flower crowning a stalk at least eight feet high. "See how that great flower wheels round as the sun travels toward the mountains; and stands with its face to the west, when it goes down. Did you ever see that before?"
"The great, brown flower, fringed with yellow leaves—does it really do that?" cried Mary, with her bright eyes wandering from the stately flower to uncle Nathan's face. "Oh! how I should love to sit and watch it all day!"
"I do sometimes, Sundays, when it's too warm for anything else," said uncle Nathan; "but supposing you go to bed early, and get up in the morning, as sure as you do, that sunflower will be found looking straight to the east."
Aunt Hannah, who had bustled about the porch and pantry some time, appeared after a short interval, at the back door. Uncle Nathan understood the signal, and taking Mary by the hand, led her into a kitchen, neatly covered with a rag carpet, and furnished with old-fashioned wooden chairs. A little round tea-table stood in the middle of the room, covered with warm tea-biscuit, preserved plums in china saucers, and plates of molasses-pound-cake, with a saucer of golden butter, and one of cheese, placed at equal distances.
Aunt Hannah took her seat behind an oblong tray of dark japaned tin, on which stood a conical little pewter tea-pot, bright as silver, and a pile of tea-spoons small enough for a modern play-house, but so bright that they scattered cheerful gleams over the whole tray. Three chairs stood around the table, and in one of these Mary placed herself, obedient to a move of aunt Hannah's hand. A bowl of bread and milk stood by her plate, to which she betook herself with hearty relish, while aunt Hannah performed the honors of her pewter tea-pot, mingling a judicious quantity of water with Mary's portion of her favorite beverage, while uncle Nathan reached over and sweetened it with prodigality, observing that "it was the nature of children to love sweets," at which aunt Hannah gave a cold smile of assent.
After tea, uncle Nathan withdrew to his seat on the porch again. Mary would have made herself useful about the tea-things, but aunt Hannah dismissed her with an observation that she might rest herself in the porch.
It was very pleasant to keep close up to the side of that old man, and find protection from her loneliness, in the shadow of his great chair. Still, a sadness crept over her poor heart, for with all her simple-hearted courage, the place was strange, and in spite of the cordial voice of uncle Nathan that came cheerfully through the gathering darkness, she felt a moisture creeping into her eyes. The very stillness and beautiful quiet of everything around had elements of sadness in it to a creature so sensitively organized as she was. She thought of her father, and fixing her meek eyes on the stars, as they came one by one into the sky, began to wonder if he knew where she was, and how much like a father that good old man was acting toward his little girl.
Then she thought of Isabel; and of Judge Sharp; of the great, good fortune that had befallen her in being so near them both, and her poor little heart swelled with a world of thankful feelings. I do think the sweetest tears ever shed by mortal, come from those grateful feelings, that, too exquisite for words, and too powerful for silence, can find no language to express themselves in but tears.
Mary Fuller began to sob. She had for the moment forgotten the old man's presence.
"What is this?" cried uncle Nathan, laying one hand over her head, and patting her cheeks with his broad palm, "homesick a'ready?"
"No, no," sobbed Mary, "I, I was only thinking how good you all are to me, how very, very happy I ought to feel."
"And can't. Is that it?"
"I don't know," answered the child, wiping her eyes, and looking up, searching for uncle Nathan's face in the star-light. "There is something here that isn't happy entirely, or a bit like sorrow, but sometimes it almost chokes me, and would quite if I couldn't cry it off."
"I used to feel that way once, I remember," said uncle Nathan, thoughtfully, "but it wore off as I grew older."
"I shouldn't quite like to have it wear off," said the child, fixing her eyes on the stars, and clinging to the golden dreams that so haunted her, just before this fit of weeping came on, "altogether, I don't think one would like to part with one's thoughts, you know."
"Not even when they make you cry?"
"No, I think not—those are the thoughts that one loves to remember best."
"Come, Nathan," said aunt Hannah, appearing in the porch with a tallow candle in her hand, "it's almost bed-time."
Uncle Nathan arose and entered the kitchen. Seating himself at the little round stand, he opened a huge old Bible, that lay upon it, and putting on a pair of iron spectacles began to read.
Mary, seated by aunt Hannah, listened with gentle interest with her little hands folded in her lap, and her large grey eyes dwelling earnestly on the face of the white-haired reader.
When the chapter was done, they all knelt down, and uncle Nathan poured forth the fullness of his faith in a prayer, that went over the child's heart like the summer wind upon a water-lily, stirring all its young thought to their gentle depths, as the fragrant leaves of the lily give forth their sweetness. Two or three times she heard aunt Hannah murmur some words uneasily, as if a thought, at variance with her brother's prayer, disturbed her. But directly the child was enwrapped, heart and soul, in the earnest words that fell from the old man's lips, and when she stood up again, her face had a sort of glory in its expression. It was the first night in a long, long time that Mary had been so near heaven.
And this was the kind of home which Enoch Sharp had given to the orphan. Did she sleep well? If grateful thoughts can summon angels, many bright spirits hovered over her little bed that night.
But aunt Hannah never closed her eyes.
Awake, poor orphan girl, awake!The wild birds flutter free,And all the trumpet blossoms quake,Amid the tuneful glee.
Mary Fuller was aroused from her sleep the next morning by the most heavenly sound that had ever met her ear. It was a wild gush of song, from the birds that had a habit of sleeping in the old trumpet-flower vine, and among the apple-trees back of the house. She began to smile even in her sleep, and awoke with a thrill of new and most delicious pleasure. Out from the old porch and distant trees came this wild gush of song, to which the river with its soft chiming, made a perpetual accompaniment. She drew a deep breath tremulous with pleasure and reluctantly opened her eyes.
Aunt Hannah was standing before a little upright looking-glass, combing out her long grey hair with a ferocious-looking horn comb, which she swept through those sombre tresses deliberately as a rake gathers dry hay from the meadow. The paper curtains were partly rolled up, and one of the small sashes was open, admitting a current of fresh air and the bird's songs together. These two blessings, which God gives alike to all, aunt Hannah received as she did her daily bread, without a thought and as a necessary thing; but to the child they made a heaven of the little attic chamber.
This was not alone because habit had familiarized one to a bright circulation of mountain air and mountain music, and the other to the sluggish atmosphere and repulsive scents inseparable from the poverty-stricken districts of a city. Temperament had more to do with it than habit. Mary, with her sensitive nature, never could have breathed such air, or listened to those melodious sounds, without a feeling of delight such as ordinary persons never know. Thus it happened, while aunt Hannah was busy twisting up her hair and changing her short nightgown for a calico dress, that Mary closed her eyes again, and a tear or two stole from beneath their long lashes.
Aunt Hannah just then came to the bed, with both hands behind, hooking up her dress. She saw the tears as they stole through those quivering lashes, and spoke in a voice so stern and chill that it made the child start on her pillow.
"Home-sick, I reckon?" she said, interrogatively.
"No no," answered Mary, eagerly, "it isn't that, I haven't any home, you know, to be sick about."
"What is it then?"
"Oh, the bright air, and the sweet noise all around, it seems so—so—indeed I cant help it. Is there another place in the wide world like this?"
"Well, no, to my thinking there isn't," said aunt Hannah, looking around the room with grim complacency; "but I don't see anything to cry about."
"I know it's wrong in me, ma'am, but somehow I can't help making a baby of myself when I'm very happy—don't be angry with me for it."
"I don't like crying people, never did," answered aunt Hannah, tersely; "tears never do anything but mischief, and never will—wipe your eyes now, and come down stairs."
Mary drew a little hand obediently across her eyes. Aunt Hannah left her and went down a flight of narrow steps that led to the kitchen: the child could hear her moving about among the fire-irons, as she put on her clothes. Still there was joy at her heart, for the birds kept singing to her all the time, and when she rose from her knees, after whispering over her prayers, they broke forth in such a gush of music, that it seemed as if they knew what she had been about and rejoiced over it.
When Mary descended into the kitchen, she found aunt Hannah on her knees, between two huge andirons, fanning a heap of smoking wood with her checked apron, which she tightened at the corners around each hand. The smoke puffed out in little clouds around her, with every wave of the apron, and floated off in fantastic wreaths over her head. When Mary came down, she turned her face over one shoulder with an inclination toward the door, and the words, "You will find a place to wash by the rain-water trough," issued from amid the smoke.
Mary found the huge trough standing full of soft water, to the left of the back stoop. On one end where the wood was thick, stood a yellow earthen wash-bowl, with a square piece of soap, of the same color, lying by it.
To a child of Mary's habits this rustic toilet was luxurious. Standing upon a piece of plank, that protected her feet from the damp earth around the trough, she bathed her hands and face again and again, drawing in deep draughts of the bright air between each ablution, with a delicious sense of enjoyment.
"That's right—you are beginning to find out the ways of the house, darter. Grand old trough, isn't it?" said uncle Nathan, issuing from the porch, and turning back the cotton wristbands from his plump hands, as he came up to where Mary was standing. "That's right. Now for a good wash."
Mary hastened to cast the water away that she had been using, and fill the bowl afresh for uncle Nathan, before he reached the plank on which she stood. Then she resigned her place, and running into the stoop, wiped her hands and face till they were rosy again on the roller towel, that she had observed hanging near the cheese-press.
"Now, what must I do next?" she said, confidentially, as uncle Nathan claimed his turn at the crash towel, "I want to be of some use, please tell me how!"
"That's right," said uncle Nathan, patting her head with his wet hand "run, hang over the tea-kettle, set the table, sweep up a little. You can do chores, I reckon?"
"I don't know; what are chores?"
"Oh! a little of everything," replied the old man, laughing his deep, good-natured laugh.
"Oh! yes, I can try at that, any way," cried the child, and her laugh stole through the mellow fullness of his, much as the bird-songs mingled with the flow of the river. "I'm a good deal stronger than I look!"
"Bright as a dollar, and smart as a steel-trap. I knew it. Them eyes weren't made for nothing. Now run and begin; but look here, darter: don't plague Hannah with questions; just make yourself handy; and no fuss about it, you know."
"Oh! I can do that, you'll see," cried the girl, cheerfully, and while uncle Nathan was polishing his broad face with the towel, she seized a heavy iron tea-kettle, and carried it to the well, which, surrounded by plantain and dock leaves, was near a corner of the house. She had some little difficulty in managing the windlass, and when the old mossy bucket fell with a dash into the water twenty feet below, it made her start and shiver all over as if she had harmed something.
I am afraid she never could have managed with those little hands, to have drawn the bucket over the well-curb; but while she stood trembling like a leaf, holding back the windlass with both hands, and gazing desperately on the bucket, down whose green sides the water-drops were raining back into the well, good uncle Nathan came up, panting with exertion, and seizing hold of the bucket jerked it over the curb.
"Don't try that again; it's rather more than you can manage yet," he said, breathing hard. "I was an old Ishmaelite to put you up to it."
"I thought it was easy enough," said Mary, trembling with affright and the overtax of her strength, while uncle Nathan filled the tea-kettle and bore it into the porch; "next time I shall know how better."
She took the kettle from the old man's hand, and bending her whole strength to the task, bore it into the kitchen.
Aunt Hannah was still on her knees, blowing away at the obstinate green wood that smoked and smouldered at its ease. When Mary came tottering under the weight of her kettle; and hung it upon the trammel-hook just over an incipient blaze, the old lady gave her a keen glance, as much of surprise as pleasure, and working vigorously with her apron, sent a whirl of smoke into the child's eyes, while her lips muttered something that sounded like "nice girl."
It was quite wonderful how the little creature found out all the ways of that old house so noiselessly! While aunt Hannah sat, knife in hand, stripping the skins from her cold potatoes, and cutting them in round slices that dropped hissing one by one into the hot gravy, which, with thin slices of pork, simmered in the frying-pan just taken from the fire, Mary had drawn forth the little cherry wood table, found the tablecloth of birds-eye diaper in one end of the drawer, and the knives and forks in the other, which she proceeded to arrange after the fashion she had observed the night before.
Aunt Hannah turned her head now and then, after stirring up her potatoes, and held the dripping knife above the frying-pan, while she gave a sharp glance at these proceedings, quite ready to impart a brief reprimand should the case require it. But each glance grew shorter, and at last those thin lips relaxed into a look of grim satisfaction, when she saw the little girl measuring a drawing of tea in the top of her tin canister, levelling it nicely off with the edge of a spoon handle, not a grain more or less than the usual allowance.
Aunt Hannah was not a close woman in the usual country acceptation of the term, but she hated changes and loved tea. That old canister lid had been the household standard for thirty years, and it was not likely that she would heartily sanction any addition or diminution for a little girl like that.
At length the breakfast was ready. The slices of salt pork were neatly arranged on a plate; and the potatoes crisped to a turn, were placed beside it on the hearth. Between them stood a plate of milk-toast and the little pewter tea-pot, puffing threads of steam from its puny nozzle as if it really intended an opposition to the great salamander of a kettle that sung and fumed and made a great ado over the hot fire back in the chimney.
Just as everything seemed ready for breakfast, uncle Nathan came in, obedient to a nod from his grim sister, and seating himself before the fire, opened the Bible and began to read.
It was a temptation to worldly thoughts, that warm breakfast, so savory and tantalizing to a child whose appetite was stimulated with exercise and the fresh mountain air, and it is no use pretending that once or twice she did not wonder a little if uncle Nathan always read so slow or prayed so long. But it was a passing thought, and, as uncle Nathan said afterward, "she couldn't help birds flying over her head, but that was no reason why they should build nests in her hair." In this case, naughty thoughts were like the birds, and if she drove them away, that was all that could be expected. Uncle Nathan was a good old man in his day and generation, and we have no idea of criticising any opinion of his.
When the breakfast was over, aunt Hannah disappeared from the back porch, with a milk-pail in one hand and a three-legged stool in the other. Uncle Nathan followed her example, but more slowly, and the cotton handkerchief of many colors that his sister had tied on her head, disappeared over the back garden-fence before he had half crossed the cabbage-patch. He lingered behind long enough to give Mary an encouraging smile through the kitchen-door, and went off murmuring, as if in confidence to his milking-stool,
"Nice girl, nice girl, I wonder we never thought of taking a little thing like that before. If Hannah had only kept poor Anna's baby now, what company they would have been for each other."
When the good man reached the little pasture-lot, thinly scattered over with apple-trees, in which half-a-dozen fine cows grazed over night, he found aunt Hannah beneath one of the largest trees, seated upon her stool, and milking what she called the "hardest" cow of the lot. When disposed to be refractory she cut its "tantrums" short with a sharp "soh!" that went off from her thin lips like the crack of a pistol; and this one word had more effect upon the animal, than a world of uncle Nathan's gentle "so-hos, so-hos," that seemed as if he were quieting an infant. The vicious animal knew the difference well enough, for one was usually followed by a whack of the stool over its ribs, while the other sometimes resulted in leaving the rotund old gentleman wallowing, like a mud-turtle, on his back in the grass.
It is natural to suppose that under these circumstances, uncle Nathan usually gave a wide berth to his sister's favorite; but this morning he drove the meekest and fattest cow of the herd gingerly up to the old apple tree, and after placing his stool very deliberately on the grass, and the pail between his knees, began a slow accompaniment to the quick motion of aunt Hannah's hands, which kept two pearly streams in rapid flow to the half-filled pail resting against her feet.
While the milk rattled and rushed upon the bottom of his empty pail, uncle Nathan kept quiet, leaning his head against the cow, and thinking over the pleasant ideas that little Mary had aroused in his kind heart. Unconsciously wishing to share those thoughts with his sister, he had driven his cow close to hers that they might converse together. Hannah took no notice of his presence, however, but went on filling her pail so rapidly, that it began to foam over the edge. When her brother saw this, and knew by the soft, feathery sound that she had nearly finished, he stooped down, and with his dear old face just visible under the cow, called out,
"I say, Hannah, what do you think of her?"
Did the vicious animal start? Or what was it that made the stern woman shriek out, and wheel round so sharply on her stool?
"Why, Hannah, did I frighten her! has she kicked again?" cried uncle Nathan, surprised by the sharp action and wild look that she cast back upon him.
"Yes, she did start," answered aunt Hannah, rising and taking up the pail, now quite full, which made her waver to and fro, a singular weakness which no one had ever witnessed in her before.
"But you ain't frightened, sister; nothing can frighten you," saidNathan, soothingly.
"No, but you asked something, what is it."
"Only, how you liked her?"
"Her!—who?"
"Why, Mary Fuller, our little girl, you know."
"You are thinking of her then."
"Why, yes, Hannah, I can't think of anything else. Isn't she a nice little creature?"
"Yes!"
"How handy she was about the breakfast, I shouldn't wonder now if all the dishes are washed up by the time we get back."
"Do you think so!" said aunt Hannah, gazing down into her foaming pail so steadily, that even uncle Nathan could see that she was not thinking of anything so trivial as her morning's work.
"Hannah," he said, "what has come over you! you seem so strange since this little girl came. You scarcely speak."
"Do I ever speak much?" she answered.
"No," said uncle Nathan with a sigh, "but now something has gone wrong—what is it? don't you like to keep the child?"
"Yes, I like it."
"She will be a help to you."
"Yes, I think so—of course she must."
"And company for me—for us both."
"For you, yes—as for me, brother, I have no company, good or bad, but my own thoughts."
She spoke with some feeling, her voice shook, her hard eyes wavered as they turned towards her brother. In years Nathan had not seen her so moved. Why was it? What was there in the coming of a helpless child beneath their roof, to disturb the composure of a woman like that?
As the good man sat upon his stool, pondering over these thoughts, for he was too much surprised for speech, she hung her stool upon a limb of the apple-tree, and moved towards the house, stooping more than usual beneath the weight of her milk-pail.
As uncle Nathan had prophesied, Mary was busy as a humming-bird washing up the breakfast dishes, and putting every thing to rights in the kitchen. Aunt Hannah did not seem to observe it, but strained her milk, and went out again. When she came back, uncle Nathan was with her, looking rather grave and perplexed.
It was now approaching nine o'clock, and all the "chores," as the good couple called the household work, "were done up."
"Go up stairs and get your things," said aunt Hannah to Mary, "it's school-time."
Mary obeyed, and aunt Hannah proceeded to change her checked apron for one of black silk, and to invest her head in a straw bonnet that had been tolerably fashionable ten years before, and since that time it had been often bleached, but never changed in form.
She took Mary by the hand, when she came down, with her plain mantilla and cottage bonnet on, surveyed her keenly from head to foot, and led her into the street.
They passed down the village, the woman not deigning to notice that she was an object of curiosity, the child shrinking with that sensitive dread of observation, that always haunted her when among strangers. About the centre of the village stood a brick academy, with an open space before it, and surrounded by a succession of wooden verandahs.
Aunt Hannah entered the lower story of this building, where some forty children were assembled under a female teacher, who came forward to receive her visitors.
"This little girl," said aunt Hannah, "we have adopted her. She must come to school."
"What branches do you wish her to study?" inquired the teacher.
"Reading, writing, cyphering, enough to reckon up a store bill, if she should ever have one, and enough of geography to keep her from losing her way in the world."
"Is that all?" said the teacher, "a girl of her age ought to know those things without further teaching."
"Like enough she does, ask her," said aunt Hannah.
The teacher looked at Mary, who smiled, blushed, and after a moment's hesitation, said, modestly,
"I know how to read and write, and a little of the rest."
"Very well, I will examine you presently," said the teacher, "yonder is an empty desk, you can take it."
Mary advanced up the school-room, blushing and trembling beneath the curious glances that followed her. So sensitively conscious was she that every movement, when strange eyes were upon her, brought its suffering. But, with true heroism, she subdued all appearance of the annoyance she felt, and, in her very meekness and fortitude, there lay a charm that won more worthy affection than beauty could have done.
Thus she entered upon her school life, alone and among strangers, for aunt Hannah left her at the door. She looked around with a forlorn hope that Isabel might, like her, be sent to school, or that something might happen to take the sad weight of loneliness from her heart; but, all was new, cold and depressing, and leaning her head on the desk, she felt chilled in all her veins. There was no disposition to weep in little Mary now.
Sensitive as she was, no one ever saw her shed tears over her own sorrow; but kindness, poor child!thatalways brought the dew sparkling up from her heart to her eyes.
Oh, give me one clasp of her friendly hand,One tender glance from those gentle eyes;For my heart is alone in this mountain land,And every joy of my childhood dies.
Poor Isabel. She had found her new home dreary enough, notwithstanding its large airy rooms and elegant furniture, far too elegant for country uses, where magnificence is seldom in good taste. While nature is so beautiful, art should never appear, save to enhance its splendor.
In her whole life she had never been thoroughly homesick before, for never had her young heart been taken from all its loving support so completely as now.
Mrs. Farnham made a great effort to be kind, and to impress upon the child all the importance which she would henceforth derive from an association with herself, and the immense difference that must hereafter exist between her and Mary Fuller.
"Remember, my pet," said that lady, with bland self-complacency, "remember, my pet, that you are the protege of—of, as I may assert, of wealth and station, and though born I don't know where, and bred in the Poor-House, the fact that you have my protection is enough to overbalance that. You understand, Isabel—by the way, I think it best to call you Isabel Farnham now—with your beauty the thing will pass off without question; with that face, nothing would seem more natural than that I should be your real mamma; so, be a very good girl, and, who knows but I may have you called Miss Farnham!"
The color mounted into Isabel's face.
"No, ma'am, I would rather not; call me Isabel Chester, please, it was my father's name, and I love it, oh, how much!"
"You are a naughty, ungrateful little—well, well, I was a fool to expect anything else; Chester, as if I'd have a name in my house that has been registered on the Alms House books!"
"Is it a disgrace then, to be poor?" asked the child, innocently.
"A disgrace to be poor! certainly it is, and a great disgrace, too!" answered the lady, speaking from her heart, "or else why are people ashamed to own it?"
"Are they ashamed to own it? I didn't know," answered the child. "My father was poor, at the last, but I don't think he was ever ashamed of it, or ever to blame for it either."
"I dare say not; poor people are always shameless."
Isabel's eyes kindled and her passion rose.
"I won't hear my father abused—please, ma'am, I won't stand it; he wasn't poor till bad people made him so, and, and"—The child broke off, and burst into a passion of tears.
Mrs. Farnham was gratified. She had worried the poor child out of her silent moodiness, and now fell to soothing her exactly as she would have pulled the ears of a lap-dog, till he was ready to bite, and then patted him into good humor again.
And this was the training which was to prepare poor Isabel for the great after-life of a soul, imbued with natural goodness, and yet possessed of great faults.
The lovely child, who from her infancy had been the subject of some superior care, was now at the mercy of a capricious, silly woman, selfish as such women usually are, and with a dash of malice in her nature, which more frequently accompanies a frivolous mind than we are disposed to admit.
But Isabel had a good heart, and an intellect so much superior to that of the woman who claimed to be her benefactress, that this constant irritation of a naturally high temper, was more likely to end in exciting her passions than in really undermining her principles.
Mary Fuller, with her gentleness and her beautiful Christianity, had, up to this time, exercised the most worthy effect upon Isabel's character, and never in her after-life did she entirely lose the noble impressions thus obtained.
It is difficult to spoil a human being, entirely, who has spent the first ten years of life under pure domestic influences. Chester's daughter had carried a heart of gold to the Alms House, and she brought all this wealth away; but she was an impulsive, sensitive girl, and if Mrs. Farnham had no influence strong enough to pervert her nature, she had the power to thwart and annoy her beyond her capacities of patient endurance.
The truth was, Mrs. Farnham had no idea of the responsibility which she had taken upon herself. Isabel was to her a pet—a subject upon which to exercise her authority, and that promised to gratify her vanity—not a human soul which it was her solemn duty to guard, strengthen and develop. Benevolence in this woman amounted to nothing higher than a caprice.
The conversation we have repeated was a sample of many others that were constantly irritating the poor child, even amid her first hours of homesickness. Unlike Mary Fuller, she had no occupation, for Mrs. Farnham considered usefulness of any kind the height of vulgarity. Indeed! she was so remarkably sensitive on this subject that a very shrewd observer might have fancied that the lady had known a little more of labor, in her younger days, than she was willing to admit.
The great want of Isabel's life was the society of her friend. No child ever pined for the presence of its mother more longingly than she desired the society of Mary Fuller. This was the ground of her sadness. It was this want that kept her so restless. She was like a bird shut up in a cage calling for its mate and drooping when no reply came.
But with that distrust which a want of respect always produces, Isabel kept this longing to herself. Something told her that Mrs. Farnham would meet it with reproof to herself or insult to Mary, and she could not force herself to speak of this, as a cause of her sadness, or ask permission to visit her friend.
For two or three days she was compelled to follow Mrs. Farnham about her sumptuous home—sumptuous and yet replete with discomfort—to pick up her handkerchief, bring her eye-glass and listen to the confusion of commands with which the lady tormented her servants from morning till night. It was an irksome life, this forced companionship with a person whom she could neither respect nor even like.
The poor child's heart was famishing for love, and she began to grieve for her mother as if the mournful funeral of her last parent had taken place but yesterday.
Mrs. Farnham had fitted up a chamber next to her own for the little girl. Here intense selfishness seemed to have worked the effect of good taste. Isabel's room was superior to any thing in the neighborhood, but secondary to the gorgeous appointments of her own chamber. Her pretty rose-wood bed was hung with lace that seemed like frost-work, instead of the orange silk drapery that fell like an avalanche of gold over the couch on which Mrs. Farnham took her nightly repose. Everything around her was pure white, but the walls were covered with clustering roses, and the carpet under her feet glowed out with flowers like the turf in a forest-glade.
When the door stood open between this room and Mrs. Farnham's the contrast was striking. The cold white and green, warmed up only by a few rich flowers, seemed exquisitely cool as you turned to it for relief from the heavy drapery and costly furniture with which Mrs. Farnham smothered the fresh mountain air that visited her apartment.
At first, Isabel was dazzled with this splendor; but after she had been all day long following Mrs. Farnham like a lap-dog, till the very sound of her voice became wearisome, it was an overtax on her patience when she was obliged to share almost the same chamber, and listen to that voice so long as the lady could keep herself awake.
But when her tormentress was once asleep, when Isabel could turn on her pillow and look upon the moonlight as it flooded her room, with a free spirit, she began to weep with a bitterness that had never fallen upon her straw cot at the Nursery Hospital. A spirit of utter loneliness possessed her, and while the delicate lace brooded over her couch like the wings of a spirit, she murmured out—
"Oh, mother—oh, my dear, dear father—oh, Mary, dear Mary Fuller, ifI were only with you anywhere, oh, anywhere but here!"
Thus, night after night the child lay and wept. Her eyes were so heavy one morning, after a night of silent anguish, that Salina Bowles observed it, and in her rude way inquired the cause.
Mrs. Farnham was still asleep, and Isabel had crept down to the kitchen, resolved to ask counsel of the housekeeper, for it seemed to her impossible to live another day without seeing Mary.
It was a great relief to the child when Salina lifted her face from the tin oven, in which she had just arranged the morning biscuit for baking, and asked in her curt but not really unkind way, what had brought her into that part of the house, and what on earth made her eyes look so heavy.
"Oh, I have come to tell you—to ask you what is best; I am so miserable, so very unhappy without Mary; I cannot live another day without seeing Mary Fuller!"
Salina Bowles dusted the flour from her hands, and wiped them on her apron.
"Mary Fuller! that's the little gal that came with you I calculate!" she said, walking up to the child, who retreated a step, for Salina had a fierce way of doing things, and marched toward her like a grenadier.
"Yes," said Isabel, "that was Mary; do you know where she is? Oh, I must see her or, it seems to me as if I should die!"
"So you don't know where she is?"
"No! but, oh, do tell me!"
"Why didn't you ask madam up yonder?"
"I don't know; I was afraid; I feel quite sure she won't let me go," replied the child.
"Let you go, of course, she won't—no more feelin' than a chestnut stump."
"Then, what can I do?"
"What can you do—why, go without asking, and I'll help you; it's right, and I'll do it,—there!"
"Will you, oh, will you?" cried the child, with a burst of joy.
"Will I!—who'll stop me, I'd like to know?"
"But, how—when?" inquired the child, breathless with joy.
"To-night, I reckon?"
"Isabel—Isabel! where is the creature gone?" cried a voice from the stairs.
"Scamper!" exclaimed Salina, with an emphatic motion of the hand, "scamper, or she'll be coming down here, and I'd rather see old scratch any time."
"But you will certainly take me?" pleaded the child, breathlessly.
"When I give my word I give it!"
"Oh, thank you—thank you!"
Isabel sprang up—flung her arms around Salina's neck, and kissed her.
Before Miss Bowles could recover from her astonishment the child was gone.
"Well, now, I never did!" exclaimed the housekeeper, blushing till the hue of her face was like that of a brick fresh from the kiln; "it's a great while since I've had a kiss before, and it raly is a refreshment."
With this observation, Salina drew one hand across her lips and bent over the tin oven again.
It was in this way that the orphans commenced life in their new homes.