CHAPTER I. SUNSHINE.
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“The last day of October!” said the Sun to himself, —
“the last day of my favorite month, and the birthday of
my little namesake! See if I don't make the most of it!”
So the Sun called to all the winds and all the breezes, who,
poor things! had but just gone to bed after a terrible night's
work, ordering them to get up directly, and sweep the sky
as clear as a bell; and bid all the clouds, whether big
white mountains, little pinky islands, sweeping mares'-tails,
or freckled mackerel-back, to put themselves out of the
way, and keep out of it until November; when, as the Sun
remarked with a sigh, they would have it all their own way.
“And as soon as that job's done,” continued he, “you
may go to bed again in the Mountains of the Moon; for
you will only disturb me if you are about.”
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So the winds, grumbling and sighing a little, went to their
work; and the Sun, after a good dip in the Atlantic Ocean,
began to roll up the eastern sky, flecking the waves with
diamond spray, touching up the gay-colored leaves still
clinging to the forest-trees, blazing on the town and city
clocks to let every one know how late it was, and finally
thrusting his saucy glances into all the windows to see how
many persons had heeded him.
“Come, come, you city-folks!” cried the Sun. “Your
neighbors in the country were up before I was, and have
eaten their breakfasts, and half cleared it away by this
time; and here are you just beginning to dress yourselves!
Hurry up, I say! hurry up! It is the last day of October,
don't you know? and to-morrow will be November.”
But, at the corner house of a handsome square, the Sun
found himself better satisfied; for through the windows of
the dining-room he saw a lady and gentleman seated at the
table, having apparently almost finished their breakfast.
“That is better,” remarked the Sun: and, thrusting one
of his slender golden fingers through the window, he touched
the stag's head upon the cover of the silver coffee-pot;
glanced off, and sparkled in the cut glass of the goblets and
egg-glasses; flickered across the white and gilt china; pierced
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the fiery heart of the diamond upon the first finger of the
lady's left hand, and then, creeping swiftly up her white
throat, played joyously in her golden curls, and even darted
into her soft blue eyes, making them sparkle as brilliantly
as the diamond.
“The sun shines directly in your face, Fanny,” said Mr.
Legrange, admiring the color in his wife's hair. “Shall I
lower the shade?”
“Oh, no! thank you. I never want the sunshine shut
out,” replied she, moving her chair a little.
“Not to-day of all days in the year, I suppose; not on
the birthday of our little Sunshine. And where is she?”
asked Mr. Legrange, half turning his chair from the table
to the fire, and unfolding the damp newspaper beside his
plate.
“I told Susan to send her down as soon as she had done
her breakfast. Hark! I hear her.” And the Sun, drawing
his finger across the mother's lips, helped them to so
bright a smile, that her husband said, —
“I am afraid we have more than our share of sunshine,
or at least that I have, little wife.”
The bright smile grew so bright as the lady bent a little
toward her husband, that the Sun whispered, —
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“There's no need of sun here, I plainly see,” but, for all
that, crept farther into the room; while the door opened, and
in skipped a little girl, who might have been taken for the
beautiful lady at the head of the table suddenly diminished
to childish proportions, and dressed in childish costume, but
with all her beauty intensified by the condensation: for the
blue eyes were as large and clear, and even deeper in their
tint; the clustering hair was of a brighter gold; and the fair
skin pearlier in its whiteness, and richer in its rosiness;
while the gay exuberance of life, glowing and sparkling
from every curve and dimple of the child's face and figure,
was, even in the happy mother's face, somewhat dimmed
by the shadows that still must fall upon every life past its
morning, be it never so happy, or never so prosperous.
“Morning, mamma and papa. It's my birthday; and
I'm six years old, — six, six years old! One, two, three,
four, five, six years old! Susan told them all to me, and
Susan said she guessed papa didn't forgotten it. She didn't
forgotten it; and see!”
The child held up a gay horn of sugar-plums fluttering
with ribbons, and then, hugging it to her breast with one
hand, plunged the other in, and offered a little fistful of
the comfits, first to her father, and then to her mother. Both
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smilingly declined the treat, explaining that they had but
just done breakfast: and the young lady, dropping some
back into the horn, thrust the rest into her own mouth, saying,
“So has I; but I like candy all the day.”
“Come here, you little Sunshine,” said Mr. Legrange,
drawing her toward him. “So Susan thought I hadn't
forgotten your birthday, eh? Well, do you know what
they always do to people on their birthdays?”
“Give 'em presents,” replied the child promptly, as she
desperately swallowed the mouthful of candy.
“Ho, ho! that's it, is it? No; but, besides that, they always
pull their ears as many times as they are years old.
Now, then, don't you wish I had forgotten it?”
Sunshine's eyes grew a little larger, and travelled swiftly
toward her mother's face, coming back to her father's with
a smile.
“I don't believe you'd hurt me much, papa,” said she,
nestling close to his side.
The father folded her tightly in his arms, lifting her to a
seat upon his knee.
“I don't believe I would, little Sunshine. Well, then,
sometimes, instead of pinches, they give little girls as many
kisses as they are years old. How will that do?”
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The rosy mouth, gathering for a kiss, answered without
words; but Mr. Legrange, taking the dimpled face between
his hands, said, —
“No, no! we must go on deliberately. One for the forehead,
two for the eyes, — that makes three; one for each
cheek makes five; and now the last and best for the lips
makes six. Next year, there will be another for the chin,
and, after that, one in each ear: won't that be nice?”
“And mamma? Hasn't Sunshine any kisses for her
this morning?” asked Mrs. Legrange.
The child slid from her father's knee to the floor, and,
with her arms round her mother's neck, whispered, —
“I'll give mamma all these kisses papa just gave me,
and some more too.”
And for a minute or two it would have been hard to say
to which head the showery golden curls belonged, or which
pair of lips was the kisser's, and which the kissed; while the
Sun fairly danced with delight as he wrapped the two in a
beautiful golden mantle woven of his choicest beams.
Mr. Legrange looked on, laughing, for a moment, and
then said, —
“So Susan told you people get presents on their birthdays,
did she, 'Toinette?”
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“Yes, papa;” and the child, half turning from her
mother, but still clinging round her neck, looked at her
father roguishly.
“And I guess you knew it before, and didn't forgotten
about it, did you, papa?” asked she.
“Well, yes, I believe I have heard something of the kind,”
said Mr. Legrange, gravely considering; “but, dear me!
did you expect me to make you a present?”
'Toinette's face grew rather blank; and a sudden impulse
turned down the corners of her mouth with a little tremble
across the lips. But the instinct of native refinement and
delicacy overcame the disappointment; and, coming to her
father's side, the child put her hand in his with a brave
little smile, saying, —
“It's no matter, papa dear. I've got ever so many
pretty things up in the nursery; and Susan gave me the
candy.”
Mr. Legrange looked at his wife.
“Your own child, Fanny. O Sunshine, Sunshine! what
are you coming to by and by? But bless me! what is this
in the pocket of my dressing-gown? Let me take it out,
lest it should hurt you when I set you in my lap again.
Funny-looking little box, isn't it?”
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As he spoke, Mr. Legrange laid upon the table a long,
flat box of red morocco, with some gilt letters upon the top.
“Yes, papa. What's in the box?” asked 'Toinette, still
with a little effort.
“What do you think, Sunshine?”
“I guess it's some cigars, papa.”
“It would make a good cigar-case, to be sure; but
you know I have one already, and mamma says I ought not
to have any. Let us peep in, and see what else the box
would be good for besides cigars.”
He unfastened the little hooks holding down the cover as
he spoke, and placed the casket in 'Toinette's hands. She
raised the lid, and uttered a low cry; while her face flushed
scarlet with surprise and pleasure.
Upon the white satin lining lay two bracelets of coral
cameos, linked with gold, and fastened by a broad golden
clasp.
“Are they pretty?” asked Mr. Legrange, smiling at the
eager little face upraised to his.
“Oh! they are lovely pretty. O papa! oh! is they?” —
“Yes, they are yours, Sunshine. Mamma said you had
been begging for some bracelets like Minnie Wall's; and so,
as I had heard that people sometimes liked presents on
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their birthdays, and as I had not forgotten when Sunshine's
came, I thought I would bring her a pair.”
The excess of 'Toinette's rapture would not allow of
speech; but Mrs. Legrange, peeping over her shoulder,
exclaimed, —
“Why, Paul! those are not what I asked you to get. I
told you common coral beads, strung on elastic, and fastened
with a little snap.”
“But these were so much prettier, my dear, and will be
of some value when she grows up, as the others would not.
At any rate, they are marked: so we must keep them now.
See!”
Mr. Legrange touched a tiny spring; and the upper part
of the clasp, opening upon a hinge, showed a plate beneath,
engraved with the name, “Antoinette Legrange.”
“Yes: they are certainly very handsome; and 'Toinette
must be as careful of them as possible. They will be just
right to loop up her sleeves while she is so little, and, when
she is older, to wear as bracelets,” said Mrs. Legrange
admiringly.
“I may wear them this afternoon at my party, mayn't
I, mamma?” asked 'Toinette, trying to clasp one upon her
little arm.
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“Oh, we are to have a party, are we!” exclaimed Mr.
Legrange, raising his eyebrows in dismay.
“Just half a dozen children to play with 'Toinette, and
to go home after a nursery-tea,” explained his wife.
“Oh, well! I shall be a little late to dinner, very likely:
so it will all be over when I arrive. Shall I bring Tom
Burroughs home with me to dine?”
“I want Cousin Tommy to come to my party, papa.
Tell him to come, please, and Sunshine's love.”
“Your party, chick? Why! he would be Gulliver among
the Liliputians. He would tread on a dozen of the guests
at the first step, and never know it.
“I don't think he would, papa; and he's my little wife,
and I want him,” persisted 'Toinette.
“No, no, dear,” interposed Mrs. Legrange. “Cousin
Tom wouldn't want to come, and my little girl mustn't
tease.”
“No, mamma; but he's my little wife,” murmured'
Toinette, going back to her bracelets with a shadow of disappointment
in the curve of her pretty mouth.
“If mamma is willing, I will ask Cousin Tom, and he
can do as he likes about accepting,” said the fond father,
watching his Sunshine's face.
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Mamma smiled roguishly, murmuring, —
“`So long as a woman's possessed of a tear,
She'll always have her own way;”'
and then added aloud, —
“Just as you like, of course, papa; but here is Susan,
ready to take 'Toinette for her walk.”
The dining-room door opened softly, and a fresh, pretty-looking
nursery-maid stepped in, saying, —
“Is Miss 'Toinette ready to come up stairs, ma'am?”
“Yes, Susan. You may take the bracelets, pet; but,
when you go out, leave them in the drawer of your bureau.”
“Yes, mamma. Good-by, mamma and papa; and don't
forget my little wife, papa.”
“I won't forget, Sunshine,” said Mr. Legrange, laughing,
as he followed the child and nurse to the door, and
watched them up stairs.
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CHAPTER II. THE LITTLE WIFE.
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Three o'clock came at last, although 'Toinette had become
fully persuaded it never would; and the little guests
arrived as punctually as juvenile guests are apt to arrive.
Later on in life, people either expect less pleasure from meeting
each other, or are more willing to defer securing it; or
perhaps it is that they are willing to allow their friends the
first chance of appropriating the happiness in store for all.
If none of these, what is the reason, children, that, at grown
parties, the struggle is to see who shall arrive last, while at
ours it is to see who shall come first?
'Toinette was dressed, and in the drawing-room ready to
receive her little friends, by half-past two; and very nice
she looked in her light-blue merino frock, with its pretty
embroideries, her long golden hair curled in the feathery
ringlets Susan was so proud of making, her sleeves looped
up with the new bracelets, and a little embroidered handkerchief
just peeping out of her pocket.
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Mrs. Legrange, who sat reading by the fire, watched with
some amusement and more anxiety the movements of the
little beauty, who walked slowly up and down the room,
twisting her head to look now at one shoulder and now at
the other, now at the flow of her skirts behind, and now at
the dainty fit of her bronze cloth gaiter-boots. At last,
stopping before the long mirror, Miss 'Toinette began practising
the courtesy she had learned at dancing-school, finishing
by throwing a kiss from the tips of her fingers to the
graceful little shadow in the mirror.
“She will be spoiled, entirely spoiled, before she is a year
older,” thought the mother anxiously. “She is so beautiful!
and every one tells her of it. What shall I do?”
But sometimes, when our task seems too difficult for us,
God takes it into his own hand, and does it in his own way,
though that way to us be strange and painful.
While Mrs. Legrange still hesitated whether to speak,
and what to say, the door-bell rang, and 'Toinette rushed
away to meet her friends, and take them to the dressingroom,
where they were to leave their outside garments; and
the mother laid aside her book, and prepared to help in entertaining
the little people.
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Another ring at the bell; another troop of little feet, and
peal of merry voices; another and another; and, following
the last, a firmer step upon the stair, and the appearance in
the drawing-room of a tall, fine-looking young man, of
twenty two or three years old, who came forward, offering
his hand to Mrs. Legrange.
“Why, Tom,” said she, “did you really come?”
“As you see, Cousin Fanny. Paul gave me the invitation,
with my little wife's love; and how could I
decline?”
“I am sure it is very good of you to come and help entertain;
but I am afraid it will be a sad bore. Miss Minnie
Wall, the oldest of the young ladies, is but just fourteen;
and Bessie Rider, the youngest, is not yet six.”
“But I came to visit my little wife,” persisted Mr. Burroughs,
laughing gayly.
“Here she is, then, with all the rest behind her;” and, as
the little hostess caught sight of her new guest, she flew
toward him, crying,—
“Oh, my little wife has come! — my little wife!”
Every one laughed, except the young man thus oddly
addressed, who gravely extended his hand, saying, —
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“Miss 'Toinette, allow me to wish you many happy
returns of this fortunate day.”
'Toinette looked at him a moment in surprise, then, glancing
at the other guests, said innocently, —
“I guess you talk that way because the girls are here;
but I like the way you are always, best.”
This time Tom laughed as loud as the rest, and, catching
the child in his arms, kissed her a dozen times, saying, —
“That is it, Sunshine. Let us be natural, and have a
good time. Get the table-cloth, and make an elephant of
me.”
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CHAPTER III. CHERRYTOE.
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“Let us have a dance!” exclaimed Minnie Wall, when
all the games had been played, and the little people stood
for a moment, wondering what they should do next.
“O Mrs. Legrange! will you play for us?”
“Certainly. What will you have, Minnie? But, in the
first place, can you all dance?”
“Yes'm, every one of us. Even 'Toinette and Bessie have
learned at their Kindergarten; and the rest of us all go to
Mr. Papanti. O Mrs. Legrange! last Saturday, when you
let Susan bring 'Toinette to dancing-school, I told Mr. Papanti
what a pretty little dancer she was; and he made her
stand up, and she learned the cachuca with half a dozen
others of us; and he did laugh and bow so at her, you never
saw; and he called her enfant Cherrytoe, or something
like that” —
“Cerito,” suggested Mrs. Legrange, smiling.
“Yes'm, I guess that was it; and she learned it beautifully.
Have you seen her dance it?”
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“Yes, the old gentleman called me Cherrytoe; and you
must, mamma, and every one, because I dance so pretty,
with my little toes. Will you call me Cherrytoe always,
mamma?” asked 'Toinette, with such a complacent delight
in her own accomplishments, that her mother's smile was
as sad as it was tender. But she felt that this was not the
time or place to reprove the vanity so rankly springing in
the child's heart; so she only said, —
“Mr. Papanti was in fun when he called you Cherrytoe,
my darling. She was a woman who danced better than I
hope you ever will. Now, who is ready for Virginia reel?”
Tom Burroughs led Minnie Wall to the head of the set,
the other children rushed for places, Mrs. Legrange seated
herself at the piano, and the merry dance went on; but,
when it was over, Minnie Wall returned to Mrs. Legrange's
side, followed by two or three more, begging her to
play the cachuca, and see how nicely 'Toinette could dance
it. Half unwillingly the mother complied, and found herself
really astonished as she noticed the graceful evolutions
and accurate time of the child, who went through the intricate
motions of the dance without a single mistake, and, at
the close, dropped her little courtesy, and kissed her little
hand, with the grace and self-possession of a danseuse.
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The children crowded around her with a clamor of delight
and surprise; but the mother, anxiously watching her
darling's flushed face and sparkling eyes, whispered to her
cousin, as he playfully applauded, —
“Oh, don't, Tom! The child will be utterly ruined by so
much flattery and admiration. I feel very badly about it,
I assure you.”
“But she is absolutely so bewitching! How can we
help admiring her?” replied he, laughing.
“No: but it is wrong; it won't do,” persisted Mrs. Legrange.
“Just see how excited and happy she looks because
they are all admiring her! You must help me to
check it, Tom. Come, you are so famous for stories, tell
them one about a peacock, or something, — a story with a
moral about being vain, you know, only not too pointed.”
“A pill with a very thick sugar-coat,” suggested Mr. Burroughs,
and, as his cousin nodded, continued, in a louder
voice, —
“A story, ladies and gentlemen! Who will listen to the
humble attempts of an unfortunate improvisator?”
“Yes, yes, a story; let us have a story!” shouted with
one accord both girls and boys; and with 'Toinette perched
upon his knee, and the rest grouped about him, Cousin
Tom began the story of The Children of Merrigoland.
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CHAPTER IV. THE CHILDREN OF MERRIGOLAND.
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Once upon a time, in the pleasant country of Merrigoland,
all the fathers and mothers, the uncles and aunts, the
grandpas and grandmas, in fact, all the grown-up people
of every sort, were invited to the governor's house to spend
a week; and all the cooks and chambermaids, and nurses
and waiters, and coachmen and gardeners, in Merrigoland,
were invited to go and wait upon them: so there was nobody
left at home in any of the houses but the children;
not even the babies; for their mothers had carried them in
their arms to the governor's house.
“What fun!” shouted the children. “We can do every
thing we have a mind to now.”
“We'll eat all the cake and pies and preserves and candies
in the country,” said Patty Pettitoes.
“We'll swing on all the gates, and climb all the cherrytrees,
and chase all the roosters, and play ball against the
parlor-windows,” said Tom Tearcoat.
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“We'll lie down on the sofas, and read stories all day,
and go to sleep before the fire at night,” said Dowsabelle
Dormouse.
“We'll dress up in all our mothers' clothes, and put on
their rings and breastpins,” said little Finnikin Fine, pushing
a chair in front of the looking-glass, and climbing up to
look at herself.
“We'll get our stockings dirty, and tear our frocks, and
tumble our hair, and not wash our hands at dinner-time,
nor put on our eating-aprons,” said Georgie Tearcoat, Tom's
younger sister.
“Yes, yes: we'll all do just as we like best for a whole
week; for father and mother said we might!” shouted all the
children in Merrigoland, and then laughed so loud, that the
mice ran out of their holes to see what was the matter; and
the cats never noticed them, they were so busy sticking the
hair straight up on their backs, and making their tails
look like chimney-brushes; while all the birds in the pleasant
gardens of Merrigoland fluttered their wings, and
sung, —
“Only listen to the row!
What in the world's the matter now?
Tweet, tweet! Can't sing a note;
My heart's just jumping out of my throat.
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Bobolink, bobolink,
What do you think?
Is the world very glad,
Or has it gone mad?”
So the children all did what they liked best, and frolicked
in the sunshine like a swarm of butterflies, or like
several hundred little kittens, until it came night; and then
they went into the houses, and put themselves to bed. But
some of them, I am afraid, forgot to say their prayers when
their mammas were not there to remind them of it.
The next morning they all jumped up, and dressed very
gayly (for children do not often lie in bed), and came down
to breakfast: but, lo and behold! there was no breakfast
ready, nor even any fire in the ranges and cooking-stoves,
and in some houses not even any shavings and kindling-wood
to make a fire; and the cows, who were mostly of a
Scotch breed, came to the bars, calling, —
“Moo, moo, moo!
Who'll milk us noo?”
and the hens all stuck their heads through the bars of the
poultry-yard fence, and cried, —
“Kah-dah-cut, kah-dah-cut!
Are you having your hair cut?
Can't you give us some corn
This beautiful morn?”
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and the pigeons came flying down to the back door, murmuring, —
“Coo, coo, coo!
Must we breakfast on dew?”
and all the little children began to cry as loud as they
could, and call, —
“Mamma, mamma, mamma!
I want you and papa!”
So, altogether, the older children were just about crazy,
and felt as if they'd like to cry too. But that never would
do, of course, for nobody cries when old enough to know
better: so after running round to each others' houses, and
talking a little, they agreed they would all work together,
and that every one should do what he could do best.
So Tom Tearcoat, instead of climbing trees, and smashing
the furniture with his hatchet, went and split kindlings
in all the wood-houses; and his sister Georgie, who never
wanted to be in the house, carried them into the kitchens;
and Patty Pettitoes tried her hand at cooking, instead of
eating; and Dowsabelle Dormouse made the beds, and beat
up the sofa-pillows; and Mattie Motherly, whose chief delight
was playing at housekeeping in her baby-house, set
the tables, and put the parlors to rights. But there seemed
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to be nothing that Finnikin Fine could do; for she had
never thought of any thing but dressing in all the gay
clothes she could get, and looking into the mirror until she
had worn quite a place in the carpet before it. But, at last,
some one said, —
“Oh! Finnikin may dress the little children: that will
suit her best.”
So Finnikin tried to do that. But she spent so much
time tying up the little girls' sleeves with ribbons, and parting
the little boys' hair behind, that, when breakfast-time
came, they were not half ready, and began to cry, —
“O Finnikin, O!
Don't spend your time so,
But put on our dresses,
And smooth out our tresses:
We don't care for curls,
Either boys or girls,
If we are but neat,
And may sit down to eat.”
So at last Finnikin followed their advice, and, when she
had dressed all the children, was so tired and hungry, that
she was glad to sit down and eat her breakfast without even
looking in the mirror once while she was at table.
But nobody knew how to milk the cows; and, although
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Tom and Georgie Tearcoat tried with all their might, they
could not manage to get a drop of milk from one of them,
and no one else even tried. But, just as the children were
all wondering what they should do, little Peter Phinn, who
had been listening and looking, with his hands in the pockets
of his ragged trousers, and a broad grin on his freckled
face, said slowly, —
“I know how to milk.”
“You do! Why didn't you say so, Peter Phinn?” cried
all the children angrily.
“Oh! I didn't know as you'd want me and Merry amongst
you,” said Peter.
“Why not? Of course we do,” said Patty Pettitoes, who
was a very good-natured little girl.
“Because Finnikin Fine told Merry once she wasn't fit to
play with her, when her clothes was so poor,” said Peter.
“Did Finnikin say that?” asked Patty.
“Yes, she did, sure; and she called her a little Paddy,
and said, if she wore such an old, mean gown and bonnet,
she'd ought to keep out of the way of folks that dressed
nicer, as she did.”
Then all the children turned and looked at Finnikin Fine,
and said, —
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“Oh, shame, Finnikin! for shame to talk so to good little
Merry Phinn!”
Then Finnikin hung down her head, and blushed very
much, and began to cry; but Merry Phinn went close to
her, and whispered, —
“Never mind them, honey. I'll forget it sooner than
you will, and I'll come and help you dress the children
to-morrow morning.”
“And I'll give you my new pink muslin, and my white
beads, and my bronze slippers with pink rosettes, and, and,”
began Finnikin; but Merry put her little brown hand over
her mouth, and said, laughing, —
“And, if I get all these fine things, I'd be as bad as yourself,
Finny darling. No: I'll wear my calico gown, and my
sun-bonnet, and my strong shoes; and you'll see I can get
to my work or my play without half the bother you'd make
in your finery.”
So Finnikin, still blushing, and crying a little, put her
arm round Merry's neck, and kissed her; and then she ran
and took off the rings and pins and ribbons and flowers she
had found time since breakfast to put on, and changed her
blue silk dress for a neat gingham and a white apron, and
put her hair into a net, instead of the wreath and curls it
-- 032 --
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had cost her so much trouble to arrange. And, when she
came down stairs again, all the children cried, —
“Only see how pretty Finnikin Fine is in her plain dress!
She looks like a little girl now, instead of a wax doll in a
toy-shop window.”
“Yes,” said Tom Tearcoat; “and a fellow could play
with her now in some comfort. It used to be, —
“`Dear me, you rude boy! you've gone and torn my
flounce!' or, `You've spoilt my bow!' or, `Dear me, you
troublesome creature! you've made me so nervous!”'
Every one laughed to hear Tom mimic Finnikin, he did
it so well; but, when they saw that the little girl herself was
troubled by it, they left off directly, and began to talk of
other things; and Tom came and tucked a big green apple
into her pocket, and a lump of maple-sugar into her hand.
Then Peter and Merry, who had always been used to
waiting upon themselves, and doing all the work they were
able to do, showed the other children many things which
they needed to know, and helped them in so many ways,
that the troubles of the morning were soon forgotten; and
when, after clearing away the dinner, the little people all
came out to play upon the green, they agreed to crown
Peter and Merry King and Queen of Merrigoland from
-- 033 --
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three o'clock in the afternoon until sunset, because they
were the only boy and girl in all the land who knew how
to do the work that must every day be done to make us all
comfortable. But Peter and Merry, who were very sensible
as well as very good-natured children, said, —
“No, no, no! There shall be no kings or queens in Merrigoland.
We will teach you all that we know, and you
shall teach us all that you know, and so we will help each
other; and no one shall think himself better than any one
else, or forget that none of us can do well without the help
of all the rest.”
So the children shouted, —
“Hurrah for Peter and Merry, and down with fine ways
and fine clothes!”
And then they gave three cheers so loud, that the fathers
and mothers, and grandpas and grandmas, and uncles and
aunts, and brothers and sisters, heard them, as they sat at
dinner in the governor's house; and all came trooping home
in a great hurry to see what was the matter.
But when they heard the story, and found how well the
children were going on, they said, —
“We could teach them nothing better than what they
are learning for themselves. We may let them alone.”
-- 034 --
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So they all went back to the governor's house, and spent
the rest of the week, and” —
“Tea is ready, Mrs. Legrange,” said James at the parlor-door.
-- 035 -- p453-040
CHAPTER V. THE RUNAWAY.
[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]
Tea was over, and the little guests made ready to go
home. Cousin Tom, declining Mrs. Legrange's invitation
to dinner on plea of another engagement, delighted Miss
Minnie Wall's heart by offering to wait upon her home,
but rather injured the effect of his politeness by taking
Willy and Jerry Noble upon the other side, and talking
pegtop with them as glibly as he talked opera with the
young lady.
As for the rest, some went alone, some with their nurses,
some with each other. Little Bessie Rider was the last;
and, when the nurse did not come for her as had been promised,
Mrs. Legrange bid Susan lead her home, leaving'
Toinette in the drawing-room till her return.
“And I must go and lie down a little before I dress for
dinner,” continued she to 'Toinette. “So, Sunshine, I shall
leave you here alone, if you will promise not to touch any
thing you should not, or to go too near the fire.”
-- 036 --
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The little girl promised; and, with a lingering kiss, her
mother left her.
Alone in the twilight, 'Toinette sat for a while upon the
rug, watching the bright coals as they tinkled through the
grate, or rushed in roaring flame up the chimney.
“I wish I was a fire-fairy, and lived in that big red hole
right in the middle of the fire,” thought 'Toinette. “Then
I would wear such a beautiful dress just like gold, and a
wreath on my head all blazing with fire; and I would dance
a-tiptoe away up the chimney and into the sky: and perhaps
I should come to heaven; no, to the sun. I wonder
if the sun is heaven for the fire-fairies, and I wonder if
they dance in the sunset.”
So 'Toinette jumped up, and, running to one of the long
windows, put her little eager face close to the glass, and
looked far away across the square, and down the long
street beyond, to the beautiful western sky, all rosy and
golden and purple with the sunset-clouds; while just above
them a great white star stood trembling in the deep blue,
as if frightened at finding itself out all alone in the night.
“No,” thought 'Toinette; “I don't want to be a fire-fairy,
and dance in the sunset: I want to be a — a angel, I
guess, and live in that beautiful star. Then I'd have a
-- 037 --
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dress all white and shining like mamma's that she wore to
the ball. But mamma said the little girl in the story was
naughty to like her pretty dress, and she weared a gingham
one when she was good. Guess I won't be any fairy.
I'll be Finnikin Fine, and wear a gingham gown and an
apron. I'll tell papa to carry away the bracelets too. I'm
going to be good like Merry that weared a sun-bonnet.”
Eager to commence the proposed reform, 'Toinette tugged
at the bracelet upon her left shoulder until she broke the
clasp and tore the pretty lace of her under-sleeve.
“Dear, dear, what a careless child!” exclaimed the
little girl, remembering the phrase so often repeated to her.
“But it ain't any matter, I guess,” added she, brightening
up; “for I sha'n't have any under-sleeve to my gingham
dress. Susan's aunt doesn't.”
'Toinette paused, with her hand upon the other bracelet,
trying to remember whether Susan, or the little girl who
came to see her, was the aunt. The question was not yet
settled, when the sound of music in the street below attracted'
Toinette's attention. Clinging to the window-ledge
so as to see over the iron railing of the balcony, she peeped
down, and saw a small dark man walking slowly by the
house, turning the crank of a hand-organ which he carried
-- 038 --
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at his side. Upon the organ was perched a monkey, dressed
in a red coat with gilt buttons, a little cocked hat, and blue
trousers. He was busily eating a seed-cake; pausing now
and then to look about him in a sort of anxious way, chattering
all the while as if he thought some one wanted to
take it away from him.
'Toinette had never before seen a monkey; and she stared
at this one in great surprise and delight, taking him for a
little man, and his inarticulate chattering for words in some
foreign language such as she had sometimes heard spoken.
The music also suited the little girl's ear better than the
best strains of the Italian opera would have done; and
altogether she was resolved to see and hear more both of
the monkey and the music.
“Mamma's asleep, and Susan gone out; so I can't ask
leave, but I'll only stay a little tiny minute, and tell the
little man what is his name, and what he is saying,”
reasoned the pretty runaway, primly wrapping herself
in her mother's breakfast-shawl left lying upon the sofa,
and tying her handkerchief over her head.
“Now I's decent, and the cold won't catch me,” murmured
she, regarding herself in the mirror with much satisfaction,
and then running softly down stairs. Susan,
-- 039 --
[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]
thinking she should be back directly, had left the catchlatch
of the front-door fastened up: so 'Toinette had only to
turn the great silver handle of the other latch; and this, by
putting both hands to it and using all her strength, she finally
succeeded in doing, although she could not close the door
behind her. Leaving it ajar, 'Toinette ran down the steps,
and looked eagerly along the square until she discovered
the hand-organ man with his monkey just turning the corner,
and flew after him as fast as her little feet would carry
her. But, with all her haste, the man had already turned
another corner before she overtook him, and was walking,
more quickly than he had yet done, down a narrow street.
He was not playing now; but the monkey, who had finished
his cake, was climbing over his master's shoulders, running
down his arms and back, chattering, grinning, making faces,
and evidently having a little game of romps on his own
account.
'Toinette, very much amused, tripped along behind, talking
as fast as the monkey, and asking all manner of questions,
to none of which either monkey or man made any
reply; while all the time the beautiful rosy light was fading
out of the west, and the streets were growing dark and
-- 040 --
[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]
crowded; and as the organ-grinder, followed by 'Toinette,
turned from one into another, each was dirtier and narrower
and more disagreeable than the last.
All at once, the man, after hesitating for a moment, dashed
across the street, and into a narrow alley opposite. Two
or three dirt-carts were passing at the same time; and'
Toinette, afraid to follow, stood upon the edge of the sidewalk,
looking wistfully after him, and beginning to wonder
if she ought not to be going home.
While she wondered, a number of rude boys came rushing
by; and, either by accident or malice, the largest one, in
passing the little girl, pushed her so roughly, that she stumbled
off the sidewalk altogether, and fell into the gutter.
A little hurt, a good deal frightened, and still more indignant, '
Toinette picked herself up, and looked ruefully at
the mud upon her pretty dress, but would not allow herself
to cry, as she longed to do.
“If I'd got my gingham dress on, it wouldn't do so much
harm,” thought she, her mind returning to the story she
had that afternoon heard; and then all at once an anxious
longing for home and mother seized the little heart, and
sent the tiny feet flying up the narrow street as fast as they
-- 041 --
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could move. But, at the corner, 'Toinette, who never had
seen the street before, took the wrong turn; and, although
she ran as fast as she could, every step now led her farther
from home, and deeper into the squalid by-streets and
alleys, among which she was lost.
-- 042 -- p453-047
CHAPTER VI. MOTHER WINCH.
[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]
In a narrow court, hardly lighted by the one gas-light
flaring at its entrance, 'Toinette stopped, and, looking dismally
about her, began at last to cry. At the sound, a
crooked old woman, with a great bag on her back, who had
been resting upon the step of a door close by, although the
little girl had not noticed her, rose, and came toward her.
“What's the matter, young one?” asked the old woman
harshly.
“I don't know the way home, and I'm lost!” said 'Toinette,
wiping her eyes, and looking doubtfully at the old
woman, who was very dark and hairy as to the face, very
blinking and wicked as to the eyes, and very crooked and
warped as to figure, while her dress seemed to be a mass
of rags held together by dirt.
“Lost, be you?” asked this unpleasant old woman, seizing
Mrs. Legrange's beautiful breakfast-shawl, and twitching
it off the child's shoulders. “And where'd you git
this 'ere pretty shawl?”
-- 043 --
[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]
“It's my mamma's, and you'd better not touch it; you
might soil it, you know,” said 'Toinette anxiously.
“Heh! Why, I guess you're a little lady, ain't you?
B'long to the big-bugs, don't you?”
“I don't know. I want to go home,” stammered 'Toinette,
perplexed and frightened.
“Well, you come right in here along o' me, and wait till
I get my pack off; then I'll show you the way home,” said
the woman, as, seizing the little girl's hand, she led her to
the bottom of the court, and down some steps into a foulsmelling
cellar-room, perfectly dark, and very cold.
“You stop right there till I get a light,” said the woman,
letting go the child's hand when they reached the middle
of the room. “Don't ye budge now.”
Too much frightened to speak, or even cry, 'Toinette did
as she was bid, and stood perfectly still until the old woman
had found a match, and, drawing it across the rusty stove,
lighted a tallow candle, and stuck it into the mouth of a
junk-bottle. This she set upon the table; and, sinking into
a chair beside it, stretched out a skinny hand, and, seizing'
Toinette by the arm, dragged her close to her.
“Yes, you kin let me have that pooty shawl, little gal,
cause — Eh, what fine clo'es we've got on!” exclaimed the
-- 044 --
[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]
hag, as, pulling off the shawl 'Toinette had again wrapped
about her, she examined her dress attentively for a moment,
and then, fixing her eyes sternly upon the child, continued
angrily, —
“Now look at here, young un. Them ain't your clo'es;
you know they ain't. You stole 'em.”
“Stealed my clothes!” exclaimed 'Toinette in great indignation.
“Why, no, I didn't. Mamma gave them to me,
and Susan sewed them.”
“No sech a thing, you young liar!” returned the old
woman, shaking her roughly by one arm. “You stole 'em;
and I'm a-going to take 'em off, and give you back your
own, or some jist like 'em. Then I'll carry these fine fixings
to the one they b'long to. Come, now, no blubbering.
Strip off, I tell yer.”
As she spoke, she twirled the little girl round, and began
to pull open the buttons of her dress. In doing this, her attention
was attracted by the bracelet looping up the right
sleeve; 'Toinette having, it will be remembered, pulled off
the other, and left it at home.
“Hi, hi! What sort o' gimcrack you got here?” exclaimed
she, pulling at it, until, as 'Toinette had done with
the other, she broke the links between two of the cameos,
without unclasping the bracelet.
-- 045 --
[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]
“Hi! that's pooty! Now, what a young wretch you be
for to go and say that ere's yourn!” added she severely, as
she held the trinket out of reach of the little girl, who
eagerly cried, —
“It is, it is mine! Papa gave me both of them, 'cause
it's my birthday. They're my bracelets; only mamma said
I was too little to wear them on my arms like she does,
and she tied up my sleeves with them.”
“Where's t'other one, then?”
“It's at home. I pulled it off 'cause I was going to be
like Merry, that weared a sun-bonnet, and didn't have any
bracelets.”
“Sun-bonnet! What d'ye want of a sun-bonnet; weather
like this? I'll give you my old hood; that's more like it, I
reckon,” replied the hag, amused, in spite of herself, by the
prattle of the child. 'Toinette hesitated.
“No,” said she at last: “I guess you'd better give me
my own very clo'ses, and carry me home. Then mamma
will give me a gingham dress and a sun-bonnet; and maybe
she'll give you my pretty things, if you want them.”
“Thanky for nothing, miss. I reckon it'll be a saving
of trouble to take 'em now. I don't b'lieve a word about
your ma'am giving 'em to you; and, more'n all, I don't
b'lieve you've got no ma'am.”
-- 046 --
[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]
So saying, she rudely stripped off, first the dress, then the
underclothes, and finally even the stockings and pretty
gaiter-boots; so that the poor child, frightened, ashamed,
and angry, stood at last with no covering but the long ringlets
of her golden hair, which, as she, sobbing, hid her face
in her hands, fell about her like a veil.
Leaving her thus, the old woman rummaged for a few
moments in a heap of clothes thrown into the corner of the
room, — the result, apparently, of many a day's begging or
theft. From them she presently produced a child's nightgown,
petticoat, and woollen skirt, a pair of coarse shoes
much worn, and an old plaid shawl: with these she approached'
Toinette.
“See! I've got your own clo'es here all ready for you.
Ain't I good?”
“They ain't my clothes: I won't have 'em on. Go away,
you naughty lady, you ain't good a bit!” screamed 'Toinette,
passionately striking at the clothes and the hand that held
them.
“Come, come, miss, none o' them airs! Take that,
now, and mend your manners!” exclaimed the old woman,
with a blow upon the bare white shoulder, which left the
print of all her horny fingers. It was the first time in all
-- 047 --
[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]
her life that 'Toinette had been struck; and the blood rushed
into her face, and then away, leaving her as white as marble.
She cried no more, but, fixing her eyes upon the face
of the old woman, said solemnly, —
“Now the Lord doesn't love you. Did you know it was
the bad spirits that made you strike me? Mamma said so
when I struck Susan.”
“Shut up! I don't want none of your preaching, miss,”
replied the woman angrily. “Here, put on these duds
about the quickest, or I'll give you worse than that. Lor,
what a mess of hair! What's the good on't? Maybe,
though, they'd give some'at for it to the store.”
She took a large pair of shears from the table-drawer as
she spoke, and, grasping the shining curls in her left hand,
rapidly snipped them from the head, leaving it rough,
tangled, and hardly to be recognized.
'Toinette no longer resisted, or even cried. The blow of
that rough hand seemed to have stunned or stupefied her,
and she stood perfectly quiet, her face pale, her eyes fixed,
and her trembling lips a little apart; while the old woman,
after laying the handful of curls carefully aside, dragged on
the clothes she had selected, in place of those she was stealing,
and finished by tying the plaid shawl around the child's
-- 048 --
[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]
shoulders, fastening it in a great knot behind, and placing
a dirty old hood upon the shorn head.
“There, now, you'll do, I guess; and we'll go take you
home: only mind you don't speak a word to man, woman,
nor child, as we go; for, if you do, I'll fetch you right back
here, and shut you up with Old Bogy in that closet.”
So saying, she bundled up 'Toinette's own clothes, slipped
the bracelet into her pocket, then, with the parcel in one
hand, grasped the child's arm with the other, and led her
out into the street.
“Will you really take me home?” asked 'Toinette
piteously, as they climbed the broken steps leading from
the cellar to the pavement.
“There, now! What did I tell yer?” exclaimed the
woman angrily, and turning as if to go back. “Now
come along, and I will give you to Old Bogy.”
“No, no! oh, please, don't! I will be good. I won't say
a word any more. I forgotten that time, I did;” and the
timid child, pale and trembling, clung to the wretch beside
her as if she had been her dearest friend.
“Well, then, don't go into fits, and I'll let you off this
time; but see that you don't open your head agin, or it'll
be all up with yer.”
-- 049 --
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“Yes'm,” said the poor child submissively; and, taking
her once more by the hand, the old woman led her rapidly
along the filthy street, now entirely dark except for the gas-lights,
and more strange to 'Toinette's eyes than Fairy-land
would have been. As they turned the corner, a tall, broad-shouldered
man, dressed in a blue coat with brass buttons,
and a glazed cap, who stood leaning against the wall, looked
sharply at them, and called out, —
“Hullo, Mother Winch! What's up to-night?”
“Nothing, yer honor, — nothing at all. Me and little
Biddy Mahoney's going to leave some duds at the pawn-broker's
for her mother, who's most dead with the fever.”
“Well, well, go along; only look out you carry no more
than you honestly come by,” said the policeman, walking
leisurely up the street.
Mother Winch turned in the opposite direction, and, still
tightly grasping 'Toinette's arm, led her through one street
after another, until, tired and bewildered, the poor child
clung with half-closed eyes to the filthy skirts of the old
woman, and stumbled along, neither seeing nor knowing
which way they went.
“Hold up, can't ye, gal!” exclaimed Mother Winch, as
the child tripped, and nearly fell. “Or, if you're so
-- 050 --
[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]
tired as all that, set down on that door-stone, and wait
for me a minute.” Pushing her down upon the step as
she spoke, Mother Winch hurried away so fast, that,
before 'Toinette's tired little brain could fairly understand
what was said, she found herself alone, with no
creature in sight all up and down the narrow street, except
a cross-looking dog walking slowly along the pavement toward
her. For one moment, she sat wondering what she
had better do; and then, as the cross-looking dog fixed his
eyes upon her with a sullen growl, she started to her feet,
and ran as fast as she could in the direction taken by Mother
Winch. Just at the corner of the alley, something glittering
upon the sidewalk attracted her attention; and, stooping
to pick it up, she uttered a little cry of surprise and pleasure.
It was her own coral bracelet, which had travelled round
in Mother Winch's pocket until it came to a hole in the
bottom, and quietly slipping out, and down her skirts to the
pavement, lay waiting for its little mistress to pick it up.
'Toinette kissed it again and again, not because it was a
bracelet, but because her father had given it to her; and it
seemed somehow to take her back a little way toward him
and home. It must have been this she meant, in saying as
she did, —
-- 051 --
[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]
“I guess you have come after me, pretty bracelet, hasn't
you? and we'll go home together.”
And so, hugging the toy as close to her heart as she
would have liked herself to be hugged to her mother's heart,'
Toinette wandered on and on through the dark and lonely
streets, her little face growing paler and paler, her little
feet more and more weary, her heart swelling fuller and
fuller with fright and desolation; until at last, stopping suddenly,
she looked up at the sky, all alive now with the
crowding stars, and with a great sob whispered, —
“Pretty stars, please tell God I'm lost. I think he
doesn't know about it, or he'd send me home.”
And then, as the wild sob brought another and another,'
Toinette sank down in the doorway of a deserted house,
and, covering her face with her hands, cried as she had
never cried in all her little life.
-- 052 -- p453-057
CHAPTER VII. TEDDY'S LITTLE SISTER.
[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]
“There, honey!” said Mrs. Ginniss, giving the last
rub to the shirt-bosom she was polishing, and setting her
flat-iron back on the stove with a smack, — “there, honey;
and I couldn't have done better by that buzzum if ye'd
been the Prisidint.”
Mrs. Ginniss was alone, so that one might at first have
been a little puzzled to know whom she addressed as
“honey;” but as she continued to talk while unfolding
another shirt, and laying it upon her ironing-board, it became
evident that she was addressing the absent owner of
the garments.
“And sure it's many a maner man they've made their
prisidints out on, and sorra a better one they'd find betune
here and Canady. It's yees that have the free hand and
the kind way wid yees, for all your grand looks. The good
Lord save and keep ye all the days of yer life!”
A wrinkle in the wristband here absorbed the attention
-- 053 --
[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]
of the laundress; and, while smoothing it out, she forgot to
continue what she had been saying, but, as she once more
ironed briskly upon the sleeve, began upon a new subject.
“And it's late ye're agin, Teddy Ginniss, bad 'cess to
yees! And thin it's mesilf that should take shame for
saying it; for niver a b'y of them all is so good to his ould
mother, and niver a one of 'em all that his mother's got so
good a right to be proud on, as Ted. But where is the
cratur? His supper's cowld as charity wid stannin.”
At this moment a heavy step was heard upon the stairs,
as of some one climbing slowly up with a heavy burden in
his arms. Mrs. Ginniss paused to listen, holding the iron
suspended over the collar she had just smoothed ready
for it.
“Murther an' all!” muttered she. “And what's the
crather got wid him anyhow? Shure an it's him; for, if
it wor Jovarny with his orgin, he'd ha' stopped below.”
The heavy steps reached the top of the stairs as she spoke,
and clumped along the narrow passage to the door of Mrs.
Ginniss's garret. She was already holding it open.
“Teddy, b'y, an' is it yersilf?” asked she, peering out
into the darkness.
“Yes, mother, its meself,” panted a boy's voice, as a
-- 054 --
[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]
stout young fellow, about fifteen years old, staggered into
the room, and sank upon a chair.
“Saints an' angels, child! and what have ye got there?”
exclaimed his mother, bending over the something that
filled Teddy's arms and lap.
“It's a little girl, mother; and I'm feared she's dead!”
panted Teddy.
“A little girl, an' she's dead! Oh, wurra, wurra,
Teddy Ginniss, that iver I should be own mother to a
murtherer! An' is it yersilf that kilt the purty darlint?”
“Meself, mother!” exclaimed the boy indignantly.
“Sure and it wasn't; and I wouldn't 'a thought you'd have
needed to ask. I found her on a doorstep in Tanner's
Court: and first I thought she was asleep, and so I shook
her to tell her to go home before the Charley got her; and
then, when she wouldn't wake up, I saw she was either
fainted or dead; and I fetched her home to you, — and it's
you that go for to call me a murtherer! Oh, oh!”
As he uttered these last sounds, the boy's wide mouth
puckered up in a comical look of distress, and he rubbed
the cuff of his jacket across his blinking eyes. Mrs. Ginniss
gave him a slap on the shoulder, intended to be playful,
but actually heavy enough to have thrown a slighter person
out of the chair.
-- 055 --
[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]
“Whisht, honey, whisht!” said she. “And it's an ould
fool I am wid me fancies an' me frights. But let us look
at the poor little crather ye've brought home to me. Sure
and it was like yees, Teddy, b'y.”
As she spoke, she took from Teddy's arms the little lifeless
form, with its pale, still face, and laid it gently upon
her own bed.
“Oh, thin! an' it's a shame to see the purty darlint lay
like that; and I'm 'feared, unless the breath's in her yet, she's
dead intirely,” muttered the good woman, rubbing the little
hands in her own, and gently feeling for the beating of the
heart.
“Maybe it's only the cold and the hunger that's ailing
her, and she'll come to with the fire and vittels. She can
have my supper and my breakfast too, and a welcome with
it,” said Teddy eagerly.
“The cowld, maybe, it is; for her clothes is nixt to nothing,
an' the flesh of her's like a stone wid the freezing: but
she's got enough to ate, or she never'd be so round an'
plump. It's like she's the child of some beggar-woman
that's fed her on broken vittels, an', whin she got tired ov
trampin' wid her, jist dropped her on the doorstep where
yees got her. — Howly mother! what's this?”
-- 056 --
[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]
Mrs. Ginniss, as she spoke, had taken the little lifeless
form upon her lap close to the stove, and was undressing it,
when, among the folds of the old shawl crossed over the
bosom, she found a bracelet of coral cameos, set in gold, and
fastened with a handsome clasp.
She held it up, stared at it a moment, and then looked
anxiously at Teddy.
“An' where did this splindid armlit come from, Teddy
Ginniss?” asked she sharply.
“Sorra a bit of me knows, thin; an' is it a thafe ye'll be
callin' me as well as a murtherer!” exclaimed the boy,
falling, in his agitation, into the Irish brogue he was generally
so careful to avoid.
“Whisht, ye spalpeen! an' lave it on the mantletry till
we see if the breath's in her yit. Sure an' sich a little
crather niver could have stole it.”
Teddy, with an air of dignified resentment, took the
bracelet from his mother's hand, and laid it upon the mantlepiece;
while Mrs. Ginniss, with a troubled look upon her
broad face, finished stripping the little form, and began
rubbing it all over with her warm hands.
“Power some warm wather into the biggest wash-tub,
Teddy, an' I'll thry puttin' her in it. It's what the Yankee
-- 057 --
[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]
doctor said to do wid yees, whin yees had fits; an' it niver
did no harm, anyways.”
“Is it a fit she's got?” asked Teddy, with a look of awe
upon his face.
“The good Lord knows what's she's got, or who she is.
Mabbe the good folk put her where yees got her. Niver a
beggar-brat before had a skin so satin-smooth, an' hands an'
feet like rose-leaves and milk. An' look how clane she is
from head to heel! Niver a corpse ready for the wakin'
was nater.”
“The water's ready now,” said Teddy, pushing the tub
close to his mother's side, and then walking away to the
window. For some moments, the gentle plashing of the
water was the only sound he heard; but then his mother
hastily exclaimed, —
“Glory be to God an' to his saints! The purty crather's
alive, and lookin' at me wid the two blue eyes av her like
a little angel! Han' me the big tow'l till I rub her dhry.”
Teddy ran with the towel; and as his mother hastily
wrapped her little charge in her apron, and reseated herself
before the fire, he caught sight of two great bright
eyes staring up at him, and joyfully cried, —
“She's alive, she's alive! and she'll be my little sister,
and we'll keep her always, won't we, mother?”
-- 058 --
[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]
“Wait, thin, till we see if it's here she is in the morning,”
said his mother mysteriously.
“And where else would she be, if not here?” asked
Teddy in surprise.
“If it war the good folks* that browt her, it's they that
will fetch her away agin 'fore the daylight. Wait till
mornin', Teddy darlint.”
But, in spite of her suspicions, Mrs. Ginniss did all for
the little stranger that she could have done for her own
child, even to heating and giving to her the cupful of milk
reserved for her own “tay” during the next day, and warming
her in her own bosom all through the long, cold night.
eaf453n1* Meaning the fairies, whom the Irish people call
by this name.
-- 059 -- p453-064
CHAPTER VIII. THE FAYVER.
[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]
“And is she here, mother?” asked Teddy, rushing into
his mother's room next morning as soon as there was light
enough to see.
“Yis, b'y, she's here; but it's not long she'll be, savin'
the mercy o' God. It's the heavy sickness that's on her
the morn.”
“And will she die, mother?”
“The good Lord knows, not the likes of me, Teddy darlint.”
“And you'll keep her, and do for her, mother, won't
you?” asked the boy anxiously.
“Sure and it wouldn't be Judy Ginniss that'd turn out
a dying child, let alone sending her to the poor'us. Thim
that sint her to us will sind us the manes to kape her,” said
the Irish woman confidently; and leaving her little moaning,
feverish charge dozing uneasily, she rose, and went
about the labors of the day.
-- 060 --
[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]
“Here's the masther's shirts done, Teddy; and ye'd betther
take thim to his lodgings before yees go to the office.
More by token, it's him as u'd tell us what we'd ought to
be doin' wid the darlint, if she lives, or if she dies. Tell
the masther all ye know uv her, Teddy; an' ax him to set
us sthraight.”
“No, no, mother!” exclaimed Teddy eagerly; “I'll be
doing no such thing: for it's ourselves wants her, and any
thing the master would say would take her away from us.
Sure and how often I've said I'd give all ever I had for a
little sister to be my own, and love me, and go walking
with me, and be took care by me; and, now one is sent, if
it's the good folks or if it's the good God sent her, I'm
going to keep her all myself. Sure, mother, you'll never be
crossing me in this, when it's yourself never crossed me
yet; and more by token, it'll keep me out of the streets,
and such.”
“Thrue for ye, Teddy; though it's you was alluz the
good b'y to shtop at home, an' niver ax fur coompany savin'
yer poor owld mother,” said the washerwoman, looking
fondly at her son.
“And you'll keep the child, and say nothing to nobody
but she's our own; won't you, mother?” persisted Teddy.
-- 061 --
[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]
“Yis, b'y, if it's yer heart is set on it.”
“It is that, mother; and you're the good mother, and it's
I always knowed, I mean knew it. And will I bring home
a doctor to the little sister?”
“No, Teddy; not yit. Faix, an' it's hard enough to live
when we're well; but it's too poor intirely we are to be
sick. Whin the time cooms to die, it's no doctherin' 'll
kape us.”
Teddy looked wistfully at the little burning face upon the
coarse, clean pillow: but he knew that what his mother said
was true; and, without reply, he took up the parcel of
clothes, and left the room.
All through the long day, Mrs. Ginniss, toiling at her
wash-tubs, found a moment here and another there to sit
upon the edge of the bed, and smooth her little patient's
hair, or moisten her glowing lips and burning forehead,
trying at intervals to induce her to speak, if even but one
word, in answer to her tender inquiries; but all in vain: for
the child already lay in the stupor preceding the delirium
of a violent fever, and an occasional moan or sigh was the
only sound that escaped her lips.
Toward night, Teddy, returning home an hour earlier
than usual, came bounding up the stairs, two at a time,
but, pausing at the door, entered as softly as a cat.
-- 062 --
[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]
“How is the little sister now, mother?” asked he
anxiously.
“Purty nigh as bad as bad can be, Teddy,” said his
mother sorrowfully, standing aside as she spoke that the
boy might see the burning face, dull, half-closed eyes, and
blackening lips of the sick child, and touch the little hands
feebly plucking at the blanket with fingers that seemed to
scorch the boy's healthy skin as he closed them in his
palm.
Teddy looked long and earnestly, — looked up at his
mother's sad face, and down again at the “little sister”
whom he had taken to his heart when he first took her to
his arms; and then, shutting his lips close together, and
swallowing hard to keep down the great sob that seemed
like to strangle him, he turned, and rushed out of the room.
Mrs. Ginniss looked after him, and wiped her eyes.
“It's the luvin' heart he has, the crather,” murmured
she. “An' if the babby wor his own sisther, it's no more
he could care for her. Sure an' if the Lord spares her to
us, it's Teddy's sisther she shall be, forever an' aye, while
me two fists hoold out to work fer 'em.”
An hour later, Teddy returned, conducting a stranger.
Rushing into the room before him, the boy threw his arms
-- 063 --
[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]
around his mother's neck, and whispered hastily, in his
broadest brogue, —
“It's a docther; an' he'll cure the sisther; an' it's not a
cint he'll be afther axin' us: but don't let on that she's not
our own.”
Mrs. Ginniss rose, and courtesied to the young man, who
now followed Teddy into the room, saying pleasantly, —
“Good-evening, ma'am. I am Dr. Wentworth; and I
came to see your little girl by request of Teddy here, who
said you would like a doctor if you could have one without
paying him.”
Mrs. Ginniss courtesied again, but with rather a wrathful
look at Teddy, as she said, —
“And it's sorry I am the b'y should be afther beggin'
of yees, docther. I thought he'd more sinse than to be axin'
yees to give away yer time, that's as good as money to yees.”
“But my time is not as good as money by any means,”
said Dr. Wentworth, laughing as he took off his hat and
coat; “for I have very little to do except to attend patients
who cannot give more than their thanks in payment.
That is the way we young doctors begin.”
“An' is that so indade! Sure an' 'Meriky's the place
fur poor folks quite an' intirely,” said Mrs. Ginniss admiringly.
-- 064 --
[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]
“For some sorts of poor people, and not for others. Unfortunately,
bakers, butchers, and tailors do not practise
gratuitously; so we poor doctors, lawyers, and parsons have
to play give without take,” said the young man, warming
his hands a moment over the cooking-stove.
“An' sure it was out of a Protistint Bible that I heard
wonst, `Him as gives to the poor linds to the Lord:' so, in
the ind, it's yees that'll come in wid your pockets full, if
ye belave yer own Scripter,” said Mrs. Ginniss shrewdly.
The young doctor gave her a sharp glance out of his
merry brown eyes, but only answered, as he walked on to
the bedside, —
“You have it there, my friend.”
For several moments, there was silence in the little room
while Dr. Wentworth felt his patient's pulse, looked at
her tongue, examined her eyes, and passed his hand over
the burning skin.
“H'm! Typhoid, without doubt,” said he to himself, and
then to Mrs. Ginniss, —
“Can you tell the probable cause of the child's illness,
ma'am? Has she been exposed to any sudden chill, or any
long-continued cold or fatigue?”
Mrs. Ginniss was about to reply by telling all she knew
-- 065 --
[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]
of the little stranger; but catching Teddy's imploring look,
and the gesture with which he seemed to beg her to keep
the secret of his “little sister's” sudden adoption, she only
answered, —
“Sure an' it's the cowld she took last night but one is
workin' in her.”
“She took cold night before last? How was it?” pursued
the doctor.
“She was out late in the street, sure, an' the clothes
she'd got wasn't warm enough,” said the washwoman, her
eyes still fixed on Teddy, who, from behind the doctor, was
making every imploring gesture he could invent to prevent
her from telling the whole truth. The doctor did not fail
to notice the hesitation and embarrassment of the woman's
manner, but remembering what Teddy had told him of his
mother's poverty, and her own little betrayal of pride when
he first entered, naturally concluded that she was annoyed
at having to say that the child had been sent into the street
without proper clothing, and forbore to press the question.
Ah Teddy and Teddy's mother! if you had loved the
truth as well as you loved little lost 'Toinette, how much
suffering, anxiety, and anguish you would have saved to
her and her's!
-- 066 --
[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]
But the doctor asked no more questions, except such as
Mrs. Ginniss could answer without hesitation; and pretty
soon went away, promising to come again next day, and
taking Teddy with him to the infirmary where medicine is
furnished without charge to those unable to pay for it.
Before the boy returned, 'Toinette had passed from the
stupid to the delirious stage of her fever; and all that night,
as he woke or dozed in his little closet close beside his mother's
door, poor Teddy's heart ached to hear the wild tones of
entreaty, of terror, or of anger, proving to his mind that
the delicate child he already loved so well had suffered
much and deeply, and that at no distant period.
Toward morning, he dressed, and crept into his mother's
room. The washerwoman sat in the clothes she had worn
at bed-time, patiently fanning her little charge, and, half
asleep herself, murmuring constantly, —
“Ah thin, honey, whisht, whisht! It's nothin' shall
harm ye now, darlint! Asy, now, asy, mavourneen! Whisht,
honey, whisht!”
“Lie down and sleep, mother, and let me sit by her,”
whispered Teddy in his mother's ear; and, with a nod, the
weary woman crept across the foot of the bed, and was
asleep in a moment.
-- 067 -- p453-072
CHAPTER IX. THE NIGHT-WATCH.
[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]
Teddy, waving the old palm-leaf fan up and down with
as much care as if it had carried the breath of life to his
poor little charge, sat for some time very quiet, listening to
her wild prattle without trying to interrupt it; until, after
lying still for a few moments, she suddenly fixed her eyes
upon him, and said, —
“Oh! you're Peter Phinn, sister to Merry that weared
a sun-bonnet, ain't you?”
The question seemed so conscious and rational, that
Teddy answered eagerly,—
“No, honey; but I'm Teddy Ginniss; and I'm going to
be your brother forever and always. What's your name,
sissy?”
“I'm Finny; no, I'm Cherrytoe, — I'm Cherrytoe, that
dances. Want to see me dance, Peter?”
As she spoke, she started up, and would have jumped out
of bed; but Teddy laid his hand upon her arm, and said
soothingly, —
-- 068 --
[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]
“No, no, sissy; not now. Another day you shall dance
for Teddy, when you're all well. And you mustn't call me
Peter, 'cause I'm Teddy.”
“Teddy, Teddy,” repeated 'Toinette vaguely, and then,
with a sudden shrill laugh, shouted, —
“`Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief;
Taffy came to my house and stole a piece of beef.'
Guess you're Taffy, ain't you?”
“No: I'm Teddy. I'm your brother Teddy,” repeated
the boy patiently; and then, to change the subject, added
coaxingly, “And what's the pretty name you called yourself,
darlint?”
“I'm Cherrytoe, — Cherrytoe that dances so pretty.
Don't you hear, you great naughty lady? — Cherrytoe, Cherrytoe,
Cherrytoe!”
The wild scream in which the name was repeated woke
even tired Mrs. Ginniss, who started upright, crying, —
“What's it, what's it, Teddy? Ochone! what ails the
crather?”
“It's only her name she's telling, mother; and sure it's
a pretty one. It's Cherrytoe.”
“And what sort of a quare name is that for a christened
child? Sure we'll call it Cherry; for wunst I heerd of a
lady as was called that way,” said Mrs. Ginniss.
-- 069 --
[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]
“Yes, we'll call her Cherry, little sister Cherry,” said
Teddy, delighted with the promise implied in his mother's
words of keeping the child for her own. “And, mother,”
added he, “mind you don't be telling the doctor nor any
one that she ain't your own, or maybe they'll take her away
to the 'sylum or somewheres, whether we'd like it or not:
and, if they do, I'll run off to sea; I will, by ginger!”
“Whisht, thin, with your naughty words, Teddy Ginniss!
Didn't I bate ye enough whin ye wor little to shtop ye from
swearin'?”
“Ginger ain't swearing,” replied Teddy positively. “I
asked the master if it wor, and he said it worn't.”
“Faith, thin, and he says it hisself, I'm thinkin',” half
asked the mother, with a shrewd twinkle of her gray eyes.
Teddy faltered and blushed, but answered manfully, —
“No, he don't; and he said it was low and vulgar to talk
that way; and I don't, only by times.”
“Well, thin, Teddy, see that yer don't, only thim times
whin yer Lears the master do it forninst ye: thin it'll
be time enough for ye. And don't ye be forgettin', b'y, that
ye're bound to be a gintleman afore ye die. It was what
yer poor daddy said when yer wor born, a twelvemonth
arter we landed here. “There, Judy,” says he, “there's a
-- 070 --
[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]
native-born 'Merican for yees, wid as good a right to be
Prisidint as the best ov 'em. Now, don't yer let him grow
up a Paddy, wid no more brains nor a cow or a horse.
Make a gintleman, an'a 'Merican gintleman, of the spalpeen;
an' shtrike hands on it now.”
“`Troth, thin, Michael alanna, an' it's a bargain,' says I,
an', wake as I wor, give him me fist out ov the bed; an' he
shuk it hearty. An', though Michael died afore the year wor
out, the promise I'd made him stood; an' it's more ways
than iver ye'll know, Teddy Ginniss, I've turned an' twisted
to kape ye dacent, an' kape ye out ov the streets, niver forgittin'
for one minute that Michael had towld me there
was the makin's of a gintleman in yees, an' that he'd left it
to me to work it out.”
To this story, familiar as it was, Teddy listened with as
much attention as if he had never heard it before, and, when
it was ended, said, —
“And tell about your putting me to the squire, mother.”
“Yis, b'y; an' that wor the biggest bit of loock that iver
I wor in yet. Two twelvemonth ago come Christmas it
wor, an' iver an' always I had been thinkin' what 'ud I do
wid ye nixt, when Ann Dolan towld me how her sister's
son had got a chance wid a lawyer to clane out his bit ov
-- 071 --
[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]
an office, and run wid arrants an' sich, an' wor to have fifty
dollars a year, wid the chance ov larnin' what he could out
ov all thim big books as does be in sich places. Thin it
somehow kim inter my head so sudden like, that it's sartain
sure I am it was Michael come out ov glory to whisper
it in my ear: `There's Misther Booros'll mebbe do as
much for your Teddy.' I niver spoke the first word to Ann
Dolan, but lapped my shawl about me, an' wint out ov her
house with no more than, `God save ye, Ann!' an' twenty
minutes later I wor in Misther Booros's office.
“`Good-evenin', Mrs. Ginniss,' says he, as ginteel as yer
plaze. `An' how is yer health?'
“`Purty good, thank ye kindly, sir,' says I; `an' its
hopin' you have yours the same, I am.'
“`Thank you, I am very well; and what can I do for you
this evening? Pray, be sated,' says he, laning back in his
chair wid sech a rale good-natured smile on the handsome
face of him, that I says to myself, `It's the lucky woman
you are, Judy Ginniss, to put yer b'y wid sech a dacent
gintleman: an' I smiled to him agin, an' begun to the beginnin',
and towld him the whole story, — what Michael said
to me, an' what I said to Michael; an' how Mike died wid
the faver; an' how I'd worked an 'saved, an' wouldn't marry
-- 072 --
[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]
Tom Murphy when he axed me, an' all so as I could kape
my b'y dacent, an' sind him to the school, an' give him his
books an' his joggerphy-picters” —
“Them's maps, mother,” interposed Teddy.
“Niver yer mind, b'y, what they be. Yer had 'em along
wid the best of yer schoolmates; an' so I towld the squire.
`An' now,' says I, `he's owld enough to be settlin' to a
thrade; an' I likes the lawyer thrade the best, an' so I've
coom to git yer honor to take him 'printice.'
“At that he stared like as he'd been moonsthruck; an'
thin he laughed a little to hisself; and thin he axed mighty
quite like, `How do you mane, Mrs. Ginniss?' So I towld
him about Ann Dolan's sisther's son, an' what wor the
chance he'd got; an' thin I made bowld to ax him would he
take my b'y the same way, on'y I'd like he'd larn more, an'
I wouldn't mind the fifty dollars a year, but 'ud kape him
mesilf, as I had kep' him since his daddy died, if the wuth
uv it might be give him in larnin'.”
“And what did the master say to that, mother?” asked
Teddy, with a bright look that showed he foresaw and was
pleased with the answer.
“Sure and he said what a gintleman the likes uv him
should say, and said with his own hearty smile that's as
good as the goold dollar uv another man, —
-- 073 --
[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]
“`My good 'oman,' says he, `sind along your b'y as soon
as you plaze; an' if he's as — as' — what's that agin, Teddy,
darlint?”
“Amberitious,” pronounced Teddy with a grand sort of
air, “and it means, he told me, wanting to be something
more than you wor by nater.”
“Faith, and that's it, Teddy: that's the very moral uv
what I wants to see in yees. Well, the masther said if
the b'y was as amberitious an' as 'anest as his mother afore
him (that's me, yer see, Teddy),” —
“Yes, yes, mother, I know. Well?”
“That he'd make a man uv him that should be a pride
an' a support to the owld age uv me, an' a blissin' to the
day I med up my mind to eddicate him. That wor two
year ago, Teddy Ginniss; an', so far, hasn' the gintleman
done by yees as niver yer own daddy could? Hasn' he put
yees to the readin' an' the writin' an' the joggerphy-picters,
an' the nate figgers that yees puts on me washin'-bills, till
it's proud I am to hand 'em to the gintlefolks, an' say,
`If ye plaze, the figgers is pooty plain. It's me b'y made'
em'? Now till me, Teddy, hasn't the shquire done all this
by yees, an' give yees the fifty dollars by the year, all the
same as if he give ye nothin' else?”
-- 074 --
[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]
“He has so, mother.”
“An' whin I wanted to wash for him widout a cint uv
charge, an' towld him it was jist foon to rinshe out his bit
things, bekase he is that good-natered an' quite that there's
niver the fust roobin' to do to 'em, he says, —
“`An' if I let yees do 'em widout charge, I'd as lieve
wear the shirt of Misther Nessus;' an' more by token,
Teddy Ginniss, I told ye iver and oft to look in the big
books an' see who was Misther Nessus, an' what about
his shirt.”
“Faith and ye did, mother; but I never could find him
yet. Some day I'll ask the master,” said Teddy with a
puzzled look.
“An' so he pays me what I ax, an' it isn' for the likes
uv him to be knowin' what the others ud charge; an', whin
he gives me forty cints the dozen, he thinks, the poor innercint!
that it's mooch as I would ax uv any one. Now,
Teddy b'y, isn' all I've towld ye God's truth? and haven't
ye heerd it as many times as yees are days owld out uv
yer own moother's lips?”
“Faith and I have, mother.”
“An' wud yer moother till yees a lie, or bid yees do what
wasn't plazin' to God, Teddy?”
-- 075 --
[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]
“Sure she wouldn't; and I'll lick the first fellow that'll
say she would, if he was as big as Goliah in the Bible,”
said Teddy, doubling up his fist, and nodding fiercely.
“Thin, Teddy Ginniss, we cooms to this; an' it's not the
first time, nor yet the last, we'll coom to it. If iver ye can
do yer masther a service, be it big or be it little; if iver the
stringth, or the coorage, or the life itself, of yees, or thim as
is dear to yees, ud sarve him or plaze him, — I bid yees
now to give it him free an' willin' as ye'd give it to God.
An' so ye mind me, it's my blissin' an' the blissin' uv yer
dead father that's iver wid ye; an' so ye fail me, it's the
black curse uv disobedience, an' yer moother's brukken
heart, that shall cling to yees for iver and iver, while life
shall last. Do ye mind that, b'y?”
“I mind it, and I'll heed it, mother, as I've promised
you before,” said Teddy solemnly; and mother and son
exchanged as tender and as true a kiss as young Bayard
and his lady-mother could have done when she gave him to
be a knight and chevalier.
All through this long conversation, which had been carried
on in a low tone of voice, and frequently interrupted
when it seemed to disturb her, 'Toinette had slept feverishly
and restlessly; but as the washwoman crept away to begin
-- 076 --
[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]
her daily labors, and Teddy lingered for a moment more to
look at the poor little sister whose beauty was to him an
ever-new delight, her great blue eyes suddenly opened, and
fixed upon him, while with an airy little laugh she said, —
“We're King and Queen of Merrigoland, Peter; isn't we?
Does you love me, Peter?”
“I couldn't tell how well I love you, Cherry dear; but
it's Teddy I am, and not Peter,” said the boy, bashfully
kissing the little hot hand upon the outside of the bed.
To his dismay, the delirious child snatched it from him
with a wild cry, and burst into a storm of tears and sobs,
crying, —
“Go away, wicked lady! go away, I say! God won't
love you when you strike me, you know. He won't: my
mamma said so. Oh, oh, oh!”
Her cries brought Mrs. Ginniss to her side in a moment,
who, tenderly soothing her, turned upon Teddy.
“Bad 'cess to yees, ye spalpeen! An' what ud ye be afther
vexin' her for, an' her in a faver? What did yees say to
her?”
“I said my name was Teddy, and not Peter; and then
she said I was a lady, and struck her,” replied the boy,
bewildered, and a little indignant.
-- 077 --
[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]
“And sure ye'r Peter or Paul, or Judas hissilf, if so
be she likes to call ye so while she's this way; an', if ye
shtrike her, it's the weight uv my fist ye'll feel; mind that,
young man! — Whisht, thin, darlint! asy, mavourneen!”
'Toinette, hushed upon the motherly bosom of the good
woman, soon ceased her cries, and presently fell again to
sleep; while Teddy, with rather an injured look upon his
uncouth face, and yet pleased to see the little sister in his
mother's arms, crept softly from the room, with his breakfast
in his hand.
-- 078 -- p453-083
CHAPTER X. THE EMPTY NEST.
[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]
When Susan returned from carrying Bessie Rider home,
she was quite surprised to find the front-door ajar, as she
thought she had been sure of latching it in going out; but,
without stopping to make any inquiries of the other servants,
she ran up the back stairs, took off her shawl and
hood, and then went to the drawing-room for 'Toinette.
The room was empty; and Susan at once concluded that
Mrs. Legrange had taken the child to her own chamber
while she dressed for dinner, as 'Toinette often begged to
be present at this ceremony, and was often indulged.
“I'll just redd* up the nursery a bit before I fetch her,”
said Susan, looking round the littered room; and so it was
half an hour before she knocked at Mrs. Legrange's chamber-door
with, “I came for Miss 'Toinette, ma'am.”
“Come in, Susan. Miss 'Toinette, did you say? She is
-- 079 --
[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]
down in the drawing-room by herself, and you had better
put her to bed at once. She must be very tired.”
Alas! the tender mother little guessed how tired!
Without reply, Susan closed the door, and ran down
stairs; an uneasy feeling creeping over her, although she
would not yet confess it even to herself.
The drawing-room was still empty; but James had lighted
the gas and stirred the fire, so that every corner was as
light as day. In every window-recess, under every couch
and sofa, behind every large chair, even in the closet of the
étagère, Susan searched for her little charge, hoping, praying,
to find her asleep, or roguishly hiding, as she had known her
to do before. But all in vain: no merry face, no sunny curls,
no laughing eyes, peeped out from recess or corner or hidingplace;
and Susan's ruddy face grew pale even to the lips.
She flew to the dining-room, and searched it as narrowly
as she had done the drawing-room.
No: she was not there!
The library, the bath-room, the chambers, the nursery
again, the servants' chambers, the kitchen, laundry, pantries,
the very cellar!
No, no, no! 'Toinette was in none of them. 'Toinette
was not in any nook of the whole wide house, that,
without her, seemed so empty and desolate.
-- 080 --
[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]
Standing in one of the upper entries, mute and bewildered,
Susan heard a latch-key turn in the front-door lock,
and presently Mr. Legrange's pleasant voice speaking in
the hall. A sudden hope rushed into Susan's heart. The
child might possibly have gone to meet her father, and was
now returned with him. She rushed down stairs as fast as
her feet could carry her; but in the hall stood only Mr. Legrange,
talking to James, who had some message to deliver
to him.
As Susan flew down the stairs, the master turned and
looked at her in some surprise.
“Be careful, Susan: you nearly fell then. Is any thing
the matter?”
“Miss 'Toinette, sir: I can't find her, high nor low!”
gasped Susan.
“Can't find her! Good heavens! you don't mean to say
she's lost!” exclaimed the father, turning, and staring at
the nurse in dismay.
“Oh! I don't know, sir, I'm sure; but I can't find her,”
cried Susan, wildly bursting into tears.
“Where is her mother? where is Mrs. Legrange, James?”
“I don't know, sir, I'm sure,” said the footman blankly.
“She's in her own room, sir; and I'm afraid to go to tell
-- 081 --
[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]
her, she'll feel that bad. And indeed it wasn't any fault of
mine: I only went”—
“Hush!” exclaimed Mr. Legrange, who had heard his
wife close her chamber-door and begin to descend the stairs,
and did not wish her to be frightened.
“Wait here a moment, Susan,” added he, and, running
up stairs, entered the drawing-room just after his wife, who
stood before the fire, looking so pretty and so gay in her
blue silk-dress, with a ribbon of the same shade twisted
among her golden curls, that her husband shrunk back,
dreading to ask the question that must so shock and startle
her. But Mrs. Legrange had caught sight of him, and,
running to the door, opened it suddenly, crying,—
“Come in, you silly boy! Are you playing bo-beep?
I don't do such things since my daughter is six years old, I
would have you to understand.”
Mr. Legrange, forcing a laugh and a careless tone, came
forward as she spoke, and, stooping to kiss her, asked,—
“And where is your daughter, my love?”
“'Toinette? Oh! I suppose she is with Susan,” began
Mrs. Legrange carelessly; and then, as something in her
husband's voice or manner attracted her attention, she
drew back, and hurriedly looked into his face, crying,—
-- 082 --
[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]
“O Paul! what is it? What has happened? Is 'Toinette
hurt? Where is she?”
“Be quiet, darling; don't be alarmed. Wait till we know
more. — Susan, come up here,” called Mr. Legrange; and
Susan, with her face buried in her apron, and sobbing as
if her heart would break, crept timidly up the stairs and
into the room.
At sight of her, Mrs. Legrange turned pale, and clung to
her husband for support.
“O Susan! what is it? Tell me quick!”
“She's gone, ma'am, and I don't know where!” sobbed
the nurse.
“Gone! What, 'Toinette gone! Lost, do you mean?”
cried the mother wildly, while her pale cheeks flushed
scarlet, and her soft eyes glittered with terror.
“Oh! I don't know, ma'am; but I can't find her.”
“Lost! What, 'Toinette lost!” repeated the mother in
the same wild tone, and trying to tear herself away from
her husband's detaining arms. But, soothing her as he
would a child, Mr. Legrange, by a few calm and welldirected
questions, drew from both mistress and maid all
that was to be known of 'Toinette's disappearance, and,
when the whole was told, said, —
-- 083 --
[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]
“Well, Susan, you are not to blame. You merely
obeyed your mistress's directions, and need not feel that this
misfortune is at all your fault. No doubt 'Toinette has
gone out by herself, and is, for the moment, lost, but, I
trust, will soon be found. You may go at once to the
houses of the neighbors whose children she has been in the
habit of visiting. Be as quick as you can about it; and, if
you do not find her, come directly home, and I will warn
the police. Send James up to me as you go down.”
“Yes, sir,” said Susan, a little comforted; and, as she
closed the door, Mr. Legrange returned to his wife, and,
clasping her tenderly in his arms, kissed the burning cheeks
and glittering eyes that frightened him, until the dangerous
calm broke up in a gracious flood of tears and wild sobs of,
“My child! — O my little child!”
“Hush, darling, hush! You must be calm, or I cannot
leave you, — cannot go to look for her. I will not leave
you so, even to search for her.”
“Yes, yes, go! I will try — O Paul, Paul! do go and
look for her!”
“When I see you calmer, love; not till then;” and the
tender-hearted man could himself have wept to see the
heroic efforts of that delicate nature to control itself and
-- 084 --
[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]
put his fears to rest. He still was soothing her, when, with
a tap at the door, entered James, followed by Susan, who
hurriedly announced that 'Toinette was not to be heard of
at any of the neighbors, and asked where she should go
next.
“Nowhere! Stay here and attend to Mrs. Legrange
until I return. I shall go at once to the police-station.
James, you know where Mr. Burroughs lives?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go to him. Or stay: he is dining with a friend to-day.
Here is the direction. Go to this house at once; see Mr.
Burroughs; tell him that 'Toinette is lost, and beg him to
come up here directly. Keep your eyes open as you go:
you may possibly meet her yourself. Hurry, man; hurry
for your life!”
“Yes, sir,” replied the man heartily; and Mr. Legrange
returned to his wife, who was walking quickly up and down
the room, her hands clasped tight before her, her lips rigid,
and her eyes set.
“There, darling, I have sent for Tom to help us; and
no one could do it better than he will. I am going to the
police myself. Take courage, dearest, and hope, as I do,
that, before morning, we shall have our pet back, safe and
-- 085 --
[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]
sound. But you — O Fanny! how can I leave you so?
Try, try, for my sake, for 'Toinette's sake, to be calm and
hopeful.”
“Yes — I — will — try!” sobbed the poor mother; and
Mr. Legrange, not daring to trust himself to look at her
again, lest he also should break down, hastened from the
room.
But morning came, and night, and yet another morning;
and as the father, the mother, the cousin who was almost
brother to both, the assistants, and poor broken-hearted
Susan, looked into each other's wan, worn faces, they found
nothing there but discouragement, and almost hopeless
despair.
Mrs. Legrange who had not eaten or slept since 'Toinette's
disappearance, was already too ill to sit up, but
insisted upon remaining dressed, and waiting in the drawing-room
for the reports that some one of those engaged in
the search brought almost hourly to the house. Her husband,
looking like the ghost of his former self, wandered
incessantly from his own home to the police-office and back
again, each time through some new street, and peering so
curiously into the face of every child he met, that more
than one of them ran frightened home to tell their mothers
-- 086 --
[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]
that they had met a crazy man, who stared at them as if he
would eat them up.
And yet no clew, no faintest trace, of the little 'Toinette,
who lay tossing in her fever-dreams upon good Mrs. Ginniss's
humble bed, while the young doctor day by day shook
his head more sadly over her, and said to his own heart
that it was only by God's special mercy she could ever
arise from that cruel illness.
eaf453n2* Ready.
-- 087 -- p453-092
CHAPTER XI. A TRACE AND A SEARCH.
[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]
Three weary nights and two days had passed, when as
Mr. Legrange, bending over his wife's sofa, entreated her
to take the food and drink he had himself prepared for
her, a sharp peal at the bell, followed by a bounding step
upon the stair, startled them both.
“It is Tom, and he has news!” exclaimed Mrs. Legrange
in a low voice, as she pushed away the tray and rose to
her feet.
The door opened, and the young man entered, his tired
face glowing with hope and satisfaction. In his hand he
held a little bundle; and sitting down, with no more than a
word of greeting, he hastily untied it upon his knee.
“Aren't these her clothes?” asked he breathlessly, as
he held up by one sleeve a little sky-blue merino-dress, with
a torn lace undersleeve hanging from the shoulder, and in
the other hand a pair of dainty little boots of bronze cloth.
Mrs. Legrange, with a wild cry, darted forward, and,
-- 088 --
[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]
grasping the pretty dress, buried her face in it, covering it
with kisses, while she cried, —
“Yes, yes! O Tom! where is she? Tell me quick, before
my poor heart breaks with joy!”
Mr. Burroughs remained silent. How could he say that
he knew as little as ever how to answer this appeal?
“Where did you get them, Tom?” asked Mr. Legrange
hurriedly.
“Billings found them in a pawn-broker's shop. You
know we gave all the detectives a list of the clothing, and
full description of the child. Billings has been all over the
city, examining at every pawn-broker's shop all the children's
clothes brought in since we lost her, you know” —
“Yes, yes! And when” —
“Last night he found this in a little out-of-the-way
place (I didn't stop to ask where), and, thinking they looked
like the right thing, brought them to me. I was asleep,
and the people stupidly would not wake me: so he waited;
and this morning, when I rose, there he was. I snatched
the bundle, and came right along with it. Now, of course,
they'll soon find who left them: only, unluckily, they wern't
pawned, but sold outright; so they didn't take the name;
but the man thinks it was an old woman who sold them to
-- 089 --
[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]
him. He is in custody; and we will go down and hear the
examination, Paul.”
“Certainly, at once.” And Mr. Legrange nervously
buttoned his coat, and moved toward the door.
“It is to be at ten, and it is now half-past nine. I
suppose we had better go at once. Good-by, dear cousin
Fanny!” said Mr. Burroughs, looking sorrowfully at the
wan face upraised to his, as the poor mother replied, —
“Good-by, Tom! and oh, pray, do every thing, every
thing, that can be done! I cannot tell” —
She was unable to finish, and the two men hurried away
from the sight of a sorrow as yet without remedy.
The examination of the blear-eyed and stupid old pawn-broker
resulted in very little satisfaction. He believed
that it was a woman who had sold him the bundle of child's
clothing. He was not sure if it were an old or a young
woman, but rather thought it was an old woman. It might
have been a week ago that he bought them; it might have
been more, or it might have been less: he didn't set it down,
and couldn't say.
This was all; and, as nothing could be proved or even
suspected of him in connection with 'Toinette's disappearance,
he was discharged from custody, although warned to
-- 090 --
[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]
hold himself in readiness to appear at any moment when
he should be summoned.
He had not yet, however, left the room, when one of the
audience, a policeman off duty, stepped forward, and, intimating
that he had something to say, was sworn, and went
on to tell how he had been leaning against a lamp-post at
the extreme of his beat, just resting a bit, in the edge of
evening before last, when he saw an old woman that they
call Mother Winch come up the street, carrying a bundle,
and leading a little girl. He knew she hadn't any child
of her own; and the child was dressed very poor; and
Mother Winch called her Judy or Biddy, or some Paddyname
or other; and maybe it was all right, and maybe it
wasn't. It could be worked up easy enough, he supposed.
So supposed the detective in whose hands the clew was
immediately placed; but when, an hour later, he descended
the steps into Mother Winch's cellar, he found that a keener
and a swifter messenger than himself had already called
the wretched old woman to account; and she lay across the
rusty old stove, quite dead, with a broken bottle of spirit
upon the floor beside her, and all the front of her body
shockingly burned. The coroner who was called to see her
decided that she had fallen across the stove, either in a fit,
-- 091 --
[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]
or too much intoxicated to move, and had died unconscious
of her situation. She was buried by public charity, and
in her grave seemed hidden every hope of tracing the lost
child.
“She must have been carried from the city,” said the
detectives; and the search was extended into the country,
and to other towns and cities, although not neglected at
home.
-- 092 -- p453-097
CHAPTER XII. TEDDY'S TEMPTATION.
[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]
Teddy Ginniss sat alone in his master's office, feeling
very sad and forlorn: for Dr. Wentworth had that morning
said that the chance of life for his little patient was very,
very small; and it seemed to Teddy heavier news than human
heart had ever borne before. His morning duties over,
he had seated himself at his little table, and tried to study
the lesson given him by Mr. Burroughs upon the previous
day; but a heavy heart makes dim eyes, and the page
where Teddy's were fixed seemed to him no better than a
crowd of disjointed letters swimming in a blinding mist.
A hasty step was heard upon the stair; and, passing the
sleeve of his jacket across his eyes, the boy bent closer over
the book as his master entered the room.
“Any one been in this morning, Teddy?” asked Mr.
Burroughs, passing into the inner office.
“No, sir.”
“I am going out of town for a day or two, Teddy, — going
-- 093 --
[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]
to New York; and Mr. Barlow will be here to attend to the
business. You will do whatever he wishes as you would
for me. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
The good-natured young man, struck by the mournful
tone of Teddy's usually hearty voice, turned and looked
sharply at him.
“Aren't you well, Teddy?”
“Yes, sir, thank your honor.”
“Not `your honor' until I'm a judge, Teddy. But what's
amiss with you, my boy?”
“I wouldn't be troubling your — you with it, sir. It's
nothing as can be helped.”
“No, no; but what is it, Teddy?” insisted the lawyer,
who saw that Teddy could hardly restrain his tears.
“Nothing, sir; but the little sister is mortal sick, and
the doctor says he's afeard she won't stand it.”
“Your little sister, Teddy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I didn't know you had one. You never spoke of her
before, did you?”
“Maybe not, sir.”
“What is the matter with her?”
-- 094 --
[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]
“The faver, sir.”
Mr. Burroughs knew that this phrase in an Irish mouth
means but one disease, and replied, in a sympathizing
voice, —
“Typhus! I'm sorry for you, Teddy, and sorry, too, for
your mother, who is an excellent woman; but the little
girl may yet recover: while there is life, there is hope,
you know. Even if she dies, it is not so bad as — I am
going to New York, Teddy, to look for a little cousin of
mine whose parents do not know if she is living or dead,
suffering or safe: that is worse than to have her ill, but
under their care and protection, isn't it?”
“Yes, sir, perhaps. Is the little girl in New York, sir,
do you think?”
“We hear of a child found astray there, who answers to
the description; and I am going to see her before we mention
the report to her mother. Have you never seen Mr.
Legrange here, Teddy? It is his little girl. I wonder
you haven't heard us talking of the matter.”
“I don't mind the name, sir; and I haven't heard of the
little girl before. Is she long lost?”
“Ten days yesterday. I have been busy all the week in
the search for her. The clothes she had on when lost were
-- 095 --
[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]
found in a pawn-broker's shop; but we have no trace of her
yet.”
“What looking child was she, if you please, sir?” asked
Teddy after a short pause, in which he seemed to study
intently; while Mr. Burroughs went on glancing at the
newspapers in his hand.
“'Toinette? Here is a description of her in `The Journal,'
and I have a photograph in my pocket-book. Here it is.
It is well for you to study them both; for possibly you
may discover her. I didn't think of it before; but you
are just the boy to put upon the search. If you should
find her, Teddy, Mr. Legrange will make your fortune.
He is rich and generous, and this is his only child. Eleven
o'clock. Shall be in at one.”
As he spoke, Mr. Burroughs threw the paper and photograph
upon Teddy's table, and hastily left the office. The
boy took up “The Journal,” and read the following advertisement: —
“Lost, upon the evening of Oct. 31, a little girl, six years
of age, named Antoinette Legrange; of slight figure, round
face, delicate color, large blue eyes, long curled hair of a
bright-yellow color, small mouth, and regular teeth. She
was dressed, at the time of her disappearance, in a blue
frock and brown boots, with a lady's breakfast-shawl; and
-- 096 --
[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]
wore upon the sleeve of her dress a bracelet of coral cameos,
engraved under the clasp with her name in full. A liberal
reward will be paid for information concerning her. Apply
at the police-station.”
When he had studied this, Teddy took up the photograph,
and examined it earnestly. The dress, the long
curled hair, the joyous expression, were very different from
the pale face, wild eyes, and cropped head of the little
sister at home; but Teddy's heart sank within him as he
traced the delicate features, the curved lips, and trim little
figure. He dropped the picture, and, leaning his face upon
his arm, sobbed aloud.
“I'll lose her anyway, if she dies or if she lives; and it's
all the little sister ever I got.”
But presently another thought made Teddy lift his head,
and look anxiously about him to make sure that his emotion
had not been seen by any one. He was still alone; and,
with a sigh of relief, he dashed away the tears from his
eyes, muttering, —
“It's the big fool I am, entirely! Sure and mightn't she
have picked up the bracelet in the street, where maybe the
little lady they've lost dropped it? And, if she looks like the
picture, so does many a one beside; and it's no call I have
-- 097 --
[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]
to be troubling the master with telling him about her any
way. She's my own little sister, and I'll keep her to my
self.”
A sudden sharp recollection darted through the boy's
mind, and he grew a little pale as he added, —
“Leastways, I'll keep her if God will let me; and sure
isn't he stronger nor me? If it isn't for me to have her,
can't he take her, if it's by death, or if it's by leading
them that's searching for her to where she is? And more
by token, that's the way I'll try it. If God means she
shall stay and be my little sister, she'll live, and I'll take
her, and say nothing to nobody about it: but, if it's displasin'
to him, she'll die; and then I'll tell the master all about it,
and he may do what he's a mind to with me. That's the
way I'll fix it.”
And Teddy, well satisfied with his own bad argument,
took comfort, and went back to his books.
When Mr. Burroughs returned to the office, he was accompanied
by Mr. Barlow, the gentleman who was to occupy
it during his absence; and he did not speak to Teddy, except
to give him a few directions, and bid him a kind good-by.
The paper and picture he found lying upon his desk, and
hastily put in his pocket without remark or question.
-- 098 --
[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]
For the first time in his life, Teddy avoided meeting his
master's eye, but watched him furtively over the top of
his book, raising it so as to screen his face whenever Mr.
Burroughs looked his way, and trembling whenever he
spoke to him; and, for the first time in his life, he secretly
rejoiced at seeing him leave the office, knowing that he was
to be gone for some time.
The long day was over at last; and, so soon as the hour
for closing the office had begun to strike, Teddy locked the
door, sprang down stairs, and ran like a deer towards
home, feeling as if in some manner the little sister was
about to be taken away from him, and he must hasten to
prevent it.
At the foot of the stairs, however, he checked himself,
creeping up as silently and cautiously as possible, and stopping
at the head to listen for the clear voice, frightfully
clear and shrill, of the delirious child, which usually met
him there. No sound was to be heard except the deep
voice of the Italian organ-grinder in the room below, talking
to himself or his monkey as he prepared supper; and
Teddy, creeping along the entry to his mother's door, softly
opened it, and went in.
At one side of the bed stood Mrs. Ginniss; at the other,
-- 099 --
[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]
Dr. Wentworth: but Teddy saw only the little waxen face
upon the pillow between them, — the little face so strange
and lovely now; for all the fever flush had passed away, the
babbling lips were folded white and still, the glittering eyes
were closed, and the long dark lashes lay motionless upon
the cheek, — the little face so strange and terrible in its
sudden, peaceful beauty.
As Teddy softly entered, Dr. Wentworth turned and held
a warning finger up; then bent again above the little child.
his hand upon her heart.
The boy crept close to his mother, down whose honest
face the tears ran like rain; although she heeded the earnest
warning of the physician, and was almost as still as the
little form she watched.
“Is she dead, mother?” whispered Teddy.
“Whisht, darlint! wait till we know,” whispered she in
return; and the young doctor glanced impatiently at both
out of his strained and eager eyes. Had it been his own and
only child, he could not have hung more earnestly about
her: and here was the strange, sweet charm of this little
life, — that all who came within its influence felt themselves
drawn toward it, and opened wide their hearts to allow
its entrance; feeling not alone that they loved the lovely
-- 100 --
[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]
child, but that she was or should be their very own, to
cherish and fondle and bind to them forever.
So the coarse, hard-working woman, who two weeks before
had never seen her face, now wept as true and bitter
tears as she had done beside the death-bed of the child she
had lost when Teddy was a baby; and the young doctor,
who had watched the passage of a hundred souls from
time to eternity, hung over this little dying form as if all
life for him were held within it, and to lose it were to lose
all. And Teddy — ah! poor Teddy; for upon his young
heart lay not only the bitterness of the death busy with his
“little sister's” life, but the heavy burden of wrong and deception,
and the proof, as he thought, of God's displeasure
in taking from him at last what he had tried so hard to
keep.
He sank upon his knees beside the bed, and hid his face,
whispering, —
“O God! let her live, and I will give her back to them
as I kept her from.”
Over and over and over again, he whispered just these
words, clinching tight his boy-hands to keep down the
agony of the sacrifice; while in the very centre of his heart
throbbed a hard, dull pain, that seemed as if it would rend
it asunder.
-- 101 --
[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]
His face was still hidden, when, like an answer to his
petition, came the softest of whispers from the doctor's
lips, —
“She will live, with God's help, and the best of care
from you.”
“An' it's the bist uv care she'll git, I'll pass me word for
that,” whispered back Teddy's mother, so earnestly, that the
doctor answered, —
“Hush! She is falling asleep. Do not wake her, for
her life!”
He sank into a chair as he spoke. Mrs. Ginniss crept
round to the stove, and, crouching beside it, covered her
head with her apron, and remained motionless. As for
Teddy, he never stirred or looked up, but, with his face
hidden upon the bed, repeated again and again those words,
to him so solemn and so full of meaning, until in the silence
and the waiting he fell asleep, and gradually sank upon
the floor.
And so the night went on: and the careful eyes of the
young physician marked how a faint tinge of color crept
into the death-white cheek upon the pillow; and how the
still lips lost their hard, cold line, and grew human once
more, though so pale; and how the eyelids stirred, moving
-- 102 --
[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]
the heavy lashes; and a faint pulse fluttered in the slender
throat.
At last, with a long, soft sigh, the lips lightly parted; the
eyelids opened slowly, showing for a moment the blue eyes,
dim and languid, but no longer wild with delirium; and
then they slowly closed, and the breath came softly and
regularly from the parted lips.
Dr. Wentworth heaved an answering sigh of mingled
weariness and relief, and, rising, went to Mrs. Ginniss's side,
touching her upon the shoulder, and whispering, —
“She is doing well. Keep her as quiet as possible. I
will be in at nine.”
Hushing the murmured blessings she would have poured
upon his head, the young man stole softly from the room
and down the stairs into the street, where already the first
gray of dawn struggled with the flaring gas-lights.
-- 103 -- p453-108
CHAPTER XIII. THE CACHUCA.
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Ten days more, and beside the fire in Mrs. Ginniss's
attic-room sat a little figure, propped in the wooden rocking-chair
with pillows and comfortables; while upon a small
stand close beside her were arranged a few cheap toys, a
plate with some pieces of orange upon it, a sprig of geranium
in a broken-nosed pitcher of water, and a cup of beef-tea.
But for none of these did the languid little invalid seem
to care; and lying back in the chair, her head nestled into
the pillow, her parched lips open, and her eyes half closed,
she looked so little like the bright and glowing 'Toinette
who had danced at her birthday-party not a month before,
that it is a question if any one but her own mother would
have believed her to be the same.
Mrs. Ginniss, hard at work upon the frills of a fashionable
lady's skirt, paused every few moments to look over her
shoulder at the little wasted face with the wistful look of
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some dumb creature who sees its offspring suffering, and
cannot tell how to relieve it.
Suddenly setting the flat-iron she had just taken back
upon the stove, the washwoman came and bent over the
child, looking earnestly into her face.
“An' it's waker an' whiter she gits every day. Sure
and I'm afther seeing the daylight through the little hands
uv her; and her eyes is that big, they take the breath uv me
whin I mate 'em. See, darlint! — see the purty skip-jack
Teddy brought ye!”
She took from the table the toy she named, and, pulling
the string, made the figure of the man vault over the top
of the stick and back several times, crying at the same
time, —
“Hi, thin! — hi, thin! See how the crather joomps,
honey!”
But, although the languid eyes of the child followed her
motions for a moment, no shadow of a smile stirred the
parched lips; and presently the eyes closed, as if the effort
were too much for them.
Mrs. Ginniss laid the toy upon the table, and took up the
cup of beef-tea.
“Have a soop of yer dhrink, darlint?” said she, tenderly
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holding the cup to the child's lips, and raising her head
with the other hand; but, with a moan of impatience or distress,
the weary head turned itself upon the pillow, and the
little wasted hand half rose to push away the cup.
“An' what is it I'll plaze ye wid, mavourneen? Do
yees want Teddy to coom home?” asked the poor woman
in despair.
A faint murmur of assent crept from between the parched
lips; and the eyes, slowly opening, glanced toward the door.
“It's this minute he'll be here, thin,” said the washwoman
joyfully. “An' faith yees ought to love him, honey;
for he'd give the two eyes out of his head to plaze yees, an'
git down on his knees to thank yees for takin' 'em. Now,
thin, don't ye hear his fut upon the stair?”
But the heavy steps coming up the stairs were not
Teddy's, as his mother well knew; and although, when they
stopped upon the landing below her own, she pretended to
be much surprised, she would, in reality, have been much
more so if they had not stopped.
“And it's Jovarny it wor that time, honey,” said she
soothingly: “but Teddy'll coom nixt; see if he doun't,
Cherry darlint.”
But Cherry, closing her eyes, with no effort at reply, lay
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as motionless upon her pillow as if she had been asleep or
in a swoon.
Suddenly, from the room below, was heard a strain of
plaintive music. The organ-grinder, for some reason or
other, was trying his instrument in his own room; although,
remembering the sick child above, he played as softly and
slowly as he could. It was the first time he had done so
since Cherry had been ill; and Mrs. Ginniss anxiously
watched her face to see what effect the sounds would have.
The air was “Kathleen Mavourneen;” and, as one tender
strain succeeded another, the watchful nurse could see a
faint color stealing into the child's face, while from between
the half-closed lids her eyes shone brighter than they had
for many a day.
“If it plazes her, I'll pay him to grind away all day, the
crather,” murmured she joyfully.
The song ended, and, after a little pause, was succeeded
by a lively dancing-tune.
“She'll not like that so well,” thought Mrs. Ginniss; but,
to her great astonishment, the child, after listening a
moment, started upright in her chair, her eyes wide open
and shining with excitement, her cheeks glowing, and her
little hands fluttering.
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“Mamma, mamma! I'm Cherritoe! and I can dance
with that music, and mamma can play it more” —
The words faltered upon her lips, and she sank suddenly
back upon the pillows in a death-faint. At the same moment,
Teddy came bounding up the stairs and into the
room.
“Go an' shtop that fool's noise if yees brain him, an' ax
him what's the name o' that divil's jig he's playing!” exclaimed
Mrs. Ginniss as she caught sight of the boy; and
Teddy, without stopping for a question, hastily obeyed.
In a moment he was back.
“It's the cachuca, mother; but what's the matter with
the little sister?”
“Whist! She's swounded wid the noise he's afther
making,” replied his mother angrily, as she laid the
wasted little figure upon her bed, and bathed the temples
with cold water.
Teddy stood anxiously looking on. Ever since the night
when the little sister's fever had turned, and the doctor had
promised that she should live, a struggle had been going on
in the boy's heart. He could not but believe that God had
given back the almost-departed life in answer to his earnest
prayer and promise; and he had no intention of breaking
-- 108 --
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the promise, or withholding the price he felt himself to have
offered for that life. But, like many older and better
taught persons, Teddy did not see clearly enough how little
difference there is between doing wrong and failing to do
right, or how much difference between promising with the
lips and promising with the heart.
While his little sister, as he still called her, lay between
life and death, Teddy said to himself that the excitement
of seeing her friends might be fatal to her, and that, if she
should die, their grief in this second loss would be greater
than what they were now suffering.
When she began slowly to recover, he said that they
would only be frightened at seeing her so wasted and weak,
and that he would keep her until she had recovered something
of her good looks; and, finally, he had begun to think
that it would be no more than fair that he should repay
himself for all the sorrow and anxiety her illness had given
him by keeping her a little while after she was quite well
and strong, and could go for a walk with him, and see the
beautiful shops, with their Christmas-wares displayed.
“New Year's will be soon enough. I'll take her to the
master for a New-Year's gift,” Teddy had said to himself
that very night as he came up the stairs; and a sort of
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satisfaction crept into his heart in thinking that he had at
least fixed a date for fulfilling his promise.
But New-Year's Day found 'Toinette, or Cherry as we
must learn to call her, more unlike her former self than
she had been when he formed the resolution. The strange
emotion that had overcome her in listening to the organ-grinder's
music had caused a relapse into fever, followed by
other troubles; and spite of Dr. Wentworth's constant care,
Mrs. Ginniss's patient and tender nursing, and Teddy's
devotion, the child seemed pining away without hope or
remedy.
“I'll wait till the spring comes, anyway,” said Teddy to
himself. “Maybe the warm weather will bring her round,
and I'll hear her laugh out once, and take her for just one
walk on the Commons before I carry her to the master.”
-- 110 -- p453-115
CHAPTER XIV. GIOVANNI AND PANTALON.
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It was April; and the bit of sky to be seen between two
tall roofs, from the window of Mrs. Ginniss's attic, had
suddenly grown of a deeper blue, and was sometimes
crossed by a great white, glittering cloud, such as is never
seen in winter; and, when the window was raised for a few
moments, the air came in soft and mild, and with a fresh
smell to it, as if it had blown through budding trees and
over fresh-ploughed earth.
Cherry was now well enough to be dressed, and to play
about the room, or sew a little, or look at pictures in the
gaudily painted books Teddy anxiously saved his coppers
to buy for her: but, more than once in the day, she would
push a chair to the bed, and climb up to lie upon it; or
would come and cling to her foster-mother, moaning, —
“I'm tired now, mammy. Hold me in your lap.”
And very seldom was the petition refused, although the
wash-tub or the ironing-table stood idle that it might be
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granted; for so well had great-hearted Mrs. Ginniss come
to love the child, that she would have been as unwilling as
Teddy himself to remember that she had not always been
her own.
Sitting thus in her mammy's lap one day, Cherry suddenly
asked, —
“Where's the music, mammy?”
“The music, darlint? And what music do ye be manin'?”
“The music I heard one day before I went to heaven.
Didn't you hear it?”
“An' whin did ye go to hivin, ye quare child?”
“Oh! I don't know. When I came back, I was sick in
the bed. I want the music, mammy.”
“It's Jovarny she manes, the little crather,” said Mrs.
Ginniss, and promised, that if Cherry would lie on the bed,
and let her “finish ironing the lady's clothes all so pretty,”
she should hear the music as soon as Teddy and the organ-grinder
came home.
To this proposal, Cherry consented more willingly than
her mammy had dared to expect; and when, after finishing
the ironing of some intricate embroideries, the laundress
turned to look, she found the child had dropped quietly
asleep.
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“An' all the betther fur yees, darlint,” said she. “Whin
ye waken, ye'll think no more uv the music that well-nigh
kilt yees afore.”
An hour later, Teddy's entrance aroused the sleeper, who,
rolling over upon the bed with a pretty little gape, smiled
upon him, saying, —
“Where's the music, Teddy? Mammy said you'd get it
for me.”
“It's Jovarny she's afther wantin' to hear play on his
grind-orgin; an' I towld her he'd coom whin yees did,”
explained Mrs. Ginniss: and Teddy, delighted to be asked
to do any thing for his little sister, lost no time in running
down stairs, and begging the Italian, who had just returned
home, to play one of the prettiest tunes in his list, but on
no account to touch the one that had so strangely affected
the little invalid upon a former occasion.
The Italian very willingly complied, and was already in
the midst of a pretty waltz when Teddy re-appeared in his
mother's room. Cherry's delight was unbounded; and
when the whole list of tunes, with the exception of the
cachuca, had been exhausted, she put her arms round
Teddy's neck, and kissed him, saying, —
“Thank you, little brother. I'll eat my supper for you
now.”
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And this, as Cherry had hardly been willing to eat any
thing since her illness, was considered, both by Teddy and
herself, as a remarkable proof of amiability and affection.
The next day, before Teddy went away in the morning,
he was obliged to promise that he would bring the music
at night; and, as he ran down stairs, he stopped to beg the
organ-grinder to come home as early as possible, and to
come prepared to play for the little sister's benefit.
“Let her come down and see the organ and Pantalon,”
said the Italian in his broken English; and Teddy eagerly
cried, —
“Oh! may she?” and ran up stairs again with the invitation.
But Mrs. Ginniss prudently declared that Cherry
must not think of leaving her own room at present, while
the stairs and entries were so cold; and “Thin agin,” said
she, “maybe the bit moonkey ud scare her back into the
fayver as bad as iver.”
So, for a week or two longer, Cherry was obliged to
content herself with an evening-concert through the floor:
and upon these concerts the whole of the day seemed to
depend. Very soon the little girl began to have her favorites
among the half-dozen airs she so often heard, and, little by
little, learned to hum them all, giving them names of her
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[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]
own. “Kathleen Mavourneen” she always called “Susan,”
although quite unable to give any reason for so doing; and
Teddy, who watched her constantly, noticed that she always
remained very thoughtful, wearing a puzzled, anxious look,
while hearing it. After a time, however, this dim association
with the almost-forgotten past wore away; and
although Cherry still called the air “Susan,” and liked it
better than any of the rest, it seemed to have become a
thing of the present instead of the past.
At last, one warm day in April, when Giovanni had
returned home earlier than usual, and Teddy again brought
an invitation to the bambína, as he called Cherry, to visit
him, Mrs. Ginniss reluctantly consented; and the little girl,
wrapped in shawls and hood, with warm stockings pulled
over her shoes, was carried in Teddy's arms down the stairs
as she had been brought up in them six months before.
The boy himself was the first to think of it, and, as he
stooped to take the little figure in his arms, said, —
“You haven't been over the stairs, sissy, since Teddy
brought you up last fall.”
“Teddy didn't bring me up. I never came up, 'cause I
never was down,” said Cherry resolutely; and the boy,
who dreaded above all things to awaken in her mind any
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[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]
recollection of the past, said no more, but carefully wrapping
the shawl about her, and promising his mother not to
stay too long, carried her gently down the stairs, and to
the door Giovanni opened as he heard them approach.
“Welcome, little one!” said the Italian in his own language
as they entered; and Cherry smiled at the sound,
and then looked troubled and thoughtful.
The truth was, that 'Toinette's father and mother had
often spoken both Italian and French in her presence; and
although the terrible fever had destroyed her memory of
home and parents, and all that went before, the things that
she had known in those forgotten days still awoke in her
heart a vague sense of pain and loss, — an effort to recall
something that seemed just vanishing away, as through the
strings of a broken and forsaken harp will sweep some
vagrant breeze, wakening the ghosts of its forgotten melodies
to a brief and shadowy life, again to pass and be forgotten.
So 'Toinette, still clinging to Teddy's neck, turned, and
fixed her great eyes upon the Italian's dark face so earnestly
and so piteously, that he smiled, showing all his white
teeth, and asked, —
“Does the little one know the language of my country?”
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“No: of course she don't. I don't,” said Teddy, looking
a little anxiously into Cherry's face, and wondering in his
own heart if she might not have known Italian in that former
life, of whose loves and interests he had always been so
jealous.
Giovanni looked curiously at the two children. Cherry,
in recovering from her illness, was regaining the wonderful
beauty, that, for a time, had seemed lost. The remnant
of her golden hair spared by Mother Winch's shears had
fallen off after the first attack of fever, and was now
replaced by thick, short curls of a sunny brown, clustering
about her white forehead with a careless grace far
more bewitching than the elaborate ringlets Susan had been
so proud of manufacturing; while long confinement to the
house had rendered the delicate complexion so pearly in its
whiteness, so exquisite in its rose-tints, that one could
hardly believe it possible that flesh and blood should
become so etherealized even while gaining health and
strength.
The subtle eye of the Italian marked every point of this
exquisite loveliness, ran admiringly over the outlines of the
graceful figure, the delicate hands and little feet, the classic
curve of the lips, the thin nostrils and tiny ears; then
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returned to the clear, full eyes, with their pencilled brows and
heavy lashes, and smiled at the earnestness of the gaze that
met his own. Then, from this lovely and patrician face, the
Italian's eyes wandered to Teddy's coarse and unformed
features, and figure of uncouth strength.
“Nightingales are not hatched from hens' eggs,” muttered
Giovanni in his native tongue.
“Speak that some more; I like it,” said Cherry softly.
“Yes; and you are like it, and, like all that belongs to my
Italia, beautiful and graceful,” said Giovanni, dropping the
liquid accents as lovingly from his lips as if they had been
a kiss. Then, in the imperfect English he generally spoke,
he asked of Teddy, —
“Where did the child come from?”
“She's my little sister,” replied the boy doggedly.
The Italian shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows,
muttering in his own tongue, —
“I never heard or saw any child above there in the first
weeks of my living here. But what affair is it of mine? The
child I have lost is safe with the Holy Mother!”
He crossed himself, and muttered a prayer; then from
behind the stove, where he lay warming himself, pulled a
little creature, at sight of whom Cherry uttered a scream,
and clung to Teddy.
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“It's the monkey, sissy; it's Jovarny's monkey; and his
name is Pantaloons,” explained Teddy.
“Pantalon,” corrected the monkey's master; and snapping
his fingers, and whistling to the monkey, he called him
to his shoulder, and made him go through a number of
tricks and gestures, — some of them so droll, that Cherry's
terror ended in peals of laughter; and she soon left Teddy's
side to run and caper about the room in imitation of the
monkey's antics.
“Does she dance, the little one?” asked Giovanni,
watching the child's lithe movements admiringly.
“Sure, and every step she takes is as good as dancing,”
said Teddy evasively.
“Let us see, then.”
And the Italian, arranging the stops of his organ, played
the pretty waltz Cherry had so often heard from it, and
liked so well.
The child continued her frolicsome motions, unconsciously
adapting them to the music, until she was moving in perfect
harmony with it, although not in the step or figure of a
waltz.
“She was born to dance!” exclaimed Giovanni with
enthusiasm; and, moving the stops of the organ, he passed,
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[figure description] Page 119.[end figure description]
without pause, into the gay and airy movement of the
cachuca.
As the first tones struck the child's ear, she faltered; then
stopped, turned pale, and listened intently.
“Whisht! That's the tune I told you not to play!” exclaimed
Teddy. But Giovanni, his eyes fixed upon the child,
did not hear or did not heed him, but played on; while
Cherry, trembling, pale, her hands clasped, lips apart, and
eyes fixed intently upon the musician, seemed shaken to the
very soul by some strange and undefined emotion. Suddenly
a scarlet flush mounted to the roots of her hair, her
eyes grew bright, her parted lips curved to a roguish smile;
and, pointing her little foot, she spun away in the graceful
movements of the dance, and continued it to the close, finishing
with a courtesy, and kiss of the hand, that made Giovanni
drop the handle of his organ, clasp his hands, and cry in
Italian, —
“Bravo, bravo, picciola! Truly you were born to
dance!”
But the child, suddenly losing the life and color that had
sparkled through every line of face and figure, ran with a
wild cry to Teddy, and, clasping him tight round the neck,
burst into a flood of tears, crying, —
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“Take me home, Teddy! — quick, quick! I want
mamma!”
Mrs. Ginniss had taught her to say “mammy;” and
Teddy remembered with dismay that she had never used the
name “mamma,” except in the delirium of her fever, when
she was evidently addressing some distant and beloved
object. But still he chose to understand the appeal in his
own way; and, hastily wrapping the shawls about the little
figure, he raised it in his arms, saying soothingly, —
“Come, then; come to mammy, little sister. You didn't
ought to have danced and got all tired.”
“Good-by, little one,” said Giovanni somewhat ruefully.
The child raised her head from Teddy's shoulder,
and, smiling through her tears, said sweetly, —
“Good-by, 'Varny. It wasn't you made me cry, but
because” —
“'Cause you was tired, little sister,” interposed Teddy
hastily; and Giovanni looked at him craftily.
“I'll come and see you another day, 'Varny; but I must
go lie down now,” continued Cherry, anxious to remove
any wound her new friend's feelings might have received.
And the organ-grinder smiled until he showed all his white
teeth, as he replied, —
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[figure description] Page 121.[end figure description]
“Yes, and again and again, — as often as you will,
picciola.”
But Teddy, shaking his head disapprovingly, muttered,
as he carried his little sister away, —
“No: it isn't good for you, sissy, to get so tired and
worried.”
-- 122 -- p453-127
CHAPTER XV. THE PINK-SILK DRESS.
[figure description] Page 122.[end figure description]
But, spite of Teddy's disapproval and his mother's doubts,
neither of them could resist the earnestness of Cherry's
entreaties, day after day, to be allowed to “go down and
see the music in 'Varny's room;” and it finally became
quite a regular thing for Teddy, upon his return home, to
find his little sister ready shawled and hooded, and waiting
for him to accompany her.
As the summer came on, and whole streets-full of his
patrons left the city, Giovanni became less regular in his
hours of leaving or returning home; often remaining in
his room several hours of the day, smoking, sleeping, or
training Pantalon in new accomplishments.
So sure as she knew him to be at home, Cherry gave her
foster-mother no peace until she had consented to allow her
to visit him; and Mrs. Ginniss said to herself, —
“Sure, and it's no harm the little crather can git uv man
nor monkey nor music; an' what's the good uv crossin' her?”
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So it finally came about that Cherry spent many more
hours in the company of Giovanni, Pantalon, and the organ,
than Teddy either knew, or would have liked, had his
mother thought fit to tell him.
At first, the conversation between the new friends was
carried on in the imperfect English used by both; but, very
soon, Giovanni, noticing the facility with which the child
adopted an occasional word of Italian, set himself to teach
her the language, and succeeded beyond his expectations.
Indeed, it seemed to him that the soft and liquid accents of
the beloved tongue had never sounded to him so sweet
beneath Italian skies as now, when they fell from the rosy
lips and pure tones of the charming child whom he, with
all who approached her, was learning to love with the best
love of his nature.
Besides the Italian lessons, Giovanni taught his little
pupil to sing several of the popular songs of his native city
of Naples, and to perform several of his national dances;
watching with an ever-new delight the grace and ease of
her movements, and the quickness with which she caught
at his every hint and gesture.
Occasionally, Cherry insisted upon making Pantalon join
in the dance; and the somewhat sombre face of the Italian
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[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]
would ripple all over with laughter as he watched her
efforts to subdue the creature's motions to grace and harmony,
and to cultivate in his bestial brain her own innate
love of those divine gifts.
“You will never make him dance as if of heaven, as you
do, picciola,” said he one day; and Cherry suddenly stood
still, and, dropping the monkey's paws, came to her
teacher's side, asking eagerly, —
“Have you been to heaven too? and did you see me
dance there?”
“Padre Johannes says we all came from heaven; so I
suppose I did, and perhaps Pantalon also,” said the
Italian with a comical grimace: “but, if so, I have long
forgotten what I saw there. Do you remember heaven,
picciola?”
“Yes; I don't know,” slowly replied the child with
the weary and puzzled look she so often wore. “Sometimes
I do. I used to dance; and mamma — that wasn't
mammy — was there: but there was a naughty lady that
slapped me; and there was a little man — why, it was Pantalon,
wasn't it? Did Pantalon eat some cake that I — no,
that some one gave him? Oh! I don't know; and I am
so tired! I guess I'll go see mammy now, and lie down on
the bed.”
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Giovanni did not try to detain the child, but, after
closing the door behind her, remained looking at it as if he
still saw the object of his thoughts, while an expression of
perplexity and doubt clouded the careless good-humor of
his face. Presently, however, it cleared; and, with a significant
gesture of the head, he muttered, —
“What then? Is it my business or my fault? Come,
Pantalon: we shall sup.”
When Cherry appeared the next day in Giovanni's
room, it was with as gay and untroubled a face as if no
haunting memories had ever vexed her; and Giovanni,
who liked her sunny mood much the best, was careful
not to awaken any other. He played for her to dance;
he sang with her; he told her stories of Italy, and the
merry life he had lived there with his wife and child.
“And my little Julietta, like you, loved music and
dancing, and sang like the angels,” said he, smoothing
Cherry's shining curls.
“Did she? Then she sings in heaven, and is happy:
and by and by, when we go there, we'll see her; won't
we?”
The Italian shook his head.
“You may, picciola; but the good God, if he takes
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[figure description] Page 126.[end figure description]
me to heaven, must make me so changed, that Julietta
could no longer know me, or I her. We men are not
as little maidens.”
Then, with a sudden change of mood, the Italian
snatched from its case his cherished violin, and drew
from it such joyous strains, that the child, clapping her
hands, and skipping round the room, cried, —
“It laughs! the music laughs, and makes me laugh
too! And Pantalon — see poor Pantalon try to laugh, and
he can't!”
Giovanni stopped suddenly, and laid down his violin.
A new thought, a sudden plan, had entered his head, and
made his breath come quick, and his eyes grow bright.
He looked attentively at the child for a moment, and then
said, —
“Julietta used to wear such a beautiful dress, and go
with me to the houses of rich people to dance; but you
dance better than she did, picciola.”
“Oh! let me go, and wear a beautiful dress. I don't
like this dress a bit!” said Cherry, plucking nervously at
the coarse and tawdry calico frock Mrs. Ginniss had
thought it quite a triumph to obtain and to make up.
“I have saved two of Julietta's dresses for love of
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her. You shall see them,” said the Italian; and from
the box where he kept his clothes he presently brought
a small bundle, and, unfolding it, shook out two little
frocks, — one of pink silk, covered with spangles; the other
a gay brocade, upon whose white ground tiny rosebuds
were dotted in a graceful pattern. Some long silk stockings,
and white satin boots with red heels, and blue tassels
at the ankle, dropped from the bundle; and from one of
these boots Giovanni drew a wreath of crushed and faded
artificial roses.
“All these were given her by the beautiful marchésa
for whom she was named. Many times we have been
to play and dance before her palázzo; and she, sending
for us in, has given the little one a dress or a wreath, or
a handful of confetti, or a silver-piece in her hand. It
was when the marchésa died that our troubles began; and
in three months more the little Julietta followed her, and
Stephána (that was my wife) went from me, and — But
see, picciola! is it not a pretty dress? Let us put it upon
you, and it shall dance the Romaika with you as it once
did with her.”
Nothing loath, Cherry hastened, with the help of the
Italian, to array herself in the pink-silk frock, and to
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exchange her coarse shoes for the silken hose and satin
boots of the little lost Julietta. Although somewhat
large, the clothes fitted better than those Cherry had taken
off; and when, seizing the violin, Giovanni drew a long,
warning note, the little dancer took her position, and
pointed her tiny foot with so assured and graceful an
air, that the Italian, nodding and smiling, cried with
enthusiasm, —
“Ah, ah! See the little Taglioni! Why is she not
upon the boards of La Scála?”
What this might mean Cherry could not guess, nor
greatly cared to know. She understood that her friend
was pleased, and her little heart beat high with vanity
and excitement. She danced as she had never danced
before; and at the end, while Giovanni still applauded,
and before she had regained her breath, the child was
panting, —
“I want to go and dance for the rich ladies, like Julietta
used to do, and wear her beautiful dresses, and have
a wreath.”
“Why not, then?” exclaimed the Italian eagerly.
“Only you must never say so to the woman above there
or the boy: they will not allow it.”
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“Won't mammy and Teddy like it? Then I can't go.
Oh, dear! Why won't they like it, 'Varny?”
“Because they can't dance, and they don't want you to
be different from them; and they will be afraid you will
tire yourself. They don't know that it makes you well
and happy to dance, and hear music, as it does me to
make it. They are not like us, these people above
there.”
Cherry looked earnestly in his face, and her own suddenly
flushed, while she replied indignantly, —
“They're real good, 'Varny; and I love them same
as I do you and Pantalon. Don't you love them?”
“Oh! but I adore them, picciola; and I like well that
you should place me and Pantalon beside them. But
surely they do not dance, or love music, as we do.”
Cherry shut tight her lips, and shook her head with an
uneasy expression.
“Mammy says she don't believe they dance in heaven:
and Teddy says it wasn't there I used to learn; for I never
went anywhere but to mammy's room since I was borned.”
“But they do dance in heaven, and sing, and listen to
music; and it is because you came from heaven so little
while ago that you remember, and they have forgotten,”
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said Giovanni positively. “And it is right that you should
love these things; and it is right that you should go with me,
and say nothing to them till we come back. I will ask the
good woman that I may take you for a walk in a day or two;
and I will carry the pretty dress and the violin; and, when
we are away from the house, you shall put it on, and we
will go and dance for the rich people a little while; and
some one shall give you beautiful things, and much money,
as they did Julietta; and then we will come home, and bring
it all to the mammy, and she will be so happy, and see that
it is a good thing, after all, to dance.”
“Yes, yes; that will be splendid!” cried Cherry, clapping
her hands, and jumping up and down. “I will save every
bit of the candy, and all the beautiful dresses, and the roses,
and every thing, and bring them to mammy.”
“And the money, that she may buy bread and clothes
and wood, and not have to work so hard for them herself,”
suggested Giovanni artfully.
“Yes, Teddy gives her money; and she calls him her
brave, good boy. So she'll call me too, pretty soon; won't
she?”
“Truly will she; but remember always, picciola, that
she nor Teddy must know any thing of this, or they will
prevent it all. You won't tell them?”
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“No; I won't tell,” said Cherry, shutting her lips very
tight, and shaking her head a great many times. “Only
we must go very quick, or else I might forget; and, when I
opened my mouth, it might jump out before I knew.”
“We will go to-morrow if it is fine,” said Giovanni,
after a moment of consideration; and Cherry, after changing
her clothes, returned home so full of mystery and importance,
that unless Mrs. Ginniss had been more than
usually busy, and Teddy obliged to hurry with his supper
and go directly out again, one or the other must have suspected
that something very mysterious was working in the
mind of their little pet.
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CHAPTER XVI. BEGINNING A NEW LIFE.
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As if to favor Giovanni's plot, it chanced, that, in the
morning of the next day, Mrs. Ginniss received a sudden
summons to the bedside of Ann Dolan, the friend whose
advice had led to Teddy's being placed in his present
situation.
The messenger had reported that Ann was “very bad wid
her heart, an' the life was knocked out intirely, sure:” and
Mrs. Ginniss felt herself bound to hasten to the help of her
friend, should she still be alive; or to see that she was
“waked dacent” if dead. Just as she was wondering
if it was best to take Cherry with her, or to leave her
locked up alone until her return, Giovanni appeared at the
door, his face disposed in its most winning smile, and his
manner as respectful as if he had been addressing the march
ésa who had been his own and his daughter's patron.
“Will my good neighbor allow that the little girl go for a
walk with me this fine morning?” asked he. “I would like
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to show her the flowers and the swans in the gardens of the
city.”
“An' will you take the monkey an' the grind-orgin the
day?” asked Mrs. Ginniss doubtfully.
“Indeed, no! I go to a walk to enjoy the fine time, and
to see the flowers and the swans,” explained Giovanni in his
best English, and with a proportion of bows and smiles;
while Cherry stood by, her little face full of surprise and
mystery, not unmingled with a little shame as she felt that
her good mammy was being deceived and misled by the
wily Italian.
“Faith, thin, Mr. Jovarny, it's very perlite ye are iver
an' always; but I don't jist feel aisy wid the child out uv my
sight. Mabbe she'd betther wait till night, when Teddy can
take her out.”
“Oh, let me go, mammy! I want to go with 'Varny,
and I'll bring you” —
“Yes; we'll get the pretty flowers to bring to mammy, she
would say,” interrupted the Italian hastily; and Mrs. Ginniss,
looking down at the little anxious face and pleading
eyes, found her better judgment suddenly converted into a
desire to please her little darling at any rate, and to see her
smile again in her own sunny fashion.
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“Sure, an' ye shall go, 'vourneen, if it's that bad ye're
wantin' it,” said she, stooping to take the child in her arms;
and, as Cherry kissed her again and again, she added, —
“An' it's well ye don't ask the heart out uv me body; for
it's inter yer hand I'd have to give it, colleen bawn.”
Giovanni looked on, his half-shut, black eyes glittering,
and a wily smile wrinkling his sallow cheek.
“Every one has his day,” muttered he in Italian
“Your's to-day, good woman; mine to-morrow.”
Half an hour later, Cherry, dressed as neatly as her foster-mother's
humble means and taste would allow, and her face
glowing with pleasure and excitement, skipped out of the
door of the tenement-house, looking like the fairy princess
in a pantomime as she suddenly emerges from the hovel
where she has been hidden.
Giovanni followed, carrying a bundle, and his violin
wrapped in papers. These, he explained to Mrs. Ginniss,
were only some matters he had to leave with a friend as he
went along; but he should not go into any house, or take the
little girl anywhere but for the walk he had mentioned.
“Faix, an' it's mighty ginteel ye are, anyway, Misther
Jovarny,” said the Irishwoman, watching the pair from the
window of her attic as they walked slowly up the street.
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“But I'm afther wishin' I'd said no whin I said yis. Nor
yet I couldn't tell why, more than that Teddy'll be mad to
hear she's been wid him. But the b'y hasn't sinse whin it's
about the little sisther he's talkin'. He thinks the ground
isn't good enough for her to walk on, nor goold bright
enough for her to wear.”
So saying, Mrs. Ginniss closed the window, and, throwing
a little shawl over her head, locked the door, leaving the
key in Teddy's room, and hurried away to her sick friend,
with whom she staid till nearly night.
Giovanni and Cherry, meantime, walked gayly on, chatting,
now of the wonderful things about them, now of the
yet more wonderful scenes they were to visit. At a confectioner's
shop, in a shady by-street, they stopped to rest for
a while; and the Italian provided his little guest with icecreams,
cakes, and candies, to her heart's content.
“I like these better than potatoes and pork-meat. I used
to eat these in heaven,” said the little girl, pausing to look
at a macaroon, and then finishing it with a relish.
The Italian laughed.
“Canary-birds do not feed with crows,” said he.
“When we are rich, picciola, you shall never eat worse
than this.”
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“Shall we be rich soon, 'Varny?” asked the child
eagerly.
“Upon the moment almost, if you will dance and laugh,
and look so pretty as you can, always.”
“But we needn't stop to be very rich before we go and
carry some of the nice things to mammy,” rejoined Cherry
anxiously.
“No, no, indeed! We will but make a little turn in the
country, and come back princes. But mind you this, picciola:
I am to be your father now, or all the same; and I
shall tell every one that you are my own little girl: so you
must never say, `Not so.' ”
“But mammy said my father was dead, and Teddy said
so too. He was Michael darlint.”
“I doubt not that Signor Michaelli died, and has gone to
glory; but I strangely doubt if he were thy father, picciola,”
said the Italian with a grave smile. “However that may
be, forget that you have ever had other father than me, and
call me so always: `Mio padre,' you must say, and no more'
Varny. Also, too, you must speak in Italian, as I shall
to you; and never, as you do now, in English.”
“But mammy and Teddy don't know Italian,” said
Cherry, beginning to look a little troubled.
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“ `In Rome, do as the Romans do.' When you are again
with the woman and boy, speak as they speak: with me,
speak as I speak.”
Giovanni said this more decidedly than he had ever
spoken before, and Cherry looked quickly up at him.
“Is that the way you talk because you want to make
believe you are my father?” asked she.
A sudden smile shot across the Italian's face, lighting its
dark features like a gleam of sunshine sweeping across a
pine-clad mountain-land.
“Shame were it to me, dear little heart, if to be thy
father were to make thee less happy than thou hast been
with those others,” said he softly in Italian, and using the
form of address, which, in almost every language but the
English, marks a different and more tender relation from
that indicated by the more formal plural pronoun.
“You will be happy with me if we do not soon revisit
these people we leave behind?” asked he.
The child's eyes grew large and deep as she fixed them
upon his face, and presently asked, —
“Are you going with me to try to find heaven again?”
“Perhaps: who knows, picciola? The heaven you miss
may come to you more easily if you go to seek it. At any
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rate, I will carry thee no farther from it. But come: we
must get to our journey.”
Leaving the confectioner's shop, Giovanni lingered no
longer in the gay streets, or even upon the fresh green grass
of the Common, where Cherry would have staid to play
all day. Hurrying across it, and through some crowded
streets, the Italian entered a large station-house, where stood
the train of cars, already half filled with passengers; while
the engine, puffing and panting with impatience, seemed unwilling
to wait a moment longer.
Leaving Cherry in the ladies' room, the Italian bought
his tickets, and reclaimed from the baggage-room, where
he had left it, his organ, with Pantalon chained to the
top of it. Then, calling the child, he hurried with her
into the cars, and selected a seat behind the door, in the
evident wish of being seen as little as possible.
“Now, then, Ciriegia mia, we go to seek our fortune,”
said he, as the train left the station, and began to rush
through the suburbs of the city, scattering little dirty
children, vagrant dogs, leisurely pigs, and dawdling carriages
driven by honest old ladies, from its track.
Cherry never had ridden in the cars before; and she
clung tight to the sleeve of her companion, afraid to
move, or even to speak, until he laughingly asked, —
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“It does not fear, the poor little one, does it?”
“No, I guess not, 'Varny,” replied the child doubtfully;
but the Italian sharply said, —
“What is this 'Varny you say? I am mio padre.”
“I forgot. Won't I tumble out of this carriage, my
father, it goes so quick?”
“Fear nothing, figlia mia. You are safe with me and
with Pantalon,” said the Italian, drawing the little girl
close to his side; while the monkey, crouching upon the
organ at their feet, chattered his own promises of protection
and comfort.
With 'Toinette, to live was to love and trust; and,
clinging close to her new guardian's side, she laid her
little shining head upon his breast, clinging with one
hand to the lappet of his coat; and, laughing down at
Pantalon, she fell presently asleep.
At night the Italian left the train, and took lodgings
at a hotel near the centre of a large town. His little
charge — tired, hungry, and sleepy — was very glad to
have supper, and to be allowed to go to bed, where she
slept soundly until summoned the next morning by Giovanni,
who brought her some breakfast with his own
hands, and, placing it upon the table, laid a bundle of
clothes beside it.
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“Rise and eat, carissima,” said he gayly; “and then
make thyself as beautiful as the morning with these fine
clothes. See, here are roses from the garden for a
wreath! They are better than the others. When thou
art ready, come out to me.”
He left the room; and 'Toinette, rising, made a hasty
breakfast; and then, putting on the brocade-silk dress,
and placing upon her head the wreath Giovanni had
twisted of natural flowers for her, she peeped into the
glass, and laughed aloud at the fanciful and beautiful
image that met her eyes.
“I am glad I look so pretty,” murmured she, with an
innocent delight at her own beauty, that was not vanity,
although it might, if untrained, lead to it.
“Come, Ciriegia, are you never ready?” called Giovanni
from the other side of the door; and Cherry,
running to open it, exclaimed in Italian, —
“Oh, see, my father! am I not beautiful?”
“Truly so; but you should not say it, bambína. The
charm of a maiden is her modesty,” said the Italian
gravely.
“But, if it is true, why mustn't I say so?” asked
Cherry positively.
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“Many things that we know are never to be said,
Ciriegia. But come, now: you are to dance first for
these people, and they will make no charge for our beds
and the miserable provender they have given us.”
As he spoke, Giovanni led the way to the lower hall
of the hotel, where a number of men were lounging,
smoking, or talking; while through the open doors of the
parlor and office were to be seen some ladies and gentlemen,
idling away the hour after breakfast, before proceeding
to their business, their journey, or their amusement.
Placing himself in the centre of the hall, Giovanni,
with a bow to the company, played a little prelude, and
then struck into the lively strains of the cachuca.
Cherry, who had stood looking at him, her head slightly
bent, her lips apart, eyes and ears alert to catch the
signal to begin, pointed her little foot at the precise moment,
and, holding her dress in the tips of her slender
fingers, slid into the movement with a grace and accuracy
never to be attained except by vigorous practice, or a
temperament as sensitive to time and tune, limbs as supple,
and impulses as graceful, as were those of this gifted
and unfortunate child.
“See there! — the poor little thing!” exclaimed one
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of the ladies, who came to the door of the drawing-room
to see the performance.
“How can you say poor little thing?” asked another.
“Don't you see how she enjoys it herself? That smile
is not the artificial grimace of a ballet-dancer; and no
eyes ever sparkled so joyously to order.”
“Perhaps she does enjoy it; but all the more `Poor little
thing!' say I,” rejoined the first speaker, adding thoughtfully,
“What sort of training for a woman is that?”
“Oh, well! but it is very pretty to see her; and she
would probably be running in the streets, or doing worse,
if she did not dance; and so little as she is! It is
equal to the theatre.”
The speaker drew out her purse as she spoke, and carelessly
threw a dollar-bill towards the child, who had finished
her dance, and stood looking round with an innocent smile,
as if asking for applause rather than reward.
“Go and take it, carissima; and then hold your hand to
the others; each will give you something,” said Giovanni
in a low voice.
“How much we shall have to carry to mammy!” exclaimed
the child eagerly; and, as she gathered in her
harvest, she chattered away, always in Italian, —
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“And more, and more, and more! O my father! how
many cents they give me! What nice people they are!
Let me dance some more for them; and let Pantalon come
down, and let them see him.”
“No, no child! These are not of those who would care
for Pantalon. While you rest by and by, I shall take him
and the organ, and go about the streets; but your little feet
are worth many Pantalons to me. Come, we will give
them the tarantella as they have done so well.”
Skipping to his side, with a childish grace more attractive
than the studied movements of the most accomplished
actress, Cherry stuffed the proceeds of her first attempt into
the pocket of her guardian, and then, throwing herself into
position, went through the wild and grotesque movements
of the tarantella, with a life and freshness that drew from
the spectators a burst of applause and surprise.
“That will do. We must not give them too much at
once, lest the wonder come to an end. Make the pretty
kiss of the hand, figlia mia, and run up the stairs to your
own little room.”
Cherry obeyed, calling back, as she disappeared, “Tell
them I will dance some more for them by and by if they
want me to.”
-- 144 -- p453-149
CHAPTER XVII. WHOLESALE MURDER.
[figure description] Page 144.[end figure description]
In the course of that day, Giovanni and his little danseuse
visited all the principal public places in the town, and also
several of the best private houses; and, at all, the performances
of the child called forth the surprise, delight, and
admiration of those who witnessed them. Nor were more
substantial proofs of their approval wanting; so that at
night, when Giovanni counted up his gains, he found them
so large, that he cried, while embracing poor weary little
Cherry, —
“O blessed, blessed moment when thou didst cross my
path, Ciriegia carissima!”
“Now can't we go home to mammy? I am so tired,
and my head feels sick!” moaned the child, laying the poor
aching little head upon his shoulder.
Giovanni looked down at the pale face, and, meeting the
languid eyes, felt a pang of conscience and pity.
“Thou art tired, bambína povera mia,” said he kindly.
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“Another day, we will be more careful. Lie down now,
and sleep for a while. We go again in the steam-carriage
to-night.”
Cherry climbed upon the bed without reply, and in a
moment was fast asleep. The Italian drew the coverings
about her, and stooped to kiss the pale cheek, where showed
already a dark circle beneath the eye, and a painful contraction
at the corner of the mouth.
“Poveracita!” murmured he. “But soon we will have
money enough to go home to the father-land, and then all
will be well with her as with me.”
Three hours later, he came to arouse the child, and prepare
her to renew the journey.
“Oh, I am so tired! I want to sleep some more so
bad, 'Varny! — no, my father, I mean. I don't want to go
somewhere,” said she piteously, closing her eyes, and struggling
to lay her head again upon the pillow. Giovanni
hesitated for a moment; and then, never knowing that the
decision was one of life and death, the question of a whole
future career, he determined to pursue his plan in spite of
that plaintive entreaty, and, hastily wrapping a shawl about
the child, took her in his arms, and carried her down stairs.
The organ and Pantalon waited in the hall below; and
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Giovanni, setting Cherry upon her feet, shouldered the
organ, and, taking the little girl by the hand, led her out
into the quiet street, where lay the light of a full moon,
making the night more beautiful than day. Cherry's drowsy
eyes flew wide open; and, looking up in Giovanni's face
with eager joy, she cried, —
“Oh! now we're going back to heaven; aren't we, my
father? It was bright and still like this in heaven; and I
saw a star, and — and then the naughty lady struck me” —
“Peace, little one! I know not of what you speak, nor
any thing of heaven,” said the Italian in a troubled voice;
and the child, hurrying along at his side, raised her face
silently to the summer sky, seeking there, perhaps, the
answer to the questions forever stirring in her struggling
soul.
A little later, and the swift train, flying through the
sleeping land, bore away the travellers; while Giovanni,
settling himself as easily as possible, laid the head of his
little Ciriegia upon his breast, tenderly smoothed down her
silky curls, and laid his hand upon the bright eyes, that
frightened him with the intensity of their gaze.
“Sleep, carissima mia, sleep,” murmured he soothingly;
“sleep, and forget thy weariness and thy memories.”
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“I can't sleep now, my father. It seems to me that we
are going to heaven; and I want to be awake to see — the
lady” —
The words faltered, and died upon her lips. The beautiful
image of her mother, fading slowly from her memory,
seemed already a vision so vague, that to name it were to
lose it, — an idea too precious and too impalpable to put
in words. The past, with all its love and joy and beauty,
was becoming for our 'Toinette what we may fancy heaven
is to a little baby, whose solemn eyes and earnest gaze
seem forever attempting to recall the visions of celestial
beauty it has left for the pale, sad skies, and mournful
sounds of earth.
On rushed the train through the quiet night, waking wild
echoes in the woods, and leaving them to whisper themselves
again to sleep when it had passed; lighting dark valleys,
that the moonlight left unlighted, with its whirling banner of
flame and sparks, and its hundred blazing windows; moving
across the holy calm of midnight like some strange and
troubled vision, some ugly nightmare, that for the moment
changes peace and rest to horror and affright, and then
passes again to the dim and ghostly Dreamland, whose frontier
crowds our daily life on every hand, and whence forever
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peep and beckon the mysteries that perplex and haunt the
human mind.
On and on and on, through misty lowland and shadowy
wood, and over shining rivers, and through sleeping hamlets,
and winding, snake-like, between great round hills and
along deep mountain-gorges, until the wild, bright eyes that
watched beneath Cherry's matted curls grew soft and dim;
and at last the white lids fell, and the curve of the sad lips
relaxed beneath the kiss of God's mildest messenger to
man, — the spirit of sleep.
As for Giovanni, he long had slumbered heavily; and
even Pantalon, whose bright eyes were seldom known to
close, was now curled up beneath the organ-covering,
dreaming, perhaps, of the nut - groves and spice - islands
where he had once known liberty and youth.
Just then it came, — a crash as if heaven and earth had met;
a wild, deep cry, made up of all tones of human agony and
fright; the shriek of escaping steam; the rending and splintering
of wood and iron; destruction, terror, pain, and death, all
mingled in one awful moment. Then those who had escaped
unhurt began the sad and terrible task of withdrawing
from the ruin the maimed and bleeding bodies of those who
yet lived, the crushed remains and fragments of those who
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had been killed in the moment of the encounter; and, in all
the bewildering confusion of the scene, none had eyes for
the little childish figure, who, hurled from the splintered car,
lay for a while stunned and shaken among the soft grass
where she had fallen, and then, staggering to her feet, fled
wildly away into the dim forest-land.
-- 150 -- p453-155
CHAPTER XVIII. DORA DARLING.
[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]
The sun was setting upon the day succeeding that of the
great railroad accident, that, for weeks, filled the whole land
with horror and indignation, when a young girl, driving
rapidly along a country-road at a point about five miles distant
from the scene of the disaster, met a child walking
slowly toward her, whose disordered dress, bare head, and
wild, sweet face, attracted her attention and curiosity.
Checking her spirited horse with some difficulty, the
young girl looked back, and found that the child had
stopped, and stood watching her.
“See here, little girl!” called she. “Are you lost? Is
any thing the matter with you?”
The child fixed her solemn eyes upon the face of the
questioner, but made no answer.
“Come here, sissy! I want to talk to you; and I can't
turn round to come to you. Come here!”
The little girl slowly obeyed the kind command, and
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stood presently beside the wagon, her pale face upraised,
her startled eyes intently fixed upon the clear and honest
ones bent to meet them.
“What is your name, little girl?”
“Sunshine,” said the child vaguely; and her eyes dropped
from the face of her questioner to fix themselves upon the
far horizon, where hung already the evening-star, pale and
trembling, as it had hung upon the evening of 'Toinette
Legrange's birthday ten months before. Was it a sudden
association with the star and the hour that had suggested to
the heart of the desolate child this name, so long forgotten,
once so appropriate, now so strange and sad?
“Sunshine?” replied the young girl wonderingly. “You
don't look like it a bit. Where do you belong? and where
are you going?”
The child's eyes travelled back from Dreamland, and
rested wistfully upon the kind face above her.
“I don't know,” said she sadly. “I want to go to
heaven; but I've forgot the way.”
“To heaven! You poor little thing, have you no home
short of that?”
“I don't know. I wish I had some water.”
“You had better jump into the wagon, and come home
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with me, Sunshine, if that is your name. Something has
got to be done for you right away.”
The child, still looking at her in that strange and solemn
manner, asked suddenly, —
“Who are you?”
“I? Oh! I'm Dora Darling; and I live about five
miles from here. Jump in quick; for it is growing dark,
and we must be at home for supper.”
As she spoke, she leaned down, and gave a hand to
the little girl, who mechanically took it, and clambered
into the carriage. Dora lifted her to the seat, and held
her there, with one arm about her waist, saying kindly, —
“Hug right up to me, you poor little thing! and hold
on tight. We'll be at home in half an hour, or less. —
Now, Pope!”
The impatient horse, feeling the loosened rein, and
hearing his own name, darted away at speed; whirling
the light wagon along so rapidly, that the child clung
convulsively to her new protector, murmuring, —
“I guess I shall spill out of this, and get kilt.”
“Oh, no, you won't, Sunshine! I shall hold you in.
You're not Irish, are you?”
“What's that?”
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“Why, Irish, you know. You said `kilt' just now,
instead of `killed,' as we do.”
The child made no reply; but her head drooped upon
Dora's shoulder yet more heavily, and her eyes closed.
“Are you sick, little girl? or only tired?” asked Dora,
looking anxiously down into the colorless face, over which
the evening breeze was gently strewing the tangled curls,
as if to hide it from mortal view, while the poor, worn
spirit fled away to peace and rest.
“Sunshine!” exclaimed Dora, gently moving the heavy
head that still drooped lower and lower, until now the
face was hidden from view.
“She has fainted!” said Dora, looking anxiously about
her. No house and no person were in sight, nor any
stream or pond of water; and the young girl decided
that the wisest course would be to drive home as rapidly
as possible, postponing all attempt to revive her little
patient until her arrival there.
Without checking the horse, she dragged from under
the seat a quilted carriage-robe, and spread it in the bottom
of the wagon, arranging a paper parcel as a pillow.
Then, laying poor Sunshine upon this extemporized couch,
she took off her own light shawl, and covered her; leaving
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exposed only the face, white and lovely as the marble
statue recumbent upon a little maiden's tomb.
“Now, Pope!” cried Dora, with one touch of the whip
upon the glossy haunch of the powerful beast, who, at
sound of that clear voice, neighed reply, and darted forward
at the rate of twelve good miles an hour; so that,
in considerably less than the promised time, Dora skilfully
turned the corner from the road into a green country
lane, and, a few moments after, stopped before the door
of an old-fashioned one-story farm-house, painted red,
with a long roof sloping to the ground at the back, an
open well with a sweep and bucket, and a diamond-paned
dairy-window swinging to and fro in the faint breeze.
Around the irregular door-stone, the grass grew close and
green; while nodding in at the window, and waving from
the low eaves, and clambering upon the roof, a tangle of
white and sweet-brier roses, of woodbine and maiden's-bower,
lent a rare grace to the simple home, and loaded
the air with a cloud of delicate perfume.
A young man, lounging upon the doorstep, started to
his feet as the wagon came dashing up the lane, and was
going to open the gate of the barn-yard; but Dora
stopped before the open door, and called to him, —
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“Karl! Come here, please.”
“Certainly. I was running out of the way for fear of
being ground to powder beneath your chariot-wheels; for
I said to myself, `Surely the driving is as the driving
of Jehu, the son of Nimshi.”'
“I shouldn't have driven so fast; but — see here!”
She pulled away the shawl as she spoke, and showed
to the young man, who now stood beside the carriage,
the still inanimate form of the little waif at her feet.
“Phew! What's that? and where did you get it?”
“A little girl that I met; lost, I think. I took her into
the buggy, and then she fainted, and I laid her down,”
rapidly explained Dora; adding, as she raised the little
figure in her arms, —
“Take her in, and lay her on the bed in the rosy-room.”
“Poor little thing! She's not dead, is she, Dora?”
asked the young man softly, as he took the child in his
arms and entered the house, followed by Dora.
“Oh, no! I think not; only fainted. I suppose there's
hot water, for a bath, in the kitchen.”
As she spoke, they entered the sitting-room, — a cool,
shady apartment, with a great beam crossing the ceiling,
and deep recesses to the windows, with seats in them.
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At the farther side, Dora threw open the door of a little
bedroom, whose gay-papered walls and flowered chintz
furniture, not to speak of a great sweet-brier bush tapping
and scratching at the window, with all its thousand sharp
little fingers, gave it a good right to be called the rosy-room.
Dora hastily drew away the bright counterpane,
and nodded to Karl, who laid the little form he carried
tenderly upon the bed.
At this moment, another door into the sitting-room
opened; and a girl, somewhat older than Dora, put in her
head, looked about for a moment, and then came curiously
toward the door of the rosy-room.
“I thought I heard you, Dora,” said she. “What are
you doing in here? Why! — who's that?”
“O Kitty! can you warm a little of that broth we
had for dinner, to give her? She's just starved, I really
believe. And is there any ammonia in the house? — smelling-salts,
you know. Didn't aunt have some?” asked
Dora rapidly.
“I believe so. But where did you get this child?
Who is she?”
“Run, Kitty, and get the salts first. We'll tell you
afterward.”
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“What shall I do, Dora?” interposed the young man;
and Kitty ran upon her errand, while Dora promptly
replied, —
“Open the window, and bring some cold water; and
then a little wine or brandy, if we have any.”
“Enough for this time, at any rate,” said Karl, hurrying
away, and returning with both water and wine
just as Kitty appeared with the salts; but it was Dora
who applied the remedies, and with a skill and steadiness
that would have seemed absolutely marvellous to one
unacquainted with the young girl's previous history and
training.
“She's coming to herself. You'd better both go out
of sight, and let her see only me. Kitty, will you look
to the broth?” whispered Dora; and Karl, taking his
sister by the sleeve, led her out, softly closing the door
after them.
“Dora does like to manage, I must say. Now, do
tell me at last who this child is, and where she came
from, and what's going to be done with her,” said Kitty
as they reached the kitchen.
“Why shouldn't she like to manage, when she can do
it so well? I can tell you, Miss Kitty, if she hadn't
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managed to some purpose on one occasion, you wouldn't have
had a brother to-day to plague you.”
The girl's dark eyes grew moist as she turned them
upon him, saying warmly, —
“I know it, Charley; and I would love her for that, if
nothing else: but I can't forget she's almost a year
younger than I am, and ought not to expect to take the
lead in every thing.”
“Pooh, Kit-cat, don't be ridiculous! Get the soup,
and put it over the fire; and I'll tell you all I know
about our little guest.”
“I let the fire go down when tea was ready, it is so
warm to-night,” said Kitty, raking away the ashes in
the open fireplace, and drawing together a few coals.
“That will do. You only want a cupful or so at
once, and you can warm it in a saucepan over those
coals.”
“Dear me! I guess I know how to do as much as that
without telling. Sit down now, and let me hear about
the child.”
So Karl dropped into the wooden arm-chair beside the
hearth, and told his story; while Kitty, bustling about,
warmed the broth, moved the tea-pot and covered dish of
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toast nearer to the remnant of fire, waved a few flies off
the neat tea-table, and drove out an intrusive chicken,
who, before going to roost, was evidently determined to
secure a dainty bit for supper from the saucer of bread
and milk set in the corner for pussy.
“If the broth is ready, I'll take it in,” said Karl, as
his sister removed it from the fire.
“Well, here it is; and do tell Dora to come to supper,
or at least come yourself. I want to get cleared
away some time.”
“I'll tell her,” said Karl briefly, as he took the little
bowl of broth, set it in a plate, and laid a silver spoon
beside it.
“How handy he is! just like a woman,” said Kitty
to herself as her brother left the room; and then, going
out into the sink-room, she finished washing and putting
away the “milk-things,” — a process interrupted by the
arrival of Dora with her little charge.
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CHAPTER XIX. A CHAMBER OF MEMORIES.
[figure description] Page 160.[end figure description]
“How is she now, Dora?” asked Karl, softly opening the
door of the rosy-room.
“Better. You can come in if you want to. Have you
got the broth?”
“Yes: here it is.”
“That's nice. Now hold her up, please, this way, while
I feed her. See, little Sunshine! here is some nice broth
for you. Take a little, won't you?”
The pale lips slightly opened, and Dora deftly slipped
the spoon between them. The effect was instantaneous;
and, as the half-starved child tasted and smelled the nourishing
food, she opened wide her eyes, and, fixing them
upon the cup, nervously worked her lips, and half extended
her poor little hands, wasted and paled by even two days
of privation and fatigue.
“I tell you what, Dora, this child has had a mighty
narrow chance of it,” said Karl aside, as Dora patiently
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administered the broth, waiting a moment between each
spoonful.
“Yes,” replied she softly. “I am so glad I met her! It
was a real providence.”
“For her?”
“For me as much,” returned Dora simply. “It is so
pleasant to be able to do something again!”
“You miss your wounded and invalid soldiers, and find
it very dull here,” said Karl quickly, as he glanced sharply
into the open face of the young girl.
“Hush, Karl! don't talk now: it will disturb her. Is
tea ready?”
“Yes, and Kitty sent word for you to come. Run along,
and I will stay with the chick till you come back.”
“No: I can't leave her yet. You go to supper, and perhaps,
when you are done, I will leave you with her; or Kitty
can stay, and I will clear away.”
“Won't you let me stay now?” asked the young man
hesitatingly.
“No. Here, take the bowl, and run along.”
“`Just as you say, not as I like,' I suppose,” said Karl,
laughing; and, taking the bowl, he went softly out.
“Now, little girl, you feel better, don't you?” asked
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Dora cheerily, as she laid the heavy head back upon the
pillow, and tenderly smoothed away the tangled hair.
“Si, signora,” murmured Giovanni's pupil.
“What's that? I don't know what you mean. Say it
again, won't you?”
But the child only fixed her dreamy eyes upon the face
of the questioner, with no effort at reply; and then the lids
began slowly to close.
“Now, before you go to sleep, Sunshine, I am going to
take you up stairs, and put you in my own bed, because I
sha'n't want to leave you alone to-night; and no one sleeps
here. Wait till I fold this shawl round you, and then put
your arms about my neck. There: now we'll go.”
She lifted the child as she spoke, and carried her again
into the front entry, and up the square staircase to a
cottage-chamber with white, scoured floor, common pine
furniture, the cheapest of white earthern toilet-sets, and
nothing of expense or luxury to be found within its four
whitewashed walls, and yet a room that gave one a feeling
of satisfaction and peace not always inhabiting far wider
and more costly chambers: for the little bed was artistically
composed, and covered with snow-white dimity, as was the
table between the windows, and the cushion of the wooden
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rocking-chair; while curtains of the same material, escaped
from their tricolored fastenings, floated in upon the soft
breeze like great sails, or the draperies of twilight spirits
departing before mortal presence.
In the fireplace stood a large pitcher, filled with common
flowers, fresh and odorous; and upon the high mantle-shelf,
and all around the room, was disposed a collection of the
oddest ornaments that ever decked a young girl's sleepingchamber.
Among them we will but pause to mention two
muskets, the one bent, the other splintered at the stock;
four swords, each more or less disabled; an officer's sash;
three sets of shoulder-straps; a string of army-buttons,
each with a name written upon a strip of paper, and tied
to the eye; two or three dozen bone rings, of more or less
elaborate workmanship, disposed upon the branches of a
little tree carved of pine; a large collection of crosses,
hearts, clasped hands, dogs'-heads, and other trinkets, in
bone, some white, and some stained black; a careful drawing
of a crooked and grotesque old negro, in a frame of
carved wood; and, finally, a suit of clothes hung against
the wall in the position of a human figure, consisting of a
jaunty scarlet cap, with a little flag of the United States
fastened to the front by an army-badge; a basque, skirt,
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and trousers of blue cloth, with a worn and clumsy pair of
boots below. From a belt fastened across the waist hung
a little barrel, a flask, and by a wide ribbon of red, white,
and blue, a boatswain's silver whistle.
Singular ornaments, we have said, for a young girl's
sleeping-room, and yet, in this case, touchingly appropriate
and harmonious: for they were the keepsakes given to the
daughter of the regiment by the six hundred brave men,
who each loved her as his own; they were the mementoes
of a year in Dora Darling's life, of such vivid experiences,
that it threatened to make all the years that should come
after pale and vapid in comparison.
Just now, however, all the girl's strong sympathies were
aroused and glowing; and as she tenderly cared for the
child so strangely placed within her hands, and finally laid
her to sleep in the clover-scented sheets of the fair white
bed, she felt happier than she had for months before.
A light tap at the door, and Kitty entered.
“I'll stay with her while you go and eat supper. Charley
said he'd come; but I'd like well enough to sit down a little
while. My! — she's pretty-looking; isn't she?”
“The prettiest child I ever saw,” replied Dora, with her
usual decision; and then the two girls stood for a moment
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looking down at the delicate little face, where, since the food
and bath Dora had administered, a bright color showed
itself upon the cheeks and lips; while the short, thick curls,
carefully brushed, clustered around the white forehead,
defining its classic shape, and contrasting with its pearly
tints.
“Who can she be?” asked Kitty in a whisper.
“Some sort of foreigner, — French maybe, or perhaps
Italian. She has talked considerably since I gave her the
broth; but I can't make out a word she says. She spoke
English when I first met her; but I don't believe she knows
much of it,” said Dora thoughtfully.
“There is something sewed up in a little bag, and hung
round her neck,” added she, “just such as some of our
foreign volunteers had, — a sort of charm, you know, to
keep them from being struck by the evil eye. That shows
that her friends must have been foreigners.”
“Yes; and Catholics too, likely enough,” said Kitty
rather contemptuously; adding, after a pause, —
“Well, you go down, and I'll sit by her a while. If she
sleeps as sound as this, I don't suppose I need stay a great
while. There's the supper-dishes to do.”
“I'll wash them, of course; but, if you want to come
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down, you might leave the door open at the head of the back
stairs, and I should hear if she called or cried. And, now I
think of it, I have a letter to show Karl and you. I got it
at the post-office?”
“From Mr. Brown?” asked Kitty quickly.
“No, from a Mr. Burroughs; a man I never heard of in
my life till to-day. But come down in a few minutes, and
I will read it to you.”
“Well, don't read it till I come.”
“No: I won't.” And Dora quietly went out of the room,
leaving Kitty to swing backward and forward in the whitecushioned
rocking-chair, her dark eyes wandering half contemptuously,
half enviously, over Dora's collection of treasures,
with an occasional glance at the sleeping child.
-- 167 -- p453-172
CHAPTER XX. A LETTER AND AN OFFER.
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In the kitchen, Dora found Karl waiting for her; and,
while she eat her supper with the healthy relish of a young
and vigorous creature, she gave her cousin an account of all
the circumstances attending her meeting with the little girl,
whom she described again as a foreigner, and probably
French.
“And what's to be done with her, Dora?” asked the
young man rather gravely, when she had finished.
“Why, when she is well enough to tell who she is, and
where she came from, — that is, if she can talk English at all,—
we can return her to her friends; or, if they are not to be
discovered, I will keep her myself. That is,” — and the
young girl paused suddenly, the blood rushing to her face, as
she added, — “that is, if you and Kitty are willing. It is
your house, not mine; though I'm afraid I am apt to
forget.”
Karl looked at her reproachfully.
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“When I brought you here, Dora Darling, I brought you
home; and when my mother died, not yet a year ago, did
she not bid us live together as brother and sisters, in love
and harmony?”
“Yes; but” —
“But what, Dora?”
“I am afraid sometimes I behave too much as if it were
my own house,” faltered Dora.
“And so it is your own house, just as it is my own and
Kitty's own. Have either of us ever made you feel that
there was any difference, or that you had less right here
than we?”
Dora made no reply; and, while Karl still waited for one,
the staircase-door opened softly, and Kitty appeared.
“The child is fast asleep,” said she: “so I thought I
would come down and hear the letter.”
“What letter?” asked Karl a little impatiently.
“Oh! I haven't told you. Here it is.”
And Dora drew from her pocket, and held toward him, a
large white envelope, boldly directed to
“Miss Dora Darling, care of Capt. Charles Windsor.”
“That's nonsense. I have beaten my sword into a
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ploughshare now, and am only plain mister,” said Capt.
Karl, glancing at the direction.
“Well, read the letter, do; I'm dying to hear it,” said
Kitty impatiently; and her brother, with an affection of
extreme haste, unfolded the thick, large sheet of note-paper,
and read aloud: —
“Having been requested to communicate with Miss
Darling upon a matter of importance, Mr. Thomas Burroughs
will do himself the honor of calling upon her,
probably in the afternoon of Thursday, Aug. 25.
“Cincinnati, Aug. 20.”
“Thursday, 25th! Why, that is to-morrow!” exclaimed
Karl, as he finished reading.
“Dated Cincinnati, you see! It is some message from
Mr. Brown. He lives about twenty miles from Cincinnati,”
said Kitty eagerly.
“I don't think so. Why should Mr. Brown send a message
when he writes to me so often?” replied Dora with
simplicity.
“I should think he did. I suppose you expected a letter
this afternoon, and that was what made you so bent upon
driving to town in all the heat.”
“It wasn't very hot, and you know we needed these things
from the shop.”
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“From the grocery-store, do you mean?” asked Kitty
sharply.
“Yes.”
“Why can't you talk as we do, then? You have been
here long enough now, I should think.”
“Because she knows how to talk better, Miss Kit,” said
Karl good-humoredly. “Calling a shop a store is an
Americanism, like calling a station-house a dépôt, or
trousers pants.”
“Well, I thought we were Americans, Dora and all,”
retorted Kitty.
“Mercy, child! don't let us plunge from philology into
ethnology. I prefer to speculate upon Mr. Thomas Burroughs.
Who is he? and what does he want of our Dora?”
“To marry her, I suppose, or to ask her to marry Mr.
Brown,” snapped Kitty.
“Perhaps he wants to ask my good word toward marrying
you,” suggested Dora, coloring deeply.
“No such good luck as that, eh, Kitty?” said Karl with
a laugh.
“Good luck! I'm sure I'm in no hurry to be married;
and, though I haven't had Dora's chances of seeing all sorts
of men, I dare say I shall get as good a husband in the
end,” replied Kitty loftily.
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“But, contemplating for one moment the idea that it may
not be an offer of marriage that Mr. Thomas Burroughs
means by a `matter of importance,' let us consider what else
it can be,” said Karl with a quizzical smile.
“Perhaps he wants your ideas upon the campaign in
Western Virginia, and a report of the general's real
motives and intentions,” suggested Dora gayly.
“Perhaps he wants to engage his winter's butter; though
I don't believe Dora is the one to ask about that,” said
Kitty.
“Now, Kitty! I'm sure I made up the last, and you said
it was as nice as you could do yourself.”
“Yes; but you turned all the buttermilk into the pig's
pail instead of saving it for biscuits.”
“So I did. Well, as dear old Picter used to say, `What's
the use ob libin' if you've got trew larnin'?”'
“O Dora! how can you, how can you! — you cruel, cruel
girl, how can you speak of him!” cried Kitty in a passion
of anger and grief; and, pushing back her chair so violently
as to upset it, she rushed out of the room.
“Oh, I am so sorry!” exclaimed Dora in great distress;
and would have followed her, had not Karl held her back.
“Don't go, dear; it will be of no use: she will not let
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you into her room. Poor Kitty! she loved her mother so
passionately, and her nature is so intense! We must make
many excuses, Dora, for our sister's little inequalities of temper:
I think her great loss is at the bottom of all.”
Dora looked thoughtful, and presently said slowly, “I
know it, Karl; but it does seem to me rather unjust that she
should hate poor Pic's memory so bitterly even now. He
did not know any more than I that he had small-pox when
he came back that time from New York; and when Kitty
told him that Aunt Lucy had taken it from him, and was
very sick, he felt so badly, that I think it prevented his getting
well.”
“O Dora, don't say that! Kitty could not have blamed
him openly.”
“I don't know what she said; but, from that day, he grew
worse, and died without being able to bid me good-by,—
Pic, who brought me away from those cruel people, and
cared for me as if I had been his child. O dear, dear old
Pic!”
She did not cry; she very seldom did: but she clasped
her hands tightly together, and looked so white and wild,
that Karl came to her, and, taking her in his arms, would
have soothed and caressed her like a little child, had not she
repulsed him.
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“Please not, dear Karl! I must bear my griefs alone;
for I am alone in all the world.”
It was the bitterest sentence Dora had ever spoken, and
her cousin looked at her in dismay.
“If Picter could have given the disease to me instead of
to aunt, and he and I could have journeyed on together
into another world as we had through this, and left your
mother to Kitty and you!” continued Dora; while in her
eyes, and about her white lips, quivered a passion of grief
far beyond any tears, — far beyond, thank God! any grief
that eyes and lips so young are often called to express.
And as it rose and swelled in her girl heart, and shook her
strong young soul, Dora uttered in one word all the bitterness
of her orphaned life.
“Mother!” cried she, and clinched her hands above the
sharp pain that seemed to suffocate her, — the pain we call
heart-ache, and might sometimes more justly call heartbreak.
Karl looked at her, and his gay young face grew strong,
and full of meaning. He folded her again in his arms, and
said, —
“Dora, I had not meant to speak yet; but I cannot see
you so, or hear you say such words. Do not you know,
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cousin, that there is nothing in all the world I love like you;
and that, while I live, you can never be alone; and, while I
have a home, you can never want one, or be other than its
head and centre? Dora, marry me, and I will make you
forget all other loves in the excess of mine.” Dora allowed
her head to droop upon his shoulder, and a sudden sense of
peace and rest fell temptingly upon her spirit.
“Dora, Dora Darling always, even when you are all my
Dora!” whispered Karl; but Dora released herself from
his arms, and stood upright. Her face was strong again
now, although very white; and she said, —
“Thank you, cousin. You are good and kind, as you
always have been, and I am glad you love me as I love
you; but what else you have said we will forget. I am too
young to think of such things, and you will not feel so
to-morrow or next day. Be my brother, as you have been;
and let me be sister to you and Kitty, as aunt told us. Only
I wish I could make Kitty love me.”
The young man would have persisted; but Dora, gravely
shaking her head, said, —
“Karl dear, you only distress me, and I want to be quiet.
Do not speak of this again for at least another year, and
then, perhaps, you will not want to.”
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“But in a year I may, if I do want to?” asked Karl
eagerly.
“I don't want to say that; for I don't know that I
should want you to then,” said Dora, with such exquisite
simplicity, that the young man laughed outright, and said, —
“But you don't know that you sha'n't, do you, darling
Dorelle?”
“I didn't say so.”
“No; but — Well, I won't insist; only I shall put down
the date. Let me see: Aug. 24, isn't it?”
He took out his note-book, wrote a few words, and, glancing
at Dora with a suppressed smile, put it away again.
Then, more seriously, he took her hand, saying, —
“Only remember one thing, Dora; and that is, whatever
may come in the future, this house is your home as long
as it is ours; and, while I live, there is always some one
who loves you best of all God's creatures.”
-- 176 -- p453-181
CHAPTER XXI. GIOVANNI'S ROOM.
[figure description] Page 176.[end figure description]
“Ochone! an' it's weary work climbin' thim stairs,”
groaned Mrs. Ginniss, pausing upon the landing outside the
organ-grinder's door.
“An' mabbe she's wid him still. Anyway, I'll see, an'
save the coomin' down agin.”
With these words, Mrs. Ginniss gave a modest rap upon
the door, and, as it remained unanswered, a somewhat
louder one, calling at the same time, —
“Misther Jovarny! Misther Jovarny, I say! Is it out
yees still are?”
The question remaining unanswered, the good woman
waited no longer, but, climbing the remaining flight of stairs,
took the key of her room from the shelf in Teddy's closet
where it had been left, and unlocked the door.
“Cherry, darlint, be ye widin?” asked she, throwing it
open; and then, recollecting herself, added, —
“An' sure how could she be, widout she kim in trew
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the kayhole? But, blissid Vargin! where would they be all
the day long?”
So saying, Mrs. Ginniss threw up the window, and looked
anxiously down the street in the direction where Giovanni
and Cherry had that morning disappeared.
Nothing was to be seen of them; but, just turning the
corner, came Teddy, his straw-hat pushed back upon his
forehead, and his steps slow and undecided. He was
thinking wearily, as he often thought of late, that the time
had come when he could no longer withhold his little sister
from the friends to whom she really belonged; and it was
not alone the heat of the August night that brought the
great drops of perspiration to the boy's forehead, or drew
the white line around his mouth.
“It's quicker nor that you'll stip, my b'y, whin you hear
the little sisther's not in yit, an' it's wid Jovarny she is,”
muttered Mrs. Ginniss; and, half dreading the entrance of
her son, she applied herself so diligently to making a fire in
preparation for supper, that she did not appear to notice
him.
“Good-evening, mother. Where's Cherry?” asked
Teddy, throwing himself wearily into a chair just inside the
door.
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“An' is it yersilf, gossoon? An' it's the big hate is in it
intirely.”
“Yes: it's hot enough. Where's Cherry?”
“Takin' a little walk, honey. You wouldn't be shuttin'
the poor child into the house this wedder, sure?”
“Taking a walk! — what, alone!” exclaimed Teddy, sitting
upright very suddenly.
“Of coorse not. Misther Jovarny was perlite enough to
ax her; an' she wor that wild to go, I couldn't say her no.”
“I wish you had said no, mother. I hate to let her be
with that fellow, anyway. I'd have taken her to walk myself,
if I was twice as tired. How long have they been
gone?”
And Teddy, in his turn, looked anxiously out at the window,
but saw nothing more than the squalid street weltering
in the last rays of the August sun; a knot of children fighting
in the gutter over the body of a dead cat; an old-clothes
man sauntering wearily along the pavement, and a dog, with
lolling tongue and blood-shot eyes, following close at his
heels.
“How long have they been out?” asked Teddy again, as
he drew in his head, and looked full at his mother, whose
confusion struck him with a sudden dismay.
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“O mother!” cried he, “what is it? There's more than
you're telling me amiss. How long is she gone?”
“Sure an' I didn't mind the clock whin they wint,” said
Mrs. Ginniss, still struggling to avoid the shock she felt
approaching.
“No, no; but you can tell! O mother! do speak out,
for the love of God! I can see how scared you are, though
you won't say it. Tell me right out all there is to tell.”
“An' it's no great there is to till, Teddy darlint; on'y
this mornin', whin I was sint for to Ann Dolan (an' she
that bad it's dead we thought she wor one spell, but for
Docther Wintworth), Jovarny kim up, an' axed might the
child go for a walk to the Gardens wid him; an' I jist puttin'
on me shawl to go out, an' not wantin' to take the little
crather in wid a sick woman, nor yet to lock the door on
her, an' lave her to fret. So I says she might go wid him;
and, whin she coom home, I tould Jovarny to open the door
wid the kay an' let her in, an' showed her the dinner on the
shelf by: an' if it's harm that's coom to her, it's harder on
me than on yersilf it'll fall; an' my heart is bruck, is bruck
intirely.”
Throwing her apron over her head, Mrs. Ginniss fell into
a chair, and gave way to the agitation and alarm she had so
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long suppressed; but Teddy, ordinarily so kind, and tender
of his mother, only stared at her blankly, and repeated, —
“This morning! How early this morning?”
“I wor jist afther washin' the bit breakfast-dishes,”
sobbed Mrs. Ginniss.
“Twelve hours or near!” exclaimed Teddy in dismay.
“And is it to the Gardens he said he'd take her?”
“Shure an' did he!”
“To the Public Gardens, the City Gardens, just by the
Commons?” persisted Teddy.
“Jist the Gardens wor all he said; an' towld me the
shwans that wor in it, an' the bit posies.”
“Yes: there's swans there, and posies enough,” muttered
Teddy, and, snatching the hat he had thrown upon a chair
as he entered, rushed out of the room and down the stairs at
headlong speed.
But, before he could possibly have reached the Garden, the
sun had set, all visitors were excluded, and the gate-keeper
had gone home. Nothing daunted, Teddy scaled the high
iron fence; ran rapidly through all the paths, arbors, nooks,
and corners of the place; and finally returned over the fence,
just in time to be collared by a policeman, who had been
watching him: but so sincere was the boy's tone and
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manner, as he assured the official that he was after no harm,
but was looking for his little sister, who had been taken
away from home, and, as he feared, lost, that the guardian
of the public peace not only released him, but inquired with
some interest into the particulars of the case; saying that
he had been upon his beat nearly all day, and should have
been likely to notice any one remaining in the Garden longer
than usual.
Teddy, with anxious minuteness, described the appearance
both of the lost child and the “organ-fellow,” as he
called Giovanni; and gave the particulars of their leaving
home as his mother had given them to him. The policeman
listened attentively, but shook his head at the end.
“Haven't seen any sich,” said he. “Them I-talian
fellers is a bad lot; and I shouldn't wonder if he'd took off
the child to learn her to play a tambourine, and go round
picking up coppers for him. You'd better wait till morning;
and, if they don't turn up, her mother can go and tell the
chief about it.”
“Chief of police?” asked Teddy.
“Yes; but it ain't always he can do any thing. There
was that little gal, a year ago pretty nigh, belonged to a man
by the name of Legrange. She was lost, and they offered a
-- 182 --
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reward of ten thousand dollars finally; but she warn't never
heard from. You see, there's sich a many children all
about: and come to change their clothes, and crop their
hair, it's hard to tell t'other from which,” said the policeman
meditatively; and then, suddenly resuming his official
dignity, added, “You mustn't never get over that fence again,
though: mind that, young man.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Teddy, turning away to hide the
guilty confusion of his face; and, as he hurried home, he
anxiously revolved the idea of applying to the police for aid,
should Cherry remain absent after the next morning. But
Teddy knew something of the law, and had too often seen
better hidden secrets than his own ferreted out and brought
to the light by its searching finger, to wish to trust himself
within its grasp; at any rate, just yet.
“If I find her, I'll give her up, and tell all, and never
touch the reward; but how can I go and say she's lost
again?” thought Teddy, with a sick heart. And when, running
up the stairs, his quick eyes caught sight of his mother's
face, his own turned so ghastly white, that she ran toward
him, crying, —
“An' is it dead you've found her, Teddy?”
“Worse; for she's lost; and all that comes to her is on
-- 183 --
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my shoulders,” said Teddy hoarsely, as he stood just within
the door, looking hungrily about the room, as if he hoped,
in some forgotten corner, to light upon his lost treasure.
“Did Jovarny take his organ and the monkey?” asked
he suddenly.
“Sure, and he didn't; for I mind luckin' afther him
going down the street.”
“Then he'll be back!” exclaimed the boy eagerly; but
the next moment the new hope died out of his face, and he
muttered, —
“He might have taken them before. Anyway, I'll soon
see;” and, running down the stairs, Teddy applied his
sturdy shoulder and knee to the rickety door of the Italian's
room. Neither door nor lock was fitted to withstand much
force; and, with a sharp sound of rending wood and breaking
iron, they flew apart; and Teddy, stepping over the threshold,
glanced eagerly around. The room was stripped of
every thing except the poor furniture, which Teddy knew
the Italian had hired with it, and the wooden box where he
had kept his clothes. Of this the key remained in the lock;
and the boy, lifting the lid, soon discovered that a few worthless
rags were all that remained.
“He's gone, and she with him!” groaned Teddy,
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dropping the box-cover, and standing upright to look again
through the deserted room. His mother stood in the doorway.
“Och, Teddy! an' it's desaved us intirely he has, — the
black-hearted crather; an' may the cuss o' Crom'ell stick to
him day an' night, an' turn his sleep to wakin', an' his mate
to pizen, till all I wish him is wished out!”
“It's no good cursing or wishing, mother,” said Teddy
bitterly. “If there was, I'd curse myself the first; for it's
on me it had ought to fall.”
“Sorra a bit of that, thin, Teddy mavourneen; for iver
an' always it was yersilf that wor tinder an' careful uv her
that's gone; an' yersilf it wor that saved the life of her the
night she first come home to us; an' it's none but good that
iver yees did her in all the days of yer life; an', if there's
any blame to be had betwixt us, it's on yer poor owld
mother it should be laid, — her that loved the purty darlint
as if she'd been her own, an', if she's lost, will carry a
brucken heart to her grave wid mournin' afther her. O
wurra, wurra, acushla machree! Och the heavy day an'
the black night that's in it! Holy Jasus, have mercy on us!
Spake the good word for us, blissid Vargin! Saint Bridget
-- 185 --
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(that's me own namesake), stip up an' intersade for us now,
if iver; for black is the nade we have uv help.”
Falling upon her knees, and pulling a rosary of wooden
beads from her bosom, the Irish woman pursued her petitions,
mingling them with tears and exclamations more or
less pathetic and grotesque; while Teddy, seated upon the
Italian's empty box, his head between his hands, his elbows
upon his knees, his eyes fixed steadily upon the floor, gave
up his young heart a prey to such remorse as might fitly punish
even a heavier crime than that of which his conscience
accused him.
-- 186 -- p453-191
CHAPTER XXII. THE CONFESSION.
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The morning came, but brought no comfort. Mrs. Ginniss
had crept up stairs, and, throwing herself upon the bed,
had fallen asleep with the tears still trickling down her honest
face; but to Teddy's haggard eyes no sleep had come,
and he had only changed his position by stretching himself
upon the floor beside the box, his head upon his arm, his
aching eyeballs still shaping in the darkness the form and
features of the little sister whom he had sullenly resolved
was lost to him forever as a punishment for his fault in concealing
her.
“If I'd brought her back,” thought he again and again,
“they'd have let me get seeing her once in a while; they
couldn't have refused me so much; and maybe some day I'd
have been a gentleman, and could have talked with her free
and equal. But now she's lost to them and to me; and, when
I tell the master, he'll call me a mean thief and a liar, and
-- 187 --
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a rascal every way, and he'll never look at me again; and
mother” —
Then he would wander away into dreary speculation upon
what his mother would say when the truth was made known
to her, and she found the boy on whom she had lavished
her love and pride dishonored and discarded by the master
to whom he owed so much, and whose patronage she
had taken such pains to secure for him; and then, like the
weary burden of a never-ending song, would come again
the thought, —
“But if I'd brought her back at the first!”
The bitter growth of the night, however, had borne fruit
in a resolution firm as it was painful; and, when Teddy came
up stairs to make himself fit to go to the office, he was able
to say some words of comfort to his mother, assuring her
that no blame to her could come of what had happened, and
that it was possible the child might yet be found, as he
should warn those of her loss who could use surer means to
search for her than any at their command.
“An' is it the perlice ye're manin'?” asked Mrs. Ginniss.
“Sure it's little they'd heed the loss o' poor folks
like us, or look for one little child that's missin', whin there's
more nor enough uv 'em to the fore in ivery poor man's
-- 188 --
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house. But niver a one like ours, Teddy b'y, — niver
another purty darlint like her that's gone.”
Teddy made no reply to this, but, hastily swallowing some
food, took his hat, and left the room.
Upon the stairs he met the landlord, who, followed by a
furniture-broker, entered the room of the organ-grinder.
Going in after them, Teddy learned, in answer to his eager
questions, that the broker had, early in the morning of the
previous day, received a visit from the Italian, who, announcing
that he had no further use for the furniture, paid what
was owing for the rent of it, and made a bargain for a box he
was about to leave behind him; but, as to his subsequent
movements, the man had no information to give, nor could
even judge whether he intended leaving the city, or only the
house.
Thanking him for the information, Teddy went drearily on
his way, more hopelessly convinced than ever that Giovanni
had deliberately stolen the child, and absconded with her.
“Well,” muttered he, “all I've got to do now is to tell the
master, and take what I'll get. If he finds the little — no:
she's none of that, nor ever was — if he finds her, and takes
her home to them that lost her, I'll be content, if it's to
prison, or to sweeping the streets, or to be a slave in the
South, he sends me.”
-- 189 --
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Arrived at the office, Teddy faithfully performed his morning
duties, and then seated himself to wait for Mr. Barlow,
who was again occupying Mr. Burroughs's office during that
gentleman's absence in the West. While arranging upon his
table some papers he was to copy, Teddy suddenly remembered
that other morning, now nearly a year ago, when Mr.
Burroughs had laid upon this very table the picture and advertisement
of the lost child; and all the months of guilty
hesitation and concealment that since had passed seemed to
roll back upon the boy's heart, crushing it into the very dust.
He threw down the pen he had just taken up, and laid his
head upon his folded arms, groaning aloud, —
“Oh! if I had told him then! if I had just told him that
morning!”
The door of the office opened quickly; and Mr. Barlow, a
grave and reserved young man, who had never taken much
notice of Teddy, entered, and, as he passed to the inner room,
glanced with some curiosity at the boy, whose emotion was
not to be quite concealed.
“If you please, sir” —
“Well, Teddy?”
“I should like to send a letter to Mr. Burroughs.”
“Do you mean a letter from yourself?”
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“Yes, sir.”
A slight smile crossed Mr. Barlow's face, as he replied a
little sneeringly, —
“I am afraid your business will have to wait till Mr.
Burroughs's return, my boy.”
“Don't you be sending him letters, sir?”
“I have; but, when I heard from him yesterday, he
was about leaving Cincinnati, and gave me no further
address. He will be at home in a day or two.”
Mr. Barlow passed on, and Teddy stooped over his work,
but to so little purpose, that, on submitting it for inspection,
he received a sharp reproof for his negligence, and an order
to do the whole afresh.
“What a Quixotism of Burroughs's to try to educate this
stupid fellow!” muttered Mr. Barlow to a friend who lounged
beside his table; and Teddy, hearing the criticism upon his
patron, felt an added weight fall upon his own conscience.
“They laugh at him because I'm stupid, and I'm stupid
because I'm thinking of what I've done. It's good that
they'll soon be shut of me altogether. Maybe I can sweep
the crossings, or clean the gutters,” thought poor miserable
Teddy, bending afresh to his task.
Mr. Burroughs did not come so soon as expected; and Mr.
-- 191 --
[figure description] Page 191.[end figure description]
Barlow became quite impatient of the constant inquiries
addressed to him by Teddy as to the probable movements of
his master. At last, about noon of Friday, he walked
into the office, looking more cheerful and like his old self
than he had been since the heavy sorrow had fallen upon the
household so near to his heart.
Mr. Barlow greeted him heartily, and, calling him into the
inner office, closed the door; while Teddy remained without,
his heart beating with a sick hard throb, a tingling pain
creeping from his brain to the ends of his icy fingers, and his
whole frame trembling with agitation.
It was no light task that he had set himself; and so
he well knew. To stand before the man he loved and reverenced
before all men, and say to him that he had been for
months deliberately deceiving and injuring him and his; to
confess that he had not once, but persistently, refused the
only chance ever offered him of repaying, in some measure,
the kindness and generosity of his patron; to acknowledge
himself selfish, deceitful, mean, and, more than these, ungrateful, —
oh! it was no light task that the boy had set
himself; and yet his resolution never faltered.
Great acts are only great in the light of the actor's previous
history and training; and perhaps the atonement
-- 192 --
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Teddy now contemplated was for him as heroic as that of
the martyred bishop who held the hand that had signed the
recantation steadily in the flame until it was consumed.
The door of the office opened, and the two gentlemen
were passing out together, when Teddy started up, —
“If you please, sir, might I speak with you by yourself?”
“Oh, yes! Teddy has been very anxious for an interview
with you all the week. I will go on, and expect you down
there presently,” said Mr. Barlow.
“Yes, in two minutes. Come in here, Teddy, and let us
hear what you have to say.”
Mr. Burroughs threw himself into the chair he had just
quitted, and stirred the fire, saying good-humoredly, —
“Out with it, my boy! What's amiss?”
Teddy, standing beside the table, one clammy hand grasping
the edge of it, seemed to feel the floor heave beneath his
feet, and the whole room to reel and swim before his eyes.
His tongue seemed paralyzed, his lips quivered, his voice came
to his own ears strange and hollow; but still he struggled
on, resolute to reach the worst.
“It's about the little girl that was lost, sir, — your little
cousin Antoinette.”
-- 193 --
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“'Toinette Legrange!” cried Mr. Burroughs, his face
suddenly growing earnest as he turned it upon the boy, and
asked, —
“What is it? Have you heard of her?”
“Yes, sir. I found her in the street the night she was
lost. She was dressed in poor clothes, and her hair was
cut off. I didn't know who she was; and I took her home
to my mother, and asked her to keep her for my little
sister, because I never got one, and always wanted her.
Then she was sick; and one day you told me she was
lost, and showed me the picture and the piece in the paper;
and I knew it was her. Then I thought she was going
to die, and I waited to know; and, when she got better, I
waited a while longer; and at last she was well, and I
couldn't bear to part with her” —
“But she is safe now?” interrupted Mr. Burroughs,
his look of stern reproach mingling with a sudden hope.
“No, sir: she's lost!”
“What!”
Teddy's white lips tried again and again before they
could form the words, —
“She's lost again, sir! She went out walking with
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[figure description] Page 194.[end figure description]
Jovarny, that's an organ-grinder, last Monday morning; and
he has taken her off.”
“You miserable fellow! You had better have killed
as well as stolen her!” exclaimed Mr. Burroughs.
Teddy clung to the table, and reeled as if a physical blow
had fallen upon him. It was the first time in the four
years they had spent together that his master had spoken
to him in anger, and now, —
“Five days ago! And what have you done in that
time towards looking for her?” asked Mr. Burroughs
sternly.
“Nothing, sir. I wanted to write to you, but couldn't
get any direction.”
“And why didn't you tell Mr. Barlow, and let him set
the police at work? If you had warned him as soon as
you discovered the loss, this organ-grinder might have been
caught. Now he is perhaps in New Orleans, perhaps half-way
to Europe. Why didn't you tell Barlow, I say?”
“Please, sir, I couldn't bear telling any one but you that
I done it,” said Teddy in a low voice.
“Well, sir, and, now you have told me, you will please
walk out of this office, and never enter it again. I did not
imagine, that, in all these months, you were preparing such
-- 195 --
[figure description] Page 195.[end figure description]
a pleasant surprise for me. One question, however: did
your mother know who the child was?”
“No, sir: never.”
“Then you may thank her that I let you off so easily;
but I never desire to see either of you again after to-day.
Wait here for one hour, while I go with a detective to hear
your mother's story and to get a description of this organ-grinder.
At two o'clock, leave the office; and take with
you whatever belongs to yourself, and nothing more.”
Mechanically obeying his master's gesture, Teddy staggered
out of the room. Mr. Burroughs followed him, and,
locking the door of the inner office, put the key in his
pocket, and went out.
“He thinks I'm a thief!” was the bitter thought that
darted through Teddy's mind; and then, “And how
could I steal more than when I stole her? He's right to
lock up from me.”
-- 196 -- p453-201
CHAPTER XXIII. TEDDY LOSES AND FINDS HIS HOME.
[figure description] Page 196.[end figure description]
An hour later, Teddy, leaving behind him the books,
papers, pictures, every thing that Mr. Burroughs had given
him, and taking only the few articles of his clothing which
happened to be at the office, crept out of the door and
down the stairs with the look of a veritable thief.
Choosing the least-frequented streets, and avoiding the
recognition of such of his acquaintance as chanced to meet
him, he slunk homeward, feeling a little less wretched, but
infinitely more degraded, than he had done before his confession.
Mr. Burroughs knew, his mother knew, the police-officials
knew, — how could he tell who did not know? — of his
shame and guilt. Every pair of eyes seemed to accuse
him; every step seemed to pursue him; every distant voice
seemed to summon him to receive the punishment of his
misdoing; and it was as to a refuge that he at last hurried
in at the door and up the stairs of the tenement-house.
-- 197 --
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At the upper landing, however, he paused. His mother!—
oh the sorrow and the shame that he had brought upon
her in payment for all her love and effort, and the constant
sacrifices she had made, ever since he could remember, to
enable him to rise above his natural station, and to appear
as well as his future associates! It came back to him now,—
not a new thought, but one intensified by the more immediate
suffering of the last two hours. He leaned for a
moment against the wall, and wiped his clammy brow,
feeling that any sudden death, any strange chance that
could befall him, would be welcome, so that it swallowed
up the coming moment, and spared him the sight of the
misery he had wrought.
Only a moment. Then the desperate courage that had
carried him through his confession to his master gave him
strength to open the door and enter.
The ironing-table was spread, and upon a half-finished
shirt lay a little pile of money. Teddy knew that it was
the wages owing him since the last payment, and turned
away his eyes with loathing.
Mrs. Ginniss was lying upon the bed, her face buried in
the pillow, sobbing heavily and wearily, as if exhausted by
excessive emotion.
-- 198 --
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Teddy closed the door softly, and stood looking at her,
uncertain whether she had heard him enter. In the room
below, the little child of the new tenants sung, at her play,
an air that Cherry had often sung.
Teddy listened, and, when the little song was done, cried
out, —
“O mother! haven't you a word for me? I believe I'll
go mad next.”
“Don't be spakin' to me, you bowld, bad b'y! It's niver
a word I have for yees, or wants from yees!” sobbed Mrs.
Ginniss.
Teddy looked at her drearily for a moment; then softly
seated himself, his hands folded listlessly in his lap, his eyes
wandering idly about the familiar room, and his mind journeying
on and on in the weary, mechanical manner of a
mind over-wrought and stunned by long-continued or excessive
suffering.
From the street below rose the hum and bustle of city
life; from the room that had been Giovanni's, the voice of
the child, still singing at her play. In at the open window
streamed the thick yellow sunshine of the August afternoon,
and a great droning blue fly buzzed upon the pane.
Teddy noted every sound; watched the motes dancing in
-- 199 --
[figure description] Page 199.[end figure description]
the sunshine, the fly bouncing up and down the little window,
the movements of the cat, who, rising from her nap, stretched
every limb separately, yawned, lazily lapped at her saucer
of milk, and then, seating herself in the patch of lurid sunshine,
with her tail curled round her fore-paws, blinked
drowsily for a few minutes, and then dozed off again.
But, whether he listened or whether he looked, it was but
ear and eye that noted these familiar and homely sounds or
sights. The mind still journeyed on and on in that weary
journey without beginning or end; that dull, heavy tramp
through black night, with no hope of ever reaching morning;
that vain flight from a pain not for one moment to be forgotten
or left behind; that numb consciousness of an evil, that,
wait as we will, must sooner or later be met and recognized.
A long hour passed, and Mrs. Ginniss suddenly arose
and confronted her son.
“If iver I larnt ye any thin', ye black-hearted b'y,
what wor it?”
Teddy raised his heavy eyes to his mother's face, but
made no answer.
“Worn't it to sarch iver an' always for the chance to do
a good turn to him as has done all for yees that yer own
-- 200 --
[figure description] Page 200.[end figure description]
father could, an' more? Worn't that the lesson I've struv to
larn ye this four year back, Teddy Ginniss?”
“Yes, mother,” said the boy in a low voice.
“An' haven't I towld ye, that, so as ye did it, my blessin'
was wid yees, an' so as ye turned yer back on it my cuss'
ud folly yees, an' the cuss uv God an' all his saints and
angels?”
“Yes, mother.”
“An' it's yersilf that's tuck heed uv me words, an' done
yer best to kape 'em; isn't it, me fine lad?” pursued the
mother with bitter irony.
“I did always, mother, till” — began Teddy humbly; but
his mother angrily interrupted him.
“Alluz till ye got the chance to do contrairy, an' plaze
yersilf at his expense. Sure, an' it wor mighty perlite uv
yees to wait that long, an' it's greatly obleeged to yees he
shud be.”
She waited a moment, standing before the boy, who, still
seated droopingly in the chair where he had first fallen, his
heavy eyes looking straight before him, offered neither reply
nor remonstrance; while his mother, setting her hands upon
her hips, looked scornfully at him a moment longer, and
then exclaimed, —
-- 201 --
[figure description] Page 201.[end figure description]
“An' have ye niver a word to say for yersilf, ye whitelivered
coward? Is there niver anudder lie on yer tongue
like thim ye found so handy this twelvemouth back? Git out
uv me sight, ye spalpeen, and out uv me doors! Go find
them as 'll kape yees to stale rich folks' children, an' thin lie
to the mother as bore yees, and the kind masther as tried to
make a gintleman out uv a thafe. Begone, I say, Teddy
Ginniss, and quit pizenin' the air of an honest woman's
room wid yer prisince!”
Teddy rose, and was leaving the room without a word,
but at the door turned back; looked long and wistfully at his
mother, who had turned away, and affected not to see him;
then slowly said, —
“Good-by, mother! It's worse nor you can I'm feeling.
Good-by! If ever I come to any good, I'll let you know;
and, if I don't, you're shut of me for always.”
The mother made no answer; and Teddy, lingering one
moment on the threshold to turn his sad eyes for the last
time upon the familiar objects that had surrounded him
since childhood, went out, and down the stairs.
In the street he paused a moment, looking up and down,
wondering where he should first go, and how food and shelter
for the coming night were to be obtained. The question
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yet unsolved, he was walking slowly on; when a voice far
overhead called, —
“Teddy! — Teddy Ginniss! Come here, I say!”
It was his mother's voice; and, as he looked up, it was
his mother's face and hand summoning him.
In the same forlorn, stunned way that he had come down,
Teddy climbed the stairs again, feeling as if his feet were
shod with lead, or the terrible weight at his heart was too
heavy to be carried a step farther.
He pushed open the door of his mother's room, but never
looked up or spoke, although he knew she stood close behind
it. But, indeed, there could have been no time, had the
boy wished to speak; for already his mother's arms were
around his neck, and her head upon his stout shoulder, while
the passionate tears fell like rain upon his hands.
“Ochone, ochone! An' it's me own an' only b'y yees
are, an' must be, Teddy darlint; an' it's mesilf that 'ud be
worse nor a haythin to turn yees inter the strate, so long as
it's a roof an' a bit I have left for yees. An' sure, if ye've
gone asthray, it's the heart uv yees that's bruck wid frettin'
afther it; an' there's a many as has done wuss, and niver a
hape it harmed 'em here nor hereafter. An', if Michael
wor here the day, it's himself 'ud say to pass it by; an' it
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wor little I should be plazin' his blissid sowl to turn yees
off for one fault. Kiss yer owld mother, honey, an' be her
own b'y agin!”
“Thank you, mother,” said Teddy, still in the strange,
low voice he had used before; and, putting his arms round
her neck, he met and returned her hearty kiss, and then,
without another word, went and shut himself into the little
loft he called his own, and was seen no more that night.
-- 204 -- p453-209
CHAPTER XXIV. MR. BURROUGHS'S BUSINESS.
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It was the afternoon of Thursday, Aug. 25: and
Dora, sitting beside the bed where her little charge lay
sleeping heavily, heard the rattle of wheels, and, peeping
from the window, saw Karl jumping from the wagon, followed
more slowly by a tall, handsome young gentleman,
whom she concluded to be Mr. Burroughs; her cousin having
gone to meet him at the railway-station, seven miles
away.
“He's good-looking enough for a colonel,” thought Dora,
and then started back, coloring a little; for Mr. Burroughs,
in entering the house, had glanced up, and caught her eye.
The next minute, Kitty darted into the room from her own
chamber.
“They've come! Did you see him? Isn't he a real
beauty? I do love a tall man! — he's as tall as Mr. Brown,
and his whiskers are ever so much prettier; but, then, Mr.
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Brown's a minister. My! how nice you look, Dora! Go
right down, and I'll stay with little Molly.”
Dora glanced involuntarily at the mirror, and caught the
reflection of a bright face, surrounded by heavy chestnut
curls, and lighted with clear hazel eyes, and flashing white
teeth, a head of queenly shape and poise, and a firm, graceful
figure, well set off by its white dress, black bodice,
and scarlet ribbons, — a charming picture, with the quaintly
decorated chamber for background, and the heavy black
frame of the old mirror for setting: and a brighter color
flashed into the young girl's cheek as she recognized the
fact; but she only said, —
“Why do you call her Molly, Kitty?”
“Oh! just a fancy name. We must call her something,
and can't find out her right name.”
“She called it Sunshine,” said Dora, bending to kiss the
pale little face upon the pillow as she passed.
“Moonshine, more like,” replied Kitty. “She didn't
mean it for a name, of course. You didn't understand.
But, come: your beau is waiting.”
“Don't, Kitty, please!”
“I might as well begin. Every man is a beau that
comes near you. I never saw such luck!”
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Dora opened her lips, closed them tightly, and left the
room. The next moment she stood in the low doorway of
the parlor, bowing gravely, but not shyly, to the stately
gentleman, whose head grazed the great white beam in the
ceiling as he came forward to meet her.
“Miss Darling, I presume,” said he.
“Yes, sir; I am Dora Darling: and you are Mr. Burroughs;
are you not?”
“At your service,” said the gentleman, bowing again;
and, handing Dora a chair, he took another for himself.
“Won't you have some water, or a glass of milk, after
your drive, Mr. Burroughs?” asked Dora with anxious
hospitality; and, as the gentleman confessed to an inclination
for some water, she tripped away, and presently returned
with a tumbler, which Mr. Burroughs very willingly
took from her slender fingers instead of a salver.
“You know I was a vivandière, sir,” said Dora, smiling
frankly; “and I always think of people being thirsty and
tired when they come in so.”
Mr. Burroughs smiled, too, as he handed back the empty
glass.
“I wish we had all turned our army experiences to as
good account,” said he.
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“Were you in the army?” asked Dora with sudden
animation.
“Yes: I was lieutenant in the Massachusetts Sixth, and
went through Baltimore with them,” said Burroughs,
straightening himself a little as the associations of military
drill came back upon him.
“Oh! were you there? Wasn't it glorious to be the very
first?” exclaimed Dora; and, with no further preamble,
the two plunged into a series of army reminiscences and
army gossip, that kept them busy until Karl entered the
room, saying, —
“Well, Dora, what do you think of Mr. Burroughs's
news?”
“She has not heard it yet,” said Mr. Burroughs, laughing
a little. “We have been so busy talking over our army
experiences, that we have not come to business.”
“I am glad you have not; for I want to see how Dora
will take it: but you will be grieved, as well as pleased,
little girl.”
“Yes,” pursued Mr. Burroughs. “I am sorry to inform
you, Miss Dora, that your friend Col. Blank is dead.”
“Oh, Col. Blank dead!” exclaimed Dora, while a sudden
shadow fell upon her bright face.
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“I am very, very sorry,” continued she. “Mr. Brown
went to see him two months ago, and he was quite well
then.”
“Yes: this was rather a sudden illness; a fever, I believe.
They tell me, that, since his wife died, he has never
been very well, and at last was only ill three weeks.”
“I am so sorry!” said Dora again. “He was very kind
to me always.”
“And no doubt died with feelings of affection and confidence
for you, Miss Dora; since he has made you his
heir.”
“Me!” exclaimed the young girl in a tone more of
fright than of pleasure.
“Yes; and, although the property is not of any great
available value at present, I think, if properly managed, it
may, in the future, become something very handsome,”
said the lawyer.
“But I am so sorry Col. Blank is dead! Why, on Cheat
Mountain, he seemed so strong and well! He was never
tired on the marches, and hardly ever rode, but walked at
the head of the column so straight and soldierly!”
The two men glanced at each other, then at her, and
gravely smiled. The regret was so unaffected, so unselfish,
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and so unworldly, that each, after his own fashion, admired
and marvelled at it. Mr. Burroughs was the first to speak;
and, drawing a packet of papers from his pocket, he spread
before Dora's sorrowful eyes a copy of Col. Blank's will,
a plan of the estate bequeathed by it to her, and an official
letter from Mr. Ferrars, the principal executor. This Mr.
Ferrars, the lawyer informed his young client, was a personal
friend of his own, and had placed the matter in his
hands, thinking that the news might be more satisfactorily
arranged by an interview than by correspondence.
“And, as I was coming East at the time, I could very conveniently
call to see you on my way home,” concluded Mr.
Burroughs.
“Thank you, sir,” said Dora meekly; and then, rather
sadly, but very patiently, listened while the lawyer described
the property she had inherited, and indicated the best course
to pursue with regard to it.
“You will perceive, Miss Dora, that the bulk of the
estate consists of this large tract of territory in Iowa, containing
a great deal of valuable timber, a hundred or so
common-sized farms of superb soil, and prairie-land enough
to graze all the herds of the West.
Col. Blank had just invested all his property, except the
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estate in Cincinnati, in the purchase of this tract, and was
about to remove thither, when Mrs. Blank died; and, as I
said, he never seemed quite himself after that event, and
took no further steps toward emigration. The house in
Cincinnati might sell, Mr. Ferrars thought, for three or
four thousand dollars; enough, you see, to make a beginning
at `Outpost,' as the colonel called it.”
“Did he name the Iowa farm Outpost?” asked Dora
rather eagerly.
“Yes: you see the name is written on this map of the
estate.”
“Then we will call it so; won't we, Karl?”
“But you don't advise my cousin to emigrate to the backwoods,
do you, Mr. Burroughs?” asked Karl disapprovingly.
“It is the only method of reaping any immediate benefit
from her inheritance,” said the lawyer. “The territory is
valuable, very; but would not sell to-day for any thing like
the price paid by Col. Blank, who fancied its situation, and
intended to live there. The only way to get back the
money is to hold the land until better times, or until emigration
reaches the Des Moines more freely than it has yet
done.”
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“I shall certainly go there and live,” said Dora with
quiet positiveness.
“You have decided?” asked Mr. Burroughs, looking into
her face, and smiling.
“Quite,” said Dora.
Karl looked too, saw the firm line of the young girl's
rosy lips, and slightly raised his eyebrows.
“It is settled,” said he with comic resignation.
Dora returned his gaze wistfully. She could not, in presence
of a stranger, say what was in her heart: but she
longed to let him know that this prospect of independence,
of making a home of her own, of assuming duties and pursuits
of her own, was such a prospect as no friend could
wish her to forego; was the full and only cure for the bitterness
of heart she had been unable to conceal from him upon
the previous evening, — a bitterness so foreign to the sweet
and noble nature of the young girl, that it had affected her
cousin's mind with a sort of terror.
Something of all she meant must have stood visibly in
the clear eyes Dora now fixed upon Karl; for, in meeting
that gaze, the young man changed color, and said hastily, —
“But if you will be happier, Dora; if you are not contented
here — It is a humdrum sort of life, I know.”
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“Oh, no! not that; but I want to be doing something. I
mean something almost more than I can do, not ever so
much less. I like to feel as if I must use every bit of
strength and courage I have, and then I always find more
than I thought I had.”
Mr. Burroughs looked sharply at the young girl who
made this ungirlish avowal. Was this utter simplicity? or
was it an ingenious affectation? Was Dora Darling one of
the noblest, or one of the most crafty, of womankind?
Tom Burroughs was a man of the world and of society,
and flattered himself that neither man nor woman had art
deeper than his penetration; but as he rapidly scanned the
broad brow, clear, level-glancing eyes, firm, sweet mouth,
queenly head, and mien of innocent self-confidence, he asked
himself again, —
“Is it the perfection of art, or can it be the perfection of
nature?”
But Karl was saying rather gloomily, —
“And what is to become of us, Dora?”
“Kitty and you?” asked Dora, open-eyed. “Why, of
course, you are to come too! Did you suppose I wanted to
leave you? Of course, it is your home and mine, just as
this house has been: we are all one family, you know.”
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“To be sure. Well, I fancy there will be something for
me to do on your Outpost farm. You must make me
overseer.”
“No: you shall be confidential adviser; but I am going
to oversee every thing myself, and you must go on with your
medical studies.”
“You are going to become practical farmer, then?”
asked Mr. Burroughs, raising his eyebrows never so
slightly.
“Yes, sir: not to really work with my own hands out of
doors, you know, but to see to every thing. At first, I
sha'n't understand much about it, I suppose; but I shall learn,
and I shall be so happy!”
“And how soon will you be ready to go?” asked Mr.
Burroughs.
Dora considered for a moment.
“To-day is Thursday. I think we might start Monday
morning; couldn't we, Karl?”
“And meantime sell this place and furniture?” asked Mr.
Windsor, smiling.
“Not sell, but let the place. There is Jacob Minot
would be glad to hire it, and a good tenant too. As for
the furniture, we had better carry it with us. Shall we
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have to build a house when we get there, Mr. Burroughs?”
“Yes. Col. Blank had selected a site, and made
some little beginning: I believe nothing more than having
the land cleared and a cellar dug, however. You will begin
with a log-cabin; shall you not?”
“Yes: I suppose so. Well, Karl, mightn't we start on
Monday?”
“Not in heavy marching order, I am afraid; but very
soon, if you are quite determined.”
“Yes, quite; but what will Kitty think?” asked Dora
suddenly.
“Oh! I think she will like it. Here she comes, and we
can ask her.”
The crisp rustle of muslin skirts swept down the stairs;
and Mr. Burroughs, turning his head, saw standing in the
doorway a tall, handsome brunette, with masses of black hair
rolled away from a low forehead, glancing black eyes, and
ripe lips, showing just now the sparkle of white teeth between,
as the young lady half waited for an introduction
before entering.
“Mr. Burroughs, Kitty; my sister, sir,” said Karl, rising,
and handing a chair to Kitty, who, with rather too wide a
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sweep of her bright muslin skirts, seated herself, and said,
half laughing, —
“I suppose you are through with your secrets by this
time?”
“We were just wanting to tell you the new plan, and see
how you will like it,” said Dora quickly; for she felt an
involuntary dread lest Kitty should, in presence of this
courteous stranger, say something to do herself discredit.
-- 216 -- p453-221
CHAPTER XXV. MAN VERSUS DOG.
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Mr. Burroughs staid to tea, and, while it was being prepared,
strolled with Karl about the little farm; looked at the
Alderney cow, the Suffolk pigs, the span of Morgan horses
named Pope and Pagan; quietly sounded the depths of Capt.
Karl's open and joyous nature, and made him talk of his
cousin Dora, and reveal his love and his hopes regarding
her.
“They will marry out there, and she will manage him,
and make him very happy,” thought Mr. Burroughs, returning
toward the farmhouse, and admiring the long slope of
the mossy roof, and the clinging masses of woodbine creeping
to the ridge-pole.
“You won't make so picturesque a thing of your new
home for several years to come, if ever, Mr. Windsor,”
added he aloud.
“No, I suppose not; but the genius of our people is more
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for beginning than ending, and this old place was built by
my grandfather,” said the young man.
“An excellent and most American reason for deserting
it,” said Mr. Burroughs gravely; “and, if you are thinking
of selling, I should like the opportunity of becoming purchaser.
This sort of thing is going out of the market, and
I should like to secure a specimen before it is too late. It is
all the same as a picture, except that it is stationary, and
one must come to it instead of carrying it away in triumph.”
“I think we may like to sell; but I must consult my sister
and cousin first,” said Karl rather gravely: for, after all, he
did not just like the tone assumed by this fine city gentleman
in speaking of the place that had been a home to Karl
and his ancestors for more than a century. The quick tact
of the lawyer perceived the slight wound he had given, and
repaired it by carelessly saying, —
“And, besides the beauty of the place, I should be proud
of possessing any thing that had belonged to a grandfather.
My family has been so migratory, that I can hardly say
whether I had a grandfather or not: certainly I have not
the remotest idea where he lived.”
Capt. Karl laughed.
“Our family has been settled here since the days of the
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Pilgrims,” said he; “and Kitty could show you a family
chart as large as a table-cloth, of which she is mightily
proud, although I never could see any particular benefit it
has been to us.”
“And Miss Dora — is she fond of recalling her ancestors
and their fame? or is she satisfied with her own?” asked
Mr. Burroughs.
“I don't believe it ever occurred to her that either she or
they deserved any,” said Karl, laughing. “You never knew
a creature so entirely simple and self-forgetful in your life,
and yet of so wide and noble a nature. She is never so
happy as in doing good to other people.”
“But likes to do it in her own way?” suggested the lawyer
pleasantly.
“Likes to do it in the best way, and her own way is sure
to be that,” replied Karl somewhat decidedly; and Mr.
Burroughs smiled and bowed.
In the doorway, under the swinging branch of the tall
sweetbrier, suddenly appeared Kitty, her brown face becomingly
flushed, and the buttons of her under-sleeves not yet
adjusted.
“Tea is ready; will you please to walk in, Mr. Burroughs?”
said she: and the guest followed, well pleased, to
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the wide, cool kitchen, with its white, scoured floor, its vineshaded
windows and open door giving a view of broad
meadow-lands, with a brook curling crisply through them,
and a dark pine-wood beyond. In the centre stood the neat
tea-table, with its country dainties of rich cream, yellow
butter, custards, ripe peaches sliced and served with sugar,
buttermilk-biscuit, and the fresh sponge-cake, on which Kitty
justly prided herself.
“You see we are plain country-folks, and eat in the
kitchen, Mr. Burroughs,” said she, with a little laugh, as
they seated themselves.
“Is this room called a kitchen? You amuse yourself
by jesting with my ignorance,” said Mr. Burroughs, looking
about him with affected simplicity. “If ever I should live
here, I would call this the refreshing-room; for I can imagine
nothing more soothing to eyes weary of a summer sun than
these vine-covered windows, and the cool greens of that
meadow and the pine-forest beyond.”
Kitty smiled a little vaguely, half inclined to insist upon the
kitchen-side of the question; when Karl asked, in a disappointed
tone, —
“Where is Dora? Isn't she coming?”
“Not yet. Molly waked up, and Dora is giving her some
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supper. She said she would come as soon as she had done.
You didn't know, Mr. Burroughs, that Dora has an adopted
child, did you?”
“No, indeed. She is young to undertake such responsibility,”
said Mr. Burroughs a little curiously.
“This is a little foreigner too, that Dora picked up in the
road. No one knows who she may be, or what dreadful
people may come after her any day. Dora is so queer!”
“Will you have a biscuit, Kitty? Mr. Burroughs, let
me give you some of this peach? We shall be sorry to
leave our peach-orchard behind in going to the West. I
suppose, however, one can soon be started there.”
And Karl, determined not to allow Kitty the chance of
making any of her spiteful little speeches about Dora in
presence of the visitor, kept the conversation upon purely
impersonal topics, until they rose from table, and the two
gentlemen strolled out upon the porch at the western door;
while Kitty ran up to call Dora, whom she found sitting
beside the bed, with Sunshine's head lying upon her arm.
“Isn't she asleep?” whispered Kitty.
The child half opened her eyes, and murmured drowsily, —
“I want to ride on the elephant. It's my little wife.”
“What did she say, Dora?”
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“Hush! She is out of her head, I think. She has
been saying I was her little wife,” whispered Dora.
“Well, that's English, anyway,” replied Kitty, staring
at the child. “What do you suppose she is?”
“I don't know. There, pet, there! Hus—h!” As she
spoke, Dora carefully withdrew her arm from under the
little head, where, in the August night, the hair clung in
moist golden spirals, and a soft dew stood upon the white
forehead.
“I'll stay and fan her for a while longer, she looks so
warm,” whispered Dora.
“No, no! come down and eat your supper, and help
clear away. Charley asked Mr. Burroughs to stay all
night, and I guess he will. Isn't he real splendid? Come
down, and talk about him.”
Sunshine slept soundly; and Dora, half reluctantly, suffered
herself to be led away by her cousin, closing the door
softly behind her, and leaving the little child to dreams of
a home so far away, and yet so near; of a vanished past,
that, even in this moment, stretched a detaining hand from
out the darkness, groping for her own; of human love
immortal as heaven, and yet, for the moment, less trustworthy
than the instinct of the brutes: for if Mr. Thomas
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Burroughs, instead of being a highly cultivated and intellectual
man, had been a dog of only average intelligence,'
Toinette Legrange would already have been discovered,
and, before another sunset, the slow agony devouring her
mother's heart would have been relieved.
But to each of us our gifts; and Mr. Burroughs, never
suspecting how deficient were his own, strolled with his
host beneath the trees, until the appearance of the young
ladies upon the porch; when he joined them, and resumed
his conversation with Dora. From army matters, the talk
soon wandered to the new prospects of Col. Blank's
heiress; and Mr. Burroughs found himself first amused,
then animated and interested, quite beyond his wont, in the
young girl's plans and expectations.
It was late when the party separated; and as the guest
closed the door of the rosy-room, and cast an admiring
glance over its neat appointments, he muttered to himself, —
“What a bright, fresh little room! and what a brighter,
fresher little girl! — as different from thy city friends, Tom
Burroughs, as the cream she pours is from the chalky composition
of the hotels. Thou dost half persuade me to turn
Hoosier, and help thee convert the wilderness to a blooming
garden, O darlingest of Darlings!”
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And as the young man, with a half-smile upon his lips,
set sail for the vague and beautiful shores of Dreamland, a
bright, sweet face, lighted by two earnest eyes, seemed to
herald him the way, and join itself to all his fairest fancies.
-- 224 -- p453-229
CHAPTER XXVI. MRS. GINNISS HAS A VISITOR.
[figure description] Page 224.[end figure description]
Heavily went the days in the lowly home of Mrs.
Ginniss and her son. Teddy sought early and late for
employment, disdaining nothing, however humble, whereby
he might earn a few cents, and working as diligently at
street-sweeping, dust-gathering, errand-running, or horseholding,
as he had ever done in the way of gaining an
education under the kind tuition of his late master.
Every night he brought home some small sum, and
silently placed it in his mother's hand; nor, though she
urged it, would he retain a penny for himself, or indulge
in any of the small luxuries he had in former days enjoyed
so much.
“Go buy a wather-million, honey, or get an ice-crame;
sure it's nothin' at all ye're atin',” the fond mother would
say: but Teddy always shook his head, or, if the matter
were urged, took his cap and went out, always with the
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[figure description] Page 225.[end figure description]
weary step that had become habitual to him, and returned
no more until bedtime.
“It's frettin' himsilf to his grave the crather is,” said
poor Mrs. Ginniss, and tried in many a motherly way to
make home pleasant to her boy, and to re-awaken the ambition
that seemed quite dead in his heart. No more
reading aloud now, of which he had been so fond; no more
recitals of interesting or humorous scenes in office or street;
no more wise opinions upon public events: all the boy's
boyish conceit and self-esteem, germs in a strong character
of worthy self-respect, seemed crushed out of him. Patient,
humble, silent, one could hardly recognize in this Teddy
Ginniss that other Teddy, whose cheery voice, frequent
laugh, positive opinions and wishes, and good-humored
self-satisfaction, had been the leading features of his modest
home.
Poor Mrs. Ginniss longed to be contradicted or instructed
or laughed at once more, and fought against her son's submissive
respect as another mother might have done against
disobedience or insolence.
“Can't ye be mad nor yet be merry at nothin', Teddy?”
asked she impatiently one day.
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“I'm thinking I'll never be merry again, mother,” said
Teddy sadly, as he left the room.
It was in the afternoon of the same day, that Mrs. Ginniss,
sitting at her sewing in melancholy mood enough, heard a
light tap at her door, and, opening it, found upon the threshold
a lady, elegant in her simple dress of gray, who
asked, —
“Are you Mrs. Ginniss?”
“Yes, ma'am; I'm that same,” said the laundress, staring
strangely at the lovely face framed in a shower of feathery,
golden ringlets, and lighted by large violet eyes as sad as
they were sweet.
“Will ye be plazed to walk in, ma'am?” continued she.
“It's but a poor place for the likes uv yees.”
The lady made no reply, but, gliding into the room, stood
for a moment looking about it, and then turning to the Irish
woman, who still regarded her in the same awestruck manner,
said piteously, —
“I am her mother!”
“Sure an' I knowed it the minute I sot eyes on ye; for it's
the same swate face, an' eyes that's worse nor cryin', ye've
got; an' the same way of a born lady, so quite an' so grand.
Och! it wor a purty darlint, it wor; an' it's me own heart
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[figure description] Page 227.[end figure description]
that's sore for her the day, forbye your'n that's her borned
mother; and, if it wor my own life that 'ud fetch her back to
yees” —
But here the long breath on which Mrs. Ginniss had started
came to an end, and with it the impulse of consolation and
self-defence that had so far sustained her; and with a wild cry
of “Wurra, wurra! och the black day that's in it!” she
sank upon a chair, and buried her head in her apron, sobbing
loudly.
The visitor, hardly regarding her, still stood in the centre
of the little room, her sad eyes wandering over its humble
furniture and adornments as if each one were a relic.
“Are there some little things of hers, clothes or playthings
or books, — any thing she touched or loved?” asked she
presently in a hushed voice.
Mrs. Ginniss, still crying, rose, and opened a drawer in
the pine bureau, which, with a looking-glass and some vases
of blue china upon it, stood as the ornamental piece of furniture
of the place.
“Here they bees, ivery one uv 'em, and poor enough for
her, an' yit the bist we could git,” said she.
More as a bird, long restrained and suddenly set free,
would dart toward the tree where nest and young awaited it,
-- 228 --
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than in the ordinary mode of human movement, the mother,
so long hungering for smallest tidings of her child, darted upon
this sudden mine of wealth, and, bending low, seemed to
caress each object with her eyes before touching it. Then,
tearing off her gloves, she laid her white fingers softly upon
the coarse garments, the broken toys, the few worn books,
and bits of paper covered with pencil-marks, the strip of gay
patchwork with the needle still sticking in it, and the little
brass thimble upon it.
At one end of the drawer stood a little pair of slippers,
with some slightly soiled white stockings rolled up and laid
within them. At sight of these, a low cry — it might have
been of pain, it might have been of joy — crept from between
the pale lips of the mother; and, reverently lifting the
little shoes, she kissed them again and again, in an eager,
longing fashion, as one might kiss the lips of a dying child
whom human love may yet recall to human life.
“Thim's the little shlippers that Teddy saved his bit uv
spinding-money till he could buy for her, bekase he said the
fut uv her wor too purty to put in sich sthrong shoes as I'd
got; and thin it was mesilf that saved the white little shtockings
out uv me tay an' sugar; an' it's like a little fairy (save
me for spakin' the word) that she lucked in 'em.”
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Pressing the little shoes close to her bosom with both hands,
the mother turned those mournful eyes upon the speaker,
listening to every word, and, at the end, said eagerly, —
“Tell me some more! Tell me every thing she said and
did! Oh! was she happy?”
The word had grown so strange upon her lips and in her
heart, that, as she said it, all the tense chords, so long attuned
to grief, thrilled with a sharp discord; and, turning yet paler
than before, she sank upon a chair, and, leaning her forehead
on the edge of the open drawer, wept such tears as, pray God,
happy mothers, you and I may never weep.
“O my baby, my baby! O my little child!” moaned
she again and again, until the tender heart of the Irish
woman could endure no longer; and, coming to the side of
her guest, she knelt beside her, and put her arms about the
slender figure that shook with every sob, and drew the
bright head to rest upon her own shoulder.
“O ye poor darlint! ye poor, young crather, that's got
the black sorrer atin' inter yer heart, all the same as if ye
wor owld an' mane an' oogly, like mesilf!—it's none but
Him aboov as kin comfort yees. Blissid Vargin, as was
a moother yersilf, an' knowed a moother's pains an' a
moother's love, an' all the ins an' outs uv a moother's heart,
-- 230 --
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luck down on this young moother an' help her, an' spake to
thim as can help her betther nor yees, an' give her back her
child; bekase ye mind the time yer own Howly Child wor
lost, an' ye sought him sorrerin'; an' ye mind the joy an'
the comfort that wor in it whin he was foun'. Och Mother
of Jasus! hear us this day, if niver again.”
As the passionate prayer ended, the lady raised her head,
and kissed the tear-stained cheek of the petitioner.
“Thank you,” said she. “I know that you were good to
her, and that she loved you; but, oh! did she forget me so
soon?”
Alas poor human heart whose purest impulses are tinged
with selfishness! You who have lost your nearest and
dearest, can you say from your inmost soul that you would
be content to know yourself and all of earth forgotten, or
that it is sorrow to you to fancy that a lingering memory, a
faint regret for the love you so lavished, stains the perfection
of heavenly bliss?
Tact is not a matter of breeding; and Chesterfield or
Machiavelli could have found no better answer than that of
Mrs. Ginniss: —
“Sure, honey, it wor alluz she remimbered yees, an'
longed for yees; though the little crather wor that yoong, an'
-- 231 --
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the faver had so poot her about, that she didn' know what it
wor she wanted nor missed; but it wor `mother' as wor
writ in the blue eyes uv her as plain as prentin'.”
“And was she very, very sick?” asked the sad voice again.
“The sickest crather that iver coom back from hivin's
gate,” replied the other; and then, seating herself beside her
visitor, she began at the beginning, and gave a long detail
of the circumstances attending Cherry's first appearance in
the garret, and her subsequent illness and convalescence.
Then came the story of her acquaintance with Giovanni; her
passion for dancing and singing with him; and finally their
flight, and the consternation and sorrow of her adopted
mother.
Mrs. Legrange listened to every thing with the most profound
attention, asking now and then a question, or uttering
an exclamation; even smiling faintly at mention of the
child's graceful dancing and sweet voice in singing.
“Yes, she had an extraordinary ear for music,” murmured
she; “and to think of her remembering being called
Cerito!”
Nor did the mother fail to notice how the whole coarse
fabric of the Irish woman's story was embroidered with a
golden thread of love and admiration, and even reverence,
-- 232 --
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for the exquisite little creature she had cherished and cared
for so tenderly.
“Yes, you loved her; and I love you for it, and will
always be your friend. But Teddy?” asked she at last;
for Mrs. Ginniss, through the whole story, had carefully
avoided all mention of her son, except in the most casual and
general fashion. Now, however, she boldly answered, —
“An' it's mesilf loved the purty crather well; but my
love kim no nearer the love the b'y had for her than the
light of a taller candle does to the sun in hiven. He loved
her that sthrong, that it med him do a mane thing in kapin'
her whin he knowed who she wor; but sure it's betther ter
sin fer love than ter sin fer sin's sake.”
Mrs. Legrange smiled sadly. To her it had seemed, from
the first, small matter of surprise, however great of regret,
that Teddy should have found 'Toinette's attractions irresistible;
or that, having once appropriated her as his little
sister, he should have found it almost impossible to relinquish
her.
She had not, therefore, shared at all in the indignation
of her cousin and husband toward the boy, and had even
solicited the former to retain him in his employ. But Mr.
Burroughs, kind, generous, and forbearing as he was,
-- 233 --
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cherished implacable ideas of integrity and honor, and never
forgave an offence against either, whether in friend or
servant; so that his cousin had finally withdrawn her request,
asking, instead, that he should conduct her to Mrs. Ginniss's
dwelling, and leave the rest to her. This the young man
had consented to do; and, as Mrs. Legrange would not
allow him to wait for her, he had privately instructed James
to do so, and had not left the outer door until he saw that
faithful servitor upon guard.
Just what were her own intentions with regard to Teddy
or his mother, Mrs. Legrange did not herself know; and,
once arrived in the room where 'Toinette had lived out the
weary months since her loss, all other ideas had faded and
disappeared before the memories there confronting her.
Now, however, the sweet and generous nature of the woman
re-asserted itself, and she kindly said, —
“Yes: I see how great Teddy's temptation was, and I
cannot wonder that he yielded to it. Any one would have
found it hard to part with 'Toinette; and he, poor boy!
could not know how I was suffering. It would have been
different if you had known who she was.”
“Indade an' it would. One moother can fale fer another;
but these childhren hasn't the sinse till they gits the
-- 234 --
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sorrer. Small fear that Teddy'll iver go asthray agin from
light-heartedness.”
“Does he feel very sorry, then?” asked Mrs. Legrange
timidly.
“Sorry isn't the word, ma'am. It's his own heart as
he conshumes day an' night,” said Mrs. Ginniss gloomily.
“Because she is lost, or because he kept her in the first
place?” asked the lady.
“It's hard tellin', an' he niver spakin' whin he can help
it; but I belave it's all together. He wor sich a bowld b'y,
an' so sthrong for risin' in the world; an' wor alluz sayin'
as he'd be a gintleman afore he died, an' readin' his bit
books and writins, an' tillin' me about the way the counthry
wor goin'; an', right or wrong, it's he wor ready to guide
the whole of 'em. An', sure, it wor wondherful to see the
sinse that wor in him when he get spakin' of thim things;
an' one day, whin I said to him, —
“`Sure, Teddy, an', if it's one or tither of 'em is Prisident,
what differ'll it make to us?' An' he says, says he,
`Whist, moother! fer one day, mabbe, it's I'll be the Prisident
mesilf; an' what way 'ud that be fer me moother to
be talkin'?'
“But now it's no sich talk ye'll git out uv him, an'
-- 235 --
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niver a laugh nor a joke, nor the bit bowld ways he used
to have wid him. An' och, honey! if ye've lost yer purty
darlint, it's I've lost me b'y that wor as mooch to me; an'
it's I'm the heavy-hearted woman, this day an' alluz.”
-- 236 -- p453-241
CHAPTER XXVII. TEDDY FINDS A NEW PATRON.
[figure description] Page 236.[end figure description]
Teddy, dragging his heavy feet up the stairs in the
stifling September twilight, paused suddenly to listen to a
murmur of voices in his mother's room.
Some one was speaking; and the pure, clear tone sent
a thrill through his veins like the shock of an electric battery.
No voice but one had ever sounded like that to him;
and, springing up the remaining stairs, Teddy threw open
the door of the chamber, and looked eagerly about it.
The one for whom he looked was not there; but, instead,
a lady, whose fragile loveliness reminded him so strangely
of the little sister as she had looked in her long days of
convalescence, that he stood still, staring dumbly.
“An' where's yer manners, Teddy Ginniss? Couldn'
ye see the lady forenenst ye, widout starin' like a stuck
pig? — It's dazed he is, ma'am, wid seein' the likes uv yees
in this poor place.”
“Come here, Teddy; I am waiting to see you,” said
-- 237 --
[figure description] Page 237.[end figure description]
the lady. And again the pure, silvery tones tingled along
Teddy's nerves with a sharp, sweet thrill.
“O ma'am! are you her mother?” cried he breathlessly.
“Yes, I am her mother, and have come to see you, who
loved her so well, and your good mother, who cared for her
when she was motherless” —
The sweet voice faltered, and Teddy broke in, —
“And you needn't be afraid to say the worst that can be
said, ma'am. I've said it all before; and you can't hate me
worse than I hate myself.”
“Hate you, my poor boy? I only pity you; for I have
heard, and can see, how much you suffer. I cannot wonder
that you should love her so well; and, when you knew who
she was, I dare say you were meaning to restore her, so
soon as you could bring yourself to it.”
“Indeed I was, ma'am. I can take God to witness that
I was,” said Teddy solemnly, his eyes brimming, and his
face working with the strong emotion he tried so hard to
subdue.
“I am sure of it; and I love you more for the love you
bore her than I blame you for the fault that love led you
-- 238 --
[figure description] Page 238.[end figure description]
into.” She paused a moment; and then the insatiate
mother pride and love burst out, demanding sympathy.
“She was a lovely child, wasn't she, Teddy?” asked
she with a tremulous smile.
The boy's rough face lighted, as if by reflection from her
own, as he replied, —
“O ma'am! it's so good of you to let me talk about
her! There was never another like her in all the world, I
believe. I used to take her walking Sundays, and look at
all the children we met (some of them rich folks' children,
and dressed all out in their best); but there was never one
could hold a candle to my little sister. Oh! and I hope
you'll forgive me that word, ma'am; for I know it's no business
I had ever to call her so, or think of her so; but I was
so proud of her!”
“I don't need to forgive you, Teddy. It shows how
much you loved her; and that is what I like to think of
best.”
“But if you please, ma'am, will you tell me what is
doing about looking for her?” asked Teddy eagerly.
“Very little now,” answered the lady sadly. “The
police traced Giovanni, the Italian organ-grinder, to the
station, where he took the cars for the West. At Springfield,
-- 239 --
[figure description] Page 239.[end figure description]
a man answering to his description, with a little girl, staid
all night; and next day the child danced — in the streets.”
The mother's face grew deadly pale as she said the last
words, and she paused a moment. Teddy turned away his
head, and Mrs. Ginniss groaned aloud. Mrs. Legrange
went on hurriedly: —
“Where they went afterwards is not yet discovered; but
they are looking everywhere. It seems so strange” —
She fell into a momentary revery, thinking, as she
thought so many, many times in every day, how hard and
strange it seemed that no clew could be found to her lost
darling beyond the terrible day that saw her dancing in the
public streets, — an ignominy, that, to the lady's sensitive
mind, seemed almost equivalent to death.
Perhaps it would have been kinder had her husband
and cousin told her the worst they knew or suspected, and
allowed her to mourn her child as dead. The acute detective
in whose hands the new clew had been placed had not
only traced the fugitives to Springfield, as Mrs. Legrange
had said, but had ascertained at what hour they left the
hotel for the railway-station. It was impossible, however,
to discover for what point the Italian had purchased tickets,
as the station-master had no recollection of him, and the
-- 240 --
[figure description] Page 240.[end figure description]
baggage-master was sure he had seen “no sich lot” as was
described to him.
And, from Springfield, a man may take passage to almost
any point in the Union.
One startling fact remained, and upon this fact the whole
report of the detective turned.
The train leaving Springfield for Albany upon the night
when Giovanni left that town, encountered, at a certain
point, another train, which, by some incomprehensible stupidity,
was supposed to have passed that point half an hour
before.
Consequences as usual, — frightful loss of life; a game
of give and take in the newspapers, as to who should bear
the blame, finally resulting in a service of plate to one
party, and a donation in money to the other; several lawsuits
brought by enterprising widowers who demanded
consolation for the loss of their wives; by other men, who,
having skulked the draft, now found themselves minus both
legs and glory; by spinsters whose bandboxes had been
crushed, and by young ladies whose beauty had suffered
damage from broken noses and scattered teeth.
But, among all these sufferers, not one remembered seeing
an Italian organ-grinder with a little girl; until, at the
-- 241 --
[figure description] Page 241.[end figure description]
very last, a small boy was found, who averred, that, on the
morning after the disaster, he had seen a sort of box, with a
little creature chained to the top of it, floating down the
river; and that the little creature had seemed very much
scared, and kept laughing, and showing all his teeth; and
that they had gone on and out of sight. And that was all he
knew about it.
The river! — what use to question those dark and swollen
waters? what use to demand of them the bright form, that,
it might be, slept beneath them? — it might be, had been
washed piecemeal to the ocean?
At the brink of that river, mournful and terrible as Styx,
river of the dead, ended, that night, the story of many a life;
and why not that of the child so strangely lost, so nearly
recovered, and now, perhaps, lost again forever?
“We have found her, I am afraid, Tom,” said Mr.
Legrange to his cousin, as the detective closed his report,
and his two hearers looked at each other. “But,” added
the father, “keep on; keep every engine at work; search
everywhere; spend any amount of money that is needful;
leave no chance untried. Remember, the reward is always
ready.” And, when they were alone, he added, —
“But, Tom, don't tell her. She can't bear it as we can.
-- 242 --
[figure description] Page 242.[end figure description]
Poor little Sunshine!” And, to show how well he bore it,
the father hid his face, and sobbed like a woman.
“No, I won't say any thing,” said Tom Burroughs in a
strange, choked voice. And so we come back to Mrs.
Legrange wistfully saying, —
“It seems so strange” —
“And then, with the patience of a woman, she put aside
her own great grief, and added, —
“But, Teddy, I am going to do something for you; and
what shall it be? You wish to be educated; do you not?”
“O ma'am! but I've give it up now.”
Mrs. Legrange smiled at the sudden enthusiasm and the
sudden blank upon the boy's face, and answered, almost
gayly, —
“But I have not given it up for you, Teddy. — By the
way, Mrs. Ginniss, is that your son's real name? — his
whole name, I mean?”
“It's short for Taodoor, I'm thinkin', ma'am; but it's
joost Teddy we alluz calls it.”
“Ah, yes! Theodore. That is a very nice name, and
will sound better, when he comes to be a lawyer or doctor
or minister, than Teddy. Don't you think so?”
“Ye're right, ma'am: it's a dale the dacenter name uv
-- 243 --
[figure description] Page 243.[end figure description]
the two; an' Taodoor I'll call him iver an' always,” said
Mrs. Ginniss complacently.
“I was thinking more of what other people would call
him,” said Mrs. Legrange, smiling a little. “Some friends
of mine are interested in a school and college at the West,—
somewhere in Ohio, I believe. It is a very fine school,
and the West is the place for a young man who means to
rise. So, Theodore, if you would like to go, I shall be
very happy to see to all your expenses until you graduate,
and to help you about settling in a profession, or in
trade, as you like.”
Teddy's healthy face turned deadly white; and, although
his lips trembled violently, not a word came from between
them. But Mrs. Ginniss, raising hands and eyes to heaven,
called down such a shower of blessings from so many and
varied sources, in such an inimitable brogue, that the pen
refuses to transcribe her rhapsody, as Mrs. Legrange failed
to comprehend more than the half of it.
“I am glad you are pleased; and it pleases me as much
as it can you,” said she, half frightened at the Celtic vehemence
of the other's manner and language.
“I can't say what I want to, ma'am,” spoke a low voice
beside her; “but if you'll believe I'm grateful, and wait
-- 244 --
[figure description] Page 244.[end figure description]
till some time when I can show it better than I can now —
that time will come, if we both live. And when I'm a
man, if she isn't found first, I'll go the world round but I'll
find her, and Jovarny too: I'll promise that.”
A wan smile played over the lovely face, as Mrs. Legrange,
laying her hand upon the boy's, said kindly, —
“If she is not found before then, Teddy, I shall not be
here to know it.”
Then going to the drawer, still standing open, she
said, —
“May I have some of these little things, Mrs. Ginniss;
not all, — for I know that you love them too, — but some
of them?”
So Mrs. Ginniss made a package of the relics; and Teddy
asked and obtained the privilege of carrying it home for
his new friend, while James stalked discontentedly behind.
Upon the way, Mrs. Legrange said quietly, “I left a
little money in the drawer, Theodore. It is to buy you
some new clothes, and whatever else you and your mother
need most. And I have just thought of something else.
How would your mother like living in the country?”
“Very much, ma'am, I think. Her father had a farm
in Ireland, and she is mighty fond of telling about it.”
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[figure description] Page 245.[end figure description]
“Well, Mr. Legrange has recently made me a present of
a nice old farmhouse somewhere in the western part of the
State, thinking I might like to go there for a few weeks in
the summer. It is a lovely place, they say; and, if your
mother would like it, she might go there and keep the
house for me. A man is going to take care of the farm,
and he could board with her.”
“That would be first-rate, ma'am,” said Teddy enthusiastically.
“But you're doing too much for us entirely.”
“You were kind to her, Teddy; and I cannot do too
much for you,” said Mrs. Legrange, lowering her veil.
-- 246 -- p453-251
CHAPTER XXVIII. WELCOME HOME.
[figure description] Page 246.[end figure description]
“Time they was here, ain't it, miss?” asked Mehitable
Ross, wiping the flour from her bare arms, and coming out,
upon the step of the door.
“Yes,” said Dora: “I expect them every moment. Is
tea all ready?”
“All but the short-cakes. I hain't put them down to
bake yet, because they're best when they're first done. But
the cold meat is sliced, and the strawberries dished, and
the johnny-cake a-baking.”
“Well, keep them all as nice as you can; and I will
walk out a little, and meet the wagon.”
“Take Argus along, you'd better, case you should meet
one of them tiger-cats Silas told on.”
Dora smiled, but called, “Argus!” and at the word a
great hound came leaping from one of the out-buildings,
and fawned upon his young mistress; then, with stately
step and uplifted head, followed her along the faint track
-- 247 --
[figure description] Page 247.[end figure description]
worn by the wheels of the ox-cart in the short, sweet grass
of the prairie.
The young girl walked slowly, and, at the distance of
some rods from the house, stopped, and, leaning against the
stem of a great chestnut-tree, stood looking earnestly down
the path as it wound into the forest and out of sight. Then
her eyes turned slowly back, and lingered with a strange
and solemn joy upon the scene she had just left; while from
her full heart came one whispered word that told the whole
story of her emotion, —
“Home!”
For this was Outpost, Dora's inheritance from her friend
and father, Col. Blank; and she felt to-night, as she waited
to welcome home the family whose head she had become,
that her duties and responsibilities were indeed solemn and
onerous. Not too much so, however, for the courage
and strength the young girl felt within her soul, — the energy
and will so long without an adequate field of action.
“Plenty to do, and, thank God, plenty of health and
strength to do it. Experience will come of itself,” thought
Dora; and from her throbbing heart went up a “song without
words,” of joy and praise and high resolve.
It was June now; but the house at Outpost had only been
-- 248 --
[figure description] Page 248.[end figure description]
the two; an' Taodoor I'll call him iver an' always,” said
Mrs. Ginniss complacently.
“I was thinking more of what other people would call
him,” said Mrs. Legrange, smiling a little. “Some friends
of mine are interested in a school and college at the West,—
somewhere in Ohio, I believe. It is a very fine school,
and the West is the place for a young man who means to
rise. So, Theodore, if you would like to go, I shall be
very happy to see to all your expenses until you graduate,
and to help you about settling in a profession, or in
trade, as you like.”
Teddy's healthy face turned deadly white; and, although
his lips trembled violently, not a word came from between
them. But Mrs. Ginniss, raising hands and eyes to heaven,
called down such a shower of blessings from so many and
varied sources, in such an inimitable brogue, that the pen
refuses to transcribe her rhapsody, as Mrs. Legrange failed
to comprehend more than the half of it.
“I am glad you are pleased; and it pleases me as much
as it can you,” said she, half frightened at the Celtic vehemence
of the other's manner and language.
“I can't say what I want to, ma'am,” spoke a low voice
beside her; “but if you'll believe I'm grateful, and wait
-- 249 --
[figure description] Page 249.[end figure description]
the Des Moines; and beyond it, swept to the horizon, mile
after mile of prairie, limitless, apparently, as ocean, and, like
ocean, solemnly beautiful in its loneliness and calm.
The house faced south; and eastward from its door, across
the lawn and into the rustling wood, wound the faint wheeltrack,
leading back to civilization, ease, and safety: but
Dora, standing beneath the chestnut-tree, fixed her dreamy
eyes upon the setting sun, and, half smiling at her own
fancy, thought, —
“I wonder if God doesn't make the western sky so beautiful
just to draw us toward it. There is so much to do
here, and so few to do it!”
A distant noise in the forest attracted her attention; and
Argus, who had been dreaming at the feet of his mistress,
started up with a short bark.
“Hush, Argus! It's the wagon; don't you know?” explained
Dora, as she hastened down the path, and, at the distance
of a few hundred rods, caught sight of the black heads
of Pope and Pagan, and, the next moment, of the wagon and
its occupants.
These were Karl, Kitty, and Sunshine, the two last of
whom had remained all the spring in Cincinnati, while Karl
and Dora had vibrated between that city and Outpost; for
-- 250 --
[figure description] Page 250.[end figure description]
Dora, while choosing to superintend the building of her house,
and opening of the farm operations in person, had not wished
to expose her cousin or the delicate child to such discomforts
as she cheerfully and even gayly bore for herself.
Kitty, moreover, had found the change from her native seclusion
to a gay city very pleasant; and had made so many
acquaintances in Cincinnati, that she declared it was a great
deal worse than leaving home to abandon them all.
“Oho! here's the general come to meet us! Whoa,
Pope! don't you see your mistress? Now, then!” shouted
Karl; while Kitty cried, —
“O Dora! I'm so glad to see you alive!” And little Sunshine,
jumping up and down in the front of the wagon, exclaimed, —
“Dora's come! Dora's come! Karlo said we'd come to
Dora by and by!”
“O you little darling! if Dora isn't glad to see you
again! Kitty, how do you do? I'm so glad to see you!”
She had jumped into the wagon as she spoke; and, after
giving Kitty a hearty kiss and hug, she took Sunshine in her
arms, and buried her face in the child's sunny curls.
“Am I your own little girl, Dora? and do you love me
same as you always did?” asked Sunshine anxiously.
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[figure description] Page 251.[end figure description]
“Kitty said you'd so much to think about now, that maybe
you wouldn't care for us.”
“Oh! Kitty never meant that, dear,” said Dora quickly;
and Kitty, with rather a forced laugh, added, —
“Of course I didn't. It was only a joke, Molly. You
talked so much about Dora, I wanted to plague you a
little.”
The child looked earnestly at her for a moment; and then,
putting her arms about Dora's neck, hid her face upon her
bosom, murmuring, —
“I'm glad I've got Dora again!”
“Well, now everybody else is attended to, hasn't the
general a word for his humble orderly?” asked Karl, turning
to smile over his shoulder at the group behind.
“Why, you jealous old Karl! you know you've only been
away two weeks, and the girls I have not seen for almost as
many months: besides, I told you not to call me general, and
yourself orderly.”
“Oh! that reminds me of a new name for pet. You know
she persists in calling me Karlo; so I have given her the title
of Dolce: and the two of us together are going some day to
paint pictures far fairer than those of our great original.”
“Carlo Dolce? Yes: Mr. Brown told me about him
-- 252 --
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once, and said his name only meant sweet Charley,” said
Dora simply
“I wonder, then, that you should have left it for Sunshine
to discover how appropriate the name is to me,” said Karl
with mock gravity.
“I'll call you sweet Charley if you like; only it must be
at all times, and before all persons,” said Dora roguishly.
“No, I thank you,” replied her cousin, laughing.
“Fancy Parson Brown's face if he should hear such a title,
or Seth's astonishment if you told him to call sweet Charley
to dinner! But isn't Dolce a pretty name? Let us really
adopt it for her.”
“Well, if she likes; but I shall call her Sunshine still,
sometimes.”
“What say, pet? will you have Dolce for a name?” asked
Karl, turning to pinch the little ear peeping from Sunshine's
curls.
“I don't know; would you, Dora?” asked the child,
gravely deliberating.
“Yes: I think it is pretty.”
“And Kitty sha'n't call me Molly any more; shall she?”
“Don't you like Molly?”
“No: because that man in Cincinnati asked me if my
last name was Coddle; and it ain't.”
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“Oh, dear! what an odd little thing she is!” exclaimed
Kitty. “It was Mr. Thomson, Dora; and he is so witty,
you know! And one day he asked the child if her name
wasn't Miss Molly Coddle, just for a joke, you see; and we
all laughed: but she ran away; and, when I went to my
room, there she was crying, and wouldn't come down again
for ever so long. She's a regular little fuss-bunch about
such things.”
“Very strange, when you and I are so fond of being ridiculed
and laughed at!” remarked Karl gravely; and Sunshine
whispered, —
“Am I a fuss-bunch, Dora?”
Dora did not answer, except by a little pat upon the child's
rosy cheek, as she exclaimed, —
“Here we are! Look, Kitty! that is home; and we must
bid each other welcome, since there is no one to do it for us
both except Mehitable, and I don't believe she will think of
it.”
“Well, I must say, Dora, you've got things to going
a great deal better than I should expect,” said Kitty graciously,
as she looked about her. “Why, that sweetbrier
beside the door, and the white rose the other side, are
just like ours at home; and the woodbine growing up the
corner too!”
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“They came from the old home, every one of them,” said
Dora, smiling happily. “I wrote in the spring, and asked
Mr. Burroughs to be so kind as to ask whoever lives in the
house to take up a little root of each of the roses, and send
them to me by express. You know he said, when we left,
that we should have any thing we liked from the place, then or
afterwards. So he wrote such a pleasant note, and said he
had sold the house to a cousin of his, a Mr. Legrange, who
had made a present of it to his wife; but I could have the
slips all the same: and next day, to be sure, they came, all
nicely packed in matting, and some other plants with them.
Karl brought them out and set them in April; and they
are growing beautifully, you see. Wasn't Mr. Burroughs
good?”
Kitty did not answer. She was bending low over the
sweetbrier, and inhaling the fragrance of its leaves. Karl
and Sunshine had driven to the barn, and the girls remained
alone. Dora glanced sharply at her cousin once, and then
was turning away, when Kitty detained her, and said in a
low voice, —
“My mother planted that sweetbrier, and used to call it
her Marnie-bush, after me.”
“I know it,” said Dora softly.
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“And that was the reason you brought it here. And I
have been cross to you so much! But I did love her so,
Dora! oh, you don't know how much I loved my mother!
That is the reason I never will let any one call me Marnie
now. It was the name she always called me, though Kitty
belongs to me too; but she said it so softly! And to think
you should bring the Marnie-bush all the way from Massachusetts!”
“I thought you would like it, dear,” said Dora absently;
while her eyes grew dim and vague, and around her mouth
settled the white, hard line, that, in her reticent nature,
showed an emotion no less intense because it was suppressed.
Then her arm stole round Kitty's waist, and she whispered
in her ear, —
“We two motherless girls ought to feel for each other,
and love each other better than those who never knew what
it is; shouldn't we, Kitty?”
“We should that, Dora,” returned her cousin with emphasis;
“and I don't believe I shall forget again right
away. Let us begin from now, and see how good we can
be to each other.”
Dora's kisses, except for Sunshine, were almost as rare as
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her tears; but she gave one now to Kitty, who accepted it
as sufficient answer to her proposition.
At this moment, Mehitable, who had, at the appearance
of the wagon, rushed home to give a finishing touch to her
toilet, was seen crossing the little interval between the two
houses with an elaborate air of unconsciousness of observation,
and carrying a large white handkerchief by its exact
centre.
“My! — how fine we look!” whispered Kitty.
“This is my cousin, Miss Windsor, Mehitable,” said
Dora simply. “I believe you didn't see her in Cincinnati?”
“No: she was away when we was there. — Happy to
make your acquaintance, Miss Windsor. How do you like
out here?”
“Well, I don't know yet. I never tried keeping house in
a log-cabin. You'll have to show me how, I expect,” said
Kitty rather loftily.
“Lor! I guess you know as much as I do about it. I
never see a log-cabin in my life till we come out here.
My father had a fust-rate house, cla'borded and shingled,
and all, down in Maine; and we alluz had a plenty to do
with of every sort: so I hain't no experience at all in this
sort of way.”
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“But you have a way of getting on without it that is
almost as good. I don't know what I should have done
without Mehitable, Kitty; and I dare say she will help you
very much by telling all the ingenious ways she has contrived
to make our rude accommodations answer. You
know, as we are all beginning together, each must help on
the other; and we must all keep up our courage, and try to
be contented.”
“Well, I must say I never see one that kep' up her own
courage, and everybody else's, like her, since I was born
into the world,” said Mehitable, turning confidentially to
Kitty. “Talk of my helping her! Lor! if it hadn't been
for her, I never would have stopped here over night, in the
world. Why, the first night, I didn't do nothing but roar
the whole night long. Mr. Ross he said I'd raise the river
if I didn't stop: but in the morning down come Miss Dora,
looking so bright and sunshiny, that I couldn't somehow
open my head to say I wouldn't stop; and then she begun to
talk” —
“Mehitable, the short-cake is done. Will you speak to
Mr. Windsor?” called Dora from within; and Kitty
entered, saying, —
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“How nice the tea-table looks!—just like home, Dora;
the old India china and all.”
“It is home, Kit-cat. Here is Karl, and here is little
Sunshine. Come, friends, and let us sit down to our first
meal in the new house,” said Dora: and Kitty, subduing a
little feeling of fallen dignity, seated herself at the side of
the table; leaving the head for Dora, who colored a little,
but took it quietly.
-- 259 -- p453-264
CHAPTER XXIX. LIFE AT OUTPOST.
[figure description] Page 259.[end figure description]
And now began for each member of the family at Outpost
a new and active life.
Kitty, who, young as she was, had already achieved reputation
as a notable housekeeper, found quite enough to attend
to in domestic matters, and, with Mehitable's help and counsel,
soon had all the interests and nearly all the comforts of
New-England farm-life established in her Western home.
Even the marigolds her mother had always raised as a
flavoring to broths; and the catnip, motherwort, peppermint,
and tansy, grown and dried as sovereign remedies in case
of illness; and the parsley, sage, and marjoram, to be used
in various branches of cookery, — flourished in their gardenbed
under Kitty's fostering care; while poor Silas Ross was
fairly worried, in spite of himself, into digging and roofing
an ice-cellar in the intervals of his more important duties.
“Now we'll see, another summer, if we can't have some
butter that's like butter, and not like soft-soap,” remarked
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Kitty complacently, when the unhappy Silas announced his
task complete.
“And now I hope I can sleep in my bed o' nights without
hearing `Ice-house, ice-house!' till I'm sick o' the sound
of ice,” muttered Silas, walking away.
It is not to be averred, however, that all this thrift was
established without much commotion or many stormy scenes;
and, not unfrequently, Mehitable Ross announced to her
husband that “she wouldn't stan' it nohow, to be nosed
round this way by a gal not so old as herself!” And Kitty
“declared to gracious” that she “never saw such a topping
piece as that Hitty Ross since she was born;” and, if “folks
undertook to work for other folks, they ought to be willing to
do the way they were told;” and she'd “rather do the whole
alone than keep round after that contrary creature, seeing
that she didn't get the upper-hands as soon as her back was
turned!”
But Dora, without appearing to listen or to look, heard all
and saw all. Dora, cheerful, energetic, and calm, knew how
to heal, without appearing to notice the wound; had a faculty,
all her own, of leading the mind, vexed with a thousand
trifles, to the contemplation of some aim so grand, some
thought so high, some love or beauty so serene, that it
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turned back to daily life calm and refreshed, and strengthened
to do or to endure with new courage.
“Somehow I felt ashamed of jawing so about that wash,
when Dora came in, and put her hands into the tub, and,
while she was rubbing away, began to tell what a crop of
corn we're going to have; and how the folks down South,
the freedmen and all, might have plenty to eat, if every one
did as well as we're doing,” said Mehitable to her husband.
“Yes,” replied Seth: “she stood by me there in the
sun as much as an hour, and told the cutest story you
ever heard about the Injins believing that corn is a live
creter, and appeared once, in the shape of a young man
named Odahmin, to one of the Injin chiefs called Hiawatha;
and they had a wrastle. Hiawatha beat, and killed the other
feller, and buried him up in the ground; but he hadn't
more'n got him under 'fore up he come agin, or ruther some
Injin-corn come up: but they called the green leaves his
clothes; and the tossel atop, his plume; and the sprouts
was his hands, each holding an ear of corn, that he give to
Hiawatha, just as a feller that's whipped gives another his
hat, you know.”
“Do the Injins believe all that now?” asked Mehitable
contemptuously.
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“They do so. But, I tell you, I never knew how those
two rows got hoed while she was talking: they seemed to
slip right along somehow; and, after she was gone, the time
seemed dreadful short till sundown, I was thinking so busy
of what she said.
“Guess you'd been cross 'cause that cultivator didn't
come; hadn't you?” asked Mehitable slyly.
“Yes: I felt real mad all the morning about it, and was
pretty grumpy to Windsor; for I thought he might as well
have sent a week ago. But, by George! I'd like to see the
feller that 'ud be grumpy to her.”
“Well, Dora,” Kitty was saying at the same moment,
“I'm glad you've got home; for the first thing isn't ready
for supper, and I've just done ironing. That Hit went off
home an hour ago; said her head ached, and she'd got to get
the men's supper. I do declare, I'd like to shake that woman
till her teeth rattled; and I believe I'll do it some day!”
“How beautifully the clothes look, Kitty! I think they
bleach even whiter here than they used to in the old drying
yard. But I am sorry you ironed that white waist of mine:
I was going to do it myself. Now, Sunshine, come and
tell Aunt Kitty about the woodchuck and her baby that we
saw; and how we caught little chucky, as you called him;
and all the rest.”
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“Dear me! I can't stop. Well, come and sit in my lap,
Dolly, and tell if you want to. Dora, do sit and rest a
minute: you look all tired out.”
“Oh, no! but Karl is, I am afraid. He walked away out
behind the wheat-lot this afternoon to see to setting some
traps for the poor little things that come to eat it. I never
saw such a boy when there is any thing to be done. He
goes right at it, no matter what lies between.”
“You're right there, Dora; and he always was so from
a child. Well, Dolly, what's the story?”
“Don't call me Dolly, please,” said the little girl coaxingly.
“Well, Dolce, then,” said Kitty, smiling with renewed
good-nature. And while Sunshine, all unconsciously, completed
by her prattle the cure that Dora had begun, the
latter quietly and rapidly finished the preparations for tea.
As for Sunshine, never did a child so well deserve her
name. In the house or on the prairie, running with Argus,
walking demurely beside Karl, or riding behind Dora upon
the stout little pony reserved for the use of the young mistress
of the place, it was always as a gleam of veritable
sunshine that she came; and no heart so dark, or temper so
gloomy, as to resist her sweet influence. Constant exercise
and fresh air, proper food, and the rigid sanitary laws
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established by Dora, had brought to the child's cheek a richer
bloom than it had ever known before; while her blue eyes
seemed two sparkling fountains of joy, and a vivid life
danced and glittered even among her sunny curls. Lithe
and straight, and strong of limb too, grew our slender little
Cerito; and, although every motion was still one of grace, it
was now the assured grace of strength, instead of that of fragility.
She danced too, but it was with the west wind, who,
rough companion that he was, whirled her round and round
in his strong arms, or tossed her hair in a bright cloud across
her face; while he snatched her hat, and sent it spinning into
the prairie; or kissed the laugh from her lips, and carried it
away to the wild woods to mock at the singing-birds.
Argus too — what friends he and the child, who at first
had been afraid of him, became before the summer was
through! What talks they held! How merrily they
laughed together! and how serenely Argus listened while
Sunshine told him long histories of imaginary wanderings
among the clouds, in enchanted forests, or “away beyond
the blue up in the sky”! Confidences these; for, as the narrator
whispered, —
“Dora doesn't like dream-stories, and Kitty says, `Oh,
nonsense!' and Karlo laughs: so you mustn't tell a word, old
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Argus.” And Argus, wagging his tail, and blinking his
bright brown eyes, promised never to tell, and faithfully
kept the promise.
Perhaps it was a vague sense of loneliness in these fancies;
perhaps it was the lingering longing for something
she had lost even from her memory, and yet not wholly from
her heart, where, as we all know, linger loves for which we
no longer have a name or a thought; perhaps it was only
the dim reflex of that agony consuming her mother's heart,
and the earnestness with which it longed for her: but something
there was, that, at intervals, cast a sudden shadow over
Sunshine's heart; something that made her pale and still,
and deepened the dimples at the corners of her mouth, until
each might have held a tear. At these times, she would
always steal away by herself if possible; sometimes, and
especially if the stars were out, to sit with folded hands,
gazing at the sky; sometimes to lie upon her little bed, her
eyes fixed on vacancy, until the bright tears gathered, and
rolled slowly down her cheeks: but, oftenest of all, she
would call Argus, and, with one hand upon his glossy head,
wander away to the dim forest, and seated at the foot of
one of those patriarchal trees, the hound lying close beside
her, would talk to him as she never talked to human ears.
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Once, Karl, returning from an expedition to a distant part
of the farm, saw her thus, and half in fun, half in curiosity,
crept up behind the great oak at whose foot she sat,
and listened.
“And up there in heaven, Argus,” she was saying, “it's all
so beautiful! and no one ever speaks loud or cross; and every
one has shining white clothes, and flowers on their heads;
and some one is there — I don't know — I guess it's an angel;
but she's got soft hands, and such pretty shiny hair, and
eyes all full of loving me. I dream about her sometimes;
but I don't know who she is: and you mustn't tell, Argus.
Sometimes I want to die, so as to go to heaven and look for
her. Argus, do you want to go to heaven?”
The brown eyes said that Argus wished whatever she did;
and Sunshine continued:—
“Well, some day we'll go. I don't know just how; I
don't believe we'd find the way if we went now: but some
day I shall know, and then I'll tell you. Sometimes I feel
so lonesome, Argus! oh, so dreadful homesick! but I don't
now. You're a real little comforter, Argus. That's what
Dora called me the other night when Kitty was cross: and
Dora cried a little when she came to bed, and didn't know I
was awake; and I kissed her just so, Argus, and so.”
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In the game of romps and kisses that ensued, Karl stole
away, and, after repeating the child's prattle to Dora, said
thoughtfully, —
“There's something strange about her, Dora; something
different from any of us. She seems so finely and delicately
made, and as if one rude jar might destroy the whole tone
of her life. If ever a creature was formed of peculiar,
instead of common clay, it is Sunshine.”
“Yes, and she must be shielded accordingly,” said Dora.
But, as she walked on beside Karl, she vaguely wondered if
there were not natures as finely strung and as sensitive to
suffering as Sunshine's, but united with so reticent an exterior,
and such outward strength, as never to gain the sympathy or
appreciation so freely bestowed upon the exquisite child.
Such introspection, however, was no part of Dora's
healthy temperament; and the next moment she had
plunged into a talk upon farm-matters with her cousin, and
displayed such shrewdness and clear-sighted wisdom upon
the subject, that Capt. Karl laughingly exclaimed, as they
entered the house, —
“O general! why weren't you born a man?”
-- 268 -- p453-273
CHAPTER XXX. KITTY IN THE WOODS.
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Left to his own guidance, Capt. Karl would have asked
no better life than to follow Dora about the farm, or fulfil
for her such duties as she could not conveniently perform
for herself. Nor was he ever troubled, as a man of less
sweet and genial temper might have been, by fears, lest, in
thus attending upon his cousin's pleasure, he sacrifieed
somewhat of manly dignity and the awful supremaey of
the sterner sex. “Dora knows” had become to Karl a
sufficient explanation of every thing, either in the character
or the administration of the girl-farmer, however mysterious
it might seem to others; and to defer to Dora's judgment
and wishes was perhaps pleasanter and safer in
the eyes of the young man than to attempt to consult his
own.
But, pleasant though this life might be to both, it came
by no means within the scope of Dora's plans; and, so soon
as the family were thoroughly settled at Outpost, Karl
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[figure description] Page 269.[end figure description]
found himself urged by irresistible pressure to the pursuance
of his medical studies.
Five miles from Outpost, in the youthful town of Greenfield,
was already established a respectable physician of
the old school, who, troubled with certain qualms and
doubts as to the ability of the system he had practised so
many years to bear the scrutiny of the new lights thrown
upon it by the progress of science, was very glad to secure
the services, and even advice, of a young man educated in
the best medical schools of the Eastern States; and not only
consented to take Karl into his office as student until the
nominal term of his studies should have expired, but offered
him a partnership in his practice so soon as he should
receive his diploma.
The arrangement was accordingly made; and every morning
after breakfast, Karl, often with a rueful face, often
with an audible protest, mounted his horse, and rode to
Greenfield, leaving the household at Outpost to a long day
of various occupations until his return at night.
Sometimes Dora, upon Max, her little Indian pony,
would accompany him a few miles, or as far as his road
led toward the scene of her own labors; but no Spartan
dame or Roman matron could more sternly have resisted
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the young man's frequent entreaties to be allowed to accompany
her farther than the point at which their roads
diverged.
“No, sir! You to your work, and I to mine. Suppose
I were to neglect the farm, and come to sit in Dr.
Gershom's office all day,” argued the fair young moralist,
but found herself rather disconcerted by her pupil's gleeful
laugh, as he replied, —
“Good, good! Try it once, do; and let me see if it
would be so very bad. I think I could forgive you.”
Suppose, then, instead of arguing any more with you, I
jump Max over this brook, and leave you where you are?”
said Dora, a little vexed; and, suiting the action to the
word, she was off before her cousin could remonstrate.
In the evening of the day when this little scene occurred,
Karl, upon his return home, found Dora seated with Sunshine
upon the grass under the great chestnut-tree.
“A letter for you, you horrid tyrant!” said he, taking
one from his pocket, and tossing it into her lap.
“She isn't; and you are a naughty old Karlo to say such
names!” cried Sunshine, flashing her blue eyes indignantly
upon the laughing face of the young man.
“Such names as what, Dolce?” asked he, jumping from
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his horse, and trying to catch the child, who evaded his
grasp, and replied with dignity, —
“It isn't any consequence, Karlo. She isn't it, and you
know she isn't.”
“But it is of consequence; for I don't know what it is
she isn't. Please tell me, mousey; won't you?”
“She isn't a tireout, you know she isn't, then. You
sha'n't laugh! Dora, shall Karlo laugh at me? shall he?”
“No, dear, he won't; but you mustn't be a cross little
girl if he does. Now run to the house, and tell Aunt Kitty
that Karlo has come home, and see if tea is ready.”
The child put up her lips for a kiss, bestowed a glance
of dignified severity upon the offender, and walked towards
the house with measured steps for a little distance; then,
with the frolicsome caprice of a kitten, made a little caper
in the air, and danced on, singing, in her clear, sweet
voice, —
“Dear, dear, what can the matter be?
Karlo can't stay from here!”
“Funny child!” exclaimed the object of the stave. “A
true little woman, with her loves and spites. Who is the
letter from, Dolo?”
“Mr. Brown,” said Dora, slowly folding it, and rising
from her seat under the tree to return to the house.
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“Aha! Seems to me the parson is not so attentive as
he used to be. Have you and he fallen out?”
“No, indeed! we are the best of friends; and, in proof
of it, this letter is to say he is coming to make a little visit
at Outpost, if convenient to us.”
“And is it convenient?” asked Karl somewhat curtly.
“Certainly; or, at least, we can make it so. Either
you can take him into your room, or Kitty can give him
hers, and come into mine.”
Karl said nothing; but, as they walked toward the house,
his face remained unusually serious, and he seemed to be
thinking deeply. Dora glanced at him once, or twice, and
at last asked abruptly, —
“Don't you want Mr. Brown to come, Karl?”
“Certainly, certainly, if you do. It is your own house,
and you have a right to your own guests,” replied the young
man coldly.
Dora colored indignantly.
“For shame, Karl! Did I ever say a thing like that to
you in the old house? and would you have been pleased if
I had?”
“No, Dolo; and no again. But you never were a selfish
fool, like me. Yes, I am glad Mr. Brown is coming; and
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I think I will stay at Greenfield while he is here. Then he
can have my room.”
“No, no: that won't do at all. He comes to see us all;
and, of course, we can manage a room without turning you
out. Kitty can come into mine” —
“Dora, what is the day of the month?”
“The 17th, I believe.”
“Yes, the 17th of August; and seven days more will
bring the 24th of August, Dora.”
“Of course. Do you suppose he will be here by that
time?” asked Dora unconsciously.
Karl looked at her in a sort of comic despair.
“Dora, if you were not the most utterly truthful of girls,
you would be the most cruel of coquettes.”
Dora's eyes rose swiftly to his face, read it for a moment,
and then fell; while a sudden color dyed her own.
“You remember the date now?” asked Karl, almost
mockingly. “See here!” and, taking from his pocket the
memorandum-book of a year before, he opened it to a page
bearing only the words, —
“Dora. Wednesday, Aug. 24.”
“O Karl! I thought” —
“Stop, general! It is I who must be officer of the day
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[figure description] Page 274.[end figure description]
on this occasion; and I forbid one word. I only wished
to let you see that I have not forgotten. And so Mr. Brown
is coming to see us?”
Again Dora glanced in perplexity at her cousin's face,
but, this time, said not a word. Indeed, if she had wished,
there was hardly time; for Kitty, appearing at the door,
called, —
“Come, folks, come! Supper is ready and cooling.”
“Coming, Kit-kat; and so is somebody else!” cried
Karl.
“Somebody? Christmas is coming, I suppose; but not
just yet. Did you hear that over at Greenfield?” replied
Kitty, resting her hands on her brother's shoulders, and
graciously receiving his kiss of greeting.
“It's not Christmas, but Parson Brown, who is coming;
and I brought the news from Greenfield, although I did not
know it until I arrived here,” said Karl.
“Oh, a letter to Dora!” exclaimed Kitty quickly; and
over her face, a moment before so bright, fell a scowling
cloud, as she turned away, and busied herself with putting
tea upon the table.
The meal was rather a silent one. Kitty was decidedly
sulky, Dora thoughtful, and Karl a little bitter in his forced
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[figure description] Page 275.[end figure description]
gayety; so that Sunshine, sensitive as a mimosa, ate but
little, and, creeping close to Dora's side as they rose from
the table, whispered, —
“What's the reason it isn't happier, Dora?”
“Aren't you happy, pet? Come and help me wash the
teacups, and tell me how the kitties do to-day. Have you
given them their milk?”
“I suppose you can do up these dishes without me. I
got tea all alone; and I'd like to take my turn at a walk,
or something pleasant, now,” said Kitty crossly
“Yes, do, Kitty. Dolce and I will do all that is to be
done. It isn't much, because you always clear up as you
go along,” said Dora.
“There's no need of leaving every thing round, the
way some folks do. Dolly, I do wish you'd set up your
chair when you've done with it; and here's a mess of
stuff” —
“Oh, don't throw it away, Kitty! It's my moss; and
I'm going to make the pussies a house of stones, and have
it grow all over moss. Dora said I might — Oh, oh!
you're real naughty and ugly now, Kitty Windsor; and I
sha'n't love you, and Argus shall bite you” —
But Kitty, with a contemptuous laugh, was already
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walking away, taking especial pains to tread upon the bits of
bright moss as they lay scattered along the path.
“Dora, see! I do hate — no, I dislike — Kitty, just as
hard as I can; and I can't get any more pretty moss” —
The child was crying passionately; and Dora left every
thing to take her in her arms, and soothe and quiet her.
“Aunt Kitty is very neat and nice, little Sunshine; and
the moss has earth clinging to it that might drop on the
floor; and, besides, it takes up room, and we have so little,—
hardly more than a mouse has in its nest. Oh! I never
told you how I found a whole nest of mice in one of my
slippers once, — six little tiny fellows, no bigger than your
thumb; and every one with two little black, beady eyes,
and a funny little tail.”
“When was it? When you was a little teenty girl, like
me? And was you afraid of the big mouse? What did
you do with them?”
“Come, wipe the teaspoons, and I will tell you,” said
Dora, going back to her work; and, the April cloud having
passed, the Sunshine was as bright as ever.
Karl, behind his newspaper, heard, saw, and understood
the whole; and his mental comment might have seemed to
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some hearers but little connected with the scene that called
it forth. It was simply, —
“Confound old Brown!”
Kitty, meantime, had walked rapidly towards the wood;
but though the sunset-clouds were gorgeous, the lights and
shadows of the forest rare and shifting, and the birds jubilant
in their evening song, she saw nothing, heard nothing,
knew nothing, except the tumult in her own heart.
Far in the recesses of the wood, she paused, and throwing
herself upon the ground, her face hidden upon her arms, gave
way to a paroxysm of tears. Then, rising to her feet as
suddenly, she paced up and down, her hands clinched before
her, her black brows knit, and her mouth hard and sullen.
“I can't help it,” muttered she: “it's the way I was made,
and the way I shall die, I expect. I know I'm mean and
hateful, and not half as good as she; but — Oh! it's too
bad, too bad! — it's cruel, and I can't bear it! Mother loved
me, — yes, she loved me best of every thing; and that hateful
Pic killed her: whose fault was that but Dora's? Then Charlie—
what does he care for me beside her? and, and — Well,
perhaps Mr. Brown never would have noticed me at any
rate; but, while she's round, he has no eyes for any one else.
Even the child, and the cats, and the dog, and the horses,
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every living thing, loves her better than me; and now he's
coming to court her right before my eyes! I wish I was
dead! I wish I'd never been born! I'm not fit to live!”
She then threw herself again upon the ground, pressing her
burning forehead against the cool moss, and grasping handfuls
of the leaves rustling about her, while she wailed again and
again, —
“I'm not fit to live, — not fit to live! Oh, I wish I was
dead this minute! O God! if you love me any better than
the rest, let me die, let me die this minute; for I am not fit to
live.”
“Then you cannot be fit to die, my child,” said a voice
above her; and, starting up, Kitty found herself confronted by
a tall, fine-looking man, of about thirty years of age; his handsome
face just now wearing an expression of sorrowful sternness
as he fixed his eyes upon Kitty's, which fell before them.
“Mr. Brown!” stammered she.
“Yes, Kitty: my journey has been more rapid than I
could have expected; and I arrived at Greenfield about an
hour ago. Finding you so near, I took a horse, and came out
here to-night. You did not hear me approach; and, when I
saw you through the trees, I dismounted, and came to ask
you what was the matter. I heard only your last words,
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and perhaps I should not have noticed them; yet, as a
friend of you and yours, I will say again, Kitty, he who is
not fit to live should feel himself most unfit to die, which is
but to live with all the passions that made life unendurable
made ours forever.”
“Do you think so? If I should die now, should I feel
just as badly when I came to in the other world?” asked
Kitty with a startled look.
Mr. Brown smiled, as he answered, —
“I cannot think, Kitty, that your remorse or your sorrows
can be as deep as you fancy. Perhaps they are only trifling
vexations connected with outside matters, not rising from
real wrong within. But you won't want to hear a sermon
before I even reach the house: so come and show me the way
there, and tell me how you all are.”
“Dora is very well,” said Kitty, so crisply, that Mr. Brown
glanced at her sharply, and walked on in silence. Presently
he said, —
“You must not think, Kitty, that I mean to treat your
troubles lightly, whatever they may be. Think about them
a little longer by yourself; and in a day or two, if they still
seem as unendurable, perhaps it will relieve you to talk to
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me as plainly as you choose. I shall be very glad to help
you if I can, Kitty; very glad and willing. You must look
upon me as another brother.”
“Or a cousin, maybe, sir?” suggested Kitty, turning away
her head.
-- 281 -- p453-286
CHAPTER XXXI. THE FOX UNDER THE ROBE.
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Dora sitting upon the doorstep, with Sunshine nestled
close beside her, was quite astonished to see Mr. Brown
appearing from the forest with Kitty, as his letter had named
no day for his arrival; and she had not expected him so
soon.
She went to meet him, however, with a greeting of unaffected
cordiality; and as, while holding out her hand, she
raised to his her clear and steadfast eyes, the young man's
somewhat serious face lighted with a sudden, happy glow,
making it so handsome, that Kitty, eagerly watching the
meeting, turned white to the very lips, and hastily passed
on toward the house.
“Come, Dolce,” said she, “I will put you to bed. Dora's
lover has come to see her, and she won't have a look for
either of us to-night.”
“I love you, Kitty; and I don't mind if you did throw
away my moss. I won't bring any more into the house.”
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But Sunshine, well disposed as, through Dora's careful
suggestions, she had become toward Kitty, was rather
alarmed than pleased at the sudden embrace in which she
found herself wrapped, and the eager kisses, among which
Kitty whispered, —
“O Dolce! do you, do you love poor Kitty a little? You're
an angel, and I'm real sorry about the moss; but you can get
some more, can't you? I'll help you hunt for it to-morrow
while they're gone to walk or ride. They'll be off all day;
but we won't mind. Do you love me, Dolly?”
“Yes, I do, Kitty; and I know a place where the moss
is so thick, you can't step unless you put your foot on it.
But I didn't, 'cause” —
“'Cause what, you darling?”
“'Cause the little creatures that live in the woods come
and dance there nights, and they wouldn't like it if it was
dirty.”
“What creatures? The woodchucks?”
“Why, no, Aunt Kitty! the little girls and boys, or something.
They whisper way off among the trees, and dance
too, just when the sun sets. Didn't you ever see them skipping
in and out among the trees just as far off as you could
look?”
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“Those are shadows, Dolly; and the whispering in the
trees is the wind. You mustn't have so many fancies,
child, or by and by you'll get cracked.”
“Then you can boil me in milk, just as you did the teacup,”
murmured Sunshine, half asleep.
Kitty made no answer, but, smoothing the sheet over the
little girl, went to seat herself at the open window.
Far off upon the prairie she heard the night-winds come
and go, — now moaning like some vast spirit wandering
disquieted, now falling soft and low as the breath of the
sleeping earth; and the vague voice and the cool touch
seemed to quiet the fever of the young girl's heart, although
she knew not how or why.
Above, in the purple skies, stood all the host of heaven,
looking down with solemn benediction upon the earth, lying
peaceful and loving beneath their gaze; and even Kitty —
poor, lonely, heartsick Kitty — lifted her hot, tearful face
toward them, and felt the holy calm descend upon her
aching heart.
Falling upon her knees, she raised her arms yearningly
toward heaven; and her whole soul struggled upward in
the cry, —
“Oh, I wish I could, I wish I could, be good! O God!
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make me good enough to die and go to where my mother
is!”
A light step upon the stair, a gentle hand upon the latch,
and strange Kitty, perverse even among her best impulses,
started up, and stood cold and silent in the darkness.
“Kitty!” said Dora's voice softly.
“Well. I'm here.”
“Won't you come down now? Sunshine is asleep; isn't
she?”
“Yes.”
“Well, won't you come?”
“By and by: I've got to see to the beds. Where is Mr.
Brown going to sleep?”
“I thought you might give him your room, and come in
here.”
“Indeed I sha'n't!” replied Kitty in a strange voice.
“He is no company of mine; and I don't want him even to
look into my room. I'd never sleep there again if he did
once!”
“Well, then, we can make a bed for Karl on the floor,
and Mr. Brown can have his bed,” said Dora quietly, seeing
nothing deeper in Kitty's refusal than a little impulse
of perversity.
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Kitty made no reply; and Dora, groping her way toward
where she stood, put an arm about her waist, saying, —
“Come, Kitty, come down with me. You're tired, I
know; and it is too bad you have so much to do. To-morrow
I will stay at home and help you. Karl can take a
holiday, and show Mr. Brown over the farm.”
“What nonsense! I don't do any thing to hurt; and it
would be pretty well for you to send Mr. Brown off with
Karl, when he came here on purpose to see you.”
“Oh, no, he didn't! He came to see us all; and he
asked where you were just now, when we came in.”
“And that was why you came to look for me; wasn't
it?” asked Kitty suspiciously.
“Not wholly. I had been thinking of it for some minutes.”
“But couldn't bear to leave long enough,” suggested
Kitty; adding, however, “Well, I'll come. I suppose it is
no more than polite, as long as he's company.”
“Of course it isn't; and you know Mr. Brown is very
ceremonious,” said Dora, so archly, that Kitty paused in
smoothing her hair to say, —
“Now, if you're going to make fun of me, Dora” —
“Oh, I'm not! — not a bit of it. There, now, you're nice
enough for any thing.”
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In the kitchen, besides Mr. Brown and Karl, the girls
found Mr. and Mrs. Ross; Mehitable demurely seated in a
corner, and knitting a long woollen stocking; while Seth,
under the skilful management of Mr. Brown, was giving
quite an interesting description of life in a Maine loggingcamp.
“Do you ever have any trouble from wild beasts in that
region?” asked the chaplain.
“Waal, some. There's lots of b'ar about by spells; and
once't in a while a painter or a wild-cat — wolverines, some
calls 'cm out here.”
“Did you ever meet one yourself?”
“Which on 'em?”
“Either. Bears, for instance.”
“Yes, sir. I've took b'ar ever since I wor old enough
to set a trap.”
“Did you ever have any trouble with one?”
“Waal, I don' know as I did. They was mostly pooty'
commodatin',” said Seth, drawing the back of his brown
hand across his mouth to hide a self-complacent grin at
the recollection of his own exploits.
“Tell Mr. Brown 'bout the painter and Uncle 'Siah's
Harnah,” suggested Mehitable in a low voice; and as Seth
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only stirred in his chair, and looked rather reprovingly at
his wife, the guest added, —
“Yes, Mr. Ross, tell us that, by all means.”
“Ho! 'twa'n't much of a story; only the woman thinks
consid'able about it, 'cause it wor a cousin of ourn that wor
took off.”
“Indeed! and what were the circumstances?” politely
insisted Mr. Brown. So Seth, tilting his chair upon its
hind-legs, and crossing his own, stuck his chin into the air,
fixed his eyes upon the ceiling, and began, in the inimitable
nasal whining voice of a Down-East Yankee, the story
narrated in the following chapter.
-- 288 -- p453-293
CHAPTER XXXII. THE PAINTER AND UNCLE 'SIAH'S HARNAH.
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“When father settled up nigh the head-waters of the
Penobscot, folks said we'd have to be mighty car'ful, or
some o' the young ones would tumble over the jumping-off-place,
we'd got so nigh. But Uncle 'Siah went right along,
and took up land furder on, whar there wa'n't nothing but
hemlock-trees and chipmunks for company, and no passing
to keep the women-folks running to the winders. Thar
was a good road cut through the woods, and there was the
river run within a stone's-throw of both houses: so, one
way and another, we got back'ards and for'ards consid'able
often, 'specially when the young folks begun to grow up.
“Harnah wor Uncle 'Siah's second gal, and just as pooty
as a picter. She looked suthin' like Dolcy, Dora's little
adopted darter, you know: but she wor alluz a-larfin', and
gitting off her jokes; and had a sort of a wicked look by
spells, enough to make a feller's flesh creep on his bones.”
“Lor', that's enough o' Harnah! She wa'n't so drefful
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different from other folks. Git along to the story part
on't,” interrupted Mehitable, clicking her knitting-needles
energetically.
Seth looked at her a little indignantly for a moment, and
then burst into a loud laugh, —
“Lor'! I'd clear forgot how it used ter spite Hit to hear
me praise up Harnah. You see, sir, Mehitabul wor a sort
o' cousin o' my mother's, and so come to live long of us
when her father died: but she never cottoned to Harnah
very strong when she see how well I liked her; though, now
she's got me for her own man, I'd think” —
“But the panther, Mr. Ross,” interposed Dora, who
saw, with womanly sympathy, the flush of mortification
upon Mehitable's face: “do tell us about the panther.”
“Yes: I b'lieve my idees was kind o' wandering from the
pint; but that's nothing strange, if you knowed what an
out-an-outer that gal was. Well, well, 'tain't no use a-crying
over spilt milk, and by-gones may as well be stay-gones.
“Sam Hedge, he was my uncle's hired man, and a
plaguy smart feller too; good-looking, merry as a grig,
a live Yankee for faculty, and pretty forehanded too, though
he hadn't set up for himself then. I more than suspicioned
he'd ruther live with Uncle 'Siah, and see Harnah from
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morning to night, than go off and take up land for himself;
or maybe he didn't feel as if he'd the peth to take right
hold of new land all alone. Anyway, there he wor, and
there he stuck, right squar in my way, do as much as I
might to git him out on't.
“Of course, you onderstand about being in my way
means all along o' Harnah. We was both sweet on her,
and no mistake; though nary one on us, nor, I believe, the
gal herself, could ha' told which one she favored.
“Waal, to skip over all the rest (though there's the stuff
for half a dozen stories in it), I'll come to one night when
I'd been up to Uncle 'Siah's, and Harnah and Sam had
come down to the crick to see me off; for I'd come in my
boat. I felt kind o' savage; for Harnah had been mighty
pooty with me all that evening; and I knew Sam had come
down to the boat a purpose to go back to the house with
her, and, 'fore they was half-way, she'd come right round,
and be just as clever to him as she'd been before to
me.”
“If you knew your cousin to be such a terrible little
flirt as that, I shouldn't think you would have cared so
much about her, Seth,” suggested Karl, laughing.
“No more shouldn't I, cap'n,” replied Seth ruefully.
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“But somehow I couldn't help it. I'd think it over nights,
and say to myself, `You darned fool! don't you see the
gal's a-playing one of you off agin t'other, and maybe
don't care a pin for neither? Get shet of her once for all,
and be a man; can't ye?' And then I'd find I couldn't; and
so it went till we come to that night, and stood there on the
edge of the crick, — two on us ready to clinch and fight till
one cried enough, and t'other a-laughing at us both.
“So, all to once, Harnah says, says she, —
“`I do believe them harebells are blowed out by this
time. Ain't they, boys?'
“`You and I'll go to-morrow and see, anyway,' says
Sam, speaking up quick, 'fore I got the chance.
“`I'm a-going to see; and, if Harnah'll come too, all the
better,' says I, as pleasant as a bear with a sore head.
“`Two's company, and three's a crowd; so you'd better
stop to home, Seth,' says Sam.
“`Two's company, that's Harnah and me; and three's a
crowd, that's you: so, ef you don't like crowding nor being
crowded, you'd better stop to home yourself,' says I.
“`I believe I spoke first, Seth Ross,' says Sam, pretty
savage at last.
“`That don't make no difference, as I know on. Harnah
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[figure description] Page 292.[end figure description]
was my cousin long afore you was her father's hired man;
and that puts me in mind you hain't asked leave yet.
Maybe the old man won't let you go. What you going to
do then?' asked I, dreadful kind of sneering; for I felt
mad.
“Sam he didn't say nothing; but he drew back, and
doubled up his fists. I caught the glint of his eye in the
moonlight, and my darnder riz.
“`Come on,' says I; `I'm ready for you; and we'll fight
it out like men. The feller that's licked shall give up once
for all.'
“But 'fore Sam could speak, or I could hit out as I
wanted ter, Harnah come right in between us. I swow ef
that gal didn't look harnsome! Her eyes was wide open,
and shining just like blue steel in the moonlight. Her
cheeks and lips was white; and seemed to me the very curls
of her hair shot out sparks, she was so mad.
“`You'd better stop while there's time,' says she, still
and cold. `If you strike one another, or if you ever fight,
and I the cause, I swear to God I never will speak a civil
word to either one of you again as long as I live. So now
you know.
“`As for the harebells, you sha'n't neither one of you go
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for 'em. Ef I want harebells, there's them that can get'
em for me, and not make so much fuss about it neither.'
“She turned, and stepped off toward the house as if she'd
got steel springs in the soles of her feet.
“Sam and I eyed each other. It seemed as if Harnah
felt that look; for she turned all of a sudden, and come
back.
“`Sam,' says she, p'inting up to the house, `go home;
and don't you speak to me again to-night. Seth, get into
your boat, and push her off. You needn't come up to-morrow
night.'
“We sort o' looked at one another and at her, and then
meeched off the way she told us, for all the world like two
dogs that's got a licking, and been sent home 'fore the hunt
was done.
“I didn't sleep a great deal that night. Fact is, I was
turning over in my own mind what Harnah had said about
them as would git harebells for her, and not make so much
fuss about it neither.
“`I swow,' says I, `I'd like to clinch that feller, whoever
he may be, and not have Harnah nigh enough to interfere.'
Then I rec'lected a Cap'n Harris, a British officer, that
come down from Canady the summer before, hunting and
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fishing, and had stopped a week or more at Uncle 'Siah's,
mostly for the sake of seeing Harnah, as I thought then,
and do now. Ever since, when Harnah didn't know how
else to plague Sam and me, she'd set up to talk about `real
gentlemen,' and `folks that knowed manners,' and all sech
stuff. Then she'd pretend she'd got a letter from Cap'n
Harris, and that he was coming agin, and all that. So
now I got it in my head that Cap'n Harris was coming,
and that she meant he'd get the harebells.
“`But I'll bet he won't, without a fight, anyway,' says
I, elinching up my fist; and then I went to sleep quite
comf'table.
“Now, there wa'n't but one place, as I knew of, where
harebells was to be found; and Harnah had showed me
that place herself the summer afore, and I had picked the
flowers for her. So I made up my mind to go next day
and see if they was in blow; and, if they was, to get a
bunch anyway, and take the resk of giving 'em to Harnah
arterwards.
“I couldn't git away in the morning nohow; for Hitty
seemed to know it was something about Harnah that was
calling me, and contrived all sorts of business to keep me
to hum: but, after dinner, I jist took my hat, and cleared
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out afore she knowed it, and, by the time she missed me,
was half a mile up the river.
“'Twas a pooty day as ever you see; and a I rowed
along, listening to the water running by the boat, and the
wind rustling in the trees, I began to feel real sort of good,
and didn't care half so much about Sam or the British cap'n
as I did when I started. When I come to the landing at
Uncle 'Siah's, I never stopped, though I looked with all my
eyes for any signs of Harnah; but couldn't see no one but
Sam going out to the cornfield, with a hoe on his shoulder.
“`Good for you, Sam,' says I to myself. `Hard work's
dreadful wholesome for love-sickness.' So I rowed along as
merry as a cricket, and pretty soon tied up my boat, and
struck off into the woods. It was consid'able of a walk; and
I strolled along easy till I came to the place whar the harebells
growed, 'bout a mile and a half from the river. This
was a high clift, covered with brush and trees on one side,
and on the other falling sheer down to a little deep valley,
with another clift rising opposite. These clifts joined each
other at the two ends of the valley: so there was no getting
into it anyway but down the faces of 'em, and that was as
much as a man's neck was worth; but, fur's I know, no man
had ever wanted to, nor ever tried to, till that day.
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“The harebells growed on the very edge of the fust clift,
and a little way down the face of it, and looked mighty
pooty a-floating in the wind. Harnah, who was kind of
romantic, said they was the plume in the old clift's hat; and
she called the place the Lovers' Rock, 'case, she said, the
two clifts seemed taking hold of hands, and jist going to
kiss.”
“That sounds like Harnah, anyway,” muttered Mehitable
contemptuously.
“Yes, it's more uv an idee than you'd 'a been likely to
git off, ain't it, Hit?” asked Seth with a malicious grin, and
winking at the company.
But Mehitable preserving a prudent silence, and only
showing her feelings by an accelerated movement of her
knitting-needles, her husband elevated his eyes again to
the ceiling, recrossed his legs, and continued: —
“I scrambled up the back of the clift easy enough; and,
sure enough, there was the posies, all in blow, and tossing their
heads at me as if they knowed how pooty they was, and
dared me not to say so. Somehow they made me think of
Harnah; and I spoke right out, —
“`Yes, I know you be; and I hain't never said you
ain't as pooty a cretur as walks the airth: but I wish you
wa'n't so awful changeable.'
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“Then I laffed right out, to think I was talking to a lot
of flowers same as if they was a gal; and, when I done
laffin', I went down on my knees, and begun to pick 'em.
But I hadn't more than got the first fist-ful when I heerd a
groan, a sort uv a faint holler groan, that sounded as if it
come right out uv the ground underneath me. I dropped
the flowers, and riz right up on eend. My ha'r riz too; for
I was scaart, I tell you. `But,' thinks I, `'twon't do to run
away the fust lick:' so I held on, and pooty soon it come
agin. This time I listened sharp, and had my wits about
me; so that, when it wor through, I clim' right up to the top
uv the ledge, and looked down into the valley, hollerin', —
“`Who be you? Is any one thar?'
“A voice answered, faint and weak; but what it said, or
whar it was, I couldn't for the life of me tell.
“So I hollered agin, —
“`Whar be you, stranger? Holler as loud as you
kin!'
“The voice answered back; and I heerd my own name,
and, as I thought, in a voice that turned me as sick and
weak as a gal.
“It was Harnah's voice; and my first idee was that she
wor dead, and wor ha'nting me.
“`Harnah!' says I, soft and low, `is it you?'
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“There wa'n't no answer, but another groan, and along
of it a curious kind of noise, like a lot of cats all growling
together. I knowed that noise; and, afore it eended, I
knowed whar it come from. And, all to once, the hull
story come to me: Harnah was down thar in a painter's
den; and the kittens was a-growling round her.
The old ones must be away, or one of 'em would 'a been out
to see to me afore this.
“I hadn't the fust thing in the way of a we'pon with me;
but there was plenty of stones down in the hollow, and I cut
a good oak-sapling with my jack-knife. Then I sot myself
to scramble down the face of the clift; and, I tell you, I sweat
before I got to the bottom. Ef it hadn't been for Harnah, I
couldn't 'a done it; but, somehow or 'nother, I reached the
bottom, and looked about me. Sure enough, close to my
feet was the mouth of a cave, running right in under the
ledge, though not more than three foot high. I knelt down
and peeked in, calling, —
“`Harnah, be you thar?'
“`Seth, is it you?' asked a voice very faint.
“`Yes, my dear, it is,' says I, `and bound to get you
out uv this scrape about the quickest. What's a-keeping
you in there?'
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“`My leg is broke, and the horrid creature is lying on
my feet!' says Harnah.
“I didn't wait for no more questions, but crawled inter the
hole. A dozen feet from the mouth, I come to a snarl of fur,
and glary eyes, and snapping teeth, and savage growls, that
I finally made out to be a couple of painter-kittens, not
more'n a few days old, but savage enough for a hundred.
They was snuggled close up to something: what it was I
couldn't at fust make out in the darkness; but putty soon
I see that it was a full-grown painter, lying stretched out at
length. I started back, with all the blood in me pricking at
my fingers' ends with the scare I'd got; but Harnah's voice
from beyond says, —
“`Don't be frightened at the old panther. She's dead.
They fought, and one ran away; and this one is dead.'
“`And is she a-lying on your feet, did you say? It's so
dark in here, I can't see the fust thing,' says I, feeling round
for the critter's head, and gitting my paws tore by the young
ones, who, I must say for 'em, was mighty handy with their
claws for their age. So says I, —
“`Well, fust thing, I'll get red o' these little devils; and
then I'll drag out the karkiss, and see to you, my poor gal.'
“So I clinched the fust one by the throat, and, when he
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hung like a rag, pitched him out, and grappled t'other; but
he was a case, I tell you. Fight! — you'd ought ter have
seen him! — and scratch and bite, and spit and yowl, till
the whole woods rung with his uproar. I mastered him
finally; but he'd done his work, and come nigh beating
me even arter he was dead, as ye shall hear.
“When the kittens was out of the way, I clinched the karkiss
uv the old painter, and dragged it to'rst the mouth uv
the cave. It wor hard work; and, when I'd got part way,
I left it lying, and squeezed by (for it most filled up the
passage), and went to see how bad Harnah might be hurt;
for, when I spoke to her last, she hadn't made no reply.
Leaning over her, I felt round for her face, and had jist
touched her cold cheek, and called to her to know if she was
alive, when I heerd jist over my head the awfulest roar
that ever come out uv a creter's throat; and so loud, that it
echoed through and through the cave enough to deaf you.
The minute I heerd it, I knew what was tew pay, and give
up for lost. It wor the man o' the house come home in a
hurry to see what them squalls uv the dying kittens meant;
and that's how I said they come nigh beating me even arter
they was dead.
“Now, mister, what would you say a man had ought to
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have done in such a fix as that? — run, or stay? Mind ye, I
hadn't the fust thing in shape uv a we'pon, nor couldn't get
hold even uv my stick, nor the stones outside; and what
could a feller do with his naked fists, shet up in a hole with
a wild-cat?”
“It was a trying situation; but I don't believe you ran
away,” said Mr. Brown good-humoredly.
“Yer bet your life on that, stranger,” replied Seth with
emphasis. “I hadn't no idee on't; though the only other
chance seemed to be to jump down the critter's throat, and
choke him, so's ter spile his stomach for Harnah.
“I looked to the mouth uv the cave, and thought, `He
won't get by that karkiss very easy;' and then, all of a sudden,
the strangest idee you ever heerd come acrost me, and
I jumped as though I'd been shot. It wor to play off one of
the critters agin the other, and keep the old painter out uv
his den with the karkiss of his mate.
“It wor a curus idee, now, worn't it; but they say a drownding
man'll clinch to a straw, and this wor worth the trying
to a feller in as tight a place as I. So I tumbled the old
lady over as well as I could, and got her wedged inter the
narrerest part uv the road, with her back rounded out, and
her paws in, so's't I should have a better chance for
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hanging on than the old feller outside 'ud have for pulling.
Then, with my jack-knife, I cut a slit in one of the fore-legs
and one of the hind, to put my hands inter; and then I held
on.
“'Twa'n't but a minute arter I got fixed 'fore he wor
down upon me, yelling and squalling enough ter make a
man's blood run cold. They call 'em Injin Devils down our
way; and I guess there ain't no kind uv devils make a wusssoundin'
noise. I jist shut my eyes, and lay low; for when
I knowed that furce, wild creter wor within two foot uv me,
and nothing ter keep him off but a karkiss that he'd claw
ter pieces in ten minutes, I kinder wondered how I'd been
sich a plaguy fool as to think uv the plan, and ter feel so
pleased with it.
“And didn't yer never mind, sir, when you've been laying
out for some great pull, you feel as if you'd got fixed fust-rate,
and was sure ter win, till the minute comes; and then,
all ter once, your gitting-ready seems no account somehow,
and you feel downright shamed uv what, a minute before,
made you so chirk?”
“Yes, that is human nature, Seth; but it is well to
remember that cool precaution is worth more than excitement,
after all,” said Mr. Brown.
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“Yes, sir, I suppose so now; but I didn't then. It only
seemed to me as ef I was a darned fool, though I couldn't
hev said what I'd ought to hev done different ef I'd been
ever so wise. Well, the critter come, and he stuck his
head in, snuffing and smelling for a minute; and then
reached in one paw, jest as softly as you've seed a pussy-cat
feeling uv a ball uv yarn on the floor. Then he growled;
for either he'd smelt or he'd seed me a-peekin' over the old
woman's corpse at him. Hokey! didn't I wish I'd a good
gun handy jis' then, with sech a splendid chance to sight it!
But I hadn't; and thar was the critter, growling and tearing
away at the karkiss like mad: fer he'd pooty much made up
his mind by this time what sort o' game lay behind it,
and he was bound to be at it. Any one would 'a thought
his nateral feelings would 'a stood in the way some, seein'
as 'twor his own wife he wor clapper-clawin' at sich a rate;
but they didn't seem to a bit: and, I tell you, he made the
fur fly 'thout con-sideration. The blood streamed down inter
my face, and the smell of that and the flesh choked me.
My arms wor straightened clean out with holding on; and
sometimes I could jest see the green eyes o' the painter, an'
feel his hot breath, as he opened his jaws to hiss and spit at
me jis' like a big cat. I felt the eend uv all things wor at
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[figure description] Page 304.[end figure description]
hand; an', shettin' my eyes, I tried hard ter say a prayer, or
somethin' good an' fittin'. I couldn't think o' none, hows'ever:
so I jis' turned raound, and sez, `Harnah! good-by,
Harnah!' an' felt most as if I'd prayed; though she, poor
gal! wor clean swownded away, and never heerd a word
on't.
“Jes' then, when my thoughts wor so took up that I'd
act'ally most forgot where I wor, and jes' held on to the critter
kind o' mechanical-like, I heerd a shot, and then another.
The painter heerd 'em too, an' more than heerd 'em, I reckon;
for, with a growl an' a roar that made me scringe, he let go
the karkiss, an' backed hisself out o' the hole 'thout never
sayin good-by to me nor to the old lady.
“Next minute I heerd another shot, and then another; and
then sech horrid groans and screams, mixed up with growls
and hisses from the painter, that I knew he wor hit hard, an'
like to die; and, ef I should say I wor sorry, it 'ud be a lie.
Then I heerd feet climbing and scrambling down the rocks;
and next I heerd a v'ice calling, kind o' frightened-like, —
“`Be you raound here, Harnah, or Seth?'
“`Yes, we be,' says I, waking up all uv a sudden; for
I'd lay sort o' stupid till then: but now I wor wide enough
awake, and soon made Sam understand where we was, and
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what was to be done. He didn't say much, but worked
away like a good feller, till he got out, fust the mauled karkiss
o' the painter, with the flesh all hanging from it in
strips; then me, covered with blood, and looking wuss than
a dead man, I expect; and finally Harnah, jes' coming to
after her dead faint.
“`We must git her out o' this horrid den 'fore she knows
whar she is, or it'll skeer her to death,' says I, as soon as I
could speak. `But how'll we do it?'
“`You look as if you b'longed here; so I reckon you'd
better stop behind, and I'll git Harnah out by myself,' says
Sam, laffin' in a kind o' hard way.
“I didn't say nothing; but I thought I wouldn't 'a took that
time to laff at a feller, nor yet to show a spite agin him, if
I'd been Sam, and he me.
“It's more nor I could do to justly tell you how we ever
got that gal up them rocks. I expect it wor more the hand
o' God, so to speak, than us that did it. Fust place, we
tied our handkerchers raound her waist, fer a hold, and
then Sam went ahead, pulling her after him, and I sort o'
helped behind, and clim' along as well's I could; and bimby
we got up, and laid Harnah down to rest among the harebells.
When she got a little smarter, she told us how
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she thought she'd come and git 'em fer herself, and then pertend
some one had given 'em to her, jest so's to plague us,
and see what we'd say. Then, whilst she was a-picking of'
em, she heerd a painter cry right clost to her, and was so
scared, she sot out to run, and, fust she knew, was over the
edge of the clift, and rolling down the face on't. When she
got to the bottom, her leg was broke, and she couldn't stir;
and up to the top o' the rocks she see the painter's head,
with his green eyeballs a-glaring down at her, and his ears
laid back, ready for a spring. What with the pain, and
what with the scare, I expect the poor gal fainted. Anyways,
the next thing she knowed was finding herself in the
cave with the two painter-kittens playing round her, and the
old one lying close to, moving his tail from side to side, and
yawning till she could see all his white teeth and great red
throat. Ef she wor scart afore, she didn't feel no better
now, you'd better believe. But Harnah was a stout-hearted
gal, with all her delicate ways; and she never stirred, nor
made a sound, only lay still, and fixed her eyes as stiddy as
she could on those uv the great brute beside her. Pooty
soon she see that he wor a-looking at her; and pooty soon
he began to make a purring sort of noise, like 'bout forty big
tomcats tied up in one bag. Then Harnah spoke to him,
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[figure description] Page 307.[end figure description]
like as she'd have coaxed a dog, and, arter a while, began to
play with the cubs a little. One way and another, they'd got
to be 'mazin' good friends all raound, when a cry was heerd
outside; and the old man and the little ones pricked up their
ears, and yowled in answer. It wor the old woman coming
home, sure enough; and the minute she poked her snout inter
the den, and see what company her man had got while she
wor gone, the trouble begun. Harnah, naterally, wor too
much skeered to see justly what went on: but there were a
big fight somehow; and she got a notion that the she-painter
wanted to fall afoul uv her, and that he wouldn't let her;
and, like other married folks, from words they come to
blows; and the upshot uv the hull was, that the old lady got
the wust on't, and lay dead on the field uv action.
“Whether the husband felt bad, or whether he wanted
sunthin' to eat, or whether he had an engagement with
another lady, I couldn't say; but, the minute he'd given the
finishing blow to his wife, he cleared out, and didn't come
back till the cubs called him to see to me.
“Well, we got Harnah home somehow; and next day
we come again, and skun the old tiger and the cubs; and
I got a hull heap o' harebells. I was bound, that, after all
the fuss, Harnah shouldn't lose her harebells; and she
didn't.”
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Seth was silent; and, tilting his chair a little farther
back, crossed his hands above his chest, and began to
whistle softly. The company looked at him inquiringly;
and, after a pause, Karl asked, —
“Well, what next, Seth?”
“Nothing, cap'n: that's all; except I didn't tell how
Sam see me going up the river, and suspicioned I wor a
going to meet Harnah, and so dropped all, and followed on.
What he brought his gun fer, I didn't never ask him.”
“But Hannah — what became of her?”
“Oh! she was kind o' peeked a while, with her broken
leg; but, arter that, she was as well as ever.”
“Yes; but how did her love-affairs terminate?” persisted
Karl.
“Waal, she married Sam Hedge the next fall; and I
guess their love-affairs turned out like other folkses a good
deal, — lots o' 'lasses at fust, and, arter a while, lots o'
vinegar: that's the way o' merried life.”
In delivering this sentiment, Seth bestowed a sidelong
glance upon Mehitable, far more merry than sincere in its
expression; but she, tranquilly pursuing her knitting, let
fall her retort, as if she had not perceived the sarcasm.
“Oh, waal!” said she, “I don't know as I've any call
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[figure description] Page 309.[end figure description]
to find fault with merried life. Seth's made as good a husband
as a gal has a right to expect that takes a feller out
o' pity 'cause he's been mittened by another gal.”
The laugh remained upon the feminine side of the argument,
and the party merrily separated for the night.
-- 310 -- p453-315
CHAPTER XXXIII. A GLEAM OF DAWN.
[figure description] Page 310.[end figure description]
Once more a summer sunset at the old farm-house
among the Berkshire Hills, where, for a hundred years,
successive generations of Windsors had been born and
bred; once more we see the level rays glance from the
diamond-paned, dairy casement, left ajar to admit the fresh
evening air; once more the airy banners of eglantine and
maiden's-bower float against the clear blue sky; once more
we tread in fancy the green velvet of the turf, creeping over
the very edge of the irregular door-stone, worn smooth by
feet that long since have travelled beyond earthly limits,
and now tread celestial fields and sunny slopes of Paradise.
Far across the meadow lies the shadow of the old house, —
a strange, fantastic suggestion of a dwelling, vague and
enticing as the gray turrets of the Castle of St. John, which,
as the legend says, are to be shaped at twilight from the
crags and ravines of the lonely mountains, but vanish in
the daylight. And beside it, not vague, but clear and
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sharp, lay the shadow of the old well-sweep, like a giant
finger, pointing, always pointing, now to the east, whence
cometh light and hope, and the promise of another day;
and anon due west, as showing to the sad eyes that watched
it the road to joy and comfort.
Within the house, much was changed. The floors
were covered with matting, the walls with delicate paperhangings;
the old furniture replaced with Indian couches
and arm-chairs, whose shape and material suggested luxurious
ease and coolness. In the chamber that had been
Dora's, was wrought, perhaps, the greatest change of all;
for to the rugged simplicity, and, so to speak, severity, of
the young girl's surroundings, had succeeded the luxury,
the exquisite refinement, essential to the comfort of a woman
born and bred in the innermost sanctuary of modern civilization.
The martial relics of Dora's camp-life had disappeared
from the walls, no longer simply whitewashed, but
covered with a pearl-gray paper, over which trailed in
graceful curves a mimic ivy-vine, colored like nature.
Upon this hung a few choice pictures, — proof-engravings of
Correggio's Cherubs; a Christ blessing Little Children; a
Madonna, with sad, soft eyes resting upon the Holy Child,
whose fixed gaze seemed to read his own sublime destiny;
and a Babes in the Wood.
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Over the fireplace, the rude sketch of the deformed negro
was replaced by an exquisite painting, representing a little
girl, — her sweet face framed in a shower of golden ringlets,
her blue eyes fixed with a sort of wistful tenderness upon
the beholder; this expression repeating itself in the lines
of the curving mouth. The dress was carefully copied from
that worn by 'Toinette Legrange upon the day she was lost;
and the picture had been painted, soon after her disappearance,
by an artist friend of the family, who had so often admired
the beautiful child, that he found it easy to reproduce
her face upon canvas; although his own knowledge of the circumstances,
and perhaps the haunting presence of the sad
eyes of the mother, as she asked, “Oh! can you give me
even a picture of her?” had tinged the whole composition
with a pathos not intended by the artist, but indescribably
touching to the spectator.
Between the windows, in place of Dora's simple pine
table, with its white drapery, its few plain books, and little
work-box, stood a toilet-table, covered with the luxurious
necessities of an elegant woman's wardrobe. The dressingcase,
the jewel-box, the perfume-bottles; the velvet-lined and
delicately-scented mouchoir and glove boxes; the varied trifles,
so idle in detail, so essential to the whole, — all were
there, and all evidently in constant use.
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Nor let us too harshly judge the mode of life, differ though
it may from our own, which regards these superfluities as
essential, and can hardly less dispense with them than with
its daily bread. The violet, the anemone, the May-flower,
a hundred sweet and hardy blossoms, thrive amid the chills
and storms of early spring in the most exposed situations.
But are not the exquisite tea-rose, the fragile garden-lily, or
the cereus, that dies after one sweet night of perfumed
beauty, as true to their nature and to God's law? Did not
the same hand form the sparrow, who scatters the late snow
from his wings, and gayly pecks the crumbs from our doorstep,
and the humming-bird, who waits for gorgeous summer
noons to come and sip the honey from our jessamine?
So let us, if we will, love Dora in the Spartan simplicity
of her soldierly adornments, and none the less love and cherish
the woman who now lies upon the very spot, where, but a
year ago, lay little Sunshine, wavering between this life and
a better. For some reason unknown to herself, Mrs. Legrange
had, from the first, felt a strong affection for this
chamber, haunted, though she knew it not, by the presence
of the beloved child; and she had taken much pleasure in
its adornment; though, now that all was done, she rarely
noticed the beautiful articles collected about her, liking best
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[figure description] Page 314.[end figure description]
of all to lie in dreamy revery, recalling, day after day, with
the minute fondness of a woman's memory, the looks, the
gestures, the careless words, the pretty, graceful ways, the
artless fascinations, of her whom now she rarely named, —
holding her memory as something too sacred for common
speech, too far withdrawn into her own heart to be lightly
brought to the surface.
Thus lying in the twilight of this evening, dreamily watching
the long white curtains as they filled with the night-air
and floated out into the room like the shadowy sails of a
bark anchored in some Dreamland bay, and never guessing
whose eyes had watched their waving but one short year before,
when 'Toinette was first laid in Dora's little bed, Mrs.
Legrange heard her husband coming up the stairs, and rose
to receive him, with a strange fluttering at her heart, — a
sort of nervous hope and terror all in one, as if she had
known him the bearer of great news, but could not yet determine
its tenor.
Mr. Legrange entered, holding a letter in his hand, and
glanced tenderly, but with some surprise, at his wife, who
stood with one hand pressing the white folds of her muslin
wrapper convulsively to her bosom, the other outstretched
toward him, a sudden hectic burning in her cheeks, and her
eyes bright with feverish light.
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[figure description] Page 315.[end figure description]
“Fanny! what is it?” exclaimed the husband, pausing
upon the threshold.
“That letter — you have some news! O Paul, you have
news of” —
Her voice died in a breathless flutter; and Mr. Legrange,
coming hastily to her side, drew her to a seat, saying tenderly, —
“No, darling, no news of her, — not yet, at least. What
made you fancy it? This is only a letter from your protégé
at Antioch College: at least, I suppose so from the postmark.
Do you care to read it now?”
Mrs. Legrange hid her face upon her husband's breast,
trembling nervously.
“O Paul! when I heard you coming up the stairs, such
a feeling came over me! I seemed to feel some great revelation
approaching. I was sure it was news of her. Paul,
Paul, I cannot bear it; I cannot live! My heart is broken;
but it will not die, and let me rest. O my God! how
long?”
“Hush, dearest, hush! Your wild words are to me
worse than the grief we both suffer so keenly. But, my
wife, have we not each other? and would you kill me by
your own despair? Will God be pleased, that, because he
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[figure description] Page 316.[end figure description]
has taken away our Sunshine, we refuse all other blessings,
and disdain all other ties and obligations? Fanny, dearest,
is it not an earnest duty with you to strive for strength?”
But the mother only moaned impatiently, —
“O Paul! do not try, do not talk: it is useless. When
you let fall that crystal vinaigrette this morning, did you
tell it that its duty was to be whole, and filled with perfume
again? Do you tell those flowers that it is their duty to be
fresh and sweet as they were yesterday? or, if you did,
would they heed you?”
“No, darling; for they have neither mind nor soul,”
suggested the husband significantly.
“And mine are swallowed up in the sorrow that has
swallowed all else. O Paul! forgive me, and ask God to
forgive me; but I cannot, I never can, become resigned. I
cannot live; I cannot wish or try to live. A little while,
and I shall see her.”
She spoke the last words softly, as to her own heart; and
over her face passed such a look of solemn joy, such yearning
tenderness, mingled with an infinite pathos, that the
stronger and less sensitive male organization stood awed
and subdued before it.
“Her love and grief are deeper than any words of mine
-- 317 --
[figure description] Page 317.[end figure description]
car reach,” thought the husband, and, so, tenderly soothed
her head upon his breast, and said no more for several
minutes, until, to his surprise, it was lifted, and the pale
face looked into his with the pensive calmness under which
it habitually hid its more intimate expressions.
“From whom did you say the letter came, Paul?” asked
Mrs. Legrange.
“From Theodore Ginniss, I believe. Will you read it
now?” asked her husband, in some surprise at the sudden
transition: for no man ever thoroughly comprehends a
woman, no woman a man; and so is the distinctive temperament
of the sexes preserved.
“Yes: I told him to write to me once in every month,
and he is very punctual.”
She opened the letter, and read aloud: —
“Dear Mrs. Legrange, —
“Since writing to you last month, I have been going on
with my studies under the Rev. Mr. Brown, as I then mentioned.
I do not find that it hurts me to study in the hot
weather at all; and I have enjoyed my vacation better this
way than if I had been idle.
“Part of the month, however, Mr. Brown has been away
on a visit to some friends in Iowa; and he says so much
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[figure description] Page 318.[end figure description]
about the prairies, and the great rivers, and the wild life out
there, that I think I should like to take the two remaining
weeks of the vacation, and go and see them, if you have no
objection. I have a great plenty of money from my last
quarter's allowance, as I have only needed to spend a dollar
and forty-five cents. Mr. Brown thinks I should come back
fresher to my studies for a little rest; though I do not feel
the need of it, and am glad of every day's new chance of
learning.
I hope you will excuse me, Mrs. Legrange, if it is too
bold for me to say, but I do wish you could talk with Mr.
Brown a little; he is so high in all his ideas, and seems to
feel so strong about all the troubles of this world, and puts
what a man ought to live for so much above the way he has
to live!
“I took the liberty of talking with him about you, and
about the great trouble I had helped to bring upon you; and
what he said was first-rate, though I cannot tell it again.
I felt ever so much better about my own doing wrong, and I
could not help wishing you could hear what he said about
you.
“This place is a great resort for invalids, and people who
like to be retired. The iron-springs, that give the name to
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[figure description] Page 319.[end figure description]
the town, are said to be very strengthening; and the Neff
House, near them, is a beautiful hotel in very romantic
scenery, and quite still. It seems to me that the ladies I
see riding out from it on horseback get healthier-looking
every day.
“I enclose a letter for mother, and will ask of you the
favor to read it to her. I cannot tell you, Mrs. Legrange,
how grateful I feel to you for making her so comfortable, as
well as for what you are doing for me. And it is not only
you I thank and remember every morning and every night;
but, with yours, I say the name of the angel that we both
love so dear.
“Yours respectfully,
“THEODORE GINNISS.”
Mrs. Legrange slowly folded the letter, and looked at her
husband, saying dreamily, —
“I should like to see this Mr. Brown. Perhaps he has
some comfort for me; and that was what I felt approaching
in that letter.”
Mr. Legrange smiled a little compassionately, and more
than a little tenderly.
“I am afraid, love, you would be disappointed. A man
might seem a marvel of eloquence and wisdom to poor
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[figure description] Page 320.[end figure description]
Theodore, while you would find him a very commonplace, perhaps
obtrusive individual.”
Mrs. Legrange slowly shook her head.
“I feel just as if that man could give me comfort. I
must see him.”
“Very well, dear: if it will give you the slightest pleasure,
you shall certainly do so. Shall I send and invite him here?
or do you think the journey to Ohio would be a pleasant variety
for you? Perhaps it might; and Teddy's elaborately
artless recommendation of the Neff House and the iron-springs
is worthy of some attention.”
“Yes: I will go there. I think I should like the journey,
and I don't object to trying the springs; and I should like to
see Theodore, and hear him talk about — her. And I am
sure I shall not find Mr. Brown commonplace or obtrusive.”
“Verywell, dear: it shall be as you say. When shall we
go? It will be very hot travelling now, I am afraid.”
“Oh, no! I don't mind. But I don't want to interfere
with the Western excursion Theodore so modestly suggests;
nor do I wish to go while he is away. We will go in the middle
of September, I think.”
“Yes, that will do, and will give you something to be
thinking of meantime,” said Mr. Legrange, looking with
-- 321 --
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satisfaction at the healthy animation of his wife's face, as
she re-read the portion of Teddy's letter relating to Yellow
Springs and the Neff House.
“And now,” said she, “go and send Mrs. Ginniss up to
me to hear her letter too, — that is, if you please; for, you
humor me so much, I know I am growing tyrannical in speech
as well as in act.
Mr. Legrange stooped to kiss his wife's cheek; and, to his
eyes, the faint smile with which she repaid the caress was
the fair dawn of a brighter day.
-- 322 -- p453-327
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE FIRST CHANCE.
[figure description] Page 322.[end figure description]
Mr. Brown had been a week at Outpost, and, at breakfast
one morning, announced his departure for the succeeding
day.
“And if you feel able to ride so far, Dora,” continued
he, “perhaps you will show me the way to the curious
mounds we heard of from Dr. Gershom.”
“They are full ten miles from here, he said,” remarked
Kitty disapprovingly.
“To-day is the 24th, isn't it, Dora? the 24th of August?”
inquired Karl; and Dora, if no other of his auditors, saw
the connection between this remark and the proposed long
ride with Mr. Brown.
“Yes, Karl; it is the 24th: and I think we can make
a party for the mounds, Mr. Brown. Kitty, wouldn't
you like to go? and, Karl, can't you take a holiday? Sunshine
might stay with Mehitable for once; mightn't she?”
“No; because she speaks too loud, and through her nose:
-- 323 --
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but I'll stay with Argus and the woods,” said Sunshine
quietly.
“But have we horses enough?” asked Kitty with animation.
“That is easily settled,” interposed Karl eagerly. “I
will fix Sunshine's pillion upon Major, and Dora can ride
behind me. Then Kitty can take Max, and Mr. Brown will
ride his own horse.”
“Oh! there is no need of Major's carrying double,” said
Dora hastily. “Seth can spare Sally as well as not, and
Kitty can ride her better than she can Max.”
At this decision, Kitty looked a little vexed, and Karl a
little discomfited; while Mr. Brown bent over his plate to
hide a sudden gleam of humor in his dark eyes. As they
all rose from table, Karl passed close to his cousin, and
whispered, —
“I want to speak to you before we go.”
Dora made no answer; nor, in the busy hour before they
started, could her cousin find opportunity for a single private
word. Nor was he more successful in the bold push
made by him, so soon as they had started, for the place beside
Dora; for she, thinking just then of some important
communication for Kitty's ear, reined her pony close to
-- 324 --
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that young lady's, and good-humoredly desired him to ride
on out of earshot. Karl obeyed the mandate with something
less than his usual amiability, and was riding on in
advance of the whole party, when he found himself detained
by Mr. Brown, who asked some trifling question about the
road, and then attempted a conversation upon the crops and
other ordinary topics for a few moments; until, unable to
contend with the indifference, if not impatience, Karl was at
no trouble to conceal, he remained silent for a moment, and
then said abruptly, —
“Windsor, this is not soldierly or manly.”
Karl looked at him, but made no reply.
“We both know what is in the other's mind,” continued
Mr. Brown, “and we know that we cannot both succeed;
but that is no reason for ill feeling toward each other. If
we were Don Quixotes, we might fight; if we were
gamesters, we might throw for the first chance: but as we
are, I trust, Christian gentlemen, we owe each other every
kindly feeling short of a wish for success.”
“Yes: you can hardly expect that of me; and I'm sure
I don't of you,” said Karl, half laughing.
“No: that were inconsistent with a true earnestness of
purpose,” said Mr. Brown. “And, after all, the girl we
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both love is no such weakling as to accept a man simply
because he asks her. She will decide between us fairly and
justly.”
“Then let me have the first chance, since you think it no
advantage,” said Karl impetuously.
Mr. Brown smiled grimly.
“Is there not some proverb about age before merit?”
asked he. “Besides, you have had more than four years to
ask your question in, and can very well wait a few hours
longer. I came to Iowa on purpose to ask mine, and shall
go away to-morrow.”
“I don't see, sir, but you saints are just as obstinate in
getting what you want as we sinners,” said the younger
man petulantly.
The chaplain laughed outright.
“A man at thirty has seldom subdued his worldly passions
and intentions to the degree of sainthood,” said he.
“And I will not deny that my heart is very much engaged
in this matter. However, I will be generous, and you may
take your chance first.”
He reined in his steed as he spoke, and, waiting beside
the road until the young ladies came up, made some remark
to Kitty relating to a question she had asked him
-- 326 --
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concerning Virginian roads as compared with those of the West,
and, by turning into the track beside her, rather obliged
Dora to ride forward to the turn of the road, where Karl
awaited her. But Kitty's satisfaction in the decided intention
Mr. Brown had shown of speaking to her was rather
dampened by perceiving how frequently his attention wandered
from what she was saying, and how earnestly his eyes
were fixed upon the two figures riding briskly in advance.
“If he can only look at Dora, why don't he go and ride
with her?” muttered Kitty; and, as her companion turned
his eyes inquiringly upon her, she asked aloud, —
“Are you pretty quick at hearing, Mr. Brown?”
“Not especially. Why?”
“Oh! I thought you looked as if you would like to hear
what Charlie is saying to Dora.”
“And you thought it was very rude of me to be so inattentive
to you,” added Mr. Brown, bending his dark eyes
upon her with a smile.
Kitty colored guiltily, and answered hastily, —
“Oh dear, no! I'm used to finding myself of no account
beside Dora.”
Mr. Brown looked again at her, and then, with a sudden
association of ideas, asked, —
-- 327 --
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“Kitty, are you going to tell me, before I go away, what
made you feel so badly the day I came and found you in
the wood?”
Again Kitty's face glowed beneath his gaze, and her
bright black eyes drooped in rare confusion. She was
about to answer hastily and coldly, but found herself checked
by a softer impulse. Why should she not tell him somewhat
of the trouble at her heart, and so win at least sympathy
and pity, if nothing more? So she said in a low
voice, —
“No one cares much for me, I think.”
“No one? — not your brother?”
Kitty raised her eyes to the far vista point where Karl
and Dora vanished into the forest, their horses moving close
to each other's side, and then brought them back to the face
of her companion. The look was eloquent, and he said, —
“Yes; but by and by, perhaps, he will not be so engrossed.”
The young girl raised her head with a superb gesture.
“To wait for by and by, when some one else has done
with him, is not my idea of love.”
Mr. Brown looked at her more attentively, and smiled.
“I think the day will come when some man will love you
-- 328 --
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first and best of all,” said he, in a tone, not of flattery,
but of honest admiration, which fell like sunlight upon the
waste places of poor Kitty's heart.
“Oh! I'm not good enough, or smart enough, or good-looking
enough. He never will,” replied she hastily, and
then colored crimson again at the meaning beneath her
words.
Again Mr. Brown keenly eyed her, and asked, —
“He? Do you mean some one in particular? No: forgive
me. I have no right to ask such a question. I am
only your friend, not a father confessor.”
Kitty, dumb with confusion and a sudden terror, made no
effor to reply; and, after a moment, Mr. Brown led the way
to a quiet conversation upon the young girl's previous life,
her early pursuits and affections, and finally to the passionate
love and regret for her dead mother, in which he found
the key to all she was and all she might be. So employed,
the psychological student even forgot his own affairs, and for
half an hour hardly remembered Dora riding on beside
Karl, who, like the cowardly bather, dallying first with one
foot and then the other in the water's edge, and losing all
his courage before the final plunge, had talked with her of
almost every thing beneath the sun, and worn out his own
-- 329 --
[figure description] Page 329.[end figure description]
patience and hers, before she said, turning her clear eyes
full upon him, —
“Karl, be honest and straightforward. it is kinder to
us both.”
The young man heaved a sigh of relief.
“That's it, Dora. There isn't another such girl in the
world. Don't you know, in camp I used to say I relied
upon you for protection, and for making a man of me
instead of an idle boy? O Dora! there's nothing you
couldn't do with me.”
He spoke the last words in an imploring voice, and fixed
his eyes upon her averted face. Then, as she did not speak,
he went on: —
“It isn't any thing I can offer you, Dora, except the
chance of doing good: I know that well enough. What I
am, you know; but what I might become to please you, none
of us can know. And I do love you so, Dora! I know
it sounds bald and silly to say just these few words; but
they mean so much to me! and I've meant it so long and so
heartly! No; don't speak just yet: I want to make you
feel first, if I can, how dreadfully in earnest I am. When I
first saw you there at your old home, and you took care of
me so tenderly, and looked at me so pityingly out of your
-- 330 --
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great brown eyes, my heart warmed to you; and then in
camp, you know — O Dora Darling! you cannot say but
you knew how dearly I grew to love you even then: and
when I found you were my own kin; and when you came
to my own home, and my mother took you to her heart, and
thanked God for having given her another daughter, and
such a daughter; and when I saw your daily life among us,
and saw how noble, and how unselfish, and how true and
brave, you were through all the sorrow, and the trials, and
the loneliness, and the petty spite and insults, you had to
endure; and then here, where you are like a wise and
gracious queen among her subjects, — O Dora! what is
there in you that does not call forth my highest love, my
truest reverence? and what better could life do for me than
to grant me the privilege of worshipping and following you
all my days, and making myself into just what sort of
man would suit you best?”
And the true-hearted young fellow felt his words strike
home to his own soul so earnestly, that he could add to
them nothing of the flood of tenderness and homage swelling
there, but only looked at his cousin piteously; while
she, with drooping head and averted eyes, rode on for a few
moments in silence, and then said softly, —
-- 331 --
[figure description] Page 331.[end figure description]
“I hoped, dear Karl, you would never speak of it again.
We have been so happy the last year!” —
“O Dora!” interposed the young man in a voice of
agony, “never say you are going to refuse me!” Happy!
yes, I have been happy, because I have looked forward to
this day, and though it might be the beginning of a life
to which this has been but the gray dawn before the sunrise.
You have been so kind to me, so frank and affectionate!
and all the time you knew — oh! you must have
known — what was in my heart. Yes; and, if it had not
been for this meddling parson's visit” —
“Hush, Karl!” interrupted Dora decisively. “I will
not have you unjust or ungenerous to a man far nobler
and purer and wiser than either you or I. Mr. Brown's
visit has nothing to do with what I say to-day; nor did I
know, as you think I did, that you would again ask me
the question you asked a year ago. I only remembered
it, when, last week, you reminded me of the date; and I
only let you speak to-day, because it is better for us both
to say out all that is in our hearts, and then to let the
matter rest.”
She paused a moment, and recommenced in a lower and
more tender voice: —
-- 332 --
[figure description] Page 332.[end figure description]
“I am so sorry, Karl, to give you pain! If the only
trouble was that I don't want to marry you, I wouldn't
mind saying yes; for I love you very much: only I don't
believe it is the way girls commonly love the men they
marry. But it wouldn't be right.”
“Not right! Oh! why not right, Dora?”
“Because it would spoil both of us. You ask me to
make any thing of you I like; but that is not the way. It
is you yourself that must make a man of yourself. If
I should try to do it, I should only make a puppet of you,
and a conceited, tyrannical woman of myself. It would
not be good for me to rule as you want me to do; and
surely no man would deliberately say it would be good for
him to be ruled, and that by his wife.”
There was a touch of scorn in the tone of the last words;
and Karl's cheek flushed hotly, as he said, —
“It's hard that you should despise me for loving you so
well that I am ready to forget pride and manly dignity,
and every thing else, for the sake of it.”
“No; but, Karl, don't you see yourself what an injury
such a love must be to you? Forget pride and manly
dignity and self-respect do you say? A true love, a good
love, would make you cherish them as you never did before;
-- 333 --
[figure description] Page 333.[end figure description]
would make you claim and hold every inch of manhood that
is in you, so that you might feel yourself worthy of that love.
O Karl! never again offer to put yourself under the foot
of any woman, but wait till you meet one whom you can
hold by the hand, and lead along, keeping equal step with
yourself, and both pressing forward to a common goal.”
She turned her face upon him, all aglow with a noble
enthusiasm far above the maiden bashfulness that but now
had held it averted, and extended her hand, saying, —
“Come, dear Karl, forget this idle dream. Be once
more my brother and my helper. Trust me, no one cares
more for you so than I; not Kitty herself.”
He took the hand, put it to his lips, then rode on silently.
Dora's kind eyes sought his again and again, but vainly.
His face, pale and somewhat stern, gave no clew to the
feelings within: the mouth, more firmly set than its wont,
seemed sealed to love forever.
For the first time in all the interview, Dora found herself
troubled and perplexed. Here was nothing to soothe,
nothing to combat, nothing to answer or to silence; and her
womanly sympathies fluttered about this manly reticence
like a humming-bird around a flower frozen into the heart
of an iceberg.
-- 334 --
[figure description] Page 334.[end figure description]
At last, she spoke; and her voice had grown almost
caressing in its softness: —
“You're not angry with me, Karl?”
He glanced at her, then away.
“Certainly not, Dora. On the contrary, I am much
obliged to you.”
“Obliged to me!” exclaimed Dora, her feminine pique
just touched a trifle. “What, for saying no?”
“For showing me that I am a fool. It was time I
knew it, and I had rather hear it from you than any one.
Why should you care for me? I am not a man to respect,
like Mr. Brown, or one to admire, like Mr. Burroughs, —
I suppose it will be one of them; but I only hope either one
may give you half — No matter, wait here a moment in
the shade. I am going back to speak to Kitty.”
Her sharply wheeled his horse as he spoke, and was gone.
Dora looked after him in sorrowful perplexity, and then
tears gathered in her eyes; but, before they could fall, the
unswerving rectitude underlying her whole nature came
to its relief, and she dashed them away, murmuring, —
“But I was right.”
-- 335 -- p453-340
CHAPTER XXXV. THE SECOND CHANCE.
[figure description] Page 335.[end figure description]
Reining up her horse under the shadow of a clump of
trees, Dora waited, as her cousin had requested, for his
return; and so much pre-occupied was she with her own
thoughts, that she failed to hear the quick footfalls of an
approaching horse, until his rider slackened speed beside
her, and Dora, looking up, saw that it was Mr. Brown.
She grew a little pale, divining, not only from the presence
of the chaplain, but from a joyous and significant light in the
eyes that encountered hers, what might be his errand; and
though she had not failed to foresee this moment, no man,
and surely no woman, is ever so prepared for the great
crises of life that they fail to come at the last with almost as
much of a shock as if they came quite unawares.
She turned her horse into the track, and rode on, her eyes
fixed upon the wide prairie-view, which seemed to dance
and shimmer before them as if all Nature had suddenly
grown as strange and unreal as she felt herself.
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[figure description] Page 336.[end figure description]
Her companion spoke, and in her ears his voice sounded
as from some far mountain-cave, hollow, broken, and vague;
and yet the words were far from momentous.
“Dora, I must leave you to-morrow.”
“I am very sorry, sir,” faltered Dora; and Mr. Brown,
glancing at her face, could not but notice its unwonted
agitation. His own wishes, and his sex, led him to misconstrue
it; and, pressing his horse closer to her side, he said
joyfully, —
“And so am I sorry, Dora; but I need not be gone long
if you wish for my return.”
Dora did not speak; indeed, she could not: for the wild
dance of sky and plain, of prairie and forest, grew yet
wilder; and in her ears the voice of the chaplain mingled
with a dizzy hum that almost drowned the words. She
grasped the horn of her saddle with both hands, and only
thought of saving herself from falling. The horse was
halted, an arm was about her waist, her head drawn to a
resting-place upon a steady shoulder; and that strange, faroff
voice murmured, —
“My darling, my long-loved, long-sought treasure, calm
yourself; be happy and secure in my love. Did you ever
doubt that it was yours?”
-- 337 --
[figure description] Page 337.[end figure description]
He stooped to kiss her: but, at the motion, the virginal
instincts of the young girl's nature rallied to the defence;
and, with a sudden spring, Dora sat upright, her face very
pale, but her eyes clear and steadfast as their wont.
“Oh, sir, indeed you must not!” cried she, as pleadingly
as a little child, who will not be caressed, yet knows not
why he should refuse.
“Must not, Dora?” persisted the lover gayly. “But why
must I not kiss my own betrothed?”
“But I am not; I cannot be. Don't be angry, sir: I
would have spoken sooner; but I could not. I believe I
was a little faint;” and Dora's eyes timidly sought those
of the chaplain, who, meeting them, remembered many such
a glance when his pupil had feared to displease him by
inattention or disobedience. Again he thought to have
discovered the source of her refusal, and again he failed.
“Dora,” said he grently, “you do not forget, that, some
years ago, we bore the relation of master and pupil; and
you still regard me with a certain deference and reserve,
which, perhaps, blinds you to the true relation existing
between us now. Remember, dear, that I am yet a young
man; and although my profession may have induced a
certain gravity of manner, contrasting, perhaps unpleasantly,
-- 338 --
[figure description] Page 338.[end figure description]
with your gay cousin's joyous demeanor, I have all, or more
than all, of his fervency of feeling; far more, I trust, of
depth and steadfastness in my love for you.”
“Please, Mr. Brown,” interposed Dora, “do not let us
say any thing about Karl. He is not concerned in this.”
“You are right, Dora, and I was wrong,” said Mr.
Brown with a little effort of magnanimity. “But I was
only trying to convince you that my love is quite as ardent,
and quite as tender, as that of a younger and gayer man
could be.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dora timidly, as he paused for her
assent.
“Not `Yes, sir,' child!” exclaimed the chaplain impatiently.
“Don't treat me with this distant respect and
timid reverence. I am your lover, your would-be comrade
through life, as once through the less earnest battles of
war. Call me Frank, and look into my face and smile as
I have seen you smile on Karl.”
A quick smile dimpled Dora's cheek, and passed.
“Not Karl, please, sir.”
“Dora, if you say `sir' to me again, I'll kiss you.”
“Please not, Mr. Brown,” said Dora demurely, “until
you quite understand me.”
-- 339 --
[figure description] Page 339.[end figure description]
“Well, then, let me quite understand you very quick; for
I think I shall exact the penalty, even without further
offence.”
“But I cannot promise, — I cannot be what you said,”
stammered Dora, half terrified, half confused.
“Nay, darling, — I am going to always call you that,
as expressive both of name and nature, — it is you who do not
quite understand either yourself or me. I do not expect, or
even wish, you to profess a love for me as ardent, open,
and pronounced as my own: that were to make you other
than the modest and delicately reserved maiden I have
loved so long. All I ask you to feel is, that you can trust
yourself to my guidance through life; that you can place
your future in my hands, believing me capable of shaping
it aright; that you can promise to tread with me the path
I have selected, sure that it shall be my care to remove
from it all thorns, all obstacles that mortal power may
control, and that my arms shall bear you tenderly over the
rough places I cannot make smooth for you.
“Dora, years ago I resolved that you should be my wife,
God and you consenting. I have waited until I thought
you old enough to decide calmly and wisely; but, through
these years of waiting, I have cherished a hope, almost a
-- 340 --
[figure description] Page 340.[end figure description]
certainty, of success, that has struck deep roots among the
very foundations of my life. You will not tear it away!
Dora, you do not know me: you cannot guess at the
ardor or the power of a love I have never dared wholly to
reveal even to myself. Trust it, Dora: it cannot but make
you happy. Give yourself to me, dear child; and I will
account to God for the precious charge.”
Never man was more in earnest, never was wooing at
once so fervent and so lofty in its tone; and so Dora felt it.
The temptation to yield, without further struggle, to the
belief that Mr. Brown knew better what was good for her
than she knew for herself, was very great; but, even while
she hesitated, the inherent truthfulness of her nature rose
up, and cried, “No, no! you shall not do such wrong to
me who am the Right!” and turning, with an effort, to
meet the keen eyes reading her face, she said, still timidly
perhaps, but very calmly, —
“I am but a simple girl, almost a child in some things,
and you are a wise and good man, learned in books and in
the way of the world; but I must judge for myself, and
must believe my own heart sooner than you in such matters
as these. Years ago, as you say, I was your pupil, and
you then nobly offered to adopt me as your child or sister.”
-- 341 --
[figure description] Page 341.[end figure description]
“As my future wife, Dora. I meant it from the very
first,” interposed the chaplain impetuously.
“I did not know that: perhaps it makes a difference
But, at any rate, I promised then, that if I went home with
Capt. Karl, and you wanted me afterward, I would come
to you whenever you said so.”
“Yes, yes; that is quite true: well?” demanded Mr.
Brown eagerly.
“Well, sir, a promise is a promise; and, if you demand
it now, I will come and live with you, or you can come and
live with me, — not as your wife, however, but as your sister
and child and friend.”
“You will come and live with me, but not marry me!”
exclaimed the young man, with a gleam of amusement at
the unworldly proposal lighting his dark eyes.
“Yes, sir,” replied Dora, without looking up.
To her infinite astonishment and dismay, she found herself
suddenly embraced, and a hearty kiss tingling upon her
lips.
“I am sorry if you don't like it, Dora; but I said I
would if you called me `sir' again; and you are so scrupulous
about your promises, you cannot wish me to break
mine.”
-- 342 --
[figure description] Page 342.[end figure description]
“Then I am afraid I must promise, if you do so again.
to go back and ride with Kitty all the rest of the way,”
said Dora, as, with heightened color and a decided pout,
she drew her left-hand rein so sharply as to wheel Max to
the other side of the road.
“Dora, I am afraid you are a little of a coquette, after
all!” exclaimed the lover, gazing at her with admiration.
“Oh, no indeed, Mr. Brown! I wouldn't be for the
world! I said just what I meant to you. I always do.”
“But why, then, if you love me well enough to live with
me as sister, child, or friend, can't you also live with me as
wife?”
“Because, sir, — oh, no! I didn't mean sir, — because” —
“Frank, I told you to call me.”
“Because, Frank, I don't love you that way.”
The answer was so explicit, so unembarrassed, and so
quiet, that, for the first time, Mr. Brown believed it.
“Not love me, Dora, when I love you so much!” exclaimed
he in dismay.
“Not love you in a wife way, Frank, but a great deal in
every other way. And then I don't think we should be
happy together if we were married.”
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[figure description] Page 343.[end figure description]
“And why not?” asked the young man, smiling in spite
of himself at the quiet opinion.
“Because, as you said, you want me to put my life into
your hands, and you will shape it; and you want me to set
my feet in your path, and follow it with you; and you want
me to trust my soul to you, and you will guide it: but I
could never do that, Mr. Brown; never for any man, I think.
I could never forget that God has given me a life, and a
path, and a soul, all my own, and not to be judged except
by Him and myself: and I am afraid I should always be
asking if your guiding was in the same direction that I was
meant to go; and, if I thought it was not, I should be very
unhappy, and should try to live my own life, and not yours;
and that would make trouble.”
“Yes, that would make trouble certainly, Dora,” said
the chaplain gravely. “But are you sure that a young
and comparatively unlearned woman like yourself would
be a better judge of what was right and best than a man
of mature years, who has made the care of souls his profession
and most earnest duty?”
“No, Mr. Brown, not if I judged for myself: but I think
God has especial care of those, who, like me, have none
else to guide them; and I think this voice in my heart is
the surest teaching of all.”
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[figure description] Page 344.[end figure description]
The profound conviction of her tone was final; the
simple faith of her argument was unassailable: and Mr.
Brown, skilful polemic that he was, found himself silenced.
After a moment, he said calmly, —
“Dora, you will not forget that this is, to me at least, a
very serious, indeed a vital matter. Is what you have just
said the solemn conviction of your own heart? or have you
suffered yourself to be misled by the tendency to self-esteem
and perverseness I have sometimes had occasion to reprove
in you? Have you thoroughly searched your own heart to
its deepest depths? and is not your refusal tinctured by the
natural reluctance of a determined nature to yield to a love,
which, in woman, must bring with it some degree of dependence
and deference?”
He looked almost severely into the pale face and earnest
eyes upraised to his, and read there pain, anxiety, an
humble appeal, but not one trace of hesitation, not one
shade of duplicity.
“I have searched my own heart, Mr. Brown; and I am
sure of its answer. I never, never, can be your wife, so
long as we both live.”
“That is sufficient, Dora. I am rightly punished for
building my hopes and my happiness upon the sandy
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[figure description] Page 345.[end figure description]
foundations of an earthly love. They perish, and leave me
desolate; but, among the ruins, I yet can say, `It is rightly
and justly done.”'
The bitter pain in his voice pierced to Dora's very heart,
and wounded it almost as sorely as she had wounded his.
The rare tears overflowed her eyes; and, pressing close to
his side, she laid a hand upon his own, saying, —
“Oh, forgive me! — say you forgive me! Indeed, I
must do and say what conscience bids me, at all cost.”
“It is not for me to gainsay such a precept as that,” said
the chaplain.
“But I will come to you, and live as long as you want
me. I will be every thing but wife. Say I may do this,
or I shall never forgive myself. Say I may make some
amends for the pain I have given you.”
The young man laughed bitterly, then, turning suddenly,
seized both her hands, and looked deep into her eyes.
“My poor child,” cried he, “my innocent lamb, who
turns from the shepherd because she will not be guided,
and yet is all unfit to guide herself! Do not even you,
Dora, guileless and unworldly as you are, see how impossible
it would be for a young and beautiful girl to live with
a man who admires and loves her openly, without such
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scandal as should ruin both in the world's eyes, even if
they saved their own souls unspotted?”
Dora snatched away her hands, and her whole face
flamed with a sudden shame.
She was learning fast to-day in the book of human
passion, suffering, and sin.
Without comment upon her embarrassment, the chaplain
went on: —
“No, Dora: I must lay aside the dream of four sweet
years, and take up my lonely life without disguise or
embellishment. I cannot dispute your decision. I will
not by one word or look urge you to change it; for I too
deeply respect the truthfulness of your character to dream
that it is capable of change. I do not say that I forgive
you, for you have done nothing calling for forgiveness; and
yet, if your tender heart should suffer in thinking of my
suffering, remember always that what you have to-day
said has increased my respect and esteem for you fourfold:
and, if it has also added to the bitterness of my disappointment,
I will not have you reproach yourself; for I would
rather reverence you as the wife of another than to claim
you as my own, and know you untrue to yourself. And
now, dear, the subject is closed utterly and forever.”
-- 347 -- p453-352
CHAPTER XXXVI. TREASURE-TROVE.
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It was a balmy September evening, some weeks after
Mr. Brown's return to Ohio, when Karl, or, as he was
now generally styled, Dr. Windsor, standing beside his
horse, in the quiet Main Street of Greenfield, saw Dr.
Gershom riding lazily into town, accompanied by a sturdy,
good-looking lad, also on horseback, whom Karl failed to
recognize.
“A new student, maybe,” thought he, and, taking his
foot out of the stirrup, waited to see.
“Hollo, Windsor, hold on a minute!” shouted Dr. Gershom
as they approached. “Here's a young gentleman
asking for you.”
Karl bowed, and began hastily to review his half-forgotten
army acquaintances; failing, however, to identify
any of them with the young man now bowing to him, and
taking a letter from his pocket-book.
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“Mr. Brown favored me with this letter of introduction
to you, sir,” said he, holding it out.
Karl glanced hastily at the few lines, and remembered
an allusion the chaplain had made to a particularly promising
student of his, whom he thought of sending to travel a
little in the West. So he frankly smiled, extended his
hand, and said, —
“Ah, yes! I have heard Mr. Brown speak of you, Mr.
Ginniss; and I am very happy to welcome you to our prairie
life. I am just setting out for home; and, if you please, we
will ride along directly.”
“Better come in, boys, and have a glass of bitters to keep
the night-air off your stomachs. Got some of the real stuff
right here in the office,” said the old doctor; but, both young
men declining the proffered hospitality, he withdrew, grumbling, —
“You never'll make it work, Windsor, I tell you now!
Such a dog's life as a country doctor's isn't to be kept up
without fuel.”
Karl laughed, and, turning to his new acquaintance,
said, —
“So they told me in the army; but I got through without.
I never tasted spirit but once, and then I didn't like it.”
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“I never have at all,” said Ginniss simply. “I gave my
mother a promise, when I was twelve years old, that I never
would; and I never have.”
Karl nodded.
“That's right,” said he; “and all the better for you to
have had such a mother.”
“You'd say that, Mr. Windsor, if you knew what she'd
done for me. There ain't many such mothers in any class,”
said the young man heartily.
Karl looked at his new acquaintance with increasing
favor, and found something very attractive in his open,
manly face, and the honest smile with which he met his
scrutiny.
“I hope you'll stay with us some time, Mr. Ginniss,” said
he heartily.
“Thank you; but, I believe, only for one day. The journey
was my principal object in coming; and I must be at Antioch
College again in a week, or ten days at the outside.”
“Tell me about the life there. I was at old Harvard,
and never visited any other college,” said Karl; and the
young men found plenty of conversation, until, in the soft
twilight, they came upon the pleasant slope and vine-clad
buildings of Outpost.
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“Here is our house, or rather my cousin's house,” said
Karl. “You have heard Mr. Brown speak of Dora?”
“Yes, before he went away,” said Ginniss significantly.
“But not since his return?” asked Karl eagerly.
“Very seldom.”
“Hem! Seth, will you take our horses round? Jump
off, and come in, sir. This is my sister Kitty, Mr. Ginniss.
A scholar of Mr. Brown's, Kitty: I dare say you remember
his speaking of him.”
“Yes, indeed! Very happy to see you, Mr. Ginniss; walk
in,” said Kitty, who, if she had never heard the line, certainly
knew how to apply the idea, of, —
“It is not the rose; but it has lived near the rose.”
“Where is Dora?” asked Karl, glancing round the room
where the pretty tea-table stood spread, and Dora's hat and
gloves lay upon a chair; but no other sign of her presence
was to be found.
“Why,” said Kitty, laughing a little, “Dolly took a fancy
for rafting down the river on a log that she somehow managed
to push off from the bank. Of course, she slipped off
the first thing, and might have been drowned; but Argus got
her out somehow, and Seth, hearing the noise, ran down and
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brought her home. Of course, she was dripping wet; and
Dora has put her to bed.”
“Is it a sanitary or a disciplinary measure?” asked Karl:
“because, if the latter, we shall have Dora out of spirits all
the evening. She never punishes Dolce half so much as she
does herself.”
“Well, I believe it is a little of both this time,” replied
Kitty. “I think she'll be down to tea. You had better take
Mr. Ginniss right into your bedroom, Charlie. Perhaps
he'd like to wash his hands before tea.”
“Thank you; I should, if you please,” said the guest,
and left the room with his host.
When they returned, Dora was waiting to receive them,
somewhat pale and sad at having felt obliged to refuse Sunshine's
entreaties to “get up, and be the 'bedientest little
girl that ever was,” but courteously attentive to the guest,
and ready to be interested and sympathetic in hearing all
Karl's little experiences of the day. As for Kitty, her careless
inquiry on seating herself at the table, of, —
“How has Mr. Brown been since he got home?” may
serve as index to the course of her meditations.
“How in the world came Dolce to undertake the rafting
business?” asked Karl, when his sister's inquiries had been
amply satisfied.
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“Why, poor little thing!” said Dora, laughing a little,
“she thought she had found the way to heaven. She
noticed from the window how very blue the river was, and,
as she says, `goldy all over in spots:' so she slipped out, and
ran down there, forgetting for once that she is forbidden to
do so. Standing on the brink, she saw the reflection of the
little white clouds floating overhead, and was suddenly possessed
with an idea that this was heaven, or the entrance to
it. So, as she told me, she thought she would float out on
the log till she got to the middle, and then `slip off, and
fall right into heaven.”'
“How absurd!” said Kitty, laughing.
“Not at all. She would certainly have reached heaven
if she had carried out the plan,” said Karl.
“Don't, please,” murmured Dora, with a little shiver.
“Don't talk of it.”
“That is like a little sister of mine; a little adopted sister,
at least. She was always talking of going to heaven,
and planning to get there,” said the guest.
Dora looked at him with pity in her honest eyes, and
hastened to prevent Kitty's evident intention of questioning
him further with regard to this “little sister.”
“It seems to be a natural instinct with children,” said
-- 353 --
[figure description] Page 353.[end figure description]
she, “to long for heaven. Perhaps that is the reason they
bring so much of heaven to earth.”
“I'm afraid mothers of large and troublesome families
would say that earth would be better with less of heaven,”
suggested Karl slyly; and the conversation suddenly veered
to other topics. But all through the evening, and even after
he had gone to rest, the mind of Teddy Ginniss was haunted
by the memory of the pretty child, so loved and mourned,
and of whom this anecdote of the little heaven-seeker sc
forcibly reminded him.
“Whose child is this, I wonder?” thought he a dozen
times: but, in the hints he had solicited from Mr. Brown
upon manners, none had been more urgent than that forbidding
inquisition into other people's affairs; and indeed Teddy's
natural tact and refinement would have prevented his
erring in this respect. So now he held his peace, and slept
unsatisfied.
This may have been the reason of his rising unusually
early, — in fact, while the rosy clouds of dawn were yet in
the sky, — and quietly leaving the house with the purpose of
a river-bath. Strolling some distance down the bank, until
the intervening trees shut off the house, he plunged in, and
found himself much refreshed by a swim of ten minutes
-- 354 --
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through waters gorgeous with the colors of the sunrise-sky;
and, as he paused to notice them, Teddy muttered, —
“The poor little sister! She'd have done just the same
if she'd been here.”
It was hardly time to return to the house when the young
man stood again upon the bank; and he strolled on through
the wood, at this point touching upon the river so closely,
that a broken reflection of the green foliage curved and
shimmered along the fast-flowing waves.
Teddy looked at the water; he looked at the trees; he
looked long and eagerly across the wide prairie that far
westward imperceptibly melted its dim green into the faint
blue of the horizon, leaving between the two a belt of tender
color, nameless, but inexpressibly tempting and suggestive
to the eye. All this the lad saw, and, raising his
face skyward, drew in a long draught of such air as never
reaches beyond the prairies.
“Oh, but it's good!” exclaimed he, with more meaning
to the simple phrase than many a man has put to an oration.
And then he muttered, as he walked on, —
“If it wasn't for the thought that's always lying like a
stone at the bottom of my heart, there'd not be a happier
fellow alive to-day than I. Oh the little sister! — the little
-- 355 --
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sister that I never shall forget, nor forgive myself for the
loss of!”
And, from the cottonwood above his head, a mocking-bird,
who had perhaps caught the trick of grief from some
neighbor whippoorwill, poured suddenly a flood of plaintive
melody, that to the boy's warm Irish fancy seemed a lament
over the loved and lost.
He took off his hat, and looked up into the tree.
“Heaven's blessing on you, birdy!” said he. “It's the
very way I'd have said it myself; but I didn't know
how.”
The mocking-bird flew on; and Teddy followed, hoping
for a repetition of the strain: but the capricious little songster
only twittered promises of a coming happiness greater
than any pleasure his best efforts could afford, and darted
away to the recesses of the forest, where was in progress
an Art-Union matinée of such music as all the wealth of all
our cities cannot buy for us.
Teddy followed for a while; and then, fearing that he
should be lost in the trackless wood, turned his back upon
the rising sun, and walked, as he supposed, in the direction
of the house, his eyes upon the ground, his mind strangely
busy with thoughts and memories of the life he had left
-- 356 --
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so far behind, that, in the press and hurry of his present
career, it sometimes seemed hardly to belong to him.
“God and my lady have been very good to me,” thought
the boy; “but I never'll be as happy again as when the little
sister put her arms about my neck, and called me her dear
Teddy, and kissed me with her own sweet mouth that maybe
is dust and ashes now. No: I never'll be happy that way
again.”
He raised his eyes as he spoke, and started back, pale and
trembling, fain to lean against the nearest tree for support
under the great shock.
Not fifty feet from him, and bathed in the early sunlight
that came sifting through the trees to greet her, stood a child,
dressed in a white robe, her sunny hair crowned with flowers,
her little hand holding sceptre-wise a long stalk with snow-white
bells drooping from its under edge. Her arms were
bare to the shoulder, and her slender feet gleamed white from
the bed of moss that almost buried them. Still as a little
statue, or a celestial vision printing itself in one never-to-be-forgotten
moment upon the heart of the beholder, she stood
looking at him; and Teddy dropped upon his knees, gasping, —
“It's out of glory you've come to comfort me, darling!
and God ever bless you for the same!”
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The child looked at him with her starry eyes, and slowly
smiled.
“I knew you sometime,” said she. “Was it in heaven?”
“No: it's better than ever I'll be, you know, in heaven,
little sister. Are you happy there, mavourneen?” asked
Teddy timidly.
“Oh! I haven't gone to heaven yet. I never could find
the way,” said the child, with a troubled expression suddenly
clouding her sweet face; and then she added musingly, —
“I thought I'd get there through the river last night; but
I tumbled off the log, and only got wet: and Dora said I was
naughty; and so I had to go to bed, and not have some
supper, only” —
“What's that, then!” shouted Teddy, springing to his feet,
and holding out his hands toward her, though not yet daring
to approach. “It's not the spirit of the little sister you are,
but a live child?”
“Yes, I'm alive; though, if I'd staid into the river,
I wouldn't have been, Dora says,” replied Sunshine
quietly.
“Oh! but the Lord in heaven look down on us this day,
and keep me from going downright mad with the joy that's
-- 358 --
[figure description] Page 358.[end figure description]
breaking my heart! Is it yourself it is, O little sister! is
it yourself that's in it, and I alive to see it?”
He was at her feet now, his white face all bathed with
tears, his trembling fingers timidly clasping her robe, his
eyes raised imploringly to those serenely bent upon him.
“I knew you once, and you was good to me,” said the
child musingly; “but I got tired when I danced so much
in the street. I don't ever dance now, only with Argus.”
“But, little sister, are you just sure it's yourself alive?
And don't you mind I was Teddy, and we used to go walking
in the Gardens and on the Commons; and there was the good
mammy at home that used to rock you on her lap, and warm
the pretty little feet in her hands, and sing to you till you
dropped asleep? Don't you mind them things, Cherry darling?”
The child looked attentively in his face while he thus spoke,
and at the end nodded several times; while a light, like that
of earliest dawn, began to glimmer in her eyes.
“Tell me some more,” said she briefly.
“And do you mind the picture-books I used to bring you
home, and the story of the Cock Robin you used to like so
well to hear, and the skip-jack you played with, and the big
doll that mammy made for you, and you called it Susan?” —
-- 359 --
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“O—h! Susan!” cried the child suddenly, and then
stood all pale and trembling, while her earnest eyes seemed
searching in the past for some dimly-remembered secret,
which to lose was agony, to recall impossible.
“Susan!” said she softly again. “Yes, there was
Susan, somewhere, and — Oh! tell me the rest; tell me
who it was that loved me so!”
“Sure, it was Teddy loved you best of all,” said the boy
longingly: for, though her eager eyes dwelt upon his face, it
was not for him or his that the depths of her heart were
stirring; and, with the old thrill of jealous pain, he felt
it so.
But then from the remorse and bitterness of the fault he
had never ceased to mourn rose a nobler purpose, a higher
love. He took the child in his arms, and kissed her tenderly,
then released her, saying, —
“Good-by, little sister; for I never will call you so again,
and you never more will call me brother. It's your own
lady-mother, darling, that you're missing and mourning, —
the own beautiful mother that lost you two years ago, and
has gone to heaven's gates looking for you, and never would
have come back if you had not been found. It's your own
home, darling, that you have remembered for heaven; and
-- 360 --
[figure description] Page 360.[end figure description]
it's waiting for you, with father and mother, and joy and
plenty, all ready to receive you the minute you can get
there.”
But it was too much for the fine organization and sensitive
temperament; and, as Teddy's words reached her heart
in their full meaning, the child, with a long sobbing cry, fell
forward into his arms, utterly insensible.
Teddy, not too much terrified (for he had seen her thus
before), raised the slender little figure in his arms, and carried
it swiftly toward the house, now just visible through a
vista of the wood, but, before he reached it, met Dora
coming to look for her little charge.
“Good-morning, Mr. Ginniss. So you have caught my
naughty runaway,” cried she gayly; but coming near
enough to notice Sunshine's drooping figure, and Teddy's
agitated face, she sprang forward, asking, —
“Is any thing the matter with her? Where did you find
her, Mr. Ginniss?”
“She's fainted, ma'am; but it's with joy, and will never
hurt her. It's you and I that will be the sufferers, I'm
afraid,” said Teddy, with a sudden pang at his heart of
love not yet cleansed of selfish jealousy.
“Bring her to the house, please, as quickly as you can.
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Poor little darling, she is so delicate!” said Dora, not yet
caring to ask this strange news, but walking close beside
Teddy, her hand clasping that cold little one which swung
nervelessly over his shoulder, her eyes anxiously watching
the beautiful pale face, half hidden in the showering curls.
-- 362 -- p453-367
CHAPTER XXXVII. TEDDY'S PRIVILEGE.
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To Mr. Burroughs, smoking his cigar upon the piazza
of the Neff House, came a white-jacketed waiter with a
card.
“The gentleman is waiting in the reception-room, sir,”
said he.
Mr. Burroughs paused to watch an unusually perfect
ring of smoke lazily floating above his head; then took the
card, and read in pencil, —
“Theodore Ginniss would be glad to see Mr. Burroughs
a moment on important business.”
“Indeed! Well, it is a republic, and this is the West;
but only Jack's bean-stalk parallels such a growth.” So
said, in his own heart, Teddy Ginniss's former master, as
he drew two or three rapid whiffs from the stump of his
cigar, and then, throwing it into the grass, strolled leisurely
into the reception-room.
“Ah, Ginniss! how are you?” inquired he of the pale
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[figure description] Page 363.[end figure description]
and nervous young man, who stood up to receive him, half
extending his hand, but dropping it quickly upon perceiving
that of Mr. Burroughs immovable.
“I am well, sir, thank you.”
“Want to see me on business, do you say?” continued
the lawyer coolly.
“Yes, sir.” And, as his true purpose and position
came back to him, Teddy suddenly straightened himself,
and grew as cool as the stately gentleman waiting with
patient courtesy for his errand.
“I thought, sir, I'd come to you first, as it was to you I
first had occasion to speak of my fault in hiding her. 'Toinette
is found, sir!”
“What! 'Toinette Legrange found! Teddy, your hand,
my boy! Found by you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Teddy, suffering his hand to be shaken.
“But what I wanted most was to ask if you think it safe
to tell Mrs. Legrange.”
“Oh! I'll see to that. Of course, it must be done very
delicately. But where is the child now? and when did you
find her?”
“If you please, Mr. Burroughs, I should like to tell the
story first to Mrs. Legrange, and I should like to tell her
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[figure description] Page 364.[end figure description]
all myself. It was I that hurt her, or helped to hurt her;
and I'd like to be the one to give her the great joy that's
waiting for her. Besides, sir,” and Teddy's face grew white
again, “though I did what was wrong enough, I never
deny, I have suffered for it more, maybe, than you can
think of; and this is all the amends I could ever want.
Mrs. Legrange has been very good to me, sir, and never
blamed me, or spoke an unkind word, even at the first.”
“And I spoke a good many, you're thinking,” said Mr.
Burroughs keenly. “Well, Teddy, I am a man, and Mrs.
Legrange is a woman; and women look at matters more
leniently and less exactly than we do. But you must not
be satisfied with pity instead of justice; for that will be
to encourage your self-esteem at the expense of your manhood.
I do not deny that I never have recovered from my
surprise at finding you had so long deceived me; but the
news you bring to-day makes amends for much: and, after
I have heard the particulars, I may yet be able to forget
the past, and feel to you as I used.”
But Teddy's bow, though respectful, was not humble;
and he only asked in reply, —
“Where shall I find Mrs. Legrange, sir?”
“She walked down to the glen about half an hour ago.
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[figure description] Page 365.[end figure description]
You may follow her there, if you please; and, since you
insist upon it as a right, I will leave you to break the news
to her alone. But you will remember, I hope, that she is
very delicate, — very easily startled. You will have to be
exceedingly cautious.”
“Yes, sir;” and with a ceremonious bow the young
man left the room, and the next minute was seen darting
along the path to the glen.
Mr. Burroughs looked after him appreciatively, and muttered, —
“A nice-looking fellow, and not without self-respect. I
see no reason why, in half a dozen years, he should not enter
his name at the Suffolk bar itself, and stand as well as any
man on the roll. But my little Sunshine! Confound the
boy! why couldn't he have told me where to find her?”
So Mr. Burroughs went back to the piazza, and tried to
quiet himself with another cigar, but was too nervous to
make any more rings; while Teddy sped away to the glen,
and presently found himself in a cool and cavernous retreat,
which the sunlight only penetrated by dancing down with
the waters that slid laughingly over a rocky ledge above,
and shook themselves into spray before they reached the pool
below, then, after dimpling and sporting there for a moment,
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danced merrily away. At either hand, high walls of rock,
half hid in trailing vines and clinging herbage, shut out the
heat of day; and, through a thousand ever-changing peepholes
among the swaying foliage, the blue sky looked gayly down,
and challenged those who hid in the glen to come forth, and
dare the fervor of the mid-day sun.
Under a tree near the foot of the fall sat Mrs. Legrange,
her head leaning upon her hand, her book idle upon her lap,
watching dreamily the waters that swayed and ebbed, and
paused and coquetted with every flower or leaf that bent
toward them; and yet in the end went on, always on, as the
idlest of us go, until through the merry brook, the heedless
fall, the sparkling stream, and stately river, we reach at last
the ocean, calm, changeless, and eternal in its unmoved
depths.
The lady looked up with a little start as she heard the
approaching footsteps, and then rose with extended hand, —
“Theodore!” said she kindly. “I am very glad to see
you; and so grown! You are much taller than in the
spring.”
“Yes, ma'am: I believe so. I don't think I shall grow
much more,” said Teddy, swallowing a great bunch in his
throat that almost suffocated him.
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“No? Why, you are not so very old, are you?” asked
Mrs. Legrange, smiling a little.
“Nearly eighteen, ma'am.”
“Oh, well! time enough for a good deal of growth, bodily
and mental, yet. So you have been at the West?”
“Yes, ma'am, and have heard some curious things there,—
some things that I think will interest you. Have you
ever thought of adopting a little girl, ma'am?”
Mrs. Legrange sadly shook her head.
“No, Theodore: I never wished to do that. She never
could be any thing like her to me, and it would seem like
giving away her place. I had rather wait.”
“I am sorry, ma'am; for I saw a little girl, where I have
been, that I was going to speak of.”
“Was she a pretty child?”
“Very pretty, and looked like” —
“No, Theodore, don't say that, because I shall think
either you have forgotten or never learned her face. No
child ever looked like her,” said the mother positively.
“This little girl was very pretty though,” persisted
Teddy.
“How did she look?”
“She had great blue eyes (if you'll excuse me, ma'am),
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[figure description] Page 368.[end figure description]
just like yours, with long brown eyelashes, and a great deal
of bright hair, not just brown, nor yet just golden, but between
the two; and a little mouth very much curved; and
pretty teeth; and a delicate color; and little hands with
pretty finger-nails.”
“Theodore!”
Teddy, for the first time in his description, dared to raise
his eyes, but dropped them again. He could not meet
the anguish in those other eyes so earnestly fixed upon
him.
“She was the adopted child of the people I visited in
Iowa,” faltered he.
“Theodore!” said Mrs. Legrange again; and then, in a
breathless fluttering voice, —
“Do not trifle with me; do not try to prepare my mind;
and, oh! for God's sake, if it is a false hope, say so this instant!
Is she found?”
“I think it may be so, dear Mrs. Legrange!”
“No, but it is so! you know it! I see it in your eyes, I
hear it in your voice! You cannot hide it, you cannot deceive
me! O my God! my God! — to thee the first praise, the
first thanks!”
She fell upon her knees, her face upraised to heaven; and
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never mortal artist drew such a picture of ecstatic praise.
And though in after-years Theodore Ginniss may wander
through the galleries where the world conserves her rarest
gems of art, never will he find Madonna or Magdalen or
saint to compare with the one picture his memory treasures
as the perfection of earthly loveliness, made radiant with
the purest heavenly bliss.
“Now come!” exclaimed the mother, springing to her
feet, and rapidly leading the way along the narrow path.
“You shall tell me all as we go.”
And the young man found it hard work to keep pace with
the delicate woman, as she flew rather than walked towards
her child.
“If you will wait here in your own room, I will bring
her to you,” said Teddy, as he and Mrs. Legrange approached
the hotel again.
“Bring her! Where is she now?” asked the mother,
looking at him in dismay.
“I left them at the other hotel, thinking, if I brought
her directly here, we might meet you before you were told,”
explained Teddy.
“Who is with her?”
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“Dora Darling, the young lady who adopted her, — the
one I told you of as living in Iowa.”
“Yes, yes; and she has come all the way to bring my
child to me! No, I cannot wait: I will come with you.”
So Mr. Burroughs, still sitting upon the piazza, saw his
cousin hastening by, and came to join her.
“Yes, come, Tom! come to — oh, to see Sunshine
again!” and Mrs. Legrange turned her flushed face away
to hide the hysterical agitation she could not quite suppress.
“Take my arm, Fanny; and do not walk so fast. You
will hurt yourself,” said Mr. Burroughs kindly.
“No, no: nothing can hurt me now. I must go fast:
if I had wings, I should fly!”
“Here is the house. Will you wait in the parlor till I
bring her down?” asked Teddy, leading the way up the
steps of the principal hotel at Yellow Springs.
“No: take me to the room where they are waiting. I
want to see her without preparation,” said Mrs. Legrange.
So the whole party followed Teddy up the stairs to a
door, where he paused and knocked. A low voice said, —
“Come in!” and the opening door showed Dora seated
upon a low chair, with Sunshine clasped in her arms, and
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fast asleep. She made a motion to rise upon seeing the
visitors; but Mrs. Legrange, lifting her finger as imploring
silence, softly advanced, and bent with clasped hands and
eager eyes over the sleeping child. Then, with the graceful
instinct of a woman who knows and pities the wound in
the heart of her less fortunate rival, she put her arms about
Dora and the child, embracing both, and pressed her lips
lightly upon Dora's cheek, devouringly upon Sunshine's
lips.
Dora started as if she had been stung, and a sudden
tremor crossed the rigid calm of her demeanor. She had
schooled herself to indifference, to neglect, or to civil thanks
worse than either: but this unexpected tenderness, this
sisterly recognition, went straight through all its defences
to her quivering heart; and she looked up piteously into the
lovely face bent over her, whispering, —
“I am so glad you have found her! but I have nothing
left half so dear.”
There was no reply; for Sunshine, without sound or
movement, suddenly opened her eyes, and fixed them upon
her mother's face, while deep in their blue depths grew a
glad smile, breaking at last, like a veritable sungleam, all
over her face, as, holding out her arms, she eagerly said, —
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“I've come to heaven while I was asleep; and you're
the angel that loves me so dearly well. I know you by
your eyes.”
The mother clasped her own, — as who shall blame her?—
and Dora's arms and Dora's heart were empty, robbed
of the nestling they had cherished, — empty, as she said to
herself, turning from the sight of that maternal bliss, of the
best love she had ever known, or could ever hope.
Mr. Burroughs, who liked character-reading, watched
her narrowly; and when, presently, the whole party returned
to Mrs. Legrange's hotel, he quietly walked beside
Dora, lingering a little, and detaining her out of hearing of
Mrs. Legrange and Teddy, who walked on with Sunshine
between them.
“Is virtue its own reward, Miss Dora?” asked he abruptly,
when almost half the distance between the two
hotels was passed.
Dora looked at him a little puzzled; and then, as she
read the half-sympathizing, half-mocking expression of his
face, answered, —
“You mean I am not happy in bringing Sunshine back
to her mother; don't you?”
“Exactly; and you told me once that no one ought to
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be rewarded for doing what is right, because it is reward
enough to know that we are doing right.”
“And so it is. I don't want any reward,” said Dora
rather hastily.
“No: but, if young Ginniss had not discovered the identity
of the child, my cousin would not have been unhappier
than she has been for two years; and you — would you
not be at this moment better content with life?”
Dora's clear eyes looked straight into his as she wonderingly
asked, —
“Do you want me to say I am sorry Mrs. Legrange has
found her child?”
“If it is true, yes; and I know you will,” replied Mr.
Burroughs quietly.
“And so I would,” said Dora in the same tone; “but
it is not true. I am glad, not happy, but very glad, that
Sunshine has come to her mother at last, — her heaven, as
she calls it. I do not deny that my own heart is very sore,
and that I cannot yet think of her not being my child any
more, without” —
She turned away her head, and Mr. Burroughs looked at
her yet more attentively than he had been looking.
“But, if you could, you would not go back, and arrange
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it that Teddy should not come to your house? Word and
honor now, Dora.”
“Word and honor, Mr. Burroughs, I surely would not.
Can you doubt me?”
“No, Dora, I do not; but, in your place, I should doubt
myself.”
Dora looked at him with a frank smile.
“I would trust you in this place, or any other,” said she
simply.
“Would you, would you really, Dora?” asked Tom Burroughs
eagerly, while a slight color flashed into his handsome
face. “Why would you?”
“Because I feel sure you could never do any thing
mean or ungenerous, or feel any way but nobly” —
She paused suddenly, and a tide of crimson suffused
her face and neck. Mr. Burroughs, with the heroism of
perfect breeding, turned away his eyes, and suppressed the
enthusiastic answer that had risen to his lips. He would
not add to her confusion by accepting as extraordinary the
impulsive expression of her feelings. So he simply said,
after a moment of silence, —
“Thank you, Dora. I hope you may never have occasion
to regret your noble confidence.”
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Dora did not answer, but hastened her steps, until she
walked close behind Mrs. Legrange; nor did her companion
speak again, although, could Dora have read his
thoughts, she might have found in them matter of more
interest than any words he had ever spoken to her.
-- 376 -- p453-381
CHAPTER XXXVIII. WHAT DORA SAID.
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It had been Dora's intention to return to Iowa immediately
after leaving Sunshine in charge of her own friends;
but Mrs. Legrange insisted so urgently upon her remaining
with them for some weeks at least, and the parting with
the dear child she had so loved and cherished seemed so
cruel as it drew nearer and nearer, that she finally consented
to remain for a short time, and removed to the Neff
House, where Mrs. Legrange had engaged rooms until the
first of October.
To other natures than those called to encounter it, the
relation between these three might, for a time at least,
have been painful and perplexing; but Mrs. Legrange was
possessed of such exquisite tact, Sunshine of such abounding
and at the same time delicate affections, and Dora of
such a noble and generous temper, that they could not but
harmonize: and while 'Toinette bloomed, flower-like, into
new and wonderful beauty bathed in the sunlight of a
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double love, Mrs. Legrange never forgot to associate Dora
with herself as its source. And Dora joyed in her darling's
joy; and, if her heart ached at thought of the coming
loneliness, the pain expressed itself no otherwise than in
an added tenderness.
“That is a noble girl, Fanny,” said Mr. Burroughs one
day. “How different from our dear five hundred friends
at home! Put Mary Elmsly, or Lizzy Patterson, or Miss
Bloomsleigh, or Marion Lee, in her place, and how would
they fill it?”
“She is, indeed, a noble girl,” replied his cousin
warmly. “I never shall forget the tender and wise care
she has taken of Sunshine in this last year. She has
strengthened heart and principle as I am afraid I could
never have done.”
“Paul is coming out for you, isn't he?” pursued Mr.
Burroughs after a pause.
“Yes: he will be here by the 20th. Why did you
ask?”
“Because Dora cannot travel home alone, and I think
of accompanying her. I may stay a while, and study
prairie life.”
Mrs. Legrange looked at him in surprise a moment;
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and then a merry smile broke over her face, for such a
smile was possible now to her.
“Capital!” exclaimed she. “I never thought of it.
But why not?”
“Why not spend a few weeks in Iowa? Well, of course,
why not?” asked Mr. Burroughs a little grimly, and presently
added, —
“That is a pernicious custom of yours, Fanny, — that
rushing at conclusions.”
“Men never rush at conclusions, do they?”
“No: of course not.”
“Very well, then: arrive at your conclusion as leisurely
as you like. It is none the less certain.”
“Pshaw!” remarked Mr. Burroughs; and as his cousin
laughingly turned to bend over Sunshine, and help her read
her story-book, he took his hat and went out, turning his
steps toward the glen.
Not till he reached its deepest recesses, however, did he
find Dora; and then he stood still to look at her, himself un-seen.
But what a white, dumb look of anguish upon the
sweet face! what clouds, heavy with coming showers,
upon the brow! what rainy lights in the upturned eyes!
what a resistless sorrow in the downward curve of the lips,
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ordinarily so firm and cheerful! Even the shapely hands,
tightly folded, and firmly set upon the knee, told their story,—
even the rigid lines and constrained attitude of the figure.
Mr. Burroughs's first impulse was artistic; and he longed to
be a sculptor, that he might model an immortal statue of
Silent Grief. The second was human; and he longed to
comfort a sorrow at whose cause he already guessed, and
yet guessed but half. The third was less creditable, but
perhaps as probable, in a man of Mr. Burroughs's temperament
and education; for it was to study and dissect this new
phase of the young girl's character. He quietly approached,
and seated himself beside her with a commonplace remark, —
“A very pretty bit of scenery, Dora.”
“Yes,” replied she, struggling to resume her usual demeanor.
“I am afraid, however, it does not satisfy your eye,
accustomed to the breadth of prairie views. Confess that
you are a little weary of it and us, and longing for home.”
“I shall probably set out for home to-morrow,” said
Dora, turning away her head, and playing idly with the
grass beside her.
“I thought you were homesick. I am sorry we have so
ill succeeded in contenting you.”
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“Oh, don't think that! I have been so happy here these
two weeks! That is the very reason I ought to go.”
“How is that? I don't see the argument.”
“Because this is not my home, or the way I am to live,
or these the people I am to live with; and the sooner I am
away, the better.”
She did not see all the meaning of her words, poor child!
but her companion did, and smiled merrily to himself as he
said, —
“You mean, we do not come up to your standard, and
you cannot waste more time upon us; don't you?”
Dora turned and looked at him, her suspicions roused by
a mocking ring beneath the affected humility of his tone;
and, looking, she caught the covert smile not yet faded from
his eyes.
“It is not kind, Mr. Burroughs, to laugh at me, or to try
to confuse me in this way,” said she steadily. “No doubt,
you know what I mean; and why do you wish to force me
into saying, that the more I see of the life and thoughts and
manners of such people as Mrs. Legrange and you, and
even my own little Sunshine, now so far away from me, the
less fit I feel to associate with them? And, just because it
is so pleasant to me, I feel that I ought to go back at once
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to the home and the duties and the people where I belong.
I am but a poor country-girl, sir, hardly taught in any thing
except the love of God, and the wish to do something before
I die to make my fellow-creatures a little happier or more
comfortable than I find them. Let me go to my work, and
out of it I will make my life.”
Perhaps never had the self-contained heart of the young
girl so framed itself in words; certainly never had Mr. Burroughs
so fully read it: and when she finished, and, neither
turning from him nor toward him, steadfastly set her eyes
forward, as one who sees mapped out before him the path
he is to tread through all the coming years, he took her
hand in his with a sudden impulse of tenderness, —
“Dora, you will love some one yet; and love will make
you happy.”
“I have loved two people, and lost them both. I do not
mean to love any one else,” said Dora, quietly withdrawing
her hand.
Mr. Burroughs stared at her in astonishment; and, with
a directness more natural than conventional, exclaimed, —
“You have loved twice already!”
“Yes. Three times, indeed. I loved my mother and
Picter, and they are both dead. I loved Sunshine, and she
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is lost to me. O my little Sunshine! who was all to me,
and who, I thought” —
“And then — oh rare result of all these days of suffering,
and hidden bitterness, and a lingering relinquishment
of the sweet and tender hope of her future life! — Dora
gave way all at once, and, covering her face with her hands,
burst into a passion of tears; such tears as women seldom
weep; such tears as Dora herself had shed but two or three
times in her short life.
Mr. Burroughs sat for a moment, looking at her with a
yearning tenderness in his eyes, and then folded her suddenly
in his arms, whispering, —
“Dora, Dora Darling! I love you, and I will be to you
more than all these; and no time nor chance shall rob you
of my love, if only you will give me yours instead.”
But Dora repulsed him vehemently, sobbing, “No, no,
no! you shall not say it! I will not hear it!”
“Not say it? Why not? It is God's truth; and you
must have known it before to-day.”
“No: it is only pity, because you think I want to stay,
and because — No: I will not have it! I will not hear it!
You are quite wrong, Mr. Burroughs: you do not know” —
She stopped in confusion. She had done sobbing now;
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but she did not uncover her face, or look up. Mr. Burroughs
regarded her with a strange expression, and then,
taking her hand, said softly, —
“Dora, I have not dared, as you fear that I have, to
fancy that you cared for me. A moment ago, I should not
have dared to ask you as I now do; and remember, Dora,
that I ask for the solemn truth, — do you love me?”
Dora tore away her hand indignantly, and attempted to
rise. She had not spoken, or looked at him. Over the
pale face of the lover shot a gleam of triumph. But he
only said, —
“Dora, it will not be like you to leave me in this way.
It is unjust and untrue.”
“It is you who are unkind and ungenerous,” said the
girl passionately.
“Why, Dora? Why is it ungenerous to ask for a confession
of your love, when I have already told you that all
my heart is in your hands?”
“You fancied that I — that I — liked you; and you knew
I did not want to go home, and you pitied me: and I won't
have it, sir. I do not need pity, and I do not” —
Her voice died away, killed by the falsehood she could
not speak. Mr. Burroughs no longer pressed for an answer
-- 384 --
[figure description] Page 384.[end figure description]
to the question he had asked, but grasped at a new argument.
“Pity and kindness!” sadly repeated he. “Dora, if you
only knew how much more I stand in need of your pity than
you of mine, if you only knew what kindness your life has
already done mine, you would not treat me in this manner.”
“You need my pity!” exclaimed Dora, forgetting herself,
and turning to look at him in naïve astonishment;
“and for what?”
“For a purposeless and weary life; for an empty heart
and a corroded faith,” said her lover bitterly; “for an
indifference to men, amounting almost to aversion; for a
trifling estimate of women, amounting almost to contempt;
for wasted abilities and neglected opportunities, — for all
these, Dora, I need your pity, and have a right to claim it:
for it is only since I loved you that I have recognized my
own great needs and deficiencies. Complete the work you
have unconsciously begun, dearest. Reverse the fairy fable,
and let the beautiful princess come to waken with her kiss
the slothful prince, who else might sleep forever.”
“How can you know so soon that I am the princess?”
asked Dora shyly.
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“So soon! I felt the truth stirring blindly in my heart
that first night, now a year ago, when I saw you in the old
home, and read your candid eyes, and heard your clear
voice, and marked your steady and serene influence upon
all about you. I hardly knew it then; but, when I was away
from you, I was myself surprised to find how vivid your
impression upon my mind remained. When my cousin
asked me to accompany her here, I silently resolved, that,
before I returned home, I would see you again; would
study as deeply as I might the character I already guessed.
Then, Dora, when I saw you, as I have seen you in these
last weeks, struggling so nobly to render complete the sacrifice
you came hither to make; when I saw the sweetness,
the power, the loftiness, and the divine truth, of your nature,
shining more clearly day by day, and yourself the only one
unconscious of the priceless value of such a nature, — then,
Dora, I came to know for truth what I tell you now, God
hearing me, that you are the woman of all the world whom
I love, honor, and undeservingly long to make my own.
Once more, Dora, — and you cannot now refuse to answer
me at least, — once more I ask, do you or can you love
me?”
He grasped her hands in both his own, and his keen eyes
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read her very soul. She raised hers as steadily to meet
them; and, though the hot blush seemed to scorch her very
brow, she answered, —
“I did not know it, quite, until to-day; but I believe — I
think — I have cared about you ever since a year ago. That
is, not love; but every one else seemed less than they had
been: and since I knew you here, and since I thought I
must go home, and never see you any more, it was” —
She faltered and stopped, drooping her head before the
tender triumph of his glance. Truth had asserted herself,
as with Dora she must have done in any stress, but now
of a sudden found herself silenced by a timidity as charming
as it was new in the strong and well-poised temperament
of the girl, who, a moment before so brave, now stood
trembling and blushing beneath her lover's gaze.
He drew her to his breast, and pressed his lips to hers.
“Dora, my own wife!” whispered he. “God so deal
with me here and hereafter as I with you, the best gift in
his mighty hand!”
And Dora, hiding her face upon his breast, whispered
again, —
“I was so unhappy an hour ago! and now, as Sunshine
says, I have come to heaven all at once!”
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Her lover answered by a mute caress; for there are moments
when words are all too weak for speech. And so he
only clasped her closer in his arms, and bent his head upon
her own; while all about them the hundred voices of the
summer noon whispered benediction on their joy; the eddying
stream paused in its whirl to dimple into laughter at their
feet; the sunlight, broken and flecked by the waving branches,
fell in a shifting golden shower upon their beads; and Nature,
the great mother, through her myriad eyes and tongues,
blessed the betrothal of her dearest child.
-- 388 -- p453-393
CHAPTER XXXIX. A SURPRISE FOR MRS. GINNISS.
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“Sure an' it's time they was a-coomin',” said Mrs. Ginniss,
going out upon the door-stone, and shading her eyes
from the level rays of the sunset as she looked steadfastly
down the road.
“An' who'll they all be, I'm woondherin'? The missus
says foive bids was wanted; an' faith it's well she said no
more, for sorra a place'ud there be to stand anudder in. An'
tay ready for eight folks, at sax o'clock. That's it, I belave;
though all thim figgers is enough to craze me poor head.”
She took a little note from her pocket as she spoke, and,
unfolding it, looked anxiously at the delicate letters.
“Sure an' it's all there if on'y I had the sinse to rade it.
An' feth, it's the tail uv it I'm howldin' to the top, as I'm a
sinner! No, thin: it looks as crabbed this way as that. I'd
niver be afther makin' it out if it towld of a fortin coomin'
to me for the axin'. Shusin, Shusin, I say!”
“What is it, Mrs. Ginniss?” asked a pleasant voice from
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within; and Susan, looking a little thinner and paler than
when we first met her, came out of the parlor, where she
had been picking a few scattered petals from beneath the
vases of flowers upon the mantle-shelf.
“An' would ye be plazed to read the missus's note to
me wonst more? Me owld eyes are that dim, I can't make it
out in the gloamin'.”
Susan, with unshaken gravity, took the note, turned it
right side up, and read aloud, while her companion craftily
glanced over her shoulder to note the position of the words
as they were spoken: —
“Dear Mrs. Ginniss, —
“We shall be at home on Wednesday evening, at six
o'clock, and shall bring some guests. You will please prepare
tea for eight persons; and make up five beds, three of
them single ones. Tell Susan to make the house look as
pretty as she can; and send for any thing she or you need in
the way of preparation.
“F. LEGRANGE.”
“An' faith it's this minute they're coomin!' Look at the
jaantin'-cars fur down the road!”
“One's a carryall, and the other's a rockaway,” said Susan
sententiously.
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“Musha, an' what's the odds if they're one thing or the
other, so they bring the purty misthress back halesomer
than she wint? That's her in the first car: I know her
white bonnet with the blue ribbon.”
“Yes, there's Mr. and Mrs. Legrange, and a strange lady
and gentleman; and the other carriage are all strangers, except
Mr. Burroughs. Those young ladies are pretty; ain't
they?”
But Mrs. Ginniss was already at the gate, courtesying and
beaming: —
“Ye're wilcoom home, missus and masther; an' it's in
health an' pace I hope yees coom.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Ginniss. We are very well indeed, I
believe,” said Mr. Legrange rather nervously, as he jumped
from the carriage and helped out his wife, and then Kitty
and Mr. Brown. From the other carriage, meantime, had
alighted, without the good woman's observation, Mr. Burroughs,
Dora, Karl, and another, who, the moment her feet
touched the ground, ran forward, crying, —
“O mamma! I've been at this home before.”
At the sound, Mrs. Ginniss turned, dropping the shawls,
bags, and parasols she held, in one mass at her feet, and
then dropping herself upon her knees in their midst; while
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her fresh face turned of a ghastly yellow, and her uplifted
hands shook visibly, —
“Glory be to God, an' what's that!” exclaimed she in a
voice of terror.
“Oh, it's mammy, it's mammy! that used to rock me in
her lap, and hold my feet, and sing to me! I 'member her
now, and Teddy said so too. O mammy! I'm so glad
you've come again!”
The sobbing woman opened wide her arms; and Sunshine
leaped into them, shouting again and again, —
“It's the good old mammy! and I'm so glad, I'm so
glad!”
“O Mrs. Legrange! is it?” exclaimed an agitated voice;
and Mrs. Legrange, turning, found Susan standing beside
her with pale face and clasped hands, her eyes fixed upon
the child with a sort of terror.
“Yes, Susan, it is 'Toinette, her very self. I would not
write, because I wanted to see if she would know you
both, and you her.”
“Oh, thank God! thank God! I didn't believe I'd ever
forgive myself for not minding her better; but now I may.
Miss 'Toinette, dear, won't you speak to Susan?”
“Susan!” exclaimed the child, struggling out of Mrs.
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Ginniss's embrace, and leaving that good woman still
exploding in a feu-de-joie of thanksgiving, emotion, and
astonishment. “Are you Susan? Why, that was a doll!”
“A doll?” asked the nurse in bewilderment, and pausing
in act of kissing her recovered charge, not with the rapturous
abandonment of the Irish woman, but with the respectful
tenderness of a trained English servant.
“She named a doll after you, Mrs. Ginniss says, although
she did not remember who you really were,”
explained Mrs. Legrange. “But come, my friends: we
will not wait longer out of doors. Dora, you and
Kitty know the way even better than I; and Mr.
Windsor” —
“It isn't Mr. Windsor, it's Karlo, mamma,” persisted
Sunshine, dancing up the narrow path in advance of the
party.
“Yes, Karl, if you will be so kind,” said Dr. Windsor,
offering Mrs. Legrange his arm.
“Then Karl will feel himself as much at home here as
he ever did, I trust,” said the lady cordially.
“It was peeping out at that window I saw you first,
Dora; and I thought it must be the sunrise,” whispered
Tom Burroughs to the lady he escorted.
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“I am sorry I should have so put you out of countenance.
Perhaps that is the reason you never have seen
straight since, — so far as I am concerned at least,” replied
she.
“One does not care to look straight at the sun: it is
sufficient to bask in its light,” whispered the lover.
“Oh! very well, if that is what you want — Here, Sunshine!
Cousin Tom wants you.”
The little girl came bounding toward them; and Dora,
with a wicked little laugh, slipped away, and up the stairs,
to the room that had been Kitty's, now appropriated to the
use of the two young girls.
Soon the happy party assembled again in the kitchen,
where stood a tea-table judiciously combining the generous
breadth of Mrs. Ginniss's ideas with the more elegant and
subdued tastes inculcated upon Susan by a long period of
service with her present mistress.
“Mind you tell 'em there's more beyant, on'y you
wouldn't set it on all to wonst,” whispered the Irish
woman hoarsely, as she rushed into the scullery, leaving
Susan to receive the guests just entering the kitchen.
“Mrs. Ginniss thought we should arrive with appetites,
I suspect,” said the hostess, laughing a little apologetically
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as they seated themselves; and Susan did not think it best
to deliver her message.
“And so we have, some of us at least; and I do not
believe even the ladies will refuse a bit of this nice tongue,
or some cold chicken. What do you say, Dora?” asked
Mr. Legrange gayly.
“No tongue for her, please; she is supplied,” remarked
Mr. Burroughs sotto voce; and Dora, with a little mutinous
glance, passed her plate with, —
“A slice of tongue, if you please, Mr. Legrange.”
“Never mind: wait a few days, and we will see,” murmured
Burroughs threateningly; and Dora did not care to
retort, but, blushing brightly, began an eager conversation
with Sunshine, who had nestled a chair in between those
of her mother and Dora, and made lively claims upon the
attention of both.
An hour or two later, Mrs. Legrange went to seek her
housekeeper, and found her seated upon the step of the
back door, her hands clasped around her knees, and softly
crooning a wild Irish melody to herself as she rocked
slowly backward and forward, her eyes fixed upon the
little crescent moon, swimming like a silver boat in the
golden sea of sunset.
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“An' isn't it a purty sight, yon?” asked she, rising as
Mrs. Legrange spoke to her. “Sure an' its the hooneymoon
for Misther Booros an' the swate young lady that's to
marry him.”
“Yes, it's their honey-moon; and I believe it will be as
bright and as long a one as ever shone,” said Mrs. Legrange,
smiling tenderly, as happy wives will do in speaking
of the future of a bride.
“I came to ask you to go up stairs with me, Mrs Ginniss,”
continued she with a little agitation in her sweet
voice. “There is something for you to see.”
“Sure an' I will, ma'am. Is it the chambers isn't
settled to shute yees?”
“Oh, no! every thing is admirable, except that we must
contrive a little bed for 'Toinette upon the couch in my
room.”
“An', faith, that's asy done, ma'am. There's lashin's o'
blankets an' sheets an' pillers not in use at all, at all.
We've plenty uv ivery thin' in this house, glory be to
God!”
Mrs. Legrange smiled a little at the satisfaction with
which the Irish woman contemplated a superfluity, even
when not belonging to herself; and led the way to her
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own chamber, where sat Dora, as she had sat many a time
within those four walls, holding Sunshine upon her lap,
and, while loosening her clothes for the night, telling her
one of the stories of which the child was never weary.
“See here, Mrs. Ginniss!” said the mother hastily, as
she stripped the frock from the child's white shoulders, and
showed a little linen bag hung about her neck by a silken
cord. “Did you ever see that before?”
“Sure an' what would ail me owld eyes not to seen it,
whin me own fingers sewed it, an' me own han's hoong it
aboot the little crather's nick?”
“You are quite sure it is the very same?”
“Quite an' intirely; for more by token the clot' is a bit
uv the linen gownd that my mother give me whin I wor
married to Michael, an' the sthring wor to a locket that my
b'y give me one Christmas Day.”
“And what is in it?” asked Mrs. Legrange eagerly.
“The bracelet, uv coorse. Whin Teddy brought her to
me the black night he foun' her sinseless in the strate, she
had it clinched in the little hand uv her; an', whin she got
betther, there wor nought she loved so well to have by her,
an' tooch, an' look at. So when she roomed about, an' I
wor thinkin' it might be laid asthray, or she might lave it
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out the windy, or some place, an' not find it, I sewed it up
in the bit bag, an' placed it round her nick, and bid her
niver, niver, niver let it be took off till she coom to her
own agin.
“`That manes hivin, mammy, don't it?' axed the darlint
in her own purty way; an' so I says, `Yis, that manes
hivin; an' don't ye niver be lettin' man, woman, nor child,
be knowin' to it, till ye git to hivin'.' For sure I knowed
she must be some person's child that 'ud one day give
their hearts out uv their buzzums to know for sure that
she wor their own.”
“And that is the reason she never would let me look at
it, or open it,” said Dora. “She always said, when I
asked about it, that it was to go to heaven with her; and,
when she got there, she'd open it. So I supposed it was a
charm or relic, such as some of our soldiers used to carry
about their necks; and I never meddled with it.”
“And I, although I knew what it must be, wanted to
hear Mrs. Ginniss say that it was the very same, bag and
all, that she put about the darling's neck soon after she went
to her. But now” —
The quick snip of the scissors finished the sentence, and
the bag lay in Mrs. Legrange's palm. Sunshine's little
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hand went up rather forlornly to her bosom, robbed of what
it so long had cherished; and Dora clasped her tighter, and
kissed her tenderly: but neither spoke, until Mrs. Legrange
drew from the bag, and held before them, the coral bracelet,
with its linked cameos, broken at one point by the force
with which Mother Winch had torn it from the child's
shoulder, and with the clasp still closed.
Mrs. Legrange opened it, touched the spring, causing
the upper plate to fly up, and silently showed to Dora the
name “Antoinette Legrange” engraved within.
“Not quite two years since it was engraved, and what a
life of sorrow!” said she softly.
Then, going to her jewel-case, she took out the mate,
saved as a sacred relic since the day it had been found
upon the floor in the drawing-room after 'Toinette's flight,
and handed it to the child, saying, —
“Here is the other one, darling; and you may, if you
like, give it to Dora for your wedding-present. This one,
that has shared the wanderings of my poor little lost lamb
so long, I shall keep for myself.”
“Will you take it, Dora, and some love, ever so much
love, along with it?” said Sunshine, trying to make her little
offering in somewhat the form she had heard from older
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people, but finishing with a sudden clasp of her arms about
Dora's neck, and a shower of kisses, among which came
the whispered words, —
“I love you ever and ever so much better than Cousin
Tom does, Dora. Be my little wife, and never mind him;
won't you?”
-- 400 -- p453-405
CHAPTER XL. THE WEDDING-DAY.
[figure description] Page 400.[end figure description]
“Make haste, Mr. Sun, and get up! Don't you know it
is my birthday, and, what is better, it is Dora's wedding-day?
So jump up, pretty Sunny, and be just as bright as
glory all day long!”
And the sun, hearing the appeal, stood suddenly upon the
summit of the distant hills, shooting playful golden arrows
into the child's merry eyes, and among her floating hair,
where they clung glittering and glancing; while to her mind
he seemed to say, —
“Oh, yes, little namesake! I know all about it; and I
promise you sha'n't find me backward in doing my share
towards the entertainment. As for a glare of light, though,
I know a trick worth two of that, as you shall see. But,
first, here is my birthday-kiss. Don't you feel it warm
upon your lips?”
“O papa!” shouted Sunshine, as the fancy whirled
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through her busy little brain, “it seems just as if the sun
were kissing me for my birthday.”
“If the sun does, the father must; and it ought to be
twice over, because last year he lost the chance. Eight!
Bless me! where shall I put them all? One on the forehead,
two on the eyes, one on the tip of that ridiculous little nose,
two on the rose-red cheeks, one in that little hollow under
the chin, and the last and best square on the lips. Now,
then, my Sunshine, run to mamma, who is waiting for
you.”
The sun meantime, after a brief period of meditation,
took his resolve; and, sending back the brisk October day
that had prepared to descend upon earth, he summoned,
instead, the first day of the Indian Summer, and bade her
go and help to celebrate the bridal of one of his favorite
daughters, as she knew so well how to do.
So, summoning a south-west wind, still bearing in his garments
the odors of the tropic bowers where he had slept,
the fair day descended softly in his arms to earth, and,
seating herself upon the hills, wove a drapery of golden
mist, bright as love, and tender as maidenhood. Then,
wrapped in this bridal veil, she floated, still in the arms of
the gentle wind, through the forests, touching their leaves
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with purer gold and richer crimson; over the harvest-fields,
whose shocks of lingering corn rustled responsive as her
trailing garments swept past; over wide, brown pastures,
where the cattle nibbled luxuriously at the sweet
after-math; over lakes and rivers, where the waters slept
content, forgetting, for the moment, their restless seaward
march; over sheltered gardens, where hollyhock and sunflower,
petunia and pansy, dahlia and phlox, whispering
together of the summer vanished and the frosty nights at
hand, gave out the mysterious, melancholy perfume of an
autumn day.
And from forest and field, and pasture and garden, and
from the sleeping waters, the dreamy day culled the beauty
and the grace, the perfume and the sweet content, and,
floating on to where the bride awaited her coming, dropped
them all, a heavenly dower, upon her head; wrapped the
bright veil caressingly about her; and so passed on, to lie
reclined upon the hills, dreaming in luxurious beauty, until
the night should come, and she should float once more
heavenward.
But the south-west wind lingered a while, kissing the
trembling lips of the bride, fanning her burning cheek, and
dallying with the floating tresses of her hair; then,
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whispering farewell, he crept away to hide in the recesses of the
wood, and sigh himself to sleep.
“Dora, where are you, love? Do you hide from me to-day?”
called a voice; and Dora, peeping round the stem
of the old oak at whose foot she sat, said shyly, —
“Do you want me, Tom?”
“Want you, my darling? What else on earth do I want
but you? And how lovely you are to-day, Dora! You
never looked like this before.”
“It never was my wedding-day before,” whispered Dora;
and, like the summer day and the west wind, we will pass
on, leaving these our lovers to their own fond folly, which
yet is such wisdom as the philosophers and the savans can
never give us by theory or diagram.
As the fair day waned to sunset, they were married; Mr.
Brown saying the solemn words that barred from his own
heart even the unrequited love that had been a dreary
solace to it. But Mr. Brown was not only a good man, but
a strong man, and one of an iron determination; and so it
was possible to him to say those words unfalteringly, and
to look upon the bride — lovelier in her misty robes of
white, and floating veil, than he had ever seen her before —
with unfaltering eyes and unchanging color. No great
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[figure description] Page 404.[end figure description]
effort stops short at the end for which it was exerted; and
the chaplain himself was surprised to find how calm his
heart could be, and how little of pain or regret mingled
with his honest admiration and affection for Thomas Burroughs's
wife.
The carriage stood ready in the lane, and in another hour
they were gone; and let us say with Mrs. Ginniss, — radiant
in her new cap and gown, —
“The blissing of God go with 'em! fur it's thimsilves as
desarves it.”
To those who remain behind when an absorbing interest
is suddenly withdrawn, all ordinary events seem to have
lost their connection with themselves, and to be dull, disjointed,
and fatiguing.
Perhaps that was the reason why Kitty, as soon as the
bridal party was out of sight, crept away to her own chamber,
and cried as if her heart would break; but nothing
except the natural love of mischief, inherent in even the
sweetest of children, could have tempted 'Toinette, after
visiting her, to go straight to Mr. Brown, — strolling in
the rambling old garden, — and say, —
“Now, Mr. Brown! did you say that you despised
Kitty?”
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[figure description] Page 405.[end figure description]
“Despise Kitty! Certainly not, my dear. What made
you think of such a thing?”
“Why, she said so. She's up in our room, crying just
as hard! And, when I asked her what was the matter, she
hugged me up tight, and said nobody cared for her, and nobody
would ever love her same as Cousin Tom does Dora.
And I told her, yes, they would, and maybe you would;
and then she said, `Oh, no, no, no! he despises me!' and
then she cried harder than ever. Tell her you don't; won't
you, Mr. Brown?”
The chaplain looked much disturbed, and then very
thoughtful; but, as the child still urged him with her
entreaties, he said, —
“Yes, I will tell her so, Sunshine, but not just now.
And mind you this, little girl, — you must never, never let
Kitty know that you told me what she said. Will you
promise?”
“Yes, I'll promise. I guess you're afraid, if she knows,
she'll think you just say so to make her feel happy. Isn't
that it?”
“Yes: that is just it. So remember!”
“I'll 'memberer. Oh, there's Karlo! I'm going to look
for chestnuts with him to-morrow. Good-by, Mr. Brown!”
“Good-by, little Sunshine!”
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[figure description] Page 406.[end figure description]
And, for a good hour, Mr. Brown, pacing up and down
the garden-walk, took counsel with his own heart, and, we
may hope, found it docile.
The next day, he said to Kitty, —
“I have been telling your brother that he had better let
you board at Yellow Springs this winter, and attend the
lectures at the college. Should you like it?”
“Oh, ever so much!” exclaimed Kitty eagerly. “But
we were to keep house together at Outpost.”
“Karl thinks it will be as well to shut up the house,
and leave farm-matters to Seth and Mehitable, until
spring, when Mr. and Mrs. Burroughs return. He will
prefer for himself to spend the winter in Greenfield, perhaps
in Dr. Gershom's family. If you are at Antioch
College, I can perhaps help you with your studies. I
take some private pupils.”
Mr. Brown did not make this proposition with his
usual fluency. Indeed, he was embarrassed to a considerable
extent; and so, no doubt, was Kitty, who answered
confusedly, —
“I could try; but I never shall be fit for any thing. I
never — I never shall know much; though, if you will try
to teach me” —
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[figure description] Page 407.[end figure description]
“I will try, Kitty, with all my heart. You have excellent
abilities, and it is foolish to say you `never can be fit'
for almost any position.”
“O Mr. Brown! it seems to me as if I was such a poor
sort of creature, compared with almost any one!”
“Dora, for instance?”
“Yes. I never can be Dora: now, could I?”
“No, any more than I could be Mr. Burroughs. But
perhaps Kitty Windsor and Frank Brown may fill their
places in this world, and the next too, as well as these
friends of theirs whom they both admire.”
“O Mr. Brown! will you help me?” asked Kitty, turning
involuntarily toward him, and raising her handsome
dark eyes and glowing face to his. He took her hands,
looked kindly into her eyes, and said both tenderly and
solemnly, —
“Yes, Kitty, God helping me, I will be to you all that a
thoughtful brother could be to his only sister; and, what you
may be to me in the dim future, that future only knows.”
And Kitty's eyes drooped happily beneath that earnest
gaze, and upon her cheeks glowed the dawn of a hope as
vague as it was sweet.
-- 408 -- p453-413
CHAPTER XLI. KARL TO DORA.
[figure description] Page 408.[end figure description]
Greenfield, Iowa,
March 15.
My dear Cousin, —
Yours of the 10th duly received, and as welcome as your
letters always are. So you have seen the kingdoms of the
world and the glory thereof, and find that all is vanity, as
saith the Preacher. Do not imagine that I am studying divinity
instead of medicine; but to-day is Sunday, and I have
been twice to meeting, and taken tea with the minister
besides.
But to return to our mutton. Nothing could be more delightful,
or, on the whole, more probable to me, than your
decision to return to Outpost, instead of settling in Boston
or New York. I can hardly fancy my cousin Dora changed
into a fine lady, and fretting herself thin over the color of a
ribbon, or the trail of a skirt; and I am not surprised that
she finds what is called “society” puzzling and wearisome.
Your life, Dora, began upon too wide a plan to bear narrowing
down into conventional limits now; and I feel
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[figure description] Page 409.[end figure description]
through my own heart the thrill with which you wrote the
words, —
“I long for the opportunity of action and usefulness;
I long for the freedom of the prairie, and the dignity of labor;
I long to resume my old life, and to see my husband
begin his new one.”
But, to be quite frank, I was a little surprised that Mr.
Burroughs should enter so heartily into your plan of resuming
the farm. To be sure, I suppose the land-agency, and
the practice of his profession, will occupy most of his time;
and his principal concern with the estate will be to admire
your able management of it. You and he, my dear Dora,
seem to form not only a mutual-admiration, but a mutualencouragement
and mutual-assistance society; and I wish
my partnership with Dr. Gershom was half as satisfactory
an arrangement.
Yesterday, after receiving your letter, I rode directly to
Outpost, and communicated your wishes to Seth and Mehitable.
The former threw the chip he was whittling into the
fire, and said, —
“Miss Burroughs coming back? Waal, then, I'll stop;
but I own, doctor, I wouldn't ha' done it ef she hadn't. It's
took all the heart out o' the place, her bein' gone so.”
And Mehitable and he joined in a chorus of praises and
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[figure description] Page 410.[end figure description]
reminiscences, which, pleasant though I found it, I will not
put you to the blush by repeating. Both, however, promised
faithfully that the house and farm should be ready for
you by the middle of April; and Seth says he can take hold
“right smart” at helping put up the new house, as he was
“raised a carpenter,” in part at least.
You ask about me, my dear cousin; but what have I to
tell? I work hard at my profession, and take nearly all
the night-practice off Dr. Gershom's hands; so I have very
little leisure for any thing besides: and you say to be useful
is to be happy; so I suppose I am happy; but, if I may be
allowed the suggestion, it is rather a negative kind of bliss,
and will be decidedly augmented when Outpost is once
again open to me as a second home (I assure you I shall be
a frequent visitor), and when Burroughs comes to occupy
an office beside my own.
As for the rumor of my engagement to Sarah Gershom, it
is quite unfounded. I am not thinking of marrying at present.
A letter from Kitty, received a few days since, brings
very satisfactory accounts of her progress in learning and
in life. She is as happy as possible in her engagement to
Frank Brown, and improves, under his tuition, beyond my
wildest hopes. She has a strong nature and a deep heart,
has Kitty; and I believe Brown understands and can guide
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[figure description] Page 411.[end figure description]
them both. Kitty tells me, also, that Theodore Ginniss is
taking high honors in his class, and is one of the most promising
fellows at Antioch College. He will yet become a
man of mark, and Mrs. Degrange may well be proud of
her protégé. Give her my regards, please; and a thousand
kisses to Dolce, whom I thank most humbly for her kind
message to her poor old Karlo. I hope to see her again in
my little vacation next summer. Remember me, too, most
kindly to your husband, upon whose coming to Greenfield I
am depending a good deal, as I do not suffer, like you, from
too much society; and I shall be glad to associate with one
man who does not chew tobacco, or sit in the house with
his hat on.
And now, dear Dora, good-night, and good-by for a little
while.
Always your affectionate cousin,
KARL.
THE END.
