A Little Girl in Old Salem
by Amanda M. Douglas · English · Gutenberg #20722 · 412,861 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: A Little Girl in Old Salem
Author: Amanda M. Douglas
Release date: March 1, 2007 [eBook #20722]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20722
Credits: E-text prepared by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, J. P. W. Fraser, Emmy,
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A Little Girl in Old Salem
* * * * *
THE "LITTLE GIRL" SERIES
A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK.
HANNAH ANN; A SEQUEL.
A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD BOSTON.
A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD PHILADELPHIA.
A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD WASHINGTON.
A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW ORLEANS.
A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD DETROIT.
A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD ST. LOUIS.
A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD CHICAGO.
A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD SAN FRANCISCO.
A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD QUEBEC.
A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD BALTIMORE.
* * * * *
A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD SALEM
by
AMANDA M. DOUGLAS
[Illustration]
New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
1908
Copyright, 1908
by Dodd, Mead and Company
Published, September, 1908
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I TWO LETTERS 1
II THE LITTLE GIRL 19
III A STRANGER, YET AT HOME 36
IV UNWELCOME 52
V MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE LITTLE GIRL 68
VI GOING TO SCHOOL 91
VII CHANGEFUL LIGHTS OF CHILDHOOD 108
VIII SORROW'S CROWN OF SORROW 128
IX LESSONS OF LIFE 143
X A NEW DEPARTURE 161
XI THE VOICE OF A ROSE 180
XII CHANGES IN THE OLD HOUSE 194
XIII A TASTE OF PLEASURE 213
XIV IN GAY OLD SALEM 231
XV LOVERS AND LOVERS 248
XVI PERILOUS PATHS 270
XVII THE FLOWERING OF THE SOUL 288
XVIII THE PASSING OF OLD SALEM 296
CHAPTER I
TWO LETTERS
The Leveretts were at their breakfast in the large sunny room in Derby
Street. It had an outlook on the garden, and beyond the garden was a
lane, well used and to be a street itself in the future. Then, at quite
a distance, a strip of woods on a rise of ground, that still further
enhanced the prospect. The sun slanted in at the windows on one side,
there was nothing to shut it out. It would go all round the house now,
and seem to end where it began, in the garden.
Chilian was very fond of it. He always brought his book to the table; he
liked to eat slowly, to gaze out and digest one or two thoughts at his
leisure, as well as the delightful breakfast set before him. He was a
man of delicate tastes and much refinement, for with all the New England
sturdiness, hardness one might say, there was in many families a strain
of what we might term high breeding. His face, with its clear-cut
features, indicated this. His hair was rather light, fine, with a few
waves in it that gave it a slightly tumbled look--far from any touch of
disorder. His eyes were a deep, clear blue, his complexion fair enough
for a woman.
His father and grandfather had lived and died in this house. He had
bought out his sister's share when she married, and she had gone to
Providence. He had asked the two relatives of his father--termed cousins
by courtesy--to continue housekeeping. They were the last of their
family and in rather straitened circumstances. Miss Elizabeth was
nearing sixty, tall, straight, fair, and rather austere-looking. Eunice
was two years younger, shorter, a trifle stouter, with a rounder face,
and a mouth that wore a certain sweetness when it did not actually
smile.
Chilian was past thirty. He was a Harvard graduate, and now went in two
days each week for teaching classes. His father had left some business
interests in Salem, rather distasteful to him, but he was a strictly
conscientious person and attended to them, if with a sort of mental
protest. For the rest, he was a bookworm and revelled in intellectual
pursuits.
The day previous had been desperately stormy, this late March morning
was simply glorious. The mail, which came late in the afternoon, had not
been delivered, causing no uneasiness, as letters were not daily
visitors. But now the serving-man, with a gentle rap, opened the door
and said briefly:
"Letters."
Eunice rose and took them.
"An East Indian one for you, Chilian, and why--one from Boston--for you,
Elizabeth. It is Cousin Giles' hand."
Elizabeth reached for it. They were both so interested that they took
no note of Chilian's missive. She cut carefully around the big wafer he
had used. It was a large letter sheet, quite blue and not of over-fine
quality. Envelopes had not come in and there was quite an art in folding
a letter--unfolding it as well.
"Really what has started Cousin Giles? I hope no one is dead----"
"There would have been a black seal."
"Oh, yes, m'm;" making a curious sound with closed lips. "They are well.
Oh, the Thatchers have been visiting them and are coming out here for a
week--why, on Saturday, and to-day is Thursday. Chilian, do you hear
that?"
"What?" he asked, closing his book over his own letter.
"Why, the Thatchers are coming--on Saturday, not a long notice, and I
don't know how many. They have had a nice time in Boston--and Cousin
Giles has been beauing them round and seems to like it. He might have
sent you word on Tuesday, when you were in;" and Elizabeth's tone
expressed a grievance.
"And the house not cleaned! It's been so cold."
"The house is always clean. Don't, I beg of you, Cousin Bessy, turn it
upside down and scrub and scour, and wear yourself out and take a bad
cold. There are two guest chambers, and I suppose half a dozen more
might be made ready."
"That's the man of it. I don't believe a man would ever see dirt until
some day when he had to dig himself out, or call upon the women folks to
do it."
Elizabeth always softened, in spite of her austerity, when he called her
Bessy. The newer generation indulged in household diminutives
occasionally.
"Well, there is to be no regular house-cleaning. We shall want fires a
good six weeks yet."
"I don't see why Cousin Giles couldn't have said how many there were.
Let me see, Rachel Leverett, who married the Thatcher, was your father's
cousin. They went up in Vermont. Then they came to Concord. He"--which
meant the head of the house--"went to the State Legislature after the
war. He had some sons married. Why, I haven't seen them in years."
"It will be just like meeting strangers," declared Eunice. "It's almost
as if we kept an inn."
Chilian turned. "When I am in Boston to-morrow I will hunt up Cousin
Giles."
"Oh, that will be good of you."
He slipped his letter into the Latin book he had been going over, and
with a slight inclination of the head left the room. The hall was wide,
though it ended just beyond this door, where it led to the kitchen. The
woodwork was of oak, darkened much by the years that had passed over it.
The broad staircase showed signs of the many feet that had trodden up
and down.
Chilian's study was directly over the living-room, and next to the
sleeping-chamber. This part had been added to the main house, but that
was years ago. Bookshelves were ranged on two sides, but the windows
interfered with their course around, two on each of the other sides.
There was a wide fireplace between those at the west, and under them low
closets, with cushions--ancestors of useful window-seats. A large
easy-chair, covered with Cordovan leather, another curiously carved with
a straight narrow strip up the back, set off by the side carving. The
seat was broad and cushioned. Then one from France, as you could tell by
the air and style, that had been in a palace. A low splint rocker, and
one with a high back and comfortable cushions, inviting one to take a
nap.
The bookcases went about two-thirds of the way up and were ornamented by
articles beautiful and grotesque from almost every land, for there had
been seafaring men in the Leverett family, and more than one home in
Salem could boast of treasures of this sort.
Chilian stirred the fire, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney, and
put on a fresh log. Then he settled himself in his chair and fingered
his letter in an absent way. The last time Anthony wrote he vaguely
suggested changes and chances and the uncertainty of life, rather
despondent for a brisk business man who was always seeing opportunities
at money-making. Had he been unfortunate in some of his ventures? And it
was odd in him to write so soon again. Not that they were ever frequent
correspondents.
He opened the letter slowly. It was tied about with a thread of waxed
silk and sealed, so he cut about the seal deliberately; he had a
delicate carefulness in all his ways that was rather womanly. Then
unfolding it, he began to read.
Was this what the previous letter had meant? Was Anthony Leverett
nearing the end, counting his days, finishing up his earthly work, and
delegating it to other hands? There was something pathetic in it, and
the trust in the uprightness and honor that Anthony Leverett reposed in
him touched him keenly. But this part surprised and, at first, annoyed
him. He drew his fine brows in a repellent sort of frown.
"Do you remember, Chilian, when you were a lad of
eighteen, in your second year at Harvard, you came
to Salem to recruit after a period of rather
severe study? And you met Alletta Orne, who was
four-and-twenty and engaged to me. In some sort of
fashion we were all related. Your father had been
like a father to me in my later boyhood. And, with
a young man's fervor, you fell in love with her. I
was sorry then for any pain you suffered, I am
glad now; for there is no one else in the wide
world I would as soon trust her child and mine to.
"We had been away nearly three years, when we came
back, and the baby was born in the house endeared
to me by many tender recollections. You were away
then, but on our second visit we were the most
congenial friends again. I did not think then it
would be our last meeting. I had meant, after
making my fortune, to return and end my days in my
birthplace. My greatest interest was in the
commercial house I had established. My first mate,
John Corwin, took my place and sailed the vessel.
Then my dear wife died, and I had only my little
girl left.
"I could hardly believe six months ago that I must
die. Should I return, or remain here and sleep
beside the one who had filled my soul with her
serene and lovely life and her blessed memory? I
could not endure the thought of leaving her
precious body here alone. So I chose to remain.
And now I send my little girl to your care and
guardianship without even consulting you. She is
amply provided for, though the business this side
of the world cannot be settled in some time. I
send her with a trusty maid and Captain Corwin,
because I do not want her to remember the end.
Some day you can tell her I am sleeping beside her
dear mother and that we are together in the Better
Land. She has been separated considerably from me
of late,--I have had to be journeying about on
business,--therefore it will not come so hard to
her, and though children do not forget, the sorrow
softens and has a tender vagueness from the hand
of time.
"So I give my little girl to you. If so be you
should marry and have children of your own, she
will not be crowded out, I know. In the course of
years,--for girls grow rapidly up to
womanhood,--she may love and marry. Direct her a
little here and see that no one takes her for the
mere money. I want her to know the sweetness and
richness of a true satisfying love."
All important papers, and a sort of diary Anthony Leverett had kept,
were to come in the vessel that would bring the little girl in the
charge of Captain Corwin.
Chilian Leverett sat for a long while with the letter in his hand, until
the log broke in the middle and one end fell over the andiron. Then he
started suddenly.
Had he been dreaming of the sweetness of the woman who had so captivated
his youthful fancy, almost a dozen years agone? He never thought she had
led him astray, and had no blame for her. Perhaps the love for her
betrothed had so permeated her whole being that she shed an exquisitely
fascinating sweetness all about. He was to her as if he had been her
betrothed's younger brother. And when the engagement was confessed he
allowed himself no reprehensible longing for the woman so soon to be
another's. All his instincts were pure and high, perhaps rather too
idealized, though there was much strength and heroism in the old Puritan
blood. Right was right in those days. Lines were sharply drawn among
those of the old stock.
But there had been years of what one might call living for self,
indulgence in studious habits and tastes and the higher intellectual
life, much solitary dreaming, although he was by no means a recluse. And
to have a little girl come into his life! He would have liked a boy
better, he thought. The boy would be out of doors, playing with mates.
And now he bethought himself how few small children there were in his
branch of the Leverett line. Some of the men and women had not married.
His brother and one sister had died in childhood. The first cousins were
nearly all older than he, many of them had dropped out of life. A little
girl! No chance to decline the trust--well, he would hardly have done
that. He knew Anthony Leverett had counted on a serene old age in his
native town. And he was not much past middle life. What had befallen
him?
Well, there was nothing to be done. He read the letter over again. Then
he turned to some papers to compose his mind. There was a stir in the
next room, his sleeping-chamber. He always opened the windows and closed
the door between. After the dishes were washed and the dining-room and
hall brushed up, Elizabeth came upstairs and made the two beds. When he
had gone to Cambridge she opened the door between. So she did not
disturb him now, but crossed the hall and inspected the two
guest-chambers. She had swept them a week or so ago and had settled in
her mind that they would do until house-cleaning time. To be sure, if
she cleaned them now they would need it when the guests were gone. And
Chilian had a man's objection to house-cleaning. It was hardly time to
put away blankets. She wished she knew how many guests there would be.
The rooms were full of old Colonial furniture that had been in the
family for generations. Every spring Elizabeth polished the mahogany
until it shone. She dusted now, though there was hardly a speck visible.
The snow through the winter had laid it, and the spring rains had not
allowed it to rear its head.
Chilian put on his coat presently and sallied out for his morning
exercise. The family had been connected with shipbuilding to a certain
extent, and there was the old warehouse where vessels came in with their
precious cargoes from civilized and barbaric lands. For at the close of
the Revolutionary War the men of note, many of whom had not disdained
privateering, found themselves in possession of idle fleets, that with
their able seamen could outsail almost anything afloat. So they struck
out for new ventures in unknown seas and new channels of trade.
Calcutta, Bombay, Zanzibar, Madagascar, Batavia, and other ports came to
know the American flag and the busy enterprising traders.
But the old Salem that was once the capital of the state, the Salem of
John Endicott and Roger Williams, of stern Puritanism, of terrible
witchcraft horrors, and then of the sturdy and vigorous stand in her
differences with the mother country, her patriotism through the darkest
days, was fast fading away, just as this grand commercial epoch was
destined to merge into science and educational fame later on, and give
to the world some master spirits. But as he wended his way hither and
thither in a desultory fashion, one thought almost like spoken words
kept running through his mind--"A little girl--a little girl in Old
Salem"--for the almost two hundred years gave her the right to that
eminence, and a little girl from a foreign land seemed incongruous. Not
but that there were little girls in Salem, but their life-lines did not
touch his. And this one came so near, for the sake of both parents he
had loved.
When he came in to dinner, he had made up his mind to say nothing of his
letter until the guests had come and gone. He did not wish to be deluged
with questions.
He hunted up Cousin Giles the next day, who was quite a real-estate
dealer, investing his own and other people's money in sound mortgages,
who had been a widower so long that he had quite gone back to
bachelorhood.
And he found three Thatcher cousins--a widow, a married one, and a
single one, the youngest of the family, but past girlhood. He was asked
to take luncheon with them and they proved quite agreeable and
intelligent, and much pleased at the prospect of seeing Elizabeth and
Eunice Leverett.
"We have been hunting up several of the Boston relatives," said Miss
Thatcher, with a kind of winsome smile. "Cousin Giles has been a good
directory. We've kept in with so few of them. Father hunted up some of
them while he was in the Legislature, but they are so scattered about
and many of them dead. Mother was your father's cousin, I believe."
Chilian gave a graceful inclination of the head.
"Elizabeth and Eunice visited us years ago, along after the war when I
was first left a widow," explained Mrs. Brent. "Henry went all through
it, but was worn out, and died in '88. But I've two nice sons, who are a
great comfort. Father was very good to them and me. And they're both
promising farmers."
"I tell her that's a good deal to be thankful for," remarked Cousin
Giles.
"It is indeed," commented Chilian.
"And I have a lad who is all for study and wants to come in to Harvard.
He has been teaching school this winter. His father's quite set against
it, and I don't know how it will end. He will be only nineteen in
August, and his father thinks he has a hold on him two years longer."
Mrs. Drayton looked up rather appealingly.
"If his mind is made up to that, he will work his way through," said
Chilian, and he thought he should like to know the boy.
"You see the next two are girls and they can't help much about a farm.
Father really needs him. And I seem to stand between two fires. His
teaching term will end in May, but he has planned to take the school
next winter. He has made quite a bit of money."
Chilian thought he would be a lad fully worth helping, and made a mental
note of it. He liked the mother.
It was settled that they would reach Salem about noon in the stage, the
only mode of conveyance, and they parted with a pleased friendliness.
Chilian rehearsed the interview at home to the great delight of the
household. Indeed, he had been very well pleased with the prospective
visitors and he felt rather thankful for the respite from the shadow the
coming event was casting. A little girl! It did annoy him.
He did not allow it to interfere with his duties as host, however. The
three ladies had a most delightful visit at Salem, looking up points of
interest and hearing old history concerning the Leveretts. Chilian's
father had jotted down many facts. There were seafaring uncles, who had
brought home trophies; there were men in the family, who had died for
their country if they had not filled eminent positions; others who had.
How this branch of the family seemed to have dwindled away!
Serena Thatcher was more than pleased with her cousin, though she felt
somewhat awed by his attainments and his rather punctilious ways. Mrs.
Brent set him down as a good deal of a Miss Nancy. But the ladies had a
delightful time going over family histories and getting relationships
disentangled.
When the eventful day of parting came it brought a very real sorrow.
They made promises that they would renew their meetings and keep each
other in mind.
It was Saturday evening when the Leverett household sat around the
cheerful fire in the cozy room where the small family gathered on this
evening of the week with their work all done, after the fashion of the
past, still strictly observed by many of the older Puritan families. The
industrious ladies sat with folded hands. Sometimes Chilian read aloud
from a volume of the divines who had finished their good fight.
This night he was gazing idly in the fire, the lines in his face
deepening now and then.
"I suppose he _is_ tired with all the talk, and rambles, and confusion
of the week," Elizabeth thought, stealing furtive glances at him.
He straightened himself presently and made a pretence of clearing his
throat, as an embarrassed person often does.
"I have something to tell you," he began. "I thought I would not disturb
you while our relatives were here. We found enough to talk about;" with
a short half-laugh.
"And it tired you out, I know. We live so quietly that such an event
quite upsets us," Eunice said in a gentle, deprecating tone.
"It was very pleasant," he added. "I was a good deal interested in
Anthony Drayton. But this is something quite different. Can you recall
that I had a letter from the East Indies the morning the word came from
Cousin Giles?"
"Why, yes!" Elizabeth started in surprise. "I had really forgotten about
it. Business, I suppose, with Anthony Leverett. Why, I think it is high
time he came home."
Chilian sighed. "I am afraid--though I cannot see why we should fear so
much to enter the other portal, since it is the destiny of all, and we
believe in a better world. He was hopelessly ill when he wrote and was
winding up some business matters. He is a brave man to meet death so
composedly. The only pang is parting from his child."
"Oh, his little girl! Let me see--she must be eight or nine years old.
What will become of her?"
"He makes me executor and guardian of the child. She was to start three
weeks after his letter with Captain Corwin in the _Flying Star_. That
will be due, if it meets with no mishap, from the middle to the last of
April."
"But she doesn't come alone!" ejaculated Elizabeth in surprise.
"Yes. He wishes to be buried there beside his wife. And he does not
want her to have the remembrance of his death. So he sends her with the
woman who has been her nurse and maid the last three years, an
Englishwoman."
"Of all things! I wonder what will come next! We seem in the line of
surprises. And it's queer they should happen together. A little girl!
Chilian, do _you_ like it? Why, it will fairly turn the house upside
down!"
There was an accent of protest in Elizabeth's tone, showing plainly her
unwillingness to accept the situation.
"One little girl can't move much furniture about;" with a sound of humor
in his voice.
"Oh, you know what I mean--not actually dragging sofas and tables about,
but she will chairs, as you'll see. And lots of other things. Look at
the Rendall children. The house always looks as if it had been stirred
up with the pudding-stick, and Sally Rendall spends good half her time
looking for things they have carted off. Tom and Anstice were digging up
the path the day we called, and what do you suppose they had! The
tablespoons. And I'll venture to say they were left out of doors."
"There are so many of them," Chilian said, as if in apology.
"And I don't see how we can keep this child away from them. It isn't as
if they were low-down people. Sally's father having been a major in the
war, and the Rendalls are good stock. Let me see--what's her name? Her
mother was called Letty."
"Cynthia. She was named for my mother." Chilian's voice had a reverent
softness in it.
"I always thought it a pretty name," said Eunice.
"And I've heard people call it 'Cyn.' I do abominate nicknames."
Elizabeth uttered this with a good deal of vigor. Then she remembered
she quite liked Bessy.
No one spoke for some moments. Chilian thought of the sister, whose
brief married life had ended in her pretty home at Providence, and how
she looked in her coffin with her baby sheltered by one arm. The picture
came before him vividly.
Elizabeth liked cleanliness and order. It was natural after a long
practice in it. Chilian's particular ways suited her. Year after year
had settled them--perhaps she had settled him more definitely, as he
liked the way. Eunice was thinking of the little girl who had neither
father or mother. She had some unfulfilled dreams. In her youth there
had been a lover, and a wedding planned when he came home from his
voyage. She had begun to "lay by" for housekeeping. And there were some
pretty garments in the trunk upstairs, packed away with other articles.
The lover was lost at sea, as befell many another New England coast
woman.
She had hoped against hope for several years--men were sometimes
restored as by a miracle--but he never came. So she sometimes dreamed
of what might have been, of home and children, and it kept her heart
tender. Anthony's little girl would make a sight of trouble, she could
see that, but a little girl about would be a great pleasure--to her at
least. She glanced furtively at Elizabeth, then at Chilian. She could
not comfort either of them with this sudden glow and warmth that
thrilled through her veins.
"Well, we will be through with house-cleaning before she comes," said
the practical and particular housewife. Chilian simply sighed. It was
the usual spring ordeal, and did end. But who could predict the ending
of the other?
CHAPTER II
THE LITTLE GIRL
Down at the wharf there was much bustle and stir. Vessels were lading
for various home ports, fishing craft were going out on their ventures,
even a whaler had just fitted up for a long cruise, and the young as
well as middle-aged sailors were shouting out farewells. White and black
men were running to and fro, laughing, chaffing, and swearing at each
other.
There lay the East Indiaman, with her foreign flag as well as that of
her country. She had come in about midnight and at early dawn
preliminaries had begun. Captain Corwin had been ashore a time or two,
looking up and down amid the motley throng, and now he touched his hat
and nodded to Chilian Leverett, who picked his way over to him.
"We are somewhat late," he began apologetically. "A little due to rough
weather, but one can never fix an exact date."
"All is well, I hope;" in an anxious tone.
"Yes; the child proved a good sailor and was much interested in
everything. I was afraid she would take it hard. But she is counting on
her father's coming. I don't know how you will ever console her when she
learns the truth."
"And he----" Chilian looked intently into the captain's eyes.
"I suppose the end has come before this. They thought he might last a
month when we left. It's sad enough. He should have lived to be ninety.
But matters went well with him, and he has been an honest, kindly,
upright man with a large heart. I've lost my best friend and adviser."
The captain drew his rough coat-sleeve across his face and looked past
Chilian, winking hard.
"There's a sight of business when we come to that, Mr. Leverett, but
now--will you go on board? The maid is a most excellent and sensible
person. They are in the cabin."
"Yes," he answered and followed with a curious throb at his heart--pity
for the orphaned child and a sense of responsibility he was conscious
that he accepted unwillingly, yet he would do his duty to the uttermost.
Already some officials were on hand, for at this period Salem was really
a notable port. Chilian passed them with a bow, followed the captain
down the gangplank, stared a little at the foreign deck-hands in their
odd habiliments, stepped over boxes and bales in canvas and matting full
of Oriental fragrance that from the closeness was almost stifling,
coming from the clear air. Then he was ushered into the cabin, that was
replete with Orientalism as well.
A rather tall woman rose to meet him.
"This is Mistress Rachel Winn, who has mothered the little girl for
several years, Mr. Leverett, her relative and guardian,
and--Cynthia----"
The child threw herself down on the couch.
"I want to go back home. I want to see my father, and Aymeer, and Babo,
and Nalla. I can't stay here."
"But perhaps your father will bring them when he comes. Don't you
remember he told you he lived here when he was a little boy, and what
nice times he had with the cousin he loved? And the cousin is here to
bid you welcome. Come and speak to him. We cannot go back at once, the
ship has to unload her cargo and take in ever so many other things. See,
here is Cousin Leverett."
She sat up, made a forward movement as if she would rise, but simply
stared.
"Yes, I am Cousin Leverett." He began advancing and held out his hand.
"And very glad to see such an excellent traveller as you have been,"
said the captain. "And such a nice little girl. You are an American
girl; you know your father told you that. And this is your native town.
Cousin Leverett remembers you when you were very little."
"But I don't remember you;" taking no notice of the proffered hand.
"Then you must get acquainted with me. And you must tell me about your
life and your father, whom I have not seen in a long, long time. Let us
shake hands."
She held out hers then and raised herself to her feet.
"Oh, how soft your hands are," she cried, "just like Nalla's. But they
are very white. Nalla's were brown."
"And who was Nalla?"
"She used to come and play with me and make chains out of shells, and
make bracelets and anklets, and dance. And she used to go to the Sahibs'
house and dance with snakes. I'm afraid of them. Are you?"
"Indeed I am, of the large ones," he said at a venture.
He fancied that he felt a gentle pressure of sympathetic approval. She
glanced up for an instant and her eyes transfixed him. They were a deep
wonderful blue, almost black at the pupil, then raying off a little
lighter. It made him think of a star in the winter midnight sky with a
halo around it. The lashes were long and nearly black. Otherwise she had
little claim to beauty just then. Her complexion had a tawny hue made by
sun and wind, her hair was light, but it had a peculiar sunburned tint,
though it was fine and abundant and hung in loose curls about her
shoulders. Her nose was the only Leverett feature--it was straight,
rather small, and had the flexibility that betrayed passing emotions.
The Leverett lips were thin, hers were full in the middle, giving a
certain roundness to the mouth.
"Are there any where you live?" hesitatingly.
"Any?" Then he recalled the subject they had touched upon. "Oh, no; you
seldom see them, and they are mostly harmless."
"Have you any little girls in your house?"
"No, I am sorry to say."
"There were two little English girls on shipboard at first. They went on
board another vessel after a while. I liked them very much. They knew a
great many things about countries. I can read, but I don't a great deal.
Sometimes father would tell me about America. There are a great many
countries in it, and once they had a big war. They had wars, too, in
India. Why must people kill each other?"
"There seem to be reasons. A little girl could not understand them all,
I think;" and how could he explain them?
"Oh, there is Captain Corwin!" She flew across the cabin with
outstretched arms, which she clasped about him.
"Well, have you been getting acquainted with--he will be your uncle, I
suppose. What title are you going to take with the child, Mr. Leverett?"
Chilian Leverett colored, without a cause he thought, and it annoyed
him.
"Are you going back to India to-day?" She was not interested in Chilian
Leverett's answer.
Captain Corwin laughed heartily and patted her shoulder.
"Not to-day, nor even next week. The cargo will have to be taken off,
little missy, and a new one stowed away. And I fancy there must be some
repairs. I shall stay in town and run down to Marblehead. So you will
see me quite often."
"And you are coming back again from India?"
"Oh, I hope so. More than once."
"You will bring father then. It is such a long while to wait;" and she
sighed.
The men exchanged glances.
"I want to see him so much. Couldn't I go back with you?"
"Don't you remember I told you the other evening he might start before I
reached India again? Don't you want to go ashore and see Salem? Ask Miss
Rachel to get you ready."
Rachel was beckoning to her. "Let us go up on deck," she said. "It's a
strange country to me as well as to you. And I fancy the men want to
talk."
She crossed the cabin slowly, not quite certain what she did desire
most, except to see her father.
"You will have a rather sorry task. But Captain Ant'ny would have it so.
He wanted to feel that she would be among friends. He had the fullest
confidence that you could manage wisely. There is a great box of
papers, instructions, etc. You are appointed her guardian and trustee.
I've brought boxes of stuff that the officers will have to go through.
But the legal matters you may take with you. He tried to make it as easy
as he could. She will have considerable of a fortune, and more to come
when matters get settled on the other side. A cousin of the Bannings
came out,--English are great hands to keep things in the family. But it
is one of the biggest importing houses out there and it owes its success
to the long and wise head of Captain Anthony. They want young Banning in
it and the matter was about settled when we came away, but the payments
will run over several years. All these papers will be sent to you. The
Bannings are upright business men, and I think you need have no fear.
But the child's fortune is to be invested on this side of the water. Oh,
you cannot realize what a trial it was to give up all thoughts of ending
his days here."
Captain Corwin brushed some tears from his honest, weather-beaten face.
"But if he had started earlier----"
"He would not believe the trouble would prove fatal. And when it was
declared there was so much to put in order. Then he could not bear to
think of leaving his wife alone there, though it's only the shell after
all, and, if we believe the Good Book, we shall see the real part over
there that was so much to us. But he could not explain the parting to
the child, though death is such a common thing out there. Yet it _is_
hard to believe our own can die. We are never ready for that. How you
will manage----"
The customs officers had come. Captain Corwin went out to meet them.
Chilian Leverett dropped into the well-worn leather-covered chair that
had been fine in its day. A heavy burthen had been laid upon him. He was
not fond of business. Cousin Giles might be of some assistance; he
grasped at the thought as if he had been a drowning man and this the
straw. And the child, somehow, was different from the average child, he
felt; though he was not certain what the average child would unfold day
after day. What would Elizabeth think? Eunice he could count on. Though
she yielded on many points in that tacit sort of way, she was by no
means an echo of her sister.
The three men entered the cabin. Chilian was no stranger to the
officials, who greeted him cordially and who sympathized with Captain
Anthony Leverett's untimely ending, as he was hardly past middle life.
"Why, it will be quite a change to have a child in your household," said
Josiah Ward. "But if she is like mine, I advise you not to give her the
run of your study. But there are two ladies to look after her;" and he
smiled.
It was surmised that Mr. Ward, a widower of two years' standing, had
glanced more than once in the direction of Miss Eunice Leverett.
Rachel came back at this juncture. The little girl had an accession of
shyness and would only nod to the strangers. Then they made ready to
leave the vessel. Chilian took his japanned case of important papers;
the rest of the luggage would be sent after inspection.
A primitive street it was in those days, and the fine wharves of the
present were rather rude if busy places. Over beyond they could see the
river,--South River,--and that was alive with various small craft.
"It seems almost like home," said Rachel Winn, pausing to take a survey.
"You do not find this rural aspect in India."
"How long were you there?" asked Chilian.
"Seven years. I went out with my brother, who had just married my
dearest friend. He died the third year, and she soon after married a
military man. Then I took charge of a little lame boy and was mostly up
in the mountains until he was sent to England, when Captain Leverett's
hospitable doors opened to me. Believe me, I was sorry to leave him at
this crisis. Yet it was his wish;" and she glanced at Cynthia.
"Why did we come away?" demanded the child passionately. "Oh, Rachel,
are you sure father will come? It takes so long, so long;" and there
were tears in her voice.
"Here we are!" exclaimed Chilian.
There was a white picket fence across the sort of courtyard that had a
broad paved path leading up to the front door, bordered by shrubs that
would presently be in bloom, and spaces between for smaller plants.
This was the delight of Eunice's heart. A square but rather ornate
porch, with fluted columns, supporting the outer edge of the roof, and
an elaborately carved hall-door with a fanlight overhead. The stoop
stood up some five steps, and at the sides there were benches for
out-of-doors comfort on summer nights. A brass knocker, with a lion's
head, announced visitors. Chilian, however, let himself in with his
latchkey. But both sisters met the party in the hall.
"And this is Anthony's little girl!" said Elizabeth. "Child, let me look
at you----"
But the child had a perverse fit at that moment and turned away her
head, to the elder's surprise and almost displeasure.
"This is Miss Winn," interrupted Chilian. "My household guardians and
cousins, Miss Elizabeth and Miss Eunice Leverett. I dare say our guests
feel strange to be on land, after such a long journey."
"It seems almost incredible that one can stand it, but we see them
starting every few days for distant ports. My farthest journey has been
to Providence; but, land alive! you don't know where that is, and it's
no great distance. Will you not come and have a cup of tea or coffee?"
"Thank you. We had breakfast not long ago, it seems."
"Let me take you to your room," said Eunice. "And I hope you will soon
feel at home with us. We are quiet people, but we shall endeavor to
make you comfortable. Cynthia, will you not shake hands with me?"
The soft, rather pleading voice attracted the child. She glanced up
shyly and then held out a tiny hand hesitatingly.
"She is rather backward at first," explained Rachel, who followed the
hostess up the broad stairway.
One of the guest-chambers had been set aside for their use after much
discussion as to whether one or two would be needed. A smaller one
opened into this, and a large closet was at the side.
"You can take off your things--I suppose your boxes, or whatever you
have, will be here presently. The bureau is empty and this chest of
drawers. We are rather old-fashioned people, and the house is the same
as it was in the time of Chilian's father. The captain made one visit
here, when the little girl was about four. It must have been hard for
him to lose his wife in a strange country like that. I suppose there are
not many Americans?"
"No; there are numbers of Englishwomen, wives of soldiers and traders,
though I think most of them long to get home. They do not seem to take
root easily."
"I shouldn't think they would, in that idolatrous country. The accounts
of heathendom are appalling. And that car of Juggernaut, and drowning
their poor little babies! They do not seem to make much of girl
children."
"Indeed, they do not, only as in some families they are wanted for
wives. But the devotion of mothers to their sons is wonderful."
Rachel had laid aside a silk coat that filled Eunice with a sort of
wonder, being brocaded with beautiful leaves and roses that seemed as if
they must have been worked by hand, they stood out so clearly. The child
appeared fantastically attired to her plainer eyes, and her slim arms
were weighted with bracelets. In her dainty ears were some splendid
sapphires.
"I do hope you will soon feel at home," Eunice said from a full heart,
if there was a rather awkward feeling about it. Yet she liked Miss
Winn's face. It had a kindly and intelligent aspect and was medium in
all respects. The social lines in the town, indeed in all the Eastern
towns, were not sharply defined as to mistress and maid. True, many
households preferred black servants; in not a few some elderly relative
looked after the household, or a bound-out girl was trained in
industrious ways.
There had been some discussion as to what sphere this Miss Winn would
occupy. If she was simply the attendant on an over-indulged child, an
uneducated person, as many of the English maids were who came over to
better their conditions or get husbands, it might be rather awkward. But
the woman was certainly well-bred and used her English in a correct
manner.
"Perhaps you will get to feeling more at home if you come down to the
sitting-room, since there is nothing to unpack;" with a faint smile.
Cynthia had been looking out of the window. "How queer it all is!" she
said. "I think I do not quite like it. And how funny one feels. I want
to go this way;" and she swayed from side to side.
"The motion of the vessel," interposed Rachel. "I have heard it took
days to get over it."
Meanwhile, downstairs Elizabeth had studied her Cousin Chilian.
"The child is not at all pretty," she began rather sharply. "And her
mother was considered a beautiful young woman, I believe."
"Yes; but a long voyage and shipboard living may not be conducive to the
development of beauty. And children seldom are at that age."
"The Goodell children are pretty, I am sure, with their fine
complexions. And the Bates girls. She has a furtive sort of look. Oh, I
hope she isn't deceitful and untrue. Those heathen nations, I believe,
are given largely to falsehood, and she has lived among them so long
without any mother's care. It seems as if a pretty girl like Alletta
Orne might have found some one at home to marry and reared her child in
a Christian land."
"Do not let us begin by borrowing trouble. It always comes fast enough."
"And I can foresee that we shall have plenty of it. Well, I suppose it
must be endured. There! my bread is light enough to go in the
oven--running over, likely as not."
So, when they came downstairs, Miss Elizabeth was in the kitchen,
immersed in her baking interest.
A large gray cat lay curled up on a cushion. Cynthia went straight over
to it, but it glanced at her with wild eyes, jumped down, and
disappeared through the doorway.
"Oh!" she exclaimed in accents of disappointment, glancing up at
Chilian.
"Pussy is not used to children. He always runs away from them. But I
think he will like you when he gets acquainted."
She turned to the window with a swelling heart. It seemed so cold and
strange. It was better on shipboard, she thought. She had come to know
the sailors quite well and Missy had grown to be a great favorite with
them. There was always something cheerful going on. They sang songs in
their loud clear voices, or whistled merry tunes. They danced as well.
She was quite used to the dancing-girls at Calcutta, and when they were
at Hong Kong or other ports. But the Indian girls pleased her best.
The sailors seemed always full of fun, even in the worst of times.
During some fearful storms she was safely housed in the cabin, and it
amused her to see the things pitch and roll as far as their chains would
allow them. Sometimes, too, they had to hold the food in their hands,
but she never knew the danger of the worst storms. Rachel would not
admit that she was afraid, and the captain said, "Yes, we're having a
stiff blow, but the _Flying Star_ has weathered many a gale before." And
here it was so very quiet. It looked dreary outside, with the leafless
trees. She liked the toss and tumult of the waves with their snowy,
jewelled crests, and the clouds scudding along the sky, which she
imagined was another sea full of ships. Often they went in port and
there was nothing left but the blue sky above--a great hollow vault. And
when the sun shone the real sea and ocean was in flames of such splendid
colors. There was no end of curious people at ports where they stopped
for supplies, there was always something strange, even when they were
days alone on the water. For the sunset and sunrise were never twice
alike. Then the moon from its tiny crescent to the great round globe
that illumined the world with her fairy richness and scattered jewels on
every crested wave. She had watched it turn the other way and grow
smaller and smaller until you saw it vaguely in the morning.
She was so interested in the stories they told about it, the signs and
wonders they ascribed to it.
"And was it ever a real world like that we have left behind?" she asked
of the captain. "Were there people in it? And land, and rivers, and
growing things, and flowers?" and her wondering eyes grew larger.
"No one can tell now. Some astronomers believe it a burned-out world and
the things we take for a man," laughing, "and the cow ready to jump
off, are remnants of roads, and forests, and mountains."
"You _can_ see the man in the moon," she returned decisively. "Sometimes
he laughs. And the cow has great horns. I should be afraid of them if I
met such a cow. Ours are so small and tame."
"You will see large ones in Salem. But I think, for the most part, they
are gentle."
She never wearied talking over the strange things. And so she came to
have her head filled with wonderful lore that indeed cropped out now and
then all her life long until she felt as if she had really been in
fairyland.
It seemed stranger here than on shipboard. The others were going through
the ceremony of getting acquainted. Rachel Winn's voice had a soft
sound, with an almost foreign accent. Eunice's, though low-pitched, had
a clear resonance. Now and then Chilian Leverett made a comment, or
asked a question, but she was not heeding them. Her heart and mind had
wandered back to her father and that wonderful land where nothing ever
seemed bleak, though in long hot droughts it was arid. But there were
always temples, and palaces, and picturesque huts, and women and
children in gay attire, old men kneeling somewhere, praying but keeping
a sharp lookout for alms.
Chilian Leverett had been watching the small face and wondering at the
changes passing over it. Now he saw some tears slowly coursing down the
pale cheeks, and his heart was moved with infinite pity.
Suddenly a robin alighted on the limb of a tree and began picking at the
buds. Then he held his head up straight, swelled out his brownish red
breast, and poured forth such a volume of melody that the effort fairly
made him dance with joy. Spring had surely come! It was the time of love
and joy, and all things made over new.
She turned a trifle. Her face was transfigured with delight. Her eyes
shone, though the tears were still wet on her cheek.
CHAPTER III
A STRANGER, YET AT HOME
Rachel Winn settled herself to the new order of things more readily than
the Leveretts. Or rather she seemed to take the lead in arrangements for
herself and her charge. She was after all a sort of nurse and
waiting-maid, though she had a fine dignity about it that even Elizabeth
could not gainsay. She was to be one of the family, there could be no
objection to that in the simple New England living. Though it was true,
times were changing greatly since the days of war and privation, and
perhaps the mingling of people from other states, the growing
responsibility of being part of a great commonwealth. Servants were
being relegated to a different position. Boston in a certain fashion set
the pace, though Salem held up her head proudly. Were not her seaports
the busy mart of the Eastern shore? Stores of finery, silks and laces,
and marvellous Indian embroidery went down to Boston and the houses were
enriched with choice china that in the next hundred years was to be
handed down as heirlooms. Fine houses were being built, choice woods
came from southern ports by vessels that believed they could find
fortunes nearer home than China or India. But they could grow no
spices, or coffees, or teas, and they must come from the Orient. No
looms could turn out such exquisite fabrics as yet, though housewives
were to be proud of their home-made drapery for a generation or two.
Chilian spent a large part of that first night inspecting his box of
papers. There was a journal-like letter in which Anthony Leverett had
jotted down many things he hardly dared say in his letter; indeed, there
was not sufficient space. As soon as he had learned the serious nature
of his disease, he had begun to put his house in order and consider the
future welfare of his child. Some lines touched Chilian deeply, the
trust and dependence he was not at all sure he could fulfil, but he felt
he _must_ rouse himself to the earnest endeavor. The father had a
passionate love for his child, he was making a fortune for her, counting
the years when he should return and have a home of his own, when Cynthia
would grow up and marry and there would be grandchildren to climb his
knees. India was no place for a woman child to grow up in, there were no
chances for education or accomplishment, and next to no society. After
all there was not, and never would be, such a country as the new world
that had struggled so long and bravely for her independence, and now had
only to go on developing her grand theories. Crowned heads might look on
doubtingly, but the foundation had been laid in justice and truth and
equality of right. It quite thrilled him that this man, amassing money
in a far-away land, could see so clearly and have no doubts about its
future greatness.
To Captain Corwin, his good, trusty friend, he had willed half the value
of the _Flying Star_. The money from his part was to be invested, as the
payments came in, in real estate in Salem, which was to be the shipping
mart of the New England coast, at least, and run a race with New York,
he thought. So with the stations at Calcutta and Hong Kong in the hands
of the Bannings. And there were treasures that would answer for a
wedding dowry when the time came. If possible, he would like Rachel Winn
retained; he had the highest confidence in her, and she had no relatives
to call her back to England. He had given her much of the family
history, and described the town and the people, so that it would not
seem so new and strange to her.
He was not asking all this as a favor. Chilian was touched by the
provision made for himself, which it would be quite impossible to
decline, he saw. True it would break in upon his leisurely, student
life, yet he felt he could not in honor refuse to accept the trust.
Rachel Winn studied the arrangements of the rooms at their disposal. Her
young mistress was not a child taken out of benevolence or relationship.
She must have her standing from the very beginning, and she fancied
Elizabeth was inclined to consider her a sort of interloper.
"If it makes no difference, I will take the small room," she announced
to her. "There are some pieces of furniture on the vessel that Captain
Leverett particularly wished her to keep, and as she grows older she
will cherish them----"
"That great room for such a child!" In her amazement, Elizabeth spoke
without thought. She was not used to seeing children set in the very
forefront. In her day, indeed, yet in some families the large open
garret was considered the place for children.
"You see, she was used to it at home--over there, I mean;" with a nod of
the head. "Her father's room was one side, mine on the other. Of course,
in a way I shall share it with her. I will keep it in order and look
after her clothes, and sew for her. But I prefer the smaller one."
Elizabeth was aghast. One of the best spare chambers, with the
furnishings that had come from England a hundred years before. On the
other side she and Eunice shared a plainly appointed room with some of
their very own belongings. There was still another, but the closet was
small. She had asked Chilian where they should be placed and he had
chosen this. It was his house, of course----
Whether it would have ended in a discussion could not to be told, for at
that moment a dray drove up with some boxes and a piece of furniture so
wrapped and protected that it was quite impossible to guess at its
name.
Chilian came out and ran lightly down the stairs; and then called
Elizabeth.
"Where had the boxes better go? They will have to be unpacked, I
suppose;" helplessly.
"There are more to come," announced the man. "Enough to set up
housekeeping, if the right sort of things are in them;" and he gave a
short laugh.
Miss Winn came downstairs. "Isn't there a garret to the house?" she
asked, looking from one to the other. "I packed them up, but I can
hardly tell----"
"Yes; we could store half the vessel's contents in it. Well, not exactly
that. A ship's hold is a capacious place. Yes, the boxes might go there.
Have you any idea what this is?"
"A sort of desk and bookcase. A very handsome thing the captain set
great store by."
The men shouldered the boxes and Elizabeth convoyed them. Silas was
spading up the garden and came at the call.
It was a work of some labor to get the article out of its secure
casings. It disclosed a very handsome piece of furniture in the
escritoire style, carved and inlaid not only with beautiful woods, but
much silver. Chilian surveyed it with admiration.
"That must stand in the parlor," he decided. "But some one must come and
help. I'm afraid I am not sufficiently robust. Silas, see if you can't
find the Uphams' man. He was working there a short time ago."
"If there's more to come, it is hardly worth while to clear up," began
Elizabeth. "I hope it will soon follow."
Chilian directed the two men, who found it still quite a burthen.
Elizabeth opened the parlor shutter unwillingly, and the men set it in
the middle of the floor.
There were two large rooms held almost sacred by both sisters. They were
separated by an archway, apparently upheld on each end by a fluted
column. Both rooms had a wide chimney-piece, the mantel and its supports
elaborately carved and painted white. Two windows were in each end,
draped with soft crimson curtains. The floor was polished, with a rug
laid down in the centre. It was furnished in a manner that would have
delighted a connoisseur, but Elizabeth did not admire the
conglomeration. They were family relics and seemed to have little
relation with one another, yet they were harmonious. There was a
thin-legged spinet, with a Latin legend running across the front of the
cover, which was always down. The chairs were not made for lounging,
that was plain; and the sofa, with its rolling ends and claw feet, had
been polished until the haircloth looked like satin. A dead and gone
Leverett bride had imported that from London.
When the East Indian article had been consigned to an appropriate space,
it looked as much at home as if it had lived there half a century. Then
the parlor was shut up again, the mat in the hall shaken out, the front
door bolted. Miss Winn had asked for a hammer and chisel that she might
open one of the boxes.
"Take Silas. That is a man's work," said Chilian.
Cynthia was in the sitting-room, where it was still chilly enough to
have a fire. Eunice was knotting fringe for a bedspread, and it
interested the child wonderfully. She was not a little shocked to find a
child of nine knew nothing about sewing, had never hemmed ruffles, nor
done overseam, or knit, or it seemed anything useful.
"Why, when I was a little girl of your age I could spin in the little
wheel."
"What did you spin?"
"Why, thread, of course, linen thread made from flax."
"Were you a truly little girl?" in surprise.
"Why, child, don't you know anything?" Then Miss Eunice laughed softly
and patted the small shoulder, looking kindly into the wondering eyes.
There was no hurt in her tone and the words rather amused.
"I know a great many things. I can read some Latin, and I know about
Greece and its splendid heroes who conquered a good deal of the world.
There was Alexander the Great and Philip of Macedon. And Tamerlane, who
conquered nearly all Asia. And--and Confucius, the great man of China,
who was a wise philosopher, and wrote a bible----"
"Oh, no; not a bible!" interrupted Miss Eunice, horrified. "There is
only one Bible, my dear, and that is the Word of God."
"But the other is the bible of the Chinese, and some of them believe
Confucius was a god."
"That is quite impossible, my dear;" in a rather decisive, but still
gentle tone.
"And there is Brahma, and Vishnu, and there are ever so many gods in
India. The people pray to them. And temples. When they want anything
very much, they go and pray for it. There was a woman whose little son
was very ill, and if he lived he was going to be a great prince, or
something, and she gathered up her precious stones and her necklace and
took them to the temple for the god. Father sent an English doctor, but
they wouldn't let him see the little boy. He was so pretty, too. I used
to see him in the court."
"And did he live?" Miss Eunice asked, much interested.
"No; he didn't. And the father beat her for losing the jewels."
"You see, those gods have no power."
"Did you ever pray for anything you wanted very much?"
Cynthia's bright eyes studied the placid face before her.
"Yes," the lips murmured faintly.
"And did you get it?"
A flush stole over the puzzled countenance.
"My dear, God doesn't see as we do. And He knows what is best for us,
and gives us that. Maybe our prayer wasn't right."
"How can you tell when a prayer is right or wrong?" inquired the young
theologian.
"Why, you have to leave that to God;" in a low, resigned tone.
"I didn't want to come here. I wanted to stay with father. I didn't know
there was any one beside, and I do not believe any one will ever love me
so well. But he promised to come when the business was all done. So I
prayed to the God of father's Bible, and I went to the temple with Nalla
and put down a half-crown--it was all the money I had. But"--her eyes
filled with tears and her voice had a break in it--"father begged so,
and I came. But if Captain Corwin does not bring him next time I shall
go back. I can't live without him."
The mild blue eyes of Miss Eunice filled with tears as well. She was not
sure this had been the wisest course. The absolute truth was always
best. But she temporized also in a vague fashion.
"Yes; you can tell then. And you may come to like us so well you may
stay content."
"Oh, if he comes! Then it will be all right. And you think I ought to
pray for that?"
It was a cruel strait for Miss Eunice and staggered her faith. She was
not to lead astray or harm "one of the least of these." But the child
_was_ a heathen with no real knowledge of the true God. Like a vision
almost, Miss Eunice looked back at her own childhood, and the awful,
overshadowing power she believed was God, who wrote down every wicked
thought and wrong deed, and would confront her with them at the Judgment
Day. She prayed nightly, often in the night, when she woke up, and she
was no surer of God's love than this little heathen child.
"It is right to pray for the things we want, but to be resigned if God
doesn't see fit to give them to us."
"Then the prayers are thrown away. And do you know just what God is?"
"My dear!" in a shocked tone, "no one can tell. It is one of the
mysteries to be revealed when we see Him as He truly is at the last day.
A little girl cannot understand it. I do not, and I have sought the
truth many years. Now I am trusting, because I feel assured He will do
what is right. Tell me something about your life with your father."
"Oh, things were so different there. Houses, and there were always
servants, so you didn't ever need to fan yourself. Babo and Nalla were
always about. Babo used to take me out in a chair that had curtains
around and a big umbrella overhead. Sometimes Chandra went with him. And
the streets were funny and crooked, and houses set anywhere in them. I
liked going up in the mountains best, it wasn't so hot. And the trees
were splendid, and beautiful vines and flowers of all sorts. Mrs. Dallas
went the last time. She had two girls and a big boy. I did not like
him. He would pinch my arms and then say he didn't. I liked the girls,
one was larger than I. And we swung in the hammocks the vines made. Only
I was afraid of the snakes, and there are so many everywhere. Alfred
liked to kill them."
She shuddered a little and glanced about the room with dilated eyes.
"They come into your houses sometimes. Nalla used to catch them and
sling them hard on the ground, and that stunned them. And we used to
make wreaths of the beautiful flowers. Agnes Dallas knew so many stories
about fairies, little people who come out at night, when the moon
shines, and dance round in rings. They slip in houses, and the nice ones
do some work, but the wicked ones sour the milk, and spoil the bread,
and hide things. And, sometimes, they change children into a cat, or a
rabbit, or something, and it is seven years before you can get your own
shape again. Do you have them here?"
"There is no such thing. That is all falsehood," was the decisive
comment.
"But--Agnes knew of their coming. And she had seen them dancing on the
grass. But if you speak or go near them, they disappear."
Miss Winn came out to the sitting-room.
"Oh, you are here," she said. "I thought you were out of doors. You
ought to take a run. What a wonderful garret you have upstairs, Miss
Eunice. But I am afraid we shall fill it up sadly. There were so many
things to bring. I do not believe we shall find use for half of them. I
want a few mouthfuls of fresh air. I suppose I can walk up the street
without danger of getting lost if I turn square around when I return?
Don't you want to come, Cynthia?"
Cynthia was ready.
"You had better wrap up warm. It gets chilly towards night."
"It was a long stretch on shipboard. We stopped at several ports,
however. But I am glad to be on solid ground. Come, child."
She had brought down a wrap and hood. Cynthia was glad of something new,
though she liked Miss Eunice.
They turned a rather rounding corner and went on to a sort of
market-place, where sweepers were gathering up the débris after the
day's sales. They glanced about the city. Salem had made rapid strides
since the grand declaration of peace, but at the end of the century it
was far from the grandeur the next twenty years would give it.
"There are no palaces and no temples," said Cynthia, rather
complainingly. "And how white all the people are. Do you suppose they
have been ill?"
"Oh, no; they have been housed up during the winter, and the climate is
cold. And, you know, they are of a different race. This part, New
England, was settled mostly from old England."
"Are you going to like it, Rachel?"
"Why--I don't quite know. You can't tell at once about a strange place."
"Miss Eunice is nice. But she has some queer ideas."
"Or is it a little girl, named Cynthia Leverett, who has queer ideas
that she has brought largely from a far-off country?"
The child laughed. Then she saw some girls and boys playing tag in the
street, laughing and squealing when they were caught, or when they
narrowly missed. And some empty carts went rattling by, with now and
then a stately coach, or a man on horseback, attired in the fashion of
the times. The sun suddenly dropped down.
"We had better turn about," declared Miss Winn. "It will not do to be
late for supper."
The walk had not been straight, but her gift of locality was good. They
passed the market-place again, made the winding turn, and found the
lighted lamps gave the house a cheerful aspect.
Miss Eunice had put away her knotting and begun to lay the cloth when
Elizabeth entered, her face clouded over.
"I'm sure I don't see why Providence should send this avalanche upon us
to destroy our peace and comfort," she began almost angrily. "The
Thatchers' visit was pleasant, though that made a sight of clearing up
afterward. And we had hardly gotten over that when this must happen. I
was going to put that white quilt in the frame, but the garret will be
turned upside down for no one knows how long! Such a mess of stuff, and
more coming. There's enough in this house without any more being added
to it."
"But it was natural Captain Anthony should want his child to have
something belonging to him, maybe her mother, too. And goodness knows
there's room enough in the garret. It isn't half full with his traps,
and there's some of ours. And there's the loft over the kitchen."
"Well, we want some place to dry clothes in rainy weather. And when I
sweep I want to move things about, not sweep just in front of them, and
have the dust settle in rows behind. Chilian didn't know what a lot
there would be, though he might have looked it over on the ship. When it
is all through, the house will need a thorough cleaning again. And what
_do_ you think, Eunice! She's going to put the child in that big bed and
she sleep in the little one! The best room in the house! I'm sorry they
have it."
Eunice was roused a little.
"That doesn't seem the proper thing. But maybe she thought--I do suppose
the child has had the best of everything."
"I don't believe in pampering children. And I don't altogether like the
woman. I do wonder if we will have to keep her. A girl of nine is old
enough to look after herself, and begin to keep her own clothes and her
room in order."
"It's been very different out in India. And I do suppose Anthony was
over-indulgent, she having no mother to train her."
"We'll have our hands full, Eunice, when the tussle really begins."
"Oh, I do not think she will be hard to manage. She seems rather
shy----"
"Those eyes of hers ain't so deep for nothing. She hasn't the Leverett
mouth, and those full lips are wilful and saucy, generally speaking.
Letty Orne was a pretty girl, as I remember. Strange, now, when you come
to think of it, that the child should have been born in this house. But
she'll never have any beauty to spare, that's certain. For the land
sakes, Eunice, look at the time and you dawdling over the table. I'm
tired as a dog after a long race."
Elizabeth dropped into a chair. In her secret heart Eunice knew that
when her sister was tired out she was fractious; she loved her too well
to say cross words.
"Shall we have fish or cold meat?" she asked mildly.
"Oh, I don't care! Well, fish. There will be meat enough for to-morrow's
dinner if it isn't meddled with."
The fish was salted down in the season, soaked a little, laid in spiced
vinegar for a few hours, cut in thin slices, and was very appetizing.
Eunice went about with no useless flutter, she stepped lightly and
never made any clatter with dishes. The tea china, thin and lovely, the
piles of white bread and brown, molasses gingerbread and frosted sugar
cake, stewed dried fruit and rich preserves, made an inviting-looking
table. Chilian came in and made himself neat, as usual, then the guests.
Cynthia was very quiet. Twice Miss Winn answered a question for her. She
scarcely ate anything. Then she said wearily:
"I am so tired and sleepy. Can't I go to bed?"
CHAPTER IV
UNWELCOME
Miss Winn and her charge went down to the ship the next morning with
Chilian Leverett. Elizabeth inspected the rooms. She was not meddlesome,
nor over-curious generally, but with a feeling of possessorship and
responsibility in the house, she wanted to know how far she could trust
the newcomers. The beds were well made, but closets and drawers were
rather awry. She did begrudge the best chamber, and wondered whether it
would not be possible to change them about presently. True, they seldom
had guests.
Then a new load of boxes came, with two trunks, and several more pieces
of furniture. The latter were left standing in the hall. The garret had
been a sort of fetich with Elizabeth. There were dried herbs hanging to
the rafters in their muslin bags, so as not to make a litter and mostly
for the fragrance. There was not a cobweb anywhere. On one side of the
sloping roof were ranged their own trunks and chests, two of cedar, in
which woollen clothes and blankets passed the summer, securely hidden
from moths. In one gable were miscellaneous household articles, a few
chairs good enough to be repaired, a more than century-old cherry table,
spinning-wheels, a bedstead piled high with a feather bed, and
numberless pillows, for Elizabeth thought it her duty to make a new pair
every year, as they kept a flock of geese that spent their days in a
small cove on South River.
The interloper boxes could make a row down the cleared side. That left
the centre, the highest part, clear for drying clothes, which probably
would not be needed until winter. But careful Elizabeth planned ahead
for every emergency. True, the emergency did not always fit the plans,
but it gave her tense spirit a rest.
The Salem air was fragrant, with all manner of sweet springtime
odors--the ship was not. Things that had been stored in the hold came up
with a certain old smell and a little mustiness. First, Cynthia held her
nose and made a wry face. But it was delightful to run about and
exchange greetings with the sailors, who seemed merry enough over their
work.
"Well, missy," said the captain, catching her in his arms as she ran,
"how do you like living on dry land? You haven't lost your sea legs yet,
that's plain."
"It's very queer. There are just tiny leaves coming out on the trees,
and a few curious white flowers, little bells, coming up in the garden,
and crocus in pretty colors. But I don't like it very much. Miss Eunice
is nice and has such a soft voice. And the houses are so funny and shut
up, and there are no servants about, nor any one praying on the corners
and holding out a basin for rice; and no piles of fruit for sale."
"No; this isn't the time of year for fruit;" and there was a funny
twinkle in the captain's eye. "Just wait until August and September."
Cynthia considered. "That is three and four months away. Father will be
here then;" with a child's confidence.
"And there are berries earlier, and cherries, and then some sugar pears.
Oh, you will be feasted. And you'll like Cousin Leverett, when you come
to get acquainted with him. You will go to school, too, and know lots of
little girls. You won't want to go back to India."
"Unless father shouldn't come. Oh, he surely will, because, you see, I'm
praying ever so many times a day."
"That's right;" with a cheerful nod.
"When are you going back?"
"In about a month, I calculate."
She sighed and looked out over the great stretch of waters. "What is
that long point down there?" she asked suddenly.
"That's Salem Neck, and there is Winter Island. They are always building
ships down there and turn out some mighty fine ones. And fishing;
there's a sight of cod, and haddock, and mackerel, and all the other
fish in season. They salt them and take them half over the world. And
there's a rope-walk you'd enjoy seeing, leastways you would if you were
a boy. And there are some stores. We have lots of goods consigned to the
Merrits. Salem's a big place, now I tell you!"
"Bigger than Calcutta?"
"Sho' now! Calcutta can't hold a candle to it."
The captain's cabin was being dismantled for repairs and cleaning. She
glanced in it. How many days she had spent here! Everything was in
disorder, yet there was a certain home remembrance that touched the
child's heart, and brought tears to her eyes.
"Oh, are you here?" It was Chilian Leverett's voice, and he held out his
hand. She looked so bright now and there was a little color in her
cheeks, an eager interest about her. He was afraid she was going to be a
rather dull child.
"Yes; it's almost like home, you know; only when we lived here it wasn't
so topsy-turvy."
"Did you feel queer when you woke up this morning?" thinking it his duty
to smile.
"Oh, I didn't know where I was. It seemed as if I was being smothered in
something. And it didn't toss and rock. Oh, there were some birds
singing." She laughed gleefully. "Then I saw Rachel, and it came to me
in little bits, but it seems such a long, long while since yesterday
morning."
"Where is Miss Winn? I want to see her a moment."
"She has been looking over some things as they came up from the hold,"
said the captain. "Oh, here she is!"
Chilian took her aside for a moment. It was necessary for him to go in
to Boston and he wanted to make a few suggestions, so that any of
Elizabeth's strictures might not offend. He began to perceive the child
and her attendant were not exactly welcome guests.
"How long do you suppose she will stay?" Elizabeth had asked of him
rather sharply. "For, when we are once settled, I do not think there
will be any real necessity for keeping Miss Winn."
She had been considering it at intervals through the night, and was
impatient for what she called an understanding.
Chilian had often given in to her on points that did not really affect
him. He hated to bicker with any one, especially women.
"My dear Elizabeth," he began, "the child has been consigned to my
charge until she comes of age. I should not have chosen the
guardianship, but it seems there is no other relative who can attend to
all matters as well. She is to be no dependent, only for whatever love
we choose to give her. Anthony has made an ample allowance for her,
indeed such a generous one that it irks me to accept it. If it makes too
much work for you and Eunice, we will have some help. Miss Winn is to
look after her, that was her father's wish; so there will be no change.
Of course, it alters our quiet mode of living, but perhaps we were
getting in too much of a rut and needed some shaking up;" smiling
gravely. "Try and make it as comfortable for them as you can. There is
plenty of room in the house for us all."
Then there was nothing before them but acceptance. In a way she had
known it, but there was a vague idea seething in her mind that if the
maid could be dismissed, she and her sister could train the child in a
better manner, and instil some Salem virtues in her that yet held a
little of the old Puritanic leaven; like industry, economy, forethought.
She still believed in the strait and narrow pathway.
That Chilian should take the matter so philosophically _did_ surprise
her. To him there seemed something so pitiful in the hope held out to
the little girl, yet after all could it have been managed any more
wisely? She would not know what the acute pang of death was. And her
longing would become less, there would be a vagueness in her sorrow that
would help to heal it. This would be her home. He had been living all
these years for himself, was it not time that he espoused some other
motive? That he began to be of real service?
He finished his talk with Miss Winn. Cynthia was hopping over some coils
of cable, and he watched her agile, graceful movements, half smiling.
"Come and tell me good-bye," he said, holding out his hand. "I am going
in to Boston."
"In a vessel?"
"No; though I suppose that would be possible. I am late for the stage,
and must go on horseback."
"Where is Boston?"
"Oh, some eighteen miles--rather southerly. It is a big city, and the
capital."
"When are you coming back?" with a daintily anxious air.
"Oh, by supper-time."
"Well;" nodding.
"What shall I bring you?"
"Nothing at all. We have twice too much now, Rachel says. Only--be sure
to come back."
"If I did not, what then?"
"If you did not come back, I should go to India with Captain Corwin. I
like Miss Eunice a little, but your other lady doesn't want me," she
replied with a frankness that was amusing, it was so free from malice.
"Good-bye until to-night, then."
She put her hand in his. Then she reached up tiptoe. "Kiss me," she
said. "Father always did and he said, 'Be a good girl.'"
"Be a good girl." Chilian kissed the soft red lips and then went his
way. There was not much caressing in the restrained New England nature
of that day, especially among those who had grown up with few family
ties. His mother had died while he was yet quite a boy.
"Let us go back now," said Rachel presently. "I believe I have found all
our goods. Miss Leverett will be appalled."
The child repeated the word. "What does it mean?" she asked.
"Astonished, surprised."
"Why, _they_ have a houseful of things;" in protest.
"Then there is the less room for ours."
"But there is ever so much room in the garret."
"I almost wish we were going to live by ourselves in a little house,
like some we saw yesterday."
"Who would cook the dinner and wash the dishes?"
"Oh, I could;" laughing.
"Only us two? It would be lonesome."
"We are not likely to."
"Don't go straight home. Let us find the market again. I didn't half see
it last night."
"It wasn't night exactly. Yes--we must learn to find our way about, for
we cannot stay in all the time. This is Essex Street. Let us turn here."
The market was in its glory this morning. The stalls were ornamented
with branches of evergreens, the floors sifted over with sawdust. There
were vegetables and meats, but no great variety. There was no sunny
south, no swift train to send in delicious luxuries. The cold storage of
that day was being buried in pits and being brought out to light as
occasion required.
There were other stalls, with various household stores. Iron-holders,
tin kettles, whiskbrooms, pins (which were quite a luxury), crockery
ware even. Wagons had come in from country places and customers were
thronging about them.
The people interested Miss Winn, and the chaffering, the beating down in
prices, was quite amusing. Here a woman was measuring some cotton goods
from her chin to the ends of her fingers; here sat a cobbler doing odd
jobs while some one waited. Altogether it was very entertaining, and it
was dinner-time when they reached home.
"Mr. Leverett has gone to Boston," announced Miss Leverett. "We must
have our dinner without him."
"Yes, he was down on the ship," said Miss Winn. "Do you often go to
Boston?"
"I am much too busy to be gadding about," returned Elizabeth sharply;
"though we have connections there, and I once spent several years in the
city."
"I don't suppose it is at all like London. Eastern cities are so
different--and dirty," she added.
"Boston is very nice, quite a superior place, but we do not consider it
much above Salem," Miss Elizabeth said, with an air. "We have nearly all
of the East India trade. To be sure, there is Harvard at Cambridge, and
that calls students and professors. Cousin Chilian is a graduate. He
could have been an accepted professor if he had chosen."
Then the conversation languished. They were hardly through dinner when
the next relay of goods arrived.
"Cynthia's desk must go upstairs, I suppose. Her father had it made for
her birthday. Will Silas unpack again? There is a small cabinet of
teakwood that is beautifully carved. If you could find room in the
parlor for that. There were many other fine pieces that will no doubt be
sold, and it seems a great pity."
Elizabeth acquiesced rather frigidly, adding, "It is fortunate the house
is large, but one seems to accumulate a good deal through generations."
Cynthia went up in the garret with Miss Winn and was full of interest
over the old Leverett treasures. Here was the cradle in which Leverett
babies had been rocked, an old bit of mahogany nearly black with age.
"How funny!" cried Cynthia, springing into it, and making a clatter on
the floor.
"Don't, dear! Miss Elizabeth may not like it," said Miss Winn.
"As if I should hurt it!" indignantly.
"It is not ours."
"But we sit on their chairs, and sleep in their beds, and eat at their
table," returned the child. "Do you suppose they do not want us?"
"Our coming is Mr. Leverett's affair, and he is your guardian, so
whatever home he provides is right."
"Well, we can have a home of our own when father comes?"
"Oh, yes; when he comes."
"Well, then I shall not mind;" decisively.
Still she peered about among the old things. There were some iron
fire-dogs, a much-tarnished frame, with a cracked glass that cut her
face in a grotesque fashion, old dishes and kitchen furniture past
using, or that had been supplanted by a newer and better kind.
"Oh, dear! this is an undertaking!" declared Miss Winn, with a sigh. "I
do not believe you will ever use half these things; there are stuffs
enough to dress a queen."
It was beginning to grow dusky before she was through, though the sky
was overcast, and there would be no fine sunset. Indeed, the wind blew
up stormily. Cynthia had been viewing the place from the windows in the
four gables, though she had to stand on a box. There were South River
and the Neck and the shipping--the men, hurrying to and fro, looking so
much smaller that it puzzled Cynthia. And there was North River winding
about, and over beyond the great ocean she had crossed. There was old
St. Peter's Church, the new one was not built until long afterward, and
smaller places of worship. There was the small beginning of things to be
famous later on.
The wind began to whistle about and it grew cool, so they were glad to
go down to the cheerful sitting-room, where a fire was blazing on the
hearth.
"We shall have a storm to-night," said Miss Eunice, "our three days'
storm that usually makes its appearance about this time. Didn't you
'most perish upstairs? And what did you find to interest you?"
Cynthia had brought a stool and sat close to Miss Eunice, leaning one
arm on her knee.
"Oh, so many queer things. You don't mind if I call them queer, do you?"
"Oh, no; they _are_ queer. And when we are dead and gone some one will
call ours queer, no doubt. But we haven't many. When father died we were
on a farm just out of Marblehead. Things were mostly sold at a vendue,
for the two boys were going in the army. That was back in '78. Mother
and we two girls went to her mother's at Danvers. Elizabeth took up
sewing, but there were hard times, for the war stretched out so long,
and it did seem as if the Colonies would never gain their cause. But
they did. Brother Linus was killed, and later on I had a dear friend
lost at sea. Mother died, and we were sort of scattered about till we
came here. Cousin Chilian was very good to us. So you see we haven't
much to leave, but then we haven't any descendant;" and she gave a soft
little laugh. "Elizabeth has mother's gold comb, set with amethysts, and
a brooch, and I have the string of gold beads and some rings. A cousin
in London sent them to grandmother."
"Eunice, you might set the table," said Elizabeth, rather sharply. "I'm
making some fritters. They will taste good this cold night."
"Couldn't I help?" asked Rachel.
"Oh, you must be tired enough without doing any more. It's a good thing
you have all your belongings housed. The garret doesn't leak."
"Yes, I am thankful. I really did not think there was so much."
There was a savory fragrance in the sitting-room. Chilian came in,
looking weary with his long ride.
"It is almost wintry cold," he said, holding his hands to the fire.
"Have you had a nice day, little girl?"
"Yes;" glancing up with a smile.
They did justice to Bessy's nice supper. Chilian had seen Cousin Giles,
who sent remembrances to them all, and was coming up some day to see
Letty Orne's little girl. Chilian found there was a good deal of
business to do. For a while his days of leisure and ease would be over.
Then he brought out a Boston paper and read them some of the news. Miss
Eunice went on with her fringe. Elizabeth was knitting a sock for
Chilian out of fine linen yarn, spun by herself, and she put pretty
open-work stitches all up the instep. For imported articles were still
dear, and there was a pride in the women to do all for themselves that
they could. Cynthia leaned her head on Rachel's lap and went asleep.
"Do hear that rain! The storm has begun in good earnest."
It was rushing like a tramp of soldiers, flinging great sheets against
the closed shutters, and the wind roared in the chimney like some
prisoned spirit.
"Wake up, Cynthia, and say good-night."
Elizabeth watched the child. Her theory was that children should be put
to bed early and not allowed to lie around on any one's lap. There was
always a tussle of wills when you roused them. She drew herself up with
a kind of severe mental bracing and awaited the result, glad Chilian was
there.
Rachel toyed with the hair, patted the soft flushed cheek, and took the
hands in hers.
"Cynthia," she said gently, "Cynthia, dear, wake up."
The child roused, opened her eyes. "I'm so tired," she murmured. "Will
we never be done crossing the wide, wide ocean? And where is Salem?"
"We are there, dear, safe and housed from the storm. You have been
asleep on my knee. Come to bed now. Say good-night."
She stood the little girl up on her feet and put one arm around her.
It was against Elizabeth Leverett's theories that any child should go
off peaceably, with no snarling protest. Chilian raised his book a
little, hoping in the depths of his soul there would be no scene.
"Say good-night."
No child of Puritan training, with the fear of the rod before her eyes,
could have done better. She said good-night in a very sleepy tone, and
slipped her arm about Rachel's waist as they left the room together.
No one made any comment at first. Then Eunice said, in what she made a
casual tone:
"She seems a very tractable child."
"You can't tell by one instance. Children of that age are always
self-willed. And allowing a child to lie around one's lap, when she
should have said her prayers and gone to bed at the proper hour, is a
most reprehensible habit. And I don't suppose she ever says a prayer."
Eunice thought of the daily prayers for her father's safe journey. Would
that be set down as a sort of idolatry?
Chilian picked up his papers; he had grown fastidious, and rarely left
his belongings about to annoy Elizabeth. Eunice rolled up her work and
dropped it in the bag that hung on the post of her chair, straightened
up a few things, stood the logs in the corner and put up the wire
fender, so there should be no danger of fire; while Elizabeth set all
things straight in the kitchen.
Cynthia meanwhile was undressed and mounted the steps to the high bed.
Then she flung her arms about Rachel's neck.
"Oh, come and sleep in my bed to-night!" she cried pleadingly. "It's so
big and lonesome, that I am afraid. I wish it was like your little bed.
They were so cunning on the ship. I don't like this one, where you have
to go upstairs to get in it. Oh, do come!"
And Elizabeth Leverett would have been shocked if she could have seen
the child cuddled up in her attendant's arms. Theoretically, she
believed Holy Writ--"He hath made of one blood all nations." Practically
she made many exceptions.
CHAPTER V
MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE LITTLE GIRL
The northeast storm was terrific. The wind lashed the ocean until it
writhed and groaned and sent great billows up on the land. The trees
bent to the fierce blasts; many storms had toughened them and perhaps
taught them the wisdom of yielding, since it must be break or bend.
Silas sat in the barn mending tools and harness and clearing up
generally; Elizabeth spent most of the first day clearing up the garret
again, and looking with a grudging eye on the new accession of boxes,
and sniffing up the queer smell disdainfully.
"One can't have the windows open," she ruminated, "and the smell must go
through the house. I don't believe it will ever get out."
More than one family in Salem had stores from the Orient. Many of them
liked the fragrance of sandalwood and strange perfumes. "God's fresh air
was good enough for her," said Elizabeth.
Eunice had finished her fringe and brought out some patchwork in the
afternoon--a curious pattern, called basket-work. The basket was made of
green chintz, with a small yellow figure here and there. It had a handle
from side to side, neatly hemmed on a white half square. The upper edge
of the basket was cut in points and between each one was a bit of color
to represent or suggest a possible bud of some kind. One had pink,
different shades of red, and a bright yellow. She had seven blocks
finished and they were in the bottom of the box. Eunice took them out
for the little girl, who spread them on the floor.
No one was thinking at that day of the mills that would dot New England,
where cotton cloths, calicoes, and cambrics would be turned out by the
bale. These things had to be imported and were costly. One could dye
plain colors that were used for frocks and gowns, and some of the hand
looms wove ginghams that were dyed in the thread beforehand.
"It will take forty-two blocks," said Miss Eunice. "Six one way, seven
the other."
"Then what are you going to do with it?" asked the child eagerly.
"Why, quilt it. Put some cotton between this and the lining, and sew
them together with fine stitches."
"And then----"
"Why"--Eunice wondered herself. There were chests of them piled away in
the garret--Chilian's mother's, and those they had made to fill in the
moments when housework was finished. She had a quiet sense of humor, and
she smiled. What were they laying up these treasures for? Neither of
them would be married, most of their relatives were well provided for.
"Well, some one may like to have them;" after a pause. "You must learn
to sew."
"Patchwork?"
It was absurd to pile up any more.
"You see," said the child, "no one needed them over there;" inclining
her head to the East. "You have a little bed and a pallet, and it is
warm, so you do not need quilts. And the poor people and the servants
have a mat they spread down anywhere and a blanket, but you see, they
sleep with their clothes on."
Eunice looked rather horrified.
"But they change them! They would--why, there would be soil and vermin."
"They go to the river and bathe and wash them out. They sling them on
the stones in a queer way. But some of them are very dirty and ragged.
They are not like the English and us, and don't wear many clothes.
Sometimes they are wrapped up in a white sheet."
"It is a very queer country. They are not civilized, or Christianized. I
don't know what will become of them in the end."
"It's their country and no one knows how old it is. China is the oldest
country in the world."
"But, my dear, there was the garden of Eden when God first created the
world. Nothing could be older than that, you know. Two thousand years to
the flood, and two thousand years to the coming of Christ, and some
people think the world will end in another two thousand years."
"I don't see any sense in burning it up, when there are so many lovely
things in it;" and Cynthia's eyes took on a deep, inquiring expression.
"That was what the chaplain used to say. Father thought it would go on
and on, getting wiser and greater, and the people learning to be better
and making wonderful things."
"My dear, what the Bible says _must_ be true. And it will be burned up.
You have a Bible?"
"The chaplain gave me a pretty prayer-book. It is upstairs."
"We do not believe in prayer-books, dear." The tone was soft, yet
decided. "We came over here, at least our forefathers did, that we might
worship God according to the dictates of our conscience. We tried to
leave the prayer-books and the bishops behind, but we couldn't quite.
You must have a Bible and read a chapter every day. Why, I had read it
through once before I was as old as you."
Cynthia simply stared. Then, after a pause, she said:
"Did you sew patchwork, too?"
"When I was eight I had finished a quilt. And I learned to knit. I knit
my own stockings; I always have. And I braided rags for a mat. Mother
sewed it together."
"And your clothes--who made those?"
"Well--mother made some. But a woman used to come round fall and spring
and make for the girls and boys, though father bought his best suit. He
had one when he was married; it was his freedom suit as well----"
"Why, was he a prisoner?" the child interrupted.
"Oh, no;" smiling a little. "Boys had to be subject to their fathers
until they were twenty-one. Then they had a suit of clothes all the way
through and their time, which meant they were at liberty to work for any
one and ask wages. He had been courting mother and they were married
soon after, so it was his wedding suit. He had outgrown it before he
died, so he had to get a new one. Mother sold that to a neighbor that it
just fitted."
"Tell me some more about them." Cynthia was fond of stories. And this
was about real folks, not the fantastic legends she had heard so often.
"Well--he and mother worked, she had been living with a family. Girls
did in those days, and were like daughters of the house. Father went to
work there. They were married in the spring and in the fall he took a
place on shares; that is, he had half of everything, and they divided up
the house. A year or so afterward it was for sale, and he bought it, and
we were all born there, and there was no change until he died. That was
a sad thing for us. He'd been buying some more land, and the place
wasn't clear. Another man stood ready to buy it, and mother thought it
best to sell. You see there was a good deal of trouble between us and
England, who wanted to get all the money she could out of the Colonies,
and wasn't willing to send troops to protect us from the Indians, and we
had to sell our produce and things to her, and presently the Colonies
wouldn't stand it any longer, and there was war. Some people were
bitterly opposed to it, some favored it. Then we wouldn't take the tea
she insisted on our buying, and there was the Stamp Act. And Salem
really made the first armed resistance. You must go out some nice day to
North Bridge. The British troops marched up from Marblehead to seize
some arms they heard were stored here. General Gage sent them. But the
people had word, for a Major Pedrick rode up to give the alarm, and they
hid them in a secure place. Colonel Leslie headed the British troops to
make the search. But the people of Salem turned out strong and met the
colonel and declared that he was marching on private property, not on
the King's highway, that the lane and the bridge were private property,
where he had no right. You see, war had not been declared and the people
had a right to defend their own. So they would not allow them to cross
the river and make a search. But, finally, they agreed, if the draw over
the river could be lowered and they allowed to march a few rods, they
would withdraw. Of course, they saw nothing suspicious and came back,
keeping their word. Otherwise, I suppose, that would have been the first
battle of the war. We were not living here then, but Cousin Chilian's
father lived in this very house."
"And the arms were really there!" Cynthia drew a long breath.
"Oh, yes! They were ships' cannon going to be mounted for protection.
Some day Cousin Chilian may take you over to the bridge and tell you all
about it. There was a romance about a girl said to be in love with a
British officer, but you are too young for such stories."
If she had not been, the entrance of Elizabeth and Miss Winn would have
checked the garrulity of Eunice. Cynthia had been laying down the small
diamond-shaped pieces, making a block.
"Why do you let the child muddle over those pieces, Eunice? The carpet
may not be clean," said Elizabeth sharply.
"And it is getting dark, so we had better put them all up. Mercy! how it
still rains. Why, it seems as if there would be another flood."
"That can never happen. We have the promise."
"That the whole world will not be destroyed. But parts of it may suffer.
You and Cynthia are fortunate not to be in it;" and Eunice raised her
eyes to them, with a certain thankfulness.
It had not stopped yet in the morning, but the wind was veering to the
south, the air was not so cold and the rain much gentler. Cynthia
wandered about like an unquiet spirit. It was cold up in their room.
Chilian had proposed a fire, but Elizabeth had negatived it sharply.
"There ought to be room enough in the dining-room and keeping-room for
two extra people," she said decidedly.
He felt sorry for the little girl with her downcast face, as he met her
on the landing.
"Don't you want to come and visit me?" he asked, in an inviting tone.
"Oh, yes!" and the grave little face lightened.
The blaze was brighter here than downstairs, she felt quite sure. And
the room had a more cheerful look. The table was spread with books and
papers, and, oh, the books that were on the shelves! The curious things
above them suggested India. There really was the triple-faced god she
had seen so often, carved in ivory, and another carving of a temple. She
walked slowly round and inspected them. Then she paused at a window.
"How much it rains!" she began. "I don't see how so much rain can be
made. When is it going to stop?"
"I think it will hold up this afternoon and be clear to-morrow, clear
and sunny."
"I like sunshine best. And little rains. This has been so long."
"And we haven't much to amuse a child. When it clears up we must find
some little folks. Does it seem very strange to you?"
"I haven't lived with big women much, except Rachel. And the houses are
so different. You get things about, and the servants pick them up. There
are so many servants. Sometimes there are white children, but not many.
Their mothers take them back to England. Or they die."
She uttered the last sadly, and her long lashes drooped.
He wondered a little how she had stood the climate. She looked more like
a foreigner than a native of Salem town.
"What did you do there?" He hardly knew how to talk to a little girl.
"Oh, a great many things. I went to ride in a curious sort of cart--the
natives pulled it. Then the children came and played in the court. They
threw up balls and caught them, ever so many, and they played curious
games on the stones, and acrobatic feats, and sung, and danced, and
acted stories of funny things. Then father read to me, and told me about
Salem when he was a little boy. You can't really think the grown-up
people were little, like you."
"And that one day you will be big like them."
She pushed up her sleeve. They were large and made just big enough for
her hand at the wrist, not at all like the straight, small sleeves of
the Puritan children. After surveying it a moment, she said gravely:
"I can't understand _how_ you grow. You must be pushed out all the time
by something inside."
"You have just hit it;" and he smiled approvingly. "It is the forces
inside. There is a curious factory inside of us that keeps working, day
and night, that supplies the blood, the warmth, the strength, and is
always pushing out; it even enlarges the bones until one is grown and
finished, as one may say. And the food you eat, the air you breathe, are
the supplies."
"But you go on eating and breathing. Why don't you go on growing?"
There was a curious little knot in her forehead where the lines crossed,
and she raised her eyes questioningly to him. What wonderful eyes they
were!
"I suppose it is partly this: You employ your mind and your body and
they need more nourishment. Then--well, I think it is the restraining
law of nature, else we should all be giants. In very hot countries and
very cold countries they do not grow so large."
He could not go into the intricacies of physiology, as he did with some
of the students.
"You did not go to school?"
"Oh, no!" She laughed softly. "The native schools were funny. They sat
on mats and did not have any books, but repeated after the teacher. And,
sometimes, he beat them dreadfully. There were some English people had a
school, but it was to teach the language to the natives. And then Mr.
Cathcart came to stay with father. He had been the chaplain somewhere
and wasn't well, so they gave him a--a----"
"Furlough?" suggested Chilian.
"Yes; father sent him out in one of the boats. He began to teach me some
things. I could read, you know. And I could talk Hindostani some--with
the children. Then I learned to spell and pronounce the words better. He
had a few books of verses that were beautiful. I learned some of them by
heart. And Latin."
"Latin!" in surprise.
"He had some books and a Testament. It was grand in the sound, and I
liked it. There were many things, cases and such, that I couldn't get
quite straight, but after a little I could read, and then make it over
into English."
When he was eight he was reading Latin and beginning French. Some of the
Boston women he knew were very good French scholars, though education
was not looked upon as a necessity for women. It seemed odd to him--this
little girl in Calcutta learning Latin.
"Let us see how far you have gone." Teaching never irked him when he
once set about it.
He hunted up a simple Latin primer.
"Come around this side;" and he drew her nearer to him. There had been
no little girls to train and teach, and for a moment he felt
embarrassed. But she took it as a matter of course, and he could see
she was all interest.
It had been, as he supposed, rather desultory teaching. But she took the
corrections and explanations with a sweetness that was quite enchanting.
And she could translate quite well, in an idiomatic fashion. Really,
with the right kind of training she would make a good scholar.
"Oh, you must be tired of standing," he said presently. "How thoughtless
of me. I have no little chairs, so I must hunt one up, but this will
have to do now. That will be more comfortable. Now we can go on."
She laughed at her own little blunders in a cheerful fashion, and made
haste to correct them. And then he found that she knew several of the
old Latin hymns by heart, as they had been favorites of the English
clergyman.
They were interrupted by a light tap at the door. He said "Come"; and
turned his head.
It was Miss Winn.
"Pardon me. We couldn't imagine where Cynthia was. Hasn't she been an
annoyance?"
"Oh, no; we have had a very nice time."
"But--had you not better come downstairs. Miss Eunice is sewing her
pretty patchwork again."
"Oh, let me stay," she pleaded. "Do I bother you?"
It crossed his mind just then that in the years to come more than one
man would yield to the sweet persuasiveness of those eyes.
"Yes, let her stay. She is no trouble. Indeed, we are studying."
Miss Winn was glad of his indorsement. Miss Elizabeth had been
"worrying" for the last ten minutes. She had crept softly up to the
garret, quite sure she should find the child in mischief. Then she had
glanced into the "best chamber," but there was no sign of her there.
"Very well," replied Miss Winn.
Cynthia drew a long breath presently.
"Oh, you are tired!" he exclaimed. "Run over to the window and tell me
how the sky looks. I think it doesn't rain now."
She slipped down, stood still for a moment, then turned and clapped her
hands, laughing deliciously.
"Oh, there is blue sky, and a great yellow streak. The clouds are trying
to hide the sun, but they can't. Oh, see, see!"
She danced up and down the room like a fairy in the long ray of sunshine
that illumined the apartment.
"Oh, are you not glad!" She turned such a joyous face to him that he
smiled and came over to the window that nearly faced the west.
"Better than the Latin?"
"Well--I like both;" archly.
He raised the window. A warm breath of delightful air rushed in, making
the room with the fire seem chilly by contrast. He drew in long
reviving breaths. Spring had truly come. To-morrow the swelling buds
would burst.
"We must have a little Latin every day. And occasionally a walk in the
sunshine. Twice a week I go down to Boston, but the other days will be
ours."
"I like your room," she said frankly. "But what sights of books! Do you
read them all?"
"Not very often. I do not believe I have read them all through. But I
need them for reference, and some I like very much."
He wanted to add, "And some were a gift from your dear father," but he
could not disturb her happy mood.
"Suppose we go down on the porch. It is too wet to walk anywhere."
"Oh, yes;" delightedly. "And to-morrow I will go down to the vessel
again and see Captain Corwin. I do not want it to rain any more for
weeks and weeks."
"No, for days and days. Weeks would dry us all up, and we would have no
lovely spring flowers."
"And a famine maybe. Do the very poor people sometimes starve?"
"I do not think we have any very poor people, as they do in India. We
are not overcrowded yet."
The rain had beaten the paths and the street hard, and it looked as if
it had been swept clean. In spite of it all there were cheering
evidences of spring.
"There are some children in that house," she exclaimed, nodding her
head.
"Yes, the Uphams. There are two girls and two boys, the oldest and the
youngest, who isn't much more than a baby. Bentley Upham must be about
twelve. Polly is next, but she is a head taller than you. Then there's
Betty. I am glad there will be some little girls for you to play with."
She looked eager and interested.
"Will you come in to supper? Chilian, you ought to know better than to
be standing in this damp air. And that child with nothing around her!"
"The air is reviving, after having been housed for two days." But he
turned and went in, leading the child by the hand.
The long, bleak New England coast winter was over, though it had
lingered as if loath to go. Springs were seldom early, no one expected
that. But this one came on with a rush. The willows donned their silver
catkins and then threw them off for baby leaves, the lilac buds showed
purple, the elms and maples came out in bloom, and the soft ones drew
crowds of half-famished bees to their sweet tassels. The grass was
vividly green, iridescent in the morning sun, with the dew still upon
it. Snowdrop, crocus, hepatica, and coltsfoot, wild honeysuckle, were
all about, the forsythia flared out her saucy yellow, the fruit buds
swelled. Parties were out in the woods hunting trailing arbutus that has
been called the darling of northern skies, that lies hidden in its nest
of green leaves, silent, with no wind tossing it to and fro, but
betrayed by its sweetness.
There were other signs of spring at Salem. The whole town seemed to
burst out in house-cleaning. Parlor shutters were thrown open and
windows washed. Carpets were beaten, blankets hung out to air, those
that had been in real use washed. Women were out in gardens with
sunbonnets and gloves, a coat of tan not being held in much esteem, and
snipped at roses and hardy plants. Men were spading and planting the
vegetable gardens, painting or white-washing fences. All was stir and
bustle, and tired folk excused themselves if they nodded in church on
Sunday.
Cynthia made pilgrimages to the _Flying Star_ that had been her home for
so long. The storm had wrought great havoc with some of the shipping,
and big boys were out gathering driftwood. The _Gazette_ had some
melancholy news of "lost at sea." But Captain Corwin thought he had
weathered worse storms.
"She is picking up mightily," he said to Miss Winn, nodding toward
Cynthia. "Shouldn't be surprised if she favored her mother, after all.
Only them eyes ain't neither Orne nor Leverett. Don't let her grieve too
much when the bad news comes."
Eunice and Chilian had taken her to call on the Uphams. And though she
was quite familiar at home, here she shrank into painful shyness and
would not leave Eunice's sheltering figure.
"Children get soonest acquainted by themselves," declared Mrs. Upham. "I
suppose you will send her to school. If she's not very forward, Dame
Wilby's is best. She and Betty can go together. Why, she isn't as tall
as Betty--and nine, you said? Granny was talking the other day about the
time she was born. She's a real little Salem girl after all, though
she's got a foreign skin, and what odd-colored hair! We've started Polly
to Miss Betts. I want her to learn sewing and needlework, and she's too
big now to company with such children. Why, I was almost a woman at
twelve, and could spin and knit with the best of them. Miss Eunice, I
wish you'd teach her that pretty openwork stitch you do so handy.
Imported stockings cost so much. They say there's women in Boston doing
the fancy ones for customers. But I tell Polly if she wants any she must
do them herself."
Mrs. Upham had a tolerably pleasant voice. She always talked in
monologues. Betty edged around presently and would have taken Cynthia's
hand, but the child laid it in Miss Eunice's lap, and looked
distrustful.
Chilian was as glad as she when the call ended. He did not seek the
society of women often enough to feel at home with them, though he was
kindly polite when he did meet them.
"Did you ask about the school?" was the inquiry of Elizabeth that
evening.
"Yes; she thinks Dame Wilby's the best for small children. And Cynthia
knows so little that is of real importance, though she reads pretty
well," said Eunice.
"Yes, she must get started. I shall be glad when the _Flying Star_ is
off and she isn't running down there with the men. I don't see what's
got into Chilian to think of teaching her Latin. It had enough sight
better be the multiplication table."
So she proposed the school to Chilian. She had a queer feeling about his
fancy for the child. She would have scouted the idea of jealousy, but
she would have had much the same feeling if he had "begun to pay
attention" to some woman. The other matters had reached a passable
settlement. The "best chamber" was tidily kept, the little girl well
looked after to see that she troubled no one. Miss Winn kept her clothes
in order, but they had a decidedly foreign look, and of materials no one
would think of buying for a child. But the goods were here, and might as
well be used.
Miss Winn had made a few alterations in the room--softened the aspect of
it. She longed to take out the big carved bedstead, but she knew that
would never do. She made herself useful in many unobtrusive ways,
gardened a little, was neighborly yet reserved.
"I don't know what we would do if she were a gossip," Elizabeth
commented.
She broached the subject of the school to Chilian.
"Why, yes," he answered reluctantly. "I suppose she ought to go. She's
curiously shy with other children."
"She talks enough about that Nalla, as if they had been like sisters."
"You can notice that she always preserves the distinction, though."
"There's no use bothering with that Latin, Chilian. Next thing it will
be French. And she won't know enough figuring to count change. Girls
don't need that kind of education."
"But some of them have to be Presidents' wives. And some of them wives
to men who have to go abroad. French seems to be quite general among
cultivated people."
"It's hardly likely she'll go abroad. And she needs to be like other
people. I don't see what you find so entertaining about her. And you
couldn't bear children in your room!"
"She isn't any annoyance. Then she is so deft, so dainty. She touches
books with the lightest of fingers. She will sit and look at pictures,
and it quite surprises me how much she knows about geography."
"And nothing much about her native country. She can't tell the
difference between Pilgrims and Puritans. And she didn't know why we
came over here, and why it was not the same God in England, and if all
the gods in India were idols. Chilian, you shouldn't encourage her
irreverence. It looks pert in a child."
"She will get over these ways as she grows older and mingles with other
children."
"That is what I am coming to. She ought to begin at once. Betty Upham
goes to Dame Wilby. Her mother considers it excellent for small
children. She could go with Betty and there would be no fear of her
trailing off no one knows where."
Of course, she ought to go to school. He could manage a big boy on the
verge of manhood very well. But this woman-child puzzled him. She seemed
very tractable, obedient in a certain sense, yet in the end she seemed
to get, or to take, her own way. Suppressing one train of action opened
another. She had a sweet way of yielding, but a strong way of holding
on. A little thing made her happy, yet in her deepest happiness there
was much gravity. His theories were that certain qualities brought to
pass certain results. He forgot that there were no such things as pure
temperaments, and that environments made second nature different from
what the first might have been. The child puzzled him by her
contrariety, yet she was not a troublesome child.
"Well;" reluctantly.
"I'll see the Dame. And we will start her on Monday."
He nodded.
Elizabeth had another point to gain. She looked over her trunk of
pieces. Here were several yards of brown and white gingham, quite enough
for a frock without any furbelows. With the roll in her hand she tapped
at the partly open door. Rachel had laid out on the bed several white
frocks, plain enough even for Salem tastes.
"Cynthia's going to school on Monday," she announced. "And I thought
this would make her a good school frock. It won't be dirtysome. You see
children here _do_ dress differently. You'll get into the ways."
Rachel looked at the gingham. "I shouldn't like it for her," she said
quietly. "Her father always wanted to see her in white. That is new
every time it is washed. These things fade and then look so wretched.
Beside she will only outgrow these frocks."
"Children here keep their white frocks for Sundays," was the decisive
reply.
"She may as well wear these out. They were made last summer. She has not
grown much meanwhile. I should like to keep her in the way her father
desired."
"Then she must have a long-sleeved apron to cover her up. This will make
two. For those white things make an endless sight of washing."
"I have been considering that," said Rachel Winn quietly. "I wear white
a good deal myself. I noticed a small house on Front Street where there
were nearly always clothes on the lines, and I stopped in to inquire. I
felt it was too much laundry-work for your woman through the summer.
This Mrs. Pratt is very reasonable and does her work nicely. So I have
made arrangements with her. Captain Leverett made a generous allowance
for incidental expenses."
What Elizabeth termed Miss Winn's "independence" grated sorely upon her
ideas of what was owing to the head of the house, which was herself. It
was always done so quietly and pleasantly one could hardly take umbrage.
Cynthia was not exactly a child of the house. She was in no wise
dependent on her newly found relatives. Chilian had made that understood
in the beginning, when he had chosen the best chamber for them.
"You don't need to take boarders," she had replied tartly.
"I don't know as we are to call it that. I am the child's guardian and
answerable for her comfort and her welfare. The perfect trust confided
in me has touched me inexpressibly. I didn't know that Anthony Leverett
held me in such high esteem. And if I choose to put this money by until
she is grown--it will make such a little difference in our living----"
"Chilian Leverett, you are justly entitled to it," she interrupted with
sharp decision. "He's right enough in making a fair provision for
them--no doubt he has plenty. But I don't quite like the boarder
business, for all that."
"We must get some one to help you with the work."
"I don't want any more help than I have. Land sakes! Eunice and I have
plenty of leisure on our hands. I wouldn't have a servant around wasting
things, if she paid me wages."
They had gone on very smoothly. Eunice had found her way to the child's
heart. But then Eunice had lived with her dream children that might have
been like Charles Lamb's "Children of Alice." Elizabeth might have
married twice in her life, but there was no love in either case, rather
a secret mortification that such incapables should dare to raise their
thoughts to her. But she had some strenuous ideas on the rearing of
children, quite of the older sort. Life was softening somewhat, even for
childhood, but she did not approve of it.
CHAPTER VI
GOING TO SCHOOL
Elizabeth Leverett interviewed Dame Wilby beforehand. The woman came
half a day on Monday to wash and she hardly knew how to spend half an
hour, but when she found Miss Winn was going, she loftily relegated the
whole business to her.
Dame Wilby lived in an old rambling house, already an eyesore to the
finer houses in Lafayette Street, but the Dame was obstinate and would
not sell. "It was going to last her time out. She was born here when it
was only a lane, and she meant to be buried from here." Once it had been
quite a flourishing school; but newer methods had begun to supersede it.
It was handy for the small children about the neighborhood, it took them
over the troublesome times, it gave their mothers a rest, and kept them
out of mischief. And the old dames were thorough, as far as they went.
Indeed, some of the mothers had never gone any farther. They could cast
up accounts, they could weigh and measure, for they had learned all the
tables. They could spell and read clearly, they knew all the common arts
of life, and how to keep on learning out of the greater than printed
books--experience.
Dame Wilby might have been eighty. No one remembered her being young.
Her husband was lost at sea and she opened the school, worked in her
garden, saved until she had cleared her small old home, and now was
laying up a trifle every year. She was tall and somewhat bent in the
shoulders, very much wrinkled, with clear, piercing light blue eyes and
snowy hair. She always wore a cap and only a little line of it showed at
the edge of her high forehead. Her frocks were made in the plainest
style, skirts straight and narrow, and she always wore a little shoulder
shawl, pinned across the bosom--white in the summer, home-dyed blue in
the winter.
Some children were playing tag in the unoccupied lot next door. The
schoolroom door opened at the side. There were two rows of desks, with
benches for the older children, two more with no desks for the A B C and
spelling classes. The rest they learned in concert, orally. The dame had
a table covered with a gray woollen cloth, some books, an inkstand, a
holder for pens and pencils, and the never-failing switch.
"Yes," she answered to Miss Winn's explanation. "Miss Leverett was
telling about her. I was teaching school here when she was born, and
then the captain took her away to the Ingies again." Most folks
pronounced it that way. "Rather meachin' little thing--I s'pose it was
the climate over there. They say it turns the skin yellow. Let's see how
you read, sissy?"
She read several verses out of the New Testament quite to the dame's
satisfaction. Then about spelling. The second word, in two syllables,
floored her. Had she ciphered? No. Did she know her tables? No. The
capital of the state? That she could answer. When the war broke out?
When peace was declared?
"I'll ask Cousin Leverett," she answered, in nowise abashed by her
ignorance. "He tells me a great many things."
"You must study it out of books. I s'pose she's going to live here?
She's not going back to the Ingies? I heard the captain was coming
home."
"He is settling up his affairs," was the quiet answer.
Dame Wilby looked the child all over.
"You'll sit on that bench," she said. Then she rang the bell and the
children trooped in, staring at her. The little boys--four of them--were
on the seat back of her, on her seat she made the fifth. Betty Upham was
in the desk contingent.
They repeated the Lord's prayer in concert. Then lessons were given out.
The larger girls read.
"You can come and read with this class;" nodding to Cynthia.
She was not a regularly bashful child, but she flushed as the children
stared at her. They sometimes wore their Sunday white frock one or two
days at school. Cynthia was so used to her clothes, cared so little
about them that they were rarely in her mind. But this universal
attention annoyed her.
"'Tend to your books, children."
Cynthia acquitted herself finely, rather too much so, the dame thought.
She would talk to her about it. A girl didn't want to read as if she was
a minister preaching a sermon.
Then she was given a very much "dog's-eared" spelling-book to study down
a column. Another class read some easy lesson; a story about a dog that
interested her so much that she forgot to study. While the older
children were doing sums one little boy after another came up to the
desk and spelled from a book. One's attention wandered and the dame hit
him a sharp rap. Tables followed, eight and nine times; dry measure, and
then questions were asked singly. Some few missed. Cynthia followed the
spelling where they went up and down. Then the larger ones were
dismissed for recess.
"Cynthy Leverett, come up here and see how many words you can spell. You
ought to be ashamed, a big girl like you staying behind in next to the
baby class."
Cynthia's face was scarlet. Alas! She had been so interested watching
and listening she had not studied at all. But the words were rather easy
and she did know all but two.
"Now you take the next line and those two over again. See if you can't
get them all learned by noon."
The next little girl, who could not have been more than six, missed a
number. She had a queer drawl in her voice.
"What did I tell you, Jane Mason? And you have missed more than two.
Hold out your hand!"
The switch came down on the poor little hand with an angry swish.
Cynthia winched.
"Now you go back and study. No going out to play for you this morning.
Jane Mason, you're the biggest dunce in school."
The two other girls did better. Then the bell rang and the girls came in
with flushed and laughing faces.
Cynthia studied her two words over until they ceased to have any
meaning. At twelve they were all dismissed.
"Isn't she a hateful old thing?" said Janie Mason, when they were
outside of the door. "I wish I was big enough to strike back. I don't
like school anyhow. Do you?"
"I--I don't know. I have never been before."
Several of the other girls swarmed around her with curious eyes.
"What a pretty frock!" began Betty Upham. "I suppose it's your Sunday
best, with all that work."
"Betty said you were an Injun," said another. "I never saw an Injun who
didn't have coarse, straight, black hair, and yours is lightish and
curls. I'd so love to have curly hair."
"I'm not the kind of Indians you have here," she returned indignantly.
"I was born right here in Salem. I've lived in Calcutta and in China,
and been to Batavia, and ever so many places."
"Then you ain't an Injun at all! Betty, how could you?"
"Well, that's what some of them said. Maybe your mother was an Injun!"
looking as if she had fixed the uncertain suspicion.
"No, she wasn't. She lived here part of the time. She was born in
Boston."
They glanced at each other in a kind of upbraiding fashion.
"And you had to be put with the little children! Aren't there any
schools in that place you came from? It's a heathen country. Our
minister prays for it. Don't you have any churches either? What do
people do when they are grown up if they never go to school?"
"Are you coming stiddy?"
"Is Mr. Chilian Leverett your real relation?"
"Oh, tell me--have you any other frock as pretty as this? My sister
Hetty has a beautiful one, all lace and needlework. She's saving it to
be married in."
"Martha, I dare you to a race!"
Two girls ran off as fast as they could. Betty Upham caught Cynthia's
arm.
"I didn't say you were a real Injun. Debby Strang always gets things
mixed up. But it is something queer----"
"East India;" in a tone of great dignity.
"Where the ships are coming from all the time? Is it prettier than
Salem?"
"It's so different you can't tell. We do not have hardly any winter. And
there are vines and flowers and temples to heathen gods, and the people
_are_ yellow and brown."
"Do you suppose you will ever grow clear white?"
Cynthia had half a mind to be angry. Even Miss Elizabeth was fair, and
Miss Eunice had such a soft, pretty skin.
"There, that's your corner. You're coming this afternoon?"
"Oh, I suppose so."
Miss Elizabeth was all bustle and hurry. It was clouding up a little. It
hadn't been a real fair day, and the hot sun had dried the clothes too
quick. She liked them to bleach on the line, it was almost as good as
the grass. And Miss Drake couldn't stay and iron, they had sickness over
to the Appletons and she had to go there. Everything was out of gear.
"I'd help with the ironing, if you would like," said Miss Winn.
"Well, the ironing isn't so much;" rather ungraciously. "You see, there
were four blankets. I never touch an iron to them, but shake them good
and fold them, and let them lay one night, then hang them on the line in
the garret. The bulk of it was large. And a good stiff breeze blows out
wrinkles. The wind hasn't blown worth a Continental;" complainingly.
"Did you like the school?" Miss Winn inquired in the hall.
"No, I didn't. And I don't seem to know anything;" in a discouraged
tone.
"Oh, you will learn."
It was warm in the afternoon. Two of the boys were decidedly bad and
were punished. They positively roared. Cynthia spelled, and spelled, and
studied--"One and one are two," "one and two are three," and after a
while it dawned on her that it was just one more every time. Why, she
had known that all the time, only it hadn't been put in a table.
It grew very tiresome after a while. She asked if she couldn't have
recess with the big girls, but was sharply refused. In truth the good
dame grew very weary herself, and was glad when five o'clock came and
she could go out in the garden and recruit her tired nerves.
The stage was stopping at the door. Oh, how glad she was to see Cousin
Leverett. He smiled down in the flushed face.
"How did the school go?" he asked.
She hung her head. "I don't like it. I have to be with the little class
because I don't know tables, but I learned all the one times. That was
easy enough when you came to see into it. But--nine and nine?"
"Eighteen," he answered promptly.
"And you answered it right offhand!" She gave a soft, cheerful laugh.
"Oh, do you suppose I shall ever know so much?"
"There was a time when I didn't know it."
"Truly?" She looked incredulous.
"Truly. And I had quite hard work remembering to spell correctly."
"I studied two lines. This morning I missed two words, but this
afternoon I knew them all. And I can't write on the slate. The pencil
wabbles so, and then it gives an awful squeak that goes all over you.
And I can't do sums. And there's all the tables to learn. And I don't
like the teacher. I wish Miss Eunice could teach me. Or maybe Rachel
might."
"I might help you a little. But you read well?"
"She said it was too--too"--she wrinkled up her forehead--"too affected,
like a play-actor."
"Nonsense!" he cried disapprovingly. "We will see about some other
school presently. Would you like to take a walk with me? I'm tired of
the long stage-ride."
"Oh, so much!" She caught one hand in both of hers and gave a few skips
of joy.
"Let us go over to the river."
Of course, he should have gone in and announced their resolve. But he
was so used to considering only himself, and he realized that it must
have been a tiresome day to her. They went over Lafayette Street, which
was only a lane, and then turned up the stream.
Oh, how sweet the air was with the odorous dampness and the smell of
new growths, tree and grass. The sun, low in the west, slanted golden
gleams through the tree branches which chased each other over the grassy
spaces, as if they were quite alive and at merry-making. There were
sedgy plants in bloom, jack-in-the-pulpit, and what might have been a
lily, with a more euphonious name. Iridescent flies were skimming about,
now and then a fish made a stir and dazzle. Squirrels ran up and down
the trees and chattered, robins were singing joyously, the thrush with
her soft, plaintive note. She glanced up now and then and caught his
eye, and he felt she was happy. It was a delightful thing, after all, to
render some one truly happy. Perhaps children were more easily
satisfied, more responsive.
"Oh," he said presently, "we must go back or we will lose our supper,
and Cousin Elizabeth will scold."
"I shouldn't think she would dare to scold you;" raising wondering eyes.
"Why not?" He wondered what reason she would give.
"Because you are a man."
"She scolds Silas."
"Oh, that is different."
"How--different? We are both men. He is quite as tall as I."
"But you see--well, he is something like a servant. She tells him what
to do, and if he doesn't do it right she can find fault with it. But
you are--well, the house is yours. You can do what pleases you."
"Quite reasoned out, little one;" and he laughed with an approving
sound.
"It's curious that you scold people you like, and other people may do
the same thing and--is it because you don't dare to? If it is wrong in
the one place, why not in the other?"
"Perhaps politeness restrains us."
"I don't like people to scold. Miss Eunice never does."
"Eunice has a sweet nature. Doesn't Miss Winn ever scold you?"
"Well--I suppose I am bad and wilful sometimes, and then she has the
right. But when you do things that do not matter----"
Miss Winn was walking in the garden. Cynthia waved her hand, but walked
leisurely forward.
"I couldn't imagine what had become of you."
"It was my fault," interposed Chilian. "I met her at the gate and asked
her to go for a walk."
"And with that soiled apron!"
"That came off the slate. I hadn't any desk. It was hard to hold it on
my knee."
"You might have come in for a clean one. Run upstairs and change it."
But she was destined to meet Cousin Elizabeth in the hall. The elder
caught her arm roughly.
"Where have you been gadding to, bad girl? Didn't you know you must
come straight home from school? Here we have been worried half to death
about you, and I'm tired as a dog, trotting 'round all day. You deserve
a good whipping;" and she shook her. She would have enjoyed slapping her
soundly. But Chilian entered at that instant.
"She is going upstairs for a clean apron," he said. "I took her off for
a walk."
"She might have asked whether she could go or not," snapped Elizabeth.
"She's the most lawless thing!"
"It was my place. Don't blame the child!"
"Well, supper's ready."
She didn't have her apron on quite straight and her hair was a little
frowsy. Elizabeth had proposed it should be cut short on the neck for
the summer, but Miss Winn had objected.
"Such a great mop! No child wears it!"
Cynthia came in quietly and took her place. After her first cup of tea
Elizabeth thawed a little, enough to announce that two of the Appleton
children were ill, they thought with scarlet fever.
Chilian expressed some sympathy.
"And how was the school, Cynthia? We thought you might have been kept in
for some of your good deeds, as children are so seldom bad."
"I--I didn't like it," she answered simply.
"Children can't have just what they like in this world," was Elizabeth's
rejoinder.
"Nor grown people either," was Chilian's softening comment. Then he
changed the subject. He had seen Cousin Giles, who proposed to pay them
a visit, coming on some Saturday.
"Have you any lesson to learn?" he asked of Cynthia. "If so, bring your
book and come to my room."
"Oh, thank you!" Her face was radiant with delight.
Where had she left her book? Dame Wilby had told her to take it home and
study. Surely she had brought it--oh, yes! she had put it just inside
the gate under the great clump of ribbon grass. If only Cousin
Elizabeth's sharp eyes had not seen it. But there it was, safe enough.
She was delighted to go to Cousin Chilian's room, though she never
presumed. She seemed to have an innate sort of delicacy that he wondered
at.
The spelling was soon mastered. It was the rather unusual words that
puzzled her. Then they attacked the tables and he practised her in
making figures. Like most children left to themselves, she printed
instead of writing.
"Oh!" she cried with a wistful yet joyous emphasis, "I wish I could come
to school to you. And I'd like to be the only scholar."
"But you ought to be with little girls."
"I don't like them very much."
Then Miss Winn came for her. "You are very good to take so much
trouble," she said.
"Oh, I like you so much, so much!" she exclaimed with her sweet eyes as
well as her lips.
He recalled then the day on board the vessel, when she had besought in
her impetuous fashion that he should kiss her. She had never offered the
caress since. She was not an effusive child.
Her position at school was rather anomalous. A younger woman might have
managed differently. There was a new scholar that rather crowded them on
the bench. And the boy back of her did some sly things that annoyed her.
He gave her hair a twitch now and then. One day he dropped a little toad
on her book, at which she screamed, though an instant after she was not
at all afraid. Of course, he was whipped for that, and for once she did
not feel sorry.
"You're a great ninny to be afraid of a toad not bigger than a button,"
he said scornfully. "I'll get you whipped some day to make up for it,
see if I don't."
Thursday was unfortunate and she was kept in for some rather saucy
replies. When she returned they were in the sitting-room and had been
discussing some household matters. She surveyed them with a courageous
but indignant air.
"I've quit," she exclaimed. "I'm not going there to school any more."
She stood up very straight, her eyes flashing.
"What!" ejaculated Cousin Elizabeth.
"Why, I've quit! She wanted to make me say I was sorry and beg her
pardon, and she threatened to keep me all night, but I knew some of you
would come, at least Rachel."
"And I suppose you were a saucy, naughty girl!"
"What happened?" asked Chilian quietly.
"Why, you see--I went up to her table with the figures I had been making
on my slate. I'd done some of them over three times, for Tommy Marsh
joggled my elbow. Then I went back to my seat. We're crowded now, and I
went to sit down and sat on the floor. I do believe Sadie Green did it
on purpose--moved so there wasn't room enough for me to sit. And Tom
laughed, then all the children laughed, and Dame Wilby said, 'Get up,
Cynthy Leverett,' and I said 'My name isn't Cynthy, if you please, and I
haven't any seat to sit on if I do get up.' And then the children
laughed again, and I don't quite know what did happen, but I was so
angry. Then she said all the children should stay in for laughing. She
called me to the desk and I went. The slate was broken and I laid it on
the table. Then she said wasn't I sorry for being saucy, and I said I
wasn't. It was bad enough to fall on the floor, for I might have hurt
myself. Then she took up her switch, and I said: 'You strike me, if you
dare!' Then she pushed me in a little closet place, and there I staid
until after school was out. Then she said, 'Would I tell Miss Leverett
to come over?' and I said Mr. Leverett was my guardian and I would tell
him, but I wasn't coming to school any more, and that Tommy Marsh
pinched me and pulled my hair, and called me wild Indian. And so--I've
quit. You can't make me go again. I'll run away first and go on some of
the boats."
There was a blaze of scarlet on her cheeks and her eyes flashed fire,
but she stood up straight and defiant, when another child might have
broken down and cried. Chilian Leverett always remembered the picture
she made--small, dark, and spirited.
"No," he exclaimed, "you need not go back." Then he rose and took her
hand that was cold and trembling. "You will not go back. Let us find
Miss Winn----"
"Chilian!" warned Elizabeth.
He led Cynthia from the room, up the stairs. Miss Winn sat there sewing.
She clasped her arms about him, he could fairly feel the throb in them.
"Oh," she cried with a strange sort of sweetness. "I love you. You are
so good to me, and I have told you just the truth."
Then she buried her face on Miss Winn's bosom.
Chilian went downstairs. He laughed, yet he was deeply touched by her
audacity and bravery.
"Elizabeth," he announced; "I will see Mrs. Wilby. Let the matter die
out, do not refer to it. I did not think it quite the school for her. We
will find something else."
"Chilian, I must make one effort for you and her. Going on this way will
be her ruin. I should insist upon her going back to school and
apologizing to Mrs. Wilby. I wouldn't let a chit like that order what a
household of grown people should do and make them bow down to her. You
will be sorry for it in the end. You have had no experience with
children, you have seen so few. And a man hasn't the judgment----"
His usually serene temper was getting ruffled, and with such characters
the end is often obstinacy.
"If she is to make a disturbance here, become a bone of contention with
us, I will send her away. Cousin Giles is taking a great interest in
her. There are good boarding-schools in Boston, or she and Miss Winn
could have a home together under his supervision. There is enough to
provide for them."
"And you would turn her over to that half-heathen woman!" in a horrified
tone. "Then I wash my hands of the matter. Send her to perdition, if you
will."
CHAPTER VII
CHANGEFUL LIGHTS OF CHILDHOOD
Elizabeth Leverett busied herself about the supper. She felt as one does
in the threatening of a thunderstorm, when the clouds roll up and the
rumbling is low and distant and one studies the sky with presentiments.
Then it comes nearer, flirts a little with the elements, breaks open and
shows the blue that the scurrying wind soon hides and the real storm
bursts. She had believed all along that it must come.
She was not an ungracious or a selfish woman outside of her own home.
She was good to the sick and the needy, she gave of her time and
strength. In the home there was a sense of ownership, of the
self-appropriation so often termed duty. Everything had gone on smoothly
for years. She had settled that Chilian would not marry. Such a bookish
man, whose interests lay chiefly with men, did not need a wife when
there was some one at hand to make him comfortable. And that he surely
was. He understood and enjoyed it. He had only to suggest to have. Her
affection for him was like that for a younger brother. Even Eunice could
not minister so well for his comfort, though, like Mary of Bible lore,
she often added a delicate pleasure in listening to matters or
incidents that interested him.
Elizabeth had settled to the idea of a little heathen soul that she was
to lead aright. Missionary work in godless lands had not made much
advance and, having no mother, who was there to warn her of the great
peril of her soul? Seafaring men were not much given to thought of the
other world. Perhaps there was some grace for them in the hours of
peril, she had heard they prayed to God in an extremity; and there was
the dying thief. But on land no one had a right to count on this.
The child had changed everything. Even Eunice seemed to have lost the
sharp distinction. Miss Winn belonged to the ungodly, that was
clear--though she was upright, honest, neat, and in some ways sensible.
But her ideas about the child were foreign and reprehensible--dangerous
even. The child was no worse than others, not as bad as some, for she
had either by nature or training a delicate respect for the property of
others. She never meddled. She asked few questions even when she stood
by the kitchen table and watched the mysteries of cake and pie making
and the delicacies of cooking. It was the right to herself that annoyed
Elizabeth. People had hardly begun to suspect that children had any
rights.
"But if she went away? If she was swallowed up in the vortex of the more
populous city"--greater, Salem would not have admitted. "If the child's
soul was finally lost, would she be quite clear? Would she have done all
that she could for her salvation?"
She thought of it as she prepared the supper. She surveyed the
inviting-looking table and then rang the bell. Eunice brought in a
handful of flowers. Chilian came--and Miss Winn.
"Cynthia has gone to bed, she does not want any supper," was her quiet
announcement.
Elizabeth would have sent her to bed supperless, and approved of a
severer punishment.
Miss Winn asked some questions about Boston.
"I have quite a desire to see it," she added.
Yes, she would no doubt plan for a removal. Then the child would be
forever lost. And a Leverett, too, come of a strong God-fearing family!
The child, when she had hidden her face on Rachel's bosom, gave some
dry, hard sobs that shook her small frame. Rachel smoothed her hair,
patted the shoulder softly, and said "Dear" in a caressing tone. Then
had come a torrent of tears, a wild hysterical weeping. She did not
attempt to check it, but took Cynthia in her arms as if she had been a
baby.
"I'm not going to that school any more," she said brokenly, after a
while.
"What happened, dear?"
Cynthia raised her head. "It was very mean, as if I had done it on
purpose! Why, I might have hurt myself;" indignantly.
"How was it?" gently.
And then the story came tumbling out. She saw a certain ludicrous aspect
in it now, and laughed a little herself. "I couldn't help being saucy.
And I thought she was going to strike me. Tommy Marsh began to laugh
first. The slate broke----"
"Are you quite sure you were not hurt?"
"Well, my arm hurt a little at first, but it is all well now. But I
shan't go back to school,--no, not even to please Cousin Leverett, and I
like him best of any one."
"I'm going down to supper, dear. Shall I bring up yours?"
"I don't want any. I couldn't eat anything. And I can't have Cousin
Elizabeth's sharp eyes looking at me. Oh, I'm glad I am not her little
girl! I like you a million times better, Rachel;" hugging her
rapturously. "I think I'd like to have a glass of milk. And may I lie on
your little bed?"
"Yes, dear."
She was asleep when Rachel came up and it was past nine when she woke,
drank her milk, and went to bed for the night.
How gaily the birds were singing the next morning, and the sunbeams were
playing hide-and-seek through the branches that dance in the soft wind.
All the air was sweet and the little girl couldn't help being
light-hearted. She sang, too; not measured hymns of sorrow and
repentance, but a gay lilt that followed the bird voices. And she went
down to breakfast and said her good-morning cheerfully.
"That child has the assurance of the Evil One," Elizabeth thought.
Cynthia waylaid Cousin Chilian as he was going down the path.
"I meant what I said yesterday. I won't go to that school any more. If
there was some other--only--only I wish you could teach me until I could
get up straight in all the things, so the other children wouldn't laugh
when I made blunders. I suppose it does sound funny;" and a smile
hovered about the seriousness.
"We will consider another school," he returned kindly, smiling himself
at the remembrance of the tempest of yesterday.
She persuaded Rachel to go out to walk and they went over to the bridge.
She had been so interested in the story of it. Before it had faded from
the minds of men it was to be splendidly commemorated as a point of
interest in the old town.
"I like real stories," she said. "I don't understand about the war, but
it is fine to think the Salem men made the British soldiers go back when
all the while the cannon and other arms were hidden away. You don't
mind, Rachel, if the Colonists did beat England, do you? I'm a Colonist,
you know."
"That is long ago, and we are all friends now. I think the Colonists
were very brave and persevering and they deserved their liberty. I have
heard your father talk about the war."
"Oh, when do you suppose he will come? It seems so long to wait."
Rachel smiled to keep the tears out of her eyes.
Chilian Leverett made a call and a brief explanation to Dame Wilby. She
admitted she had been hasty, but the children were unusually trying. She
was getting to be an old body and maybe she hadn't as much patience as
years ago. Cynthia said so many odd things that the children _would_
giggle. She was slow in some things, and it seemed hard for her to learn
tables, but she was not a bad child.
So the tempest blew over. Elizabeth preserved a rather injured silence,
but Eunice was cheerful and ready to entertain Cynthia with stories of
the time when she was a little girl. Chilian arranged for her to spend
most of the mornings with him when he was at home. She liked so very
much to hear him read. The histories of that time were rather dry and
long spun out, but he had a way of skipping the moralizing and the
endless disquisitions and adding a little more vividness to people and
incidents. It inspired him to watch her face changing with every
emotion, her eyes deepening or brightening, and the slight mark in her
forehead where lines of perplexity crossed. Then they would talk it all
over. Often he was puzzled with her endless "whys" that he could not
rightly explain to a child's limited understanding. Sometimes she would
say, "Why, I would have done so," and he found her course would be on
the side of the finest right, if not what was considered feasible.
The spelling was a trial when the words were a little obscure. And
though she had a wonderful knack of guessing at things, she surely was
not born for a mathematician. He had a fine, quick mind in that respect.
But the Latin was a delight to her and she delved away at the difficult
parts for the sake of what she called the grand and beautiful sound. His
rendering of it enchanted her.
"I don't see any sense in educating her like a boy," declared Elizabeth.
"And she can't do a decent bit of hemming. She ought to work a sampler
and learn the letters to mark her own clothes. We did it before we were
her age. Chilian thinks you can hire people to do these things for you,
but it seems so helpless not to be able to do them for yourself.
Housekeeping is of more account than all this folderol. She can never be
a college professor."
"But women _are_ keeping schools," interposed Eunice.
"They don't teach Latin and all kinds of nonsense. That Miss Miller was
here a few days ago to see if we didn't want our niece--folks are
beginning to call her that--to see if we did not want her to take
lessons on the spinet. I was so glad she did not appeal to Chilian,
though he was out. I said, 'No,' very decidedly, 'that she had a good
many things to learn before she tackled that.' And she said she ought
to be trained while her fingers were flexible, and I said I thought
washing would make them flexible enough. And there's fine ironing."
"There's no need of either for her," protested Eunice.
"Oh, you don't know. There might be a war again. And a trouble about
money. I'm sure there is talk enough and the country raising loans all
the time, one party pulling one way, one the other. People are getting
awfully extravagant nowadays. Patty Conant gave seven dollars a yard for
her new black silk, and there were twelve yards. It broke pretty well
into a hundred, and there was some fancy gimp and fringe and the making.
Of course, there's going to be two weddings in the family, and I don't
suppose Patty will ever buy another handsome gown at her time of life.
Abner brought her home that elegant crape shawl, with the fringe and
netting nearly half a yard deep. Maybe 'twas a present, she let it go
that way."
"Of course, there's money enough among the Conants," Eunice commented
gently.
"As I said--one can't always tell what will come to pass, nor how much
need you may have for your money. But I'm thankful my heart is not set
on the pomps and vanities of this world. And children ought to be
brought up to some useful habits."
It was a fact that Cynthia did not take to the useful branches of
womanly living. She abhorred hemming--and such work as she made of it!
Miss Eunice groaned over it.
"But you ought to have seen what I did two or three weeks ago," and she
laughed with a gay ring. "Such stitches! When I made them nice on the
top, they were dreadful underneath, and the cotton thread was almost
black. What is the use of taking such little bits of stitches?"
"Why--they look prettier. And--it is the right thing to do."
"But you know Rachel can hem all the ruffles. And Cousin Elizabeth said
ruffles were vanity. I'd like my frocks just as well to be plain."
"There would have to be nice stitches in the hem."
"Rachel didn't sew when she was little. A great lady took her to
Scotland, to wait on her, to get her shawl when she was a little cool,
and fan her when she was warm, and carry messages, and drive out in the
carriage with her. They had servants for everything. And then--she was
ten years old--she sent her to a school, where she learned everything.
But she doesn't know all the tables and a great many other things."
"But she knows what fits her for her station in life."
Cynthia looked puzzled. "What is your station in life?" she asked with
an accent of curiosity.
"Oh, child, it is where you are placed; and the work of life is the
duties that grow out of it--and your duty towards God."
Cynthia dropped into thought.
"Then my duty now is to study. I like it; that is, I like a good many
things in it. And when my father comes home it will be changed, I
suppose. You can't stay a little girl always."
"But you will have to learn to keep house," returned Eunice.
"Oh, I'll have some one to do that. Men never have to cook or keep
house. Oh, yes; all the cooks on the ship were men. Wasn't that funny!"
she continued.
She laughed with so much innocent merriment that Miss Eunice laughed
too.
"I suppose you have to do various things in your life," she sagely
remarked, after a pause.
"Then you must learn to do the various things now."
"I believe I won't ever get married. I'll live with father always, and
we will have some one to keep the house, and Rachel will make the
clothes. And I'll read aloud to father. We'll have a carriage and go out
riding, and talk about India. I remember so many things just by thinking
them over. Isn't it queer, when for a long time they have gone out of
your mind? Oh, dear Cousin Eunice, what makes you sigh?"
Cousin Eunice took off her glasses, wiped them vigorously, and then
wiped her eyes.
"It is a bad habit I have." But she was thinking of the dream of the
little girl that could never come true.
The two days in the week that Chilian went into Boston were long to
Cynthia. She sat in his room and studied. He had given her a small table
to herself and a shelf in a sort of miscellaneous bookcase. He found
that she never trespassed and that she did really study her two hours,
sometimes longer when the task was not so easily mastered. There _was_
some of the old Leverett blood in her, but it had a picturesque strain.
She placed every book at its prettiest, and her papers were gathered up
and taken down to the kitchen when she was done with them. She was
beginning to write quite well.
Then in the afternoon she went to walk with Rachel to show her the
curious places Cousin Leverett had told her about. And there were still
beautiful woods around the town, where they found wild flowers and
sassafras buds.
Elizabeth was very much engrossed. She had cleared the garret spick and
span, scrubbed up the floor, wiped off her quilting frames, and put in
her white quilt, rolling up both sides so she could get at the middle.
There was to be a circle, with clover leaves on the outside. Then long
leaves rayed off from the exact middle. She had all the patterns marked
out. When that was done a wreath went around next--oak leaves and
acorns.
She had groaned over the time the little girl devoted to Latin, but she
never thought all this a waste of precious hours. She would never need
it and she could not decide upon any relative she would like to leave it
to. There was one quilt of this pattern in Salem and, though white
quilts were made, few could afford to spend so much time over them.
There were knitted quilts, with ball fringe around four sides, and the
tester fringed the same way. Old ladies kept up their habits of industry
in this manner when they were past hard work.
Eunice had finished her basket quilt and it was really a work of art.
But she was out in the flower garden a good deal in the early morning
and late afternoon. Cynthia sometimes kept her company, but she was not
an expert in gardening science. In the evening they sat out on the
porch, and a neighbor called perhaps. Or she walked over to South River
if it was moonlight. And, oh, how beautiful everything was!
But it was not all quilting with Miss Elizabeth. In July wild green
grapes were gathered for preserves. Cynthia thought it quite fun to help
"pit" them. You cut them through the middle and with a small pointed
knife took out the seeds. She tired of it presently and did not cut them
evenly, beside she was afraid of cutting her thumb.
Cousin Elizabeth went about getting dinner, which was quite a simple
thing when Chilian was away, and at night they had a high tea.
"I'll cut them," said Eunice, "and you can pick out the seeds. But maybe
you are tired;" with a glance of solicitude.
"Yes, I'm tired, but I'm going to keep straight on until dinner-time,"
she answered pluckily.
"You are a brave little girl."
But Cousin Elizabeth said, "Well, for once you have made yourself
useful."
There was a great point of interest just then for the people on this
side of the town. Front Street was the old river path that had followed
the shore line. One end was known now as Wharf Street, and was beginning
to be lined with docks. Up farther to what is now Essex Street there had
stood a house with a history. Its owner had been a Tory, and just before
the war broke out he entertained Governor Gage and the civil and
military staff. Timothy Pickering had been summoned to the Governor's
presence, but he kept his Excellency so long in an indecent passion that
the town-meeting had to be adjourned. Troops were ordered up from the
Neck and for a while an encounter seemed imminent. Later, when the
Colonists were in the ascendency, Colonel Browne's estate was
confiscated, and after the close of the war it was turned over to Mr.
Elias Derby. Now he was removing it to make way for a much finer
residence and, being a notably patriotic citizen, he did not enjoy the
stigma of a Tory house. Parts were carried away as curiosities, and
there were some beautiful carvings and fine newel posts that found a
place in new homes as mementoes. Afterward, Mr. Derby built the
handsomest and costliest house in Salem, with grounds laid out
magnificently.
Then came a very busy time. There was preserving that every housewife
attended to for winter use, pickling of various kinds, for there was no
canning stock in those days to eke out. There were some queer fruits
from India, and preserved ginger in curious jars that are highly
esteemed to this day, but they were luxuries. Then a house-cleaning
season, not as bad as the spring, but still bad enough. And flower seeds
to be saved, garden seeds to be dried, so the beautiful quilt was rolled
up in a thick sheet and put away for the present.
The little girl had made quite friends with the Upham children and went
over there to tea all alone, but she felt very strange. They played tag
and blind-man's buff, but Cynthia thought puss in the corner the most
fun. Bentley was a nice big boy and very well mannered. Polly talked
over her school and brought out her needlework, which was to be the
bottom of a white frock. It would be only two yards round and she had
almost a yard worked. Then she was making a sampler, with an oak and
acorn vine around it, and it was to have four different kinds of
lettering on it.
"I don't know when I shall get it done," she said with a sigh.
Betty declared Dame Wilby was crosser than ever and Priscilla Lee wasn't
coming back, nor Margaret Rand, and she was coaxing mother to let her go
elsewhere.
After a while Cynthia declared she must go home. Cousin Chilian had said
he would come for her, but the clock was striking nine and he had not
come. He sometimes _did_ forget.
Bentley took his hat and walked beside her in quite a mannish way.
"I do hope you will come again," he said. "You were so pleasant when you
were caught, and I do hate to have girls saying all the time, 'Now that
isn't fair,' and squirming out."
"But if you're playing you must take the best and the worst. I liked
puss in the corner and didn't mind being the left-out pussy. I thought
it was quite fun to hunt a corner again."
Then they met Cousin Chilian, who had been playing a rather prolonged
game of chess with a visitor. But Bentley kept on with them, and said
good-night with a polite bow, adding, "She must come again, Mr.
Leverett, we had such a very nice time."
"And wasn't he nice!" exclaimed the child eagerly. "He is like some of
the grown-up men. I like big boys much better than the little ones."
He smiled to himself at that.
Now there came cool nights and mornings, but the world was beautiful in
its turning leaves, the fragrance of ripening fruit, and the late
gorgeous-colored flowers. They took delightful walks and found so many
curious places. Sometimes Bentley Upham met them and joined in their
walks and talks. He thought the little girl knew a great deal. And that
she had been in India, and China, and ever so many of the islands, was
wonderful.
"Don't you ever sew?" he asked one afternoon, as they were rambling
about.
"I don't like it much;" and she glanced up with fascinating archness. "I
suppose I shall have to some day, but Cousin Leverett thinks there is
time enough."
"I'm glad you don't," in a hearty tone. "I don't have any good of Polly
any more. What with her white frock, and some lace she is making for a
cape, and forty other things, she never has time for a game of anything,
or a nice walk. And she doesn't care about study, though her lessons are
so different. I don't know another girl who studies Latin, and it's so
nice to talk it over. How rapidly you must have learned."
He looked at her in admiration.
"Oh, I knew some of it before I came here. There was a chaplain in
Calcutta who was--well, not exactly ill, but not well; and father took
him with us on the vessel when he went for certain things, and he staid
with us afterward. He used to read aloud, and it sounded so splendid!
Then he taught me. But Cousin Leverett said it wasn't quite right, so I
am going over it. And he is teaching me a little French."
"You know they think women don't need to know much beside housekeeping
and sewing. I just hate to hear about ruffles cut on the straight or
bias, and I couldn't tell what Dacca muslin, or jaconet, or dimity was
to save myself. And eyelet work and French knots and run lace--that's
what the big girls who come to see Polly talk about. But I like books,
and studies, and different countries. I'd like to travel. But I don't
know that I want to be a sea captain."
They found some queer old houses that were odd enough. Mr. Leverett said
they were almost two hundred years old, and that at first the place kept
the old Indian name, Naumkeag. But the Reverend Francis Higginson gave
it a new name out of the Bible--"In Salem also is His tabernacle." The
early pilgrims built a chapel at once.
"How close the houses are!"
It was a row that had survived the hand of improvement. There was a huge
central chimney-stack, big enough for a modern factory, and the house
seemed built around it. The second story overhung the first, and in some
of them were small dormer windows looking like bird houses. And the
little panes of greenish glass seemed to make windows all framework.
Cynthia was much interested in the Roger Williams house, and the story
of the old minister.
"Why, I thought religion made people good and pleasant----" Then she
checked herself, for often Cousin Elizabeth was _not_ pleasant. And she
seemed more religious than Cousin Eunice. And Cousin Chilian rarely
scolded or said a cross word--he never talked about religion, but he
went to church on Sunday; they all did. She studied the Catechism, she
could learn easily when she had a mind to, but she didn't understand it
at all. She shocked Elizabeth by her irreverent questions. There was the
old horn-book primer with--
"In Adam's fall
We sinned all."
"I don't see how that could be when we were not there!" she said almost
defiantly.
"It means the nature we inherited."
"But I don't think that fair!"
"You don't know, you never can understand until you are in a state of
grace. Don't ask such impertinent questions. You are a little heathen
child."
Then she asked Cousin Chilian what "a state of grace" meant.
"I think it is the willingness to do right, to be truthful, kindly,
obliging. It is all comprised in the Golden Rule--to love God with all
your heart and your neighbor as yourself, not to do anything to him that
you would not like to have done to yourself, and to do to him whatever
you would like him to do for you. That is enough for a little girl."
"That sounds like Confucius," she said thoughtfully.
But she went back to Roger Williams when Bentley said he was one of his
heroes.
"What did he do?" she asked, interested.
"Well, he founded the City of Providence. And if William Penn is to be
honored for founding a city of brotherly love, Roger Williams deserves
it for establishing a city where different sects should agree without
persecuting each other. You see, they banished him from Salem back to
England because he thought a man had some right to his own opinions, so
long as he worshipped God. So he went to Providence instead. He walked
all the way with just his pocket compass to guide him, and how he must
have worked to make a dwelling-place for himself and his friends in the
dead of winter! There were some Quakers already there, who had been
banished from other settlements, and they all resolved to be friendly.
Yes, I call him a hero!"
Cynthia studied the house with the little courtyard and the great tree
shading it.
"Polly said it was the Witch House," she remarked.
"That was because there were trials for witchcraft. You are too young to
hear about that," Chilian said decisively, with a glance at Bentley.
CHAPTER VIII
SORROW'S CROWN OF SORROW
Occasionally they went down to the warehouse, and while Chilian was busy
some of the captains or mates would speak to her. They knew about her
father and one sad fact she did not know. For she had settled in her
mind that Captain Corwin would bring him back and that it would take a
long, long while. So she tried to be content and if not teasing or
fretting was one of the ways of being good, she tried her utmost to keep
to that. She was too brave to tell falsehoods to shield herself from any
inadvertent wrongdoing, even if Cousin Elizabeth did sometimes say:
"You ought to be soundly whipped. To spare the rod is to spoil the
child."
She thought if anybody ever did whip her she should hate him all the
rest of her life. Servants and workmen were beaten in India, and it
seemed degrading. She did not know that Cousin Chilian had insisted that
she should never be struck. He was understanding more every day how her
father had loved her, and finding sweet traits in her unfolding.
She liked these rough bronzed men to touch their odd hats to her and
call her Missy. Some of them had seen her in Calcutta and knew her
father. And when she said, "It takes a long, long while to go there and
come back, but when Captain Corwin brings him he is going to live here
and will never go to sea any more"--"No, that he never will, missy;" and
the sailor drew his hand across his eyes.
Oh, how full the wharves were with shipping! Flags and pennons waved,
and white sails; others, gray with age and weather, flapped in the wind.
She liked to see them start out; she always sent a message by them in
the full faith of childhood. And there were the fishermen in the cove
lower down. Fishing was quite a great business.
Cousin Giles had made his visit and spent two whole days down in the
warehouse, when they had not taken her. But she helped Cousin Eunice cut
the stems of the sweet garden herbs for drying, and the others for
perfumery. There was lavender, the blossoms had been gathered long ago,
and sweet marjoram and sweet clover. She always gathered the full-blown
rose leaves and sewed them up in little bags and laid them among the
household stores. Everything was so fragrant. Cynthia thought she liked
it better than sandalwood and the pungent Oriental perfumes.
Then came the autumnal storms, when the vessels hugged the docks
securely at anchor. The house was chilly all through and fires were in
order. Some two or three miles below there was a wreck of an East
Indiaman, and for days fragments floated around. Some lives were lost,
and the little girl shuddered over the accounts.
All the foliage began to turn and fall. The late flowers hung their
heads. It had been a beautiful autumn, people said to pay up for the
late spring.
There had been a little discussion about a school again.
"She seems so small, and in some things diffident," Chilian said. "The
winters are long and cold, and she has not been used to them. Cousin
Giles thinks her very delicate."
"She isn't like children raised here, but she's quite as strong as
common. She oughtn't be pampered and made any more finicking than she
is. A girl almost ten. What is she going to be good for, I'd like to
know?"
Cousin Giles had not made much headway with her. He was large and strong
with an emphatic voice, and a head of thick, strong white hair, a rather
full face, and penetrating eyes. He had advised about investments,
though he thought no place had the outlook of Boston. But Salem was
ahead of her in foreign trade.
Chilian Leverett felt very careful of the little girl. For if she died a
large part of her fortune came to him. He really wished it had not been
left that way. There was an East India Marine Society that had many
curiosities--stored in rooms on the third floor of the Stearns building.
It had a wider scope than that and was to assist widows and orphans of
deceased members, who were all to be those "who had actually navigated
the seas beyond Cape of Good Hope, or Cape Horn, as masters or
supercargoes of vessels belonging to Salem." To this Anthony had
bequeathed many curiosities and a gift. There was talk of enlarging its
scope, which was begun shortly after this.
Matters had settled to an amicable basis in the Leverett house. Rachel
had won the respect of Elizabeth, who prayed daily for her conversion
from heathendom and that she might see the claims the Christian religion
had upon her. Eunice and she were more really friendly. She made some
acquaintances outside and most people thought she must be some relation
of the captain's. She had proved herself very efficient in several cases
of illness, for in those days neighbors were truly neighborly.
Cynthia did shrink from the cold, though there were good fires kept in
the house. This winter Chilian had a stove put up in the hall, very much
against Elizabeth's desires. Quite large logs could be slipped in and
they would lie there and smoulder, lasting sometimes all night. It was a
great innovation and extravagance, though wood seemed almost
inexhaustible in those days. And it was considered unhealthy to sleep in
warm rooms, though people would shut themselves up close and have no
fresh air.
Then the snow came, but it was a greater success in the inland towns,
and there were sledding and sleigh-riding. The boys and girls had great
times building forts and having snowballing contests. But the little
girl caught a cold and had a cough that alarmed her guardian a good deal
and made him more indulgent than ever, to Elizabeth's disgust.
She was not really ill, only pale and languid and seemed to grow
thinner. She was much fairer than any one could have supposed and her
eyes looked large and wistful. Chilian put some pillows in the big
rocking-chair and tilted it back so that she could almost lie down on
it.
"You are so good to me," she would say with her sweet, faint smile.
Bentley came in now and then of an evening, and she liked to hear what
they were doing at school. Polly, too, made visits; they had a
half-holiday on Saturday. She always brought some work, and Elizabeth
considered her a very industrious girl. She was going to a birthday
party of one of her mates.
"What do they do at parties?" inquired the little girl.
"Oh, they play games. There's stagecoach. Everybody but one has a seat.
He blows a horn and sings out, 'Stage for Boston,' or any place. Then
every one has to change seats. Such a scrambling and scurrying time! and
the one who gets left has to take the horn."
"It's something like puss in the corner."
"Only ever so many can play this. Then there's 'What's my thought like?'
That's rather hard, but funny. I like twirling the platter. If you
don't catch it when it comes near you, you must pay a forfeit. And
redeeming them is lots of fun, for you are told to do all sorts of
ridiculous things. Then there's some goodies and mottoes and you can
exchange with a boy. But Kate Saltonstall's big sister had a party where
they danced. Eliza wanted some dancing, but her mother said so many
people did not approve of it for children."
"And don't you have some one to come and dance for you?"
"Oh, what a queer idea! The fun is in dancing yourself with a real nice
boy. Some people think it awfully wrong. Do you, Miss Winn?"
"No, indeed. When I was a child in England we went out and danced on the
green. Everybody did. And when there were doings at the great
houses--like Christmas, and weddings, and coming of age--the ladies, in
their silks and satins and laces, came down in the servants' hall and
danced with the butler and the footmen, and my lord took out some of the
maids. I don't think dancing hurts any one."
"I'm glad to hear you say that, Miss Winn. They are talking of having a
dancing-class in school. I hope mother will let me join it."
"And they teach it in schools there."
"And why shouldn't they here?" said Polly.
To be sure. Cynthia was much interested and made Polly promise to come
again and tell her all about it. Old Salem was awakening rapidly from
her rigid torpor.
"I wonder if I could ever have a party," she said to Cousin Leverett
that evening. "When father comes home we might have what they did at the
Perkinses when they went in their new place--a house-warming. Is that
like a party?"
"About the same thing."
"Cousin Elizabeth thinks it wicked. Wouldn't she think dancing wicked?"
"I am afraid she would."
Cynthia sighed. No, she couldn't have a party here.
She waited quite eagerly for Polly's account. The little girl was in her
own room. Miss Winn had gone out to get some medicine. Cynthia tried to
be well sometimes, so she would not have to take the nauseous stuff. No
one had invented medicated sugar pills at that time. She liked Cousin
Elizabeth's cough syrup.
Polly was overflowing with spirits.
"Oh, I want to be big, right away. Bella Saltonstall was there and she's
going into company next winter, she says. And she showed us some of the
dancing steps and they just bewitch you. It's like this"--and Polly
picked up her frock in a dainty manner and whirled about the vacant
spaces in the room.
"But doesn't it tire you dreadfully? The girls in India stand still a
great deal more and just sway about. They come in and dance for you."
"Tire you! Oh, no. That's the great fun, to do it yourself. Bella said
it was--ex--something, and the word is in the spelling-book, but I never
can remember the long words. Oh, I just wish I was fifteen and wasn't
going to school any more. And then there's keeping company and getting
married, and having your setting out. School seems stupid. There were
two boys who wanted to come home with me, but mother said Ben must. Then
I wished--well, I wished he was in college. He wants to go. Father says
Mr. Leverett has infected him with the craze."
"If I was a boy, I'd like to go. Cousin Leverett is going to take me to
Harvard next summer when they have their grand closing time."
"I'd rather be a girl and have a nice beau."
Plainly Polly had been saturated with dissipation.
Spring was suggesting her advent. The days were longer. The snow was
disappearing.
"Oh, Cousin Leverett, look--there are some buds on the trees!" she
cried.
"Yes. You can see them at intervals through the winter. They are wise
little things, and swell and then shrink back in the cold."
"I'm so glad. I can soon go out. I get very tired some days. I like
summer best."
"Yes. I do hope we shall have an early spring."
She looked up with smiling gladness.
That afternoon she had fallen asleep in the big chair. How almost
transparent she was. The long lashes lay on the whiteness of her
cheek--yes, it was really white. And there was very little color in her
lips.
Abner Hayes came up from the warehouse with some papers the _Ulysses_
had just brought in.
"That the captain's poor little girl?"
"Yes; she's asleep. She hasn't been very well this winter, but the first
nice balmy day I shall take her out driving. I've been almost afraid to
have the air blow on her."
"Yes, she ought to live and enjoy all that big fortune. It's a thousand
pities the captain couldn't have come back and enjoyed it with her. But
we must all go when our time comes. You never hear a hard word said
about him, and sure's there's a heaven he is in it."
Chilian held up his finger. Then he signed a paper that had to go back,
and asked if the cargo of the _Ulysses_ was in good shape.
Elizabeth called him downstairs after that. There was a poor man wanting
some sort of a position and Chilian promised to look out for him. He had
been porter in a store, but the heavy lifting made him cough. He would
have to get something lighter.
When he returned Cynthia was standing by his table, white as a little
ghost. He almost dropped into the chair.
"Was I dreaming, or did that man say my father couldn't come back to
Salem, that he--that he was----"
She swayed almost as if she would fall. He drew her down on his knee and
her head sank on his shoulder. She was so still that he was startled.
How many times he had wondered how he would get her told. Perhaps it had
been wrong to wait.
"My little girl! My little Cynthia----"
"Wait," she breathed, and he held her closer. He had come to love her
very much, though he had taken her unwillingly.
"Is it true? But no one would say such a thing if it were not. I had
been asleep. I woke just as he said that. Perhaps I had been dreaming
about our being together. And it seemed at first as if my tongue was
stiff and I couldn't even make a sound. Did he go to heaven without me?"
Oh, what should he say to comfort her! She had so many feelings far
under the surface.
"My little dear," and his voice was infinitely fond, "I want to tell you
that he loved your mother tenderly. No one could have been better loved.
In the course of a few hours she was snatched away from him. You were so
little--five years ago. I doubt if there was ever a day in which he did
not think of her. When you are grown and come to love some one with the
strength of your whole heart, you will understand how great it is. And
when the summons came for him his first thought was that he should see
her, and with the next he must find a new home for his little girl, so
he gave you to me. It is very hard just now, but you must think how
happy they are together. Perhaps they both know you are here, where you
will be cared for and made happy, for we all love you. Every one has not
the same way of showing love, but Cousin Elizabeth has done everything
she could for you this winter. And we don't want to lose you. You won't
grudge them a few years together in that happy place?"
"Oh, are you quite sure there _is_ a heaven?"
Oh, Cynthia, you are not the first one who has asked to have it
certified.
"Yes, dear; very sure," in the tone of faith.
"He loved mother very much?"
"Yes."
There was a long silence. He felt the slow beating of her little heart.
"Then I ought to be content, since he gave me to you, when he knew he
was going away."
"It would have been very sad if you had been left alone there. Out of
his great love he planned it this way, thinking the tidings would not
come so hard after a while. And now you can always recall him as you saw
him last and just think, in a moment of time God called and he stepped
over the narrow space that seems such a mystery to us and met _her_. I
wish we didn't invest death with so much that is painful, for it is
God's way of calling us to a better land where there are no more
partings. Sometime you and I will go over to them."
"I shouldn't feel afraid with you," she commented simply.
When the tea bell rang she asked to be carried to her room and laid on
Rachel's little bed. He kissed her gently and turned away.
The next was his day in Boston. But late in the afternoon, after Miss
Eunice had been visiting her an hour or so, she went to the study and
sat by the window, where she could see him come. He glanced up and she
waved her hand daintily. All day he had been wondering how he should
find her.
"I haven't coughed but a very little to-day," she exclaimed. "Cousin
Elizabeth made some new syrup. And the doctor was in. He said I was a
little lazy, that I must be more energetic."
"I've been ordering a new carriage to-day. The old one was hardly worth
repairing. And when you are stronger I think I'll buy a gentle pony and
we can go out riding. You would not be afraid after a little?"
"Not with you."
Her confidence was very sweet.
"I'm going down to tea to-night. I was down at noon."
"Oh, you are improving. I hope there will come some warm weather and
balmy airs."
"It was beautiful last spring. You know I never saw a real spring
before."
She was bearing her loss and her sorrow beautifully. All day she had
been thinking of the joy of those two when they met on the confines of
that beautiful world. It made heaven seem so near, so real. Sometimes
the tears came to her eyes. She was Cousin Chilian's little girl, so why
should she feel lonely!
Once in a number of years spring comes early. It did this time, at the
close of the century. People shook their heads and talked about
"weather-breeders," and mentioned snow as late as May, when fruit trees
had been in bloom. But nature had turned over a bright, clear leaf, that
made the book of time fairly shine.
The carriage came and Cynthia was taken out. Miss Elizabeth wrapped her
up like a mummy, and would put a brick, swathed in coverings, in the
bottom for her feet. He had taken the ladies out occasionally, but of
late years the sisters had been so busy they had little time for
pleasure, they thought.
They crossed North Bridge and went up Danvers way. Oh, how lovely it was
with the trees in baby leaf, and some wild things blossoming. And even
then industry had planted itself. There on the farther bank of Waters
River was the iron mill, where Dr. Nathan Read invented his scheme for
cut nails. And he built a paddle-wheel steamboat that was a success
before Robert Fulton tried his. And they passed the Page house, where
General Gage had his office, and Madam Page had tea on the roof, because
they had promised not to use tea in the house.
That amused Cynthia and he also told her of the woman, when tea first
came to the country, who boiled the leaves and seasoned them, passing
them around to her guests, who didn't think they were anything much in
the vegetable line and too expensive ever to become general.
Birds sang about them, flocks of wild geese had started on their
northward journey. What a wonderful world it was! And her father had
been a boy here in Salem village, had lived in Cousin Chilian's house in
the father's time, and her mother had been married in the stately
parlor. Why, she could dream of their being real guests of the place.
How odd she should come to live here. The life in India would be the
dream presently.
She was very tired when Chilian lifted her out of the carriage and took
her upstairs. Rachel put her to bed for a while and gave her a cup of
hot tea--mint and catnip--which was a great restorer, or so considered,
in those days. She came down to supper and was quite bright.
Every day she improved a little. Eunice said she was getting 'climated.
Elizabeth wondered if she had any deep feeling. She had expected to see
her "take on" terribly. Chilian begged her not to disturb the child's
faith that both parents were in heaven.
"Letty Orne, that was, might have been one of the elect, but sea
captains are seldom considered safe in the fold, as children of grace. I
never heard that he had any evidence. And 'tisn't safe to count on
meeting them unless you've had some sign."
"We must leave a good many of these things to God. His ways are better
than our short-sighted wisdom."
Elizabeth was never quite sure of Chilian. So much study, and reading,
and college talk, and the new theories, and what they called
discoveries, were enough to unsettle one's faith, and she feared for
him. Younger children than Cynthia had gone through the throes of
conviction--she had herself, and she longed to see her in this state.
But the child was quite her olden self. What with the change of climate
and her illness she was many shades fairer, and her hair was losing its
queer sunburned color. Her thin frame began to fill out, her face grew
rounder, and her smile was sweetness itself.
"But she hasn't grown a mite since she came. Leverett people are all of
a fair size. I don't know a little runt among them," persisted
Elizabeth.
"I wish I could grow," she sighed in confidence to Chilian.
"Never mind. Then you will always be my little girl," he would answer
consolingly.
CHAPTER IX
LESSONS OF LIFE
Even Chilian wondered that the little girl took the death of her father
so calmly. Elizabeth called it unnatural and questioned whether the
child had any deep feeling.
"I don't believe she's shed a tear. And, Eunice, the child ought to go
in black."
The child was trying to get used to changed ideas. If her mother was
glad and happy, now that they were again united, why should she be
sorry? It seemed selfish to her as if she grudged them the joy. And
Cousin Chilian was trying every way to entertain her, to help her on to
perfect recovery. Sometimes, when she sat alone in the study, the soft
eyes would overflow and the tears course silently down her cheeks. She
never cried in the tempestuous way of some children. But she knew now
she had counted a good deal on their having a home together. Rachel
would keep the house and she and her father would take walks and have a
garden, where she could cut flowers and have them in the house. Cousin
Elizabeth said they made a litter. And now she should never go down to
the wharf and see him standing on the deck, and wave her hand to him,
as she used when he went on short journeys in India. They would have a
low carry-all and ride around, as she would tell him all she had learned
about Salem. And they would have people in to drink tea and have pretty
dishes on the table. Perhaps he would give her a party. But she didn't
know any children, except the Uphams. It might be better to go to school
so that she could get acquainted.
Chilian was a good deal startled about the black garments.
"She is so little and thin," he objected. "I never did like children in
black; it seems as if you weighted them down with woe. And he has been
dead so many months now."
"But one ought to pay decent respect to a custom sanctioned by all
civilized people. There will be a talk about it. Folks may think it our
fault."
"I do not believe half a dozen people would notice it. It's only a
custom after all. I never did like it. We will see how she feels about
it."
"Chilian, you make that child of as much importance as if she was a
woman grown. You will have your hands full by and by. She will think
every one must bow down to her and consult her whims and fancies."
"We will see;" nodding indifferently.
He didn't want her around in garments of woe. Very gently he mentioned
the subject.
She glanced up out of sweet, entreating eyes. She had been standing by
him, looking over a very choice book of engravings.
"Yes," she returned. "Rachel spoke of it. And you know there are some
people who wear white, and some who put on yellow. Black isn't a nice
color. Do you like it?"
He shook his head.
"It is the inside of me that aches now and then, when I think I shall
never see him come sailing back, that I must be a long while without him
until I go to their land. But he must be very happy with mother, and
that is what I think of when I feel how hard it is;" and the tears stole
softly down her cheeks. "I have Rachel and you, and he said you would
always love me and care for me. But I try not to feel sorry, and if I
had on a black frock I couldn't help but think of it all the time. Then
I should be sorry inside and outside both, and is it right to make
yourself unhappy when you believe people have gone to heaven?"
She said it so simply that he was deeply moved. She had been alone with
her sorrow all this time, when they had thought her indifferent.
"You need not wear black--I wish you would not. I want you to get real
well and happy. And you are a brave little girl to think of them and
refrain from grief."
She wiped away the tears lest they should fall on the book.
"At first it was quite dreadful to me. I couldn't say anything. Then I
remembered how we used to talk of mother, as if she was only in the next
room. And then I sit here and think, when the sky is such a splendid
blue and there come little white rifts in it, as if somewhere it opened,
I can almost see them. Can't people come back for a few moments?"
"Only in dreams, I imagine."
"I can _almost_ see them. And they are so glad to be together. And I
know father says, 'Cynthia will come by and by.' But twenty years, or
thirty years, is a long while to wait."
Perhaps she wouldn't need to wait so long, he thought, as he noted the
transparent face.
"And now I should be sorry to go away from you," she said, with grave
sweetness.
"I think your father meant you should stay a long while with me when he
gave you to me;" and he pressed her closer to his heart.
So she did not wear mourning, to Elizabeth's very real displeasure.
There was no further talk about the school, but she did try to sew a
little and began the sampler. Cousin Eunice was her guide here. She
brought out hers that was over fifty years old, and all the colors were
fading.
"I wonder if I shall live fifty years," she mused.
Driving about was her great entertainment. You could go to Marblehead,
which was a peninsula. There were the fishery huts and the men curing
and drying fish. Sometimes they took passage in one of the numerous
sailing vessels and went in and out the irregular shore, and saw Boston
from the bay. It seemed in those times as if it might get drowned out,
there was so much water around it.
"And if it should float off out to sea, some day," she half inquired,
laughingly.
He was glad to hear her soft, sweet laugh again.
She thought she liked Salem best, and even now people began to talk of
old Salem, there had been so many improvements since the time Governor
Bradford had written:
"Almost ten years we lived here alone,--
In other places there were few or none;
For Salem was the next of any fame
That began to augment New England's name."
And then it went by the old Indian name and was called Naumkeag. And she
found that it was older than Boston, and had been the seat of government
twice, and that Governor Burnett, finding Boston unmanageable, had
convened the General Court here for two years. That was in 1728, and now
it was 1800.
"But no one lives a hundred years," she said.
"Oh, yes; there are a number of persons who have lived that long. Now
and then a person lives in three centuries, is born the last year of
one, goes through a whole century, and dies in the next one."
"What a long, long while!" she sighed.
And there was the old Court House where the Stamp Act was denounced. She
wanted to know all about that, and he was fond of explaining things,
the sort of teacher habit, but there was nothing dogmatic about it. Here
were houses where the Leveretts had lived, third or fourth cousins who
had married with the Graingers, and the Lyndes, and the Saltonstalls,
and the Hales. It is so in the course of a hundred or two years, when
emigration does not come in to disturb the purity of the blood.
The little girl really began to improve. Her hair was taking on a
brighter tint and in the warm weather the uneven ends curled about her
forehead in dainty rings, her complexion was many shades fairer, her
cheeks rounded out, and her chin began to show the cleft in it. She was
more like her olden self, quite merry at times.
The summer went on as usual. Gardening, berry-picking, and she helped
with the gooseberries, the briery vines she did not like. There were
jars of jam and preserves, rose leaves to gather, and all the mornings
were crowded full. Often in the afternoon she went up in the garret to
see Miss Eunice spin--sometimes on the big wheel, at others with flax on
the small wheel. She liked the whirring sound, and it was a mystery to
her how the thread came out so fine and even.
Elizabeth had taken the white quilt out of its wrappings, it did not get
finished the summer before. A neighbor had let her copy a new pattern
for the border that had come from New York. And she heard there had
been imported white woven quilts with wonderful figures in them.
"Then one wouldn't have to quilt any more. Shan't you be glad, Cousin
Elizabeth?"
"Glad!" She gave a kind of snort and pushed the needle into her finger,
and had to stop lest a drop of blood might mar the whiteness. "Well, I'm
not as lazy as that comes to, and I don't see how they can put much
beauty in them. You can change blue and white and show a pattern, but
where it is all white! Why, you couldn't tell it from a tablecloth."
It was warm up in the garret, and what with drying herbs, and the sun
pouring on the shingles, there was a rather close, peculiar air. Cynthia
stood by the open window, where the sweet summer wind went by, laden
with the fragrance of newly cut grasses and the silk of the corn that
was just tasselling out. The hills rose up, tree-crowned; white clouds
floated by overhead, and out beyond was the great ocean that led to
other countries--to India she thought of so often.
Oh, how the birds sang! She was so sorry Cousin Eunice had to sit and
spin, when there was such a beautiful world all around, and Cousin
Elizabeth pricked her fingers quilting. She heard her sigh, but she did
not dare look around. She had that nice sense of delicacy, rather
unusual in a child. But then she wasn't an everyday child.
"Cynthia," called Rachel from the foot of the stairs, "don't you want to
go out for a walk? They've been unloading the _Mingo_, and they have a
store of new things at the Merrits'."
That was the great East India emporium.
"Oh, yes!" She skipped across the floor and ran downstairs lightly.
"That child's like a whirlwind," exclaimed Elizabeth crossly.
"But we ought to be glad she's so much better. I was really afraid in
the spring we wouldn't have her long."
"Oh, the Leverett stock is tough."
"But her mother died young."
"Of that horrid India fever. No, I didn't truly think she would die. If
she had, I wonder where all the money would go? Chilian is awful
close-mouthed about it. But it would have to go somewhere. 'Tisn't at
all likely he'd leave word for it to be thrown back in the sea."
"No; oh, no."
"There's some talk about missionaries going out to try to convert the
heathen. But Giles thinks it would cost more than it would amount to.
Giles has got way off; seems to me religion's dying out since they've
begun to preach easy ways of getting to heaven and letting the bars down
here and there. There's no struggle and sense of conviction nowadays;
you just take it up as a business. And that child talks about heaven as
if she'd had a glimpse of it and saw her father and mother there. Letty
Orne was a church member in her younger days, but I don't believe the
captain ever was. And they who don't repent will surely perish."
Eunice sighed. She could never get used to the thought that thousands of
souls were brought into the world to perish eternally.
Cynthia tied on her Leghorn hat. It did have some black ribbon on it,
and the strings were passed under her chin and tied at one side. That
and her silken gown gave her a quaint appearance, rather striking as
well.
They walked down the street and turned corners. There was quite a
procession of ladies bound for the same place. If they had been all
buyers, Mr. Merrit would have made quite a fortune. But he was glad to
have them come. They would describe the stock to their neighbors, and
perhaps decide on what they wanted for themselves.
"Ah, Miss Winn!" exclaimed a pleasant-faced woman. "And that is Captain
Leverett's little girl? Why, she looks as if she was quite well again.
We heard of her being so poorly. I suppose the shock of her father's
death was dreadful! Poor little thing! And she's to be quite an heiress,
I heard. What are they going to do with her? Won't she be sent to Boston
to school?"
"Oh, I think not. Mr. Leverett has been teaching her a little."
They had fairly to elbow their way in. Long counters were piled with
goods. Silks, laces, sheerest of muslins embroidered beautifully, lace
wraps, India shawls, jewelry, caps, collars, handkerchiefs, stockings,
slippers that were dainty enough for a Cinderella.
And all down one side were ranged tables, and jars, and vases, and
articles one could hardly find a name for. Such exquisite carving, such
odd figures painted and embroidered on silk, birds the like of which
were never seen on land or sea, dragons that flew, and crawled, and
climbed trees, and disported themselves on waves.
"Oh, it looks like home," cried Cynthia, for the moment forgetting
herself. And she kept sauntering round among the beautiful things, her
heart growing strangely light, and her pulses throbbing with a sort of
joy.
She was almost hidden by a great pile of tapestry. The Indians had found
some secrets of beauty as well as France, if they did make it with
infinite pains. And this was made with the little hand-looms and joined
together so neatly and the colors blended so harmoniously that it was
like a dream. Only the little girl did not like the dragons and strange
animals. She had never seen any real ones like them. They were in the
stories Nalla used to tell.
Then some one else spoke to Miss Winn. "Is your little charge here?" she
asked. "I'm quite anxious to see her. I've called twice on the
Leveretts, and really asked for her once when they said she was quite
ill. But I saw her out in the carriage with--isn't it her uncle? No?
And she's to be very well to do, I've heard. The idea of the Leverett
women undertaking to bring up a child! They're good as gold and some of
the best housekeepers in Salem, but I dare say they'll teach her to knit
stockings, and make bedquilts, and braid rag mats, and do fifty-year-old
things--make a regular little Puritan of her. I knew her mother quite
well before she was married. Doesn't seem as if we were near of an age
and went to school together. But some of the Ornes married in our line.
And I was married when I was seventeen, and now I'm a grandmother. How
the years do fly on! And she had to die out in that heathen land; he
too. Wasn't it odd about sending her here beforehand? I do want to see
her."
"She is somewhere about, interested in all these foreign things." Miss
Winn was not quite sure of the chattering woman. She had learned that
the Leverett ladies were exclusive, whether from inclination or lack of
time. They asked their minister and a few old family friends in to tea
on rare occasions, and then it was cooking and baking and cleaning up
the choice old silver and dusting and polishing, and the next day
clearing up. Everything out of the routine made so much extra work.
Among the few English-speaking people in India there had been a sort of
free and easy sociability.
Cynthia meanwhile had slipped around the end of the counter and came up
to them. She wanted to see the woman who had been to school with her
mother. Then her mother was a little girl, perhaps no older than she.
Did she like it? Cynthia wondered.
"This is Captain Leverett's little daughter," Rachel announced rather
stiffly.
"My--but you don't favor your mother at all. I'm Mrs. Turner and I knew
her off and on. We lived about thirty miles above here. Then her folks
died and she went to Boston, but she used to be at the Leveretts' a good
deal. I married and came here. I'm living up North River way and have a
house full of children--like steps--and one grandchild, and I'm just on
the eve of thirty-seven. I've one little girl about your age, but she's
ever so much bigger. I'd like you to be friends with her. The next older
is a girl, too. Why, you'd have real nice times if the old aunties were
willing. Do they keep her strict? And she's going to be a considerable
heiress, I heard. I wonder where her eyes came from? They're not
Leverett eyes, and her mother's were a clear blue, real china blue, but
then there's different blues in china," and she laughed. "Sad about the
captain, wasn't it? He should have lived to enjoy his fortune, and now
his little girl will have it all. I must come and scrape acquaintance
for the sake of my girls. You'd like them, I know, they're full of fun.
We're not strait-laced people--that's going out of date."
Then she passed on. They wandered about a little more among the vases
and jars and the paintings on silk. The air was heavy with sandalwood,
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