CHAPTER X.
The atmosphere of my two lives was so different, that when I passed into one, the other ceased to affect me. I forgot all that I suffered and hated at Miss Black's, as soon as I crossed the threshold, and entered grand'ther's house. The difference kept up a healthy mean; either alone would perhaps have been more than I could then have sustained. All that year my life was narrowed to that house, my school, and the church. Father offered to take me to ride, when he came to Barmouth, or carry me to Milford; but the motion of the carriage, and the conveying power of the horse, created such a fearful and realizing sense of escape, that I gave up riding with him. Aunt Mercy seldom left home; my schoolmates did not invite me to visit them; the seashore was too distant for me to ramble there; the storehouses and wharves by the river-side offered no agreeable saunterings; and the street, in Aunt Mercy's estimation, was not the place for an idle promenade. My exercise, therefore, was confined to the garden—a pleasant spot, now that midsummer had come, and inhabited with winged and crawling creatures, with whom I claimed companionship, especially with the red, furry caterpillars, that have, alas, nearly passed away, and given place to a variegated, fantastic tribe, which gentleman farmers are fond of writing about.
Mother rode over to Barmouth occasionally, but seemed more glad when she went away than when she came. Veronica came with her once, but said she would come no more while I was there. She too would wait till the end of the year, for I spoiled the place. She said this so calmly that I never thought of being offended by it. I told her the episode of the pink calico. "It is a lovely color," she said, when I showed it to her. "If you like, I will take it home and burn it."
As I developed the dramatic part of my story—the blow given Charlotte
Alden, Verry rubbed her face shrinkingly, as if she had felt the blow.
"Let me see your hand," she asked; "did I ever strike anybody?"
"You threw a pail of salt downstairs, once, upon my head, and put out my sight."
"I wish, when you are home, you would pound Mr. Park; he talks too much about the Resurrection. And," she added mysteriously, "he likes mother."
"Likes mother!" I said aghast.
"He watches her so when she holds Arthur! Why do you stare at me? Why do I talk to you? I am going. Now mind, I shall never leave home to go to any school; I shall know enough without."
While Veronica was holding this placable talk with me, I discovered in her the high-bred air, the absence of which I deplored in myself.
How cool and unimpressionable she looked! She did not attract me then. My mind wandered to what I had heard Mary Bennett say, in recess one day, that her brother had seen me in church, and came home with the opinion that I was the handsomest girl in Miss Black's school.
"Is it possible!" replied the girl to whom she had made the remark. "I never should think of calling her pretty."
"Stop, Veronica," I called; "am I pretty?" She turned back. "Everybody in Surrey says so; and everybody says I am not." And she banged the door against me.
She did not come to Barmouth again. She was ill in the winter, and, father told me, queerer than ever, and more trouble. The summer passed, and I had no particular torment, except Miss Black's reference to composition. I could not do justice to the themes she gave us, not having the books from which she took them at command, and betrayed an ignorance which excited her utmost contempt, on "The Scenery of Singapore," "The Habits of the Hottentots," and "The Relative Merits of Homer and Virgil."
In October Sally and Ruth Aiken came for the fall sewing. They had farmed it all summer, they said, and were tanned so deep a hue that their faces bore no small resemblance to ham. Ruth brought me some apples in an ochre-colored bag, and Sally eyed me with her old severity. As they took their accustomed seats at the table, I thought they had swallowed the interval of time which had gone by since they left, so precisely the same was the moment of their leaving and that of their coming back. I knew grand'ther no better than when I saw him first. He was sociable to those who visited the house, but never with those abiding in his family. Me he never noticed, except when I ate less than usual; then he peered into my face, and said, "What ails you?" We had the benefit of his taciturn presence continually, for he rarely went out; and although he did not interfere with Aunt Mercy's work, he supervised it, weighed and measured every article that was used, and kept the cellar and garden in perfect order.
It was approaching the season of killing the pig, and he conferred often with Aunt Mercy on the subject. The weather was watched, and the pig poked daily, in the hope that the fat was thickening on his ribs. When the day of his destiny arrived, there was almost confusion in the house, and for a week after, of evenings, grand'ther went about with a lantern, and was not himself till a new occupant was obtained for the vacant pen, and all his idiosyncracies revealed and understood.
"Grand'ther," I asked, "will the beautiful pigeons that live in the pig's roof like the horrid new pig?"
"Yes," he answered, briskly rubbing his hands, "but they eat the pig's corn; and I can't afford that; I shall have to shoot them, I guess."
"Oh, don't, grand'ther."
"I will this very day. Where's the gun, Mercy?"
In an hour the pigeons were shot, except two which had flown away.
"Why did you ask him not to shoot the pigeons?" said Aunt Mercy. "If you had said nothing, he would not have done, it."
"He is a disagreeable relation," I answered, "and I am glad he is a tailor."
Aunt Mercy reproved me; but the loss of the pigeons vexed her. Perhaps grand'ther thought so, for that night he asked after her geraniums, and told her that a gardener had promised him some fine slips for her. She looked pleased, but did not thank him. There was already a beautiful stand of flowers in the middle room, which was odorous the year round with their perfume.
The weather was now cold, and we congregated about the fire; for there was no other comfortable room in the house. One afternoon, when I was digging in Aunt Mercy's geranium pots, and picking off the dead leaves, two deacons came to visit grand'ther, and, hovering over the fire with him, complained of the lukewarmness of the church brethren in regard to the spiritual condition of the Society. A shower of grace was needed; there were reviving symptoms in some of the neighboring churches, but none in Barmouth. Something must be done—a fast day appointed, or especial prayer-meetings held. This was on Saturday; the next day the ceremony of the Lord's Supper would take place, and grand'ther recommended that the minister should be asked to suggest something to the church which might remove it from its hardness.
"Are the vessels scoured, Mercy?" he asked, after the deacons had gone.
"I have no sand."
He presently brought her a biggin of fine white sand, which brought the shore of Surrey to my mind's eye. I followed her as she carried it to the well-room, where I saw, on the meal-chest, two large pewter plates, two flagons of the same metal, and a dozen or more cups, some of silver, and marked with the owner's name. They were soon cleaned. Then she made a fire in the oven, and mixed loaves in a peculiar shape, and launched them into the oven. She watched the bread carefully, and took it out before it had time to brown.
"This work belongs to the deacons' wives," she said; "but it has been done in this house for years. The bread is not like ours—it is unleavened."
Grand'ther carried it into the church after she had cut it with a sharp knife so that at the touch it would fall apart into square bits. When the remains were brought back, I went to the closet, where they were deposited, and took a piece of the bread, eating it reflectively, to test its solemnizing powers. I felt none, and when Aunt Mercy boiled the remnants with milk for a pudding, the sacred ideality of the ceremony I had seen at church was destroyed for me.
Was it a pity that my life was not conducted on Nature's plan, who shows us the beautiful, while she conceals the interior? We do not see the roots of her roses, and she hides from us her skeletons.
November passed, with its Thanksgiving—the sole day of all the year which grand'ther celebrated, by buying a goose for dinner, which goose was stewed with rye dumplings, that slid over my plate like glass balls. Sally and Ruth betook themselves to their farm, and hybernated. December came, and with it a young woman named Caroline, to learn the tailor's trade. Lively and pretty, she changed our atmosphere. She broke the silence of the morning by singing the "Star-spangled Banner," or the "Braes of Balquhither," and disturbed the monotony of the evenings by making molasses candy, which grand'ther ate, and which seemed to have a mollifying influence. Grand'ther kept his eye on Caroline; but his eye had no disturbing effect. She had no perception of his character; was fearless with him, and went contrary to all his ideas, and he liked her for it. She even reproved him for keeping such a long face. Her sewing, which was very bad, tried his patience so, that if it had not been for her mother, who was a poor widow, he would have given up the task of teaching her the trade. She said she knew she couldn't learn it; what was the use of trying? She meant to go West, and thought she might make a good home-missionary, as she did, for she married a poor young man, who had forsaken the trade of a cooper, to study for the ministry, and was helped off to Ohio by the Society of Home Missions. She came to see me in Surrey ten years afterward, a gaunt, hollow-eyed woman, of forbidding manners, and an implacable faith in no rewards or punishments this side of the grave.
I suffered so from the cold that December that I informed mother of the fact by letter. She wrote back:
"My child, have courage. One of these days you will feel a tender pity, when you think of your mother's girlhood. You are learning how she lived at your age. I trembled at the prosperity of your opening life, and believed it best for you to have a period of contrast. I thought you would, by and by, understand me better than I do myself; for you are not like me, Cassy, you are like your father. You shall never go back to Barmouth, unless you wish it. Dear Cassy, do you pray any? I send you some new petticoats, and a shawl. Does Mercy warm the bed for you? Your affectionate Mother."
I dressed and undressed in Aunt Mercy's room, which was under the roof, with benumbed fingers. My hair was like the coat of a cow in frosty weather; it was so frowzy, and so divided against itself, that when I tried to comb it, it streamed out like the tail of a comet. Aunt Mercy discovered that I was afflicted with chilblains, and had a good cry over them, telling me, at the same moment, that my French slippers were the cause. We had but one fire in the house, except the fire in the shop, which was allowed to go down at sunset. Sometimes I found a remaining warmth in the goose, which had been left in the ashes, and borrowed it for my stiffened fingers. I did not get thoroughly warm all day, for the fire in the middle room, made of green wood, was continually in the process of being stifled with a greener stick, as the others kindled. The school-room was warm; but I had a back seat by a window, where my feet were iced by a current, and my head exposed to a draught. In January I had so bad an ague that I was confined at home a week. But I grew fast in spite of all my discomforts. Aunt Mercy took the tucks out of my skirts, and I burst out where there were no tucks. I assumed a womanly shape. Stiff as my hands were, and purple as were my arms, I could see that they were plump and well shaped. I had lost the meagerness of childhood and began to feel a new and delightful affluence. What an appetite I had, too!
"The creature will eat us out of house and home," said grand'ther one day, looking at me, for him good-humoredly.
"Well, don't shoot me, as you shot the pigeons."
"Pah, have pigeons a soul?"
In February the weather softened, and a great revival broke out. It was the dullest time of the year in Barmouth. The ships were at sea still, and the farmers had only to fodder their cattle, so that everybody could attend the protracted meeting. It was the same as Sunday at our house for nine days. Miss Black, in consequence of the awakening, dismissed the school for two weeks, that the pupils might profit in what she told us was The Scheme of Salvation.
Caroline was among the first converts. I observed her from the moment I was told she was under Conviction, till she experienced Religion. She sang no more of mornings, and the making of molasses candy was suspended in the evenings. I thought her less pleasing, and felt shy of holding ordinary conversations with her, for had she not been set apart for a mysterious work? I perceived that when she sewed between meetings her work was worse done than ever; but grand'ther made no mention of it. I went with Aunt Mercy to meetings three times a day, and employed myself in scanning the countenances around me, curious to discover the first symptoms of Conviction.
One night when grand'ther came in to prayers, he told Aunt Mercy that Pardon Hitch was awfully distressed in mind, in view of his sins. She replied that he was always a good man.
"As good as any unregenerate man can be."
"I might as well be a thorough reprobate then," I thought, "like Sal
Thompson, who seems remarkably happy, as to try to behave as well as
Pardon Hitch, who is a model in Barmouth."
When we went to church the next morning, I saw him in one of the back pews, leaning against the rail, as if he had no strength. His face was full of anguish. He sat there motionless all day. He was prayed for, but did not seem to hear the prayers. At night his wife led him home. By the end of the third day, he interrupted an exhorting brother by rising, and uttering an inarticulate cry. We all looked. The tears were streaming down his pale face, which was lighted up by a smile of joy. He seemed like a man escaped from some great danger, torn, bruised, breathless, but alive. The minister left the pulpit to shake hands with him; the brethren crowded round to congratulate him, and the meeting broke up at once.
Neither grand'ther nor Aunt Mercy had spoken to me concerning my interest in Religion; but on that very evening Mr. Boold, the minister, came in to tea and asked me, while he was taking off his overcoat, if I knew that Christ had died for me? I answered that I was not sure of it.
"Do you read your Bible, child?"
"Every day."
"And what does it teach you?"
"I do not know."
"Miss Mercy, I will thank you for another cup. 'Now is the day, and now is the hour; come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest.'"
"But I do not want rest; I have no burden," I said.
"Cassandra," thundered grand'ther, "have you no respect for God nor man?"
"Have you read," went on the minister, "the memoir of Nathan Dickerman? A mere child, he realized his burden of sin in time, and died sanctified."
I thought it best to say no more. Aunt Mercy looked disturbed, and left the table as soon as she could with decency.
"Cassandra," she said, when we were alone, "what will become of you?"
"What will, indeed? You have always said that I was possessed. Why did you not explain this fact to Mr. Boold?"
She kissed me,—her usual treatment when she was perplexed.
The revival culminated and declined. Sixty new members were admitted into the church, and things settled into the old state. School was resumed; I found that not one of my schoolmates had met with a change, but Miss Black did not touch on the topic. My year was nearly out; March had come and gone, and it was now April. One mild day, in the latter part of the month, the girls went to the yard at recess. Charlotte Alden said pleasantly that the weather was fair enough for out-of-doors play, and asked if I would try the tilt. I gave a cordial assent. We balanced the board so that each could seat herself, and began to tilt slowly. As she was heavy, I was obliged to exert my strength to keep my place, and move her. She asked if I dared to go higher. "Oh yes, if you wish it." Happening to look round, I caught her winking at the girls near us, and felt that she was brewing mischief, but I had no time to dwell on it. She bore the end she was on to the ground with a sudden jerk, and I fell from the other, some eight feet, struck a stone, and fainted.
The next thing that I recollect was Aunt Mercy's carrying me across the street in her arms. She had seen my fall from the window. Reaching the house, she let me slide on the floor in a heap, and began to wring her hands and stamp her feet.
"I am not hurt, Aunt Mercy."
"You are nearly killed, you know you are. This is your last day at that miserable school. I am going for the doctor, as soon as you say you wont faint again."
Thus my education at Miss Black's was finished with a blow.
When Aunt Mercy represented to Miss Black that I was not to return to school, and that she feared I had not made the improvement that was expected, Miss Black asked, with hauteur, what had been expected—what my friends could expect. Aunt Mercy was intimidated, and retired as soon as she had paid her the last quarter's bills.
A week after my tournament with Charlotte Alden I went back to Surrey. There was little preparation to make—few friends to bid farewell. Ruth and Sally had emerged from their farm, and were sewing again at grand'ther's. Sally bade me remember that riches took to themselves wings and flew away; she hoped they had not been a snare to my mother; but she wasn't what she was, it was a fact.
"No, she isn't," Ruth affirmed. "Do you remember, Sally, when she came out to the farm once, and rode the white colt bare-back round the big meadow, with her hair flying?"
"Hold your tongue, Ruth."
Ruth looked penitent as she gave me a paper of hollyhock seeds, and said the flowers were a beautiful blood-red, and that I must plant them near the sink drain. Caroline had already gone home, so Aunt Mercy had nothing cheery but her plants and her snuff; for she had lately contracted the habit of snuff-taking but very privately.
"Train her well, Locke; she is skittish," said grand'ther as we got into the chaise to go home.
"Grand'ther, if I am ever rich enough to own a peaked-roof pig-sty, will you come and see me?"
"Away with you." And he went nimbly back to the house, chafing his little hands.