XXIX. JUDITH’S “FUTURE.”
“God never loved me in so sweet a way before:
’Tis he alone who can such blessings send:
And when his love would new expression find,
He brought thee to me, and he said, ‘Behold—a friend.’”
Exactly a month from the day Roger planned the Girl Papers for her, Judith knocked at the study door with her manuscript in her hand. She had written three papers; if he took sufficient interest in the first she would read the others.
Beside the education for herself she had another thought in writing them; she would send them to some child’s paper and earn money. She knew that Marion had never depended upon the parsonage for money; every month her father sent her a check; she had no father to send her a check. No money had come to her from her Cousin Don since his hurried marriage. Probably he considered her old enough to earn money for herself. It would be hard to tell Aunt Affy when she needed a dress, or shoes, or money, when she was not doing anything for Aunt Affy’s comfort.
Last Sunday she had no money for Sunday-school or church; she had no money for anything.
Her last story had been refused, and how she had cried over the refusal. It was even hard to laugh when Roger told her that Queen Victoria had sent an article to a paper under a “pen-name” and it had been “returned with thanks.” She wished she were a dressmaker like Agnes Trembly, or that she could go into a farmer’s kitchen, like Jean Draper’s sister Lottie, and earn money and not be ashamed.
“Come in,” called Roger from among his books.
Her eyes were suspiciously red, she was relieved that his back was toward her; he wheeled around in his chair as she seated herself, and looked as though he had nothing in the world to do but listen to her.
“Have you leisure to hear my Girl Papers?” she asked, with some embarrassment. “They are horrid. I tried an essay, and failed. It was stilted and stupid. I can make girls talk, so I threw my garnered information into a conversation. But you may not care for this style.”
“I can bear anything,” he said, making a comical effort at self-control.
After the first was read, with an inward quaking, she was delighted with his word of encouragement:
“Read the others; I cannot know how bad they are until you read them all.”
More hopefully she began the second paper, which she read in a clear, conversational tone:—
“Do you know,” began grandmother, “who said that she could be happy anywhere with good health and a bit of marble?”
And then we were all astir with eager interest.
“Rosa Bonheur was ‘happy anywhere’ with canvas, colors, and brush; and this girl loved marble just as well, and brought breathing life out of the cold marble, as Rosa brought it out on her canvas. But Harriet was an American child, born into a luxurious home, with no brothers or sisters, and her mother soon died and left her alone with her father. Her mother died with consumption, and her father had buried his other child besides Harriet with the same disease, so no wonder he was afraid for his little girl, and determined to give her a playful childhood in air and sunshine. Harriet Hosmer was born in Watertown, Mass., October 9th, 1830.”
“And now she’s older than you are, grandmother,” said Bess. “I like to know about when grandmothers were little girls.”
“But she and Rosa Bonheur are not grandmothers. They have had canvas and marble instead of a home with children and grandchildren in it. As soon as little Harriet was old enough a pet dog was given to her, and she ornamented it with ribbons and bells. Instead of tin cup and iron spoon, which Rosa had, she revelled in all the pretty things that children love. The River Charles ran past her home; her father gave her a boat and told her to take her air and sunshine on the water and learn to develop her muscles by the oars. And then he had built for her a Venetian gondola with velvet cushions and silver prow.
“‘She will be spoiled,’ the neighbors foreboded, but her wise father was not afraid; he knew how much happiness his child could bear and not be rendered selfish. The next thing to help her become strong was a gun; she soon became what your brothers would call a good shot. By and by you will know how strong her hands and arms became and what she could do with them. All this time, just as you are, girls, these common days, she was being made ready for her own special work.”
Juliet grew radiant. She was hoping for “special work.”
“Her room was a museum. Gathered and prepared by her own eager and wise hands she had beetles, snakes, bats, birds, stuffed or preserved in spirits. From the egg of a sea gull and the body of a kingfisher she made an ink-stand; she climbed to the top of a tree for a crow’s nest. Miles and miles she learned to walk without being wearied. In her work and habits and strength she was like a boy. She was fond of books, but just as fond of the clay-pit in her garden where, to her father’s delight as well as her own, she molded dogs and horses.
“When Harriet Hosmer was taken to a famous school (at home they called her ‘happy Hatty’) the teacher said: ‘I have a reputation for training wild colts; I will try this one.’ She stayed three years. On her return home she began to take lessons in drawing, modeling, and in anatomical studies, often walking fourteen miles to Boston and back, with hours of work and study. Was not that a day’s work? She went to the Medical College of St. Louis to take a thorough course in anatomy.”
“You have to know things to get things out of marble,” remarked Ethel.
“Grandmother, how hard girls can work!” exclaimed Nan, who did not love work.
“After she had finished her studies she traveled alone to New Orleans, and then north to the Falls of St. Anthony, smoking the pipe of peace with the chief of the Dakota Indians, explored lead mines in Dubuque, and scaled a high mountain to which her name was afterward given.”
“That was fun,” said Nan. “I’m glad she had some fun with her hard work.”
“After work in her studio at home her father sent her to Rome. Girl as she was, in her studio at home she wielded for eight or ten hours a day a leaden mallet weighing four pounds and a half. And it was then she told a friend that she would not be homesick, for she could be happy anywhere with good health and a bit of marble. For seven years she worked on her ‘bit of marble’ in Rome. She made beautiful and wonderful things with her good health and her marble, with hard work, and the insight into beauty that God, who makes all beautiful things, gave to this ready and obedient child.
“The first work she copied for her teacher was the Venus of Milo; when almost completed the iron, which held the clay firm, snapped, and all her work was spoiled.”
“Oh!” sighed Ethel.
“But she did not shriek nor cry herself to sleep (that anybody knew), but bravely went to work again. Her works were exhibited in Boston and much admired. Her teacher said he had never seen surpassed her genius of imitating the roundness and softness of flesh. Look at other marble statues and see if the flesh looks soft and round like Harriet’s. One of her works, a girl lying asleep, was exhibited in London and in several American cities. She said once she would work as though she had to earn her daily bread, and, strange to tell, very soon after that her father wrote that he had lost his property and could send her no more money. And then she hired a cheap room, sold her handsome saddle-horse, and went to work in reality to earn her daily bread. Her first work, in her time of sorrow, was a fun-loving, four-year-old child. With the several copies she made from it she earned for her daily bread thirty thousand dollars.”
“And oh! grandmother,” I said (for I am a poor girl myself), “when our heavenly Father has work for us to do, it doesn’t matter whether we are born poor or rich.”
“Either way it takes hard work,” said grandmother.
With a shy glance into his satisfied face she opened her third paper:—
“Children have more need of models than of critics,” said grandmother, “therefore I will give you another model to-night. You will think I am always choosing for you stories of girls that work; but where can I find models of any other kind? What do girls amount to who think only of their own pleasure, and never persevere to the successful end? Now I will tell you about a girl who came in womanhood to live in an observatory. This is her home. She is a dear old lady with white hair, dressed in gray or brown, in rather Quakerish fashion. She said to the girls she teaches: ‘All the clothing I have on cost but seventeen dollars.’ In this unusual home (she is not a grandmother, either), she keeps the things she loves best,—her books, her pictures, her astronomical clock, and a bust of Mary Somerville, of whom I will tell you some time.”
“And then we will remember that her bust is in somebody’s observatory home,” said Bess.
“It is not a wonder that Maria Mitchell has great respect for girls who do something, and for idle girls none at all. As Juliet was at Nantucket last summer she will be interested to know that Maria Mitchell was born in that quiet, delightful place. She was in a home of ten children. Her mother was a Quaker girl, a descendant of Benjamin Franklin. Her father was a school teacher. Little Maria went to school to her father. At school she studied, and with ten little people at home, what do you think she did? She herself calls her work, ‘endless washing of dishes.’ The dishwashing never hindered. I think it helped. I believe in dishwashing. I wonder what this little girl would have thought of the dishwasher that some people have in their kitchens, and is warranted to wash sixty-five dishes (in the smaller affair) at once, in the soap-sudsy, steamy, crank-turning space of three blessed minutes. And all dried, too. But in her observatory she had no need to think of dishwashing. Like Rosa Bonheur, and Harriet Hosmer, she had a good father and a wise father. When he was eight years old his father called him to the door to look at the planet Saturn, and from that time the boy calculated his age from the position of the planet, year by year.”
“Then it began with her grandfather,” said Juliet, who liked to find the beginnings of things.
“Her father had a little observatory of his own, on his own land, that he might study the stars. So it is no marvel that his daughter is ending her useful days in a big observatory. When Maria went to her observatory, her father was seventy years of age; he needed her as nurse and companion, but he said, ‘Go, and I will go with you.’”
“This is the loveliest story of all,” exclaimed Grace, who loves her own old father dearly.
“For four years her father lived to be proud of her, and enjoyed her work and her pupils at Vassar College. When Maria was a girl her father could see no reason why she should not become as well educated as his boys, so he gave her, as to them, a special drill in navigation.”
“Grandmother,” asked Ethel, “did you know all these little girls when they were little?”
“No, darling,” said grandmother, “I found out about them in books. And telling you about the girls is getting you ready to read about them all the little things the world has a right to know. For they belong to the whole world. Maria did not learn fancy work. I can guess what she would say of some girls who care more for fancy stitches than for studies. She has said, ‘A woman might be learning seven languages while she is learning fancy work.’ Still, girls, educate your fingers, and make your homes pretty and attractive. But don’t let stitches hinder the stars—God has his place for both.”
“Yes, the women worked pretty things for the Tabernacle,” I said. (For I love to make pretty things.)
“But she did know how to knit, and she knit stockings a yard long for her father as long as he lived. She studied while she knit, as I used to do when I was a little girl. When she was a little girl how she did read! Before she was ten years old she read through Rollin’s Ancient History.
“One night in October, 1847, she was gazing through her telescope, and what do you think she saw? An unknown comet. She was afraid it was an old story. Frederick VI., King of Denmark, sixteen years before, had offered a gold medal to the person who should discover a telescopic comet. And the little Nantucket girl, who had knitted stockings a yard long, and washed endless dishes, discovered the telescopic comet, and to her was awarded the gold medal. And now the scientific journals announced Miss Mitchell’s comet. In England she was eagerly welcomed by Sir John and Lady Herschel, and Alexander Von Humboldt took her beside him on a sofa and talked to her about everybody he knew and everything he knew. And, oh! the other great people who were glad to see her. She saw in Rome Frederika Bremer, of whose comical, interesting, sad girlhood I must tell you some day. But I musn’t forget the little house Maria bought for her father before she went to the observatory of Vassar College. It cost sixteen hundred and fifty dollars, and she saved the money out of her yearly salary of one hundred dollars, and what she could earn in government work.”
“I don’t think I mind washing dishes so much now,” declared Nan.
And we all laughed.
“Good,” exclaimed Judith’s listener. “Keep on with the dozen, and salt them down. When I Was a Boy series will be a good thing for you. Judith, honest, now, would you rather go away to school this winter, or read and write with Marion and me?”
“Study with you,” was the quick decision; “I can think of nothing in the world I would like so well.”
“Then that is settled,” he replied with satisfaction; “I feared you would be restless. You are at the frisky and restless age. Marion was sure you would not be.”
“But—” Judith hesitated and colored painfully, “if I am to teach by and by, would it be better for me to go to school? I can borrow the money and then earn it by teaching and repay Aunt Affy.”
“We are not making a teacher of you; we are making an educated woman—”
“But, Roger,” she persisted, “unless I go back to Aunt Affy I must support myself. I am not willing to be dependent upon any one except Aunt Affy.”
“Upon whom are you dependent now? Are you not earning your board by being co-operative housekeeper?”
“If you and Marion think so.”
“Ask Marion.”
“But I would like to ask you, too?”
“I thought my little sister had more delicacy of feeling than to ask such a question.”
“Roger, don’t be a goose,” she said, indignantly, “that was all very well when I was a child. You forget that I am grown up.”
“You will not let me forget it.”
“I wish you not to forget it. In the spring, on my nineteenth birthday, I shall decide upon my future. Just think, I have a future,” she laughed. “I am only too glad of the study and music this winter. Then I shall go out into the world, or go back to Aunt Affy. I do not mean to be too proud—” with a quiver of the lip.
“Only just proud enough. You are exactly that. Let us live in peace this winter, and then your nineteenth birthday may do its worst for us all.”
“You will not be serious,” she answered, with vexed tears; “my life is a great deal to me.”
“It is a great deal to us all, dear. Work and be patient, and you will have as happy an ending as any story you write.”
“My children end as children,” she said, with a quick laugh. “I shouldn’t know what to do with them if they grew up.”
“There is One who does know what to do with his children when they grow up,” said Roger, bending as he stood beside her and touching her lips with his own. It was the first time he had ever kissed her. She took the kiss as gravely and simply as it was given. Something was sealed between them. She would never be proud with him again.
“I will not kiss you again,” said Roger to himself, “until you promise to be my wife.”
That afternoon Roger asked Marion to drive to Meadow Centre.
“I am glad you did not ask Judith,” replied Marion, with something in her voice.
“Why not?” he asked, indignantly, “why shouldn’t I ask Judith to drive with me?”
“My point was not driving with you, but driving to Meadow Centre.”
“I confess I do not understand you.”
“I knew you didn’t. Men are blind creatures.”
“Then open the eyes of one blind creature.”
“Haven’t you seen that Mr. King is interested in Judith?” she asked, somewhat impatiently.
“We are all interested in Judith.”
“Not just as he is. You are not,” looking straight into his frank, smiling eyes.
“You don’t mean—”
“Yes, I do mean—”
“What about her?” he asked with the color hot in his face. But Marion was a “blind creature” then and did not see.
“I don’t know about her. She isn’t grown up enough to think. But I know he is wonderfully attractive to her.”
“He’s a good fellow. I will not stand in his way.”
“For pity’s sake, Roger, don’t think you must do anything,” cried Marion, dismayed; “let her alone. He will take care of himself.”
“I shall certainly let her alone. He is so artless that he will be taken care of. It is like him to stumble into the best thing in the universe and then wonder how he ever got it.”
“I hope you don’t call Meadow Centre one of the best things,” retorted Marion.
“It’s a good place for a man to make something of himself; he is writing sermons that will make a stir somewhere. Meadow Centre is to him what Paul’s three years in Arabia were to him.”
“Then we must do our best to make Judith ready—”
“What a plotter you are,” he exclaimed, angrily; then, more quietly: “But we will make Judith ready,” and he walked off with a laugh that was a mixture of things.
This day, in which God’s daily bread and his daily will were given to Judith as upon all the other days, was one of the very happiest days of her happy life.
Roger’s kiss gave her an undefined sense of safety and protection; if she were not wise enough to decide when the time came she would take refuge in that safety and protection, and—another kiss.
That evening Joe came for her, saying Aunt Rody was worse. She went home with him, and “watched” with Aunt Affy, until poor Aunt Rody passed away from the home she had toiled so unceasingly for and taken so little comfort in. One week she stayed with Aunt Affy: “I miss her so,” wept Aunt Affy broken-heartedly; “I never was in the world without her before.”
“I suppose we musn’t keep you, Judith,” Uncle Cephas remarked one evening behind his newspaper.
“Not yet,” said Judith. “I want to be as busy as a bee this winter to get ready for something.”
“Then we will have to adopt Joe; we must have some young thing about the house.”
Judith’s first words to Roger and Marion as they went out to welcome her on the piazza were in a burst: “I do think those two old people growing old together is the loveliest thing I ever saw.”
“How young must two people begin to grow old together?” inquired Roger, comically.
“As soon as they think about growing old,” said Marion.
“Then I will not begin to think until my birthday,” said Judith. “Marion, I am too happy in having two homes. Some better girl than I should have them.”
“You forget your third home in England,” remarked Roger, seriously.
“Oh, poor Don. Roger, I am afraid Don isn’t happy,” she said, with slow emphasis.
What Roger thought he did not say.
Don’s letters were brief, constrained; Judith’s letter to her “new, dear Cousin Florence” had met with no response—that Judith knew.