THE NEEDLE IN THE HAYMOW.
A STORY FOR HOUSEKEEPERS.
BY H. D. R.
"YOU must have help, that is certain," said Mr. Harding, as he laid a letter which he had been reading upon the breakfast-table, and began to sip his coffee. "With all this company upon your hands, and warm weather coming on, it would be madness for you to try to get along alone."
"That is true," sighed Mrs. Harding; "but the question is, where to get it. The whole vicinity has been searched over and over, and there is not a girl to be had."
"One must be had," replied her husband, in a determined tone. "Eight or ten visitors, more or less, for the summer, will kill you outright." And he cast a troubled glance at the pale face and slender form of his wife.
"Well, how shall we get help, then?" asked Mrs. Harding, half laughing in the midst of her vexation. "The days are gone by when girls apply for places."
"Yes, there is no way but to go after them. If my troublesome rheumatism would just leave me for a few days, you should have two girls. But as it is, wife, I see no way but for you to go yourself with Walter for driver."
Mrs. Harding laughed to think how she would look driving about the country for "help," and would almost have preferred to try her hand alone; but her husband's troubled countenance and the necessities of the case decided her, and she said—
"I have almost no faith in the undertaking, but am willing to try, and if I fail I shall be no worse off than now. But where shall I go?"
Mr. Harding thought a moment, and then said—
"I have heard that there are girls enough on Seccombe Plains."
"How far is that?"
"Only twelve or fifteen miles. It is only four or five miles from Cousin Harriman's."
"Oh, that will be nice!" exclaimed Mrs. Harding, well pleased with the suggestion. "I will spend the night with Cousin Clarissa, and start from there in the morning."
After dinner, the same day, Walter brought the carriage round to the door, and Mrs. Harding started off, infinitely amused with her errand, though with no very sanguine hopes of success.
The next morning, Mrs. Harriman gave her guests an early breakfast, and by seven o'clock they were ready to commence their search. It was a lovely morning in early June. The sun had not been up long enough to kiss the glistening dew from the grass, and the thousand songsters of grove and forest had not quite finished their matin song. Everything looked bright with hope; and hope beat higher, a great deal higher in Mrs. Harding's breast than it had done the day before. The whole world looked so beautiful that it seemed almost wicked to doubt, and they rode on over the retired hills towards Seccombe Plains, feeling almost as sure of the "bird" as though they had her "in hand."
After riding two or three miles, they approached a small unpainted cottage which stood upon a very high bank upon the right. A single glance showed them that two or three men were at the back door, evidently just starting for the fields.
"Stop when you get against the house, Walter; I mean to inquire here," said Mrs. Harding, as they drew near. But the next moment two of the men disappeared round the corner of the shed, while the third, a very oily-looking man, with an enormous width of collar, came leisurely along in front of the house.
"Do you know where I could find a girl to do housework, sir?" asked Mrs. Harding, leaning forward in her carriage, and addressing the man.
"Wal, yes," said he of the broad collar; "I've got a darter'd be glad to go; but she ain't to home. She went to work to the Falls last week, but she ain't a gwine to stay but three or four weeks. If she was to home, she'd be glad to go."
"Do you know of any others who go out?" said Mrs. Harding, who thought there was but little prospect of getting his daughter Sally.
"Not as I knows on," said Mr. of the broad collar. "You couldn't wait three or four weeks, I s'pose."
"No," was the reply; and she laid her hand upon Walter's arm, as a signal to drive on.
"We came pretty near getting a girl that time," said Walter, laughing.
"Quite as near as was best for us. It is well that Sally is gone, I dare say," replied his mother, with a smile.
Patient toiling brought them at last up a long, rugged hill, upon the other side of which spread out Seccombe Plains.
"Here is a house; shall we inquire here?" said Walter, pointing to a rude little house or hovel which stood upon the hill-top, upon a level spot which was covered with large granite boulders and unsightly brush.
"Yes," said his mother, as she espied a man coming round the corner of the house. "It can do no harm to inquire."
"Can you tell me of any girls in the vicinity who go out to work?" sang out Mrs. Harding to the slovenly-looking man, who had no idea of drawing nearer.
"What? I didn't hear."
The question was repeated, and the sound of a stranger's voice brought three or four barefooted, uncombed juveniles to the door, and the mother's head to the window.
"Can you tell this woman where she can find a gal to do housework?" said the man, addressing his better half.
"Why, yes; there's gals enough, but I can't seem to think on 'em," said the woman, with a perplexed look. "P'raps she could get one of Smithson's gals. He has got two that go out to work."
"Would they make good help?" asked Mrs. Harding.
"Fust rate. One on 'em worked for me a spell last winter, and she did well."
Mrs. Harding thought that was no great recommendation; but she simply thanked her, and asked if she could tell of any others.
"Wal, I don't think of any; but there's enough on 'em a leetle farther on, at Mapleton."
"How far is that?"
"Six miles beyond the Plains."
Mrs. Harding thanked her informer, and they drove on down the long steep hill, at the foot of which lay the insignificant village of Seccombe Plains.
"We have heard of one girl, mother," said Walter, looking very bright. "Perhaps she will be just the one for us."
"Perhaps so," said Mrs. Harding, doubtfully.
"We shall feel pretty grand if we can carry back a good girl."
Mrs. Harding laughed, and said something about "counting chickens before they were hatched;" but just then they found themselves at the foot of the long hill, and directly opposite a low farm-house, the mistress of which was out, broom in hand, sweeping the little footpath which led to the road.
Mrs. Harding inquired if she knew of any girls for housework.
"Where do you want 'em to go?" asked the woman, whose curiosity was at once awakened.
"Only about fifteen miles," was the evasive reply.
"Well, I don't know of any," replied the woman, looking a little disappointed. "I don't think there's such a thing to be had anywhere round here."
"I was told that Mr. Smithson has daughters who go out to work."
"Well, you couldn't git 'em, I know. They go a little right round here, but they wouldn't go off so far. Their folks wouldn't hear a word to 't," said the woman, with a flourish of her broom.
"Will you have the kindness to tell me where they live? I think I will try them."
"Oh, yes, I'll do that! You must go back to the saddler's shop, and then turn square round to your left, and it is the first house on the right."
"How far is it?"
"I should say about a mile and a half, or such a matter. It's the third house on the right."
Mrs. Harding expressed her thanks, and old Dobbin was whirled round the corner instanter, and they were in full pursuit of the Smithsons.
"Here's the house, mother; this is the third," said Walter, as they came in sight of a comfortable-looking farm-house, which stood upon quite a bluff upon the right. Everything about the premises looked very neat. The bright green grass grew clear up to the front door of the cottage, which, with the closed curtains in the "foreroom," gave a particularly staid, go-to-meeting-like aspect to the front. A narrow footpath wound round to the back door, which was evidently the only approved mode of entrance. Mrs. Harding alighted and took the well-worn path to the back door, and knocked. "Come in," called out a shrill voice within. Obeying the summons, she saw before her a very tidy-looking matron, with a very white bleached cotton cap upon her head, holding in her hand a lace or muslin article of the same sort, which she was spatting and pulling, evidently with the intention of "doing it up." The aspect of the kitchen was very inviting. The morning work was all out of the way, and the polished stove and very white unpainted floor were really charming.
"I have called to see if one of your daughters would go out to work," said Mrs. Harding, with hope fast rising in her breast, for she felt that she had at last come to the right place.
"Well, I don't know; they go out sometimes. Where do you want them to go?" asked the woman, with a glance of curiosity at the stranger.
Mrs. Harding mentioned the name of the town and the distance, adding that she should have a large family through the season, and wished some one to cook and do general work.
"I don't know what they'd say to it. They can do as they've a mind to. But they ain't good for much, nohow," said the mother, who continued to spat and pull her muslin vigorously.
"How old are they?"
"The oldest is seventeen this month, and t'other is two years younger."
At this moment the door opened, and in walked a coarse overgrown girl, munching a piece of pie, and staring boldly at the stranger.
"Do you want to go out to work, Emmeline? Here's a woman that wants you," said the mother, the moment she made her appearance.
"Yes," said the girl, in coarse tones, without relaxing her stare.
Mrs. Harding's heart sank within her. She saw, at a glance, that the great, coarse, unmannered girl would be more care than help. She hardly knew how to make an honorable retreat in the case; but after a slight cross-examination of the capabilities of the girl, she expressed her belief that she was too young for her hard work, and bowed herself out, leaving both mother and daughter looking quite disconcerted.
"Is she going?" whispered Walter, as his mother approached the carriage.
A shake of the head answered him.
"Oh, dear, where shall we go now?"
"Straight before us, Walter; you must not give up for trifles," said his mother, laughing good-humoredly, notwithstanding the uneasiness that was creeping upon her own heart.
"Where?" said Walter, still desponding.
"I don't know; we'll see. Don't you know that we are out seeking our fortunes, Wally?"
They drove on, and soon met an elderly-looking man in a rickety old wagon, drawn by a limping gray horse.
"Can you tell me, sir," said Mrs. Harding, laying her hand upon Walter's arm as a sign to stop, "can you tell me where I can find a girl to do housework?"
"That is a pretty difficult thing to find, ma'am," replied the old man, in a respectful tone. "Let me see," and he looked down for a moment, thoughtfully. "Yes, there's Susan Lovejoy you might get, and she would make good help. She is a first rate girl."
"How old is she?" inquired Mrs. Harding, as the vision of the coarse girl munching her pie flitted before her.
"Oh, she's old enough," replied the man, with a smile, "she's old enough. I should think she might be thirty or thereabouts. They call her one of the best."
Away they went over the hills, some three or four miles, and at length old Dobbin was reined up before Mr. Lovejoy's door. It was a substantial-looking farm-house set in the midst of a green field, surrounded by a stone wall, its only opening being a formidable farm-yard gate, fastened to a post by a piece of rope. The premises were guarded by a noisy dog, who rushed out the moment he heard the sound of wheels, and ran barking towards the carriage. Mrs. Harding, however, pushed open the gate, and quickly made her way to the house. A pale, fresh-looking matron was bustling about the kitchen; and standing at a spinning-wheel, near the door, was a girl in a tidy-looking dark calico, whom she knew, at a glance, was the object of her search.
She at once made known her errand.
"Oh, no," was the response of the girl; "I couldn't possibly go. I don't see who ever thought I would."
"I was recommended to come here," replied Mrs. Harding, who liked the looks of the girl, and was determined to plead her cause with all her might. "I was told that you went out, and very likely would go now."
"Who told you so?"
"An old gentleman whom I met three or four miles back."
"With a gray limping horse?"
"Yes, I should think so."
"It must have been old Mr. Cartwright, mother; I don't see what made him think so."
"Could I not induce you to go?" asked Mrs. Harding, bringing her back to the main point, and entering very fully into the circumstances of the family. "I will give you good wages. Two dollars a week, if you say so."
"Well, I couldn't go nohow. They can't spare me."
"Could not you go for a few weeks?" asked Mrs. Harding, anxiously. "Six or eight weeks would do me a great deal of good. You shall be well paid, if you will go. You may set your own price."
"No, I couldn't possibly go," said the girl, with a tantalizing smile. "I ain't obliged to work out, and I can't go."
Mrs. Harding looked and felt disappointed, but she made her way out, not knowing where to go. She felt that she was on a hopeless errand, and was half disposed to turn her face homeward. But, on second thought, she concluded to try a little longer, and they rode on, making fruitless inquiries here and there. At length she recollected that some one had told her that there were plenty of girls in Mapleton. In an instant, old Dobbin was headed that way, despite Walter's sinking spirits, and they rode along drinking in the perfume of a thousand flowers, and charmed into something like hope by the harmonies which float upon the breezes of early summer.
"I will inquire here," said Mrs. Harding, as they neared an old-fashioned house some two or three miles beyond the Plains; and, suiting the action to the word, she sprang lightly from the carriage and ran up to the door and knocked. After knocking till her fingers were sore, for neither bell nor knocker graced the panel, she heard steps of some one who came stubbing leisurely along to the door. The face which presented itself was coarse and greasy, and the untidy dress of the owner strongly suggestive of yellow snuff.
"Do you know of any girls for housework?" said Mrs. Harding, hardly expecting any available information.
"Don't b'l'eve there's such a thing to be found in ten mile. Folks can't git gals when they're sick, and dun no where well folks can find 'em. S'pect they'll have to do their own work; at any rate, they orto."
"But well people sometimes have more work than they can do, and then they need help," returned Mrs. Harding, in a tone of remonstrance.
"Wal, gals round here won't go where they're looked down on. They'd rather do sunthin' else than work for folks that's too grand to eat with them," said the woman, with a look which indicated that she thought the stranger one of the aristocracy.
"Then you cannot tell me of any one?" interrupted Mrs. Harding, intending to cut short the uncivil harangue.
"No; not unless Betty Symonds would go; but, then, she wouldn't, I know," replied the woman, who seemed a little softened, now that she had given vent to her spleen against the "grand folks."
"And where does she live?" asked Mrs. Harding, who, like a "drowning man, caught at every straw."
"Up't the next housen; but she won't go; I know as well as I want to, eanamost."
Mrs. Harding was soon ushered into Betty Symonds's best parlor. It was a long narrow room, with two small windows, and partially carpeted with bits of rag carpeting and large braided mats of domestic manufacture. A white homespun towel covered the stand between the windows, upon which stood a cracked tea-pot, over which straggled long branches of petunia, which were under the necessity of lying down, because there was nothing to hold them up.
Betty was soon heard approaching, and she came in dressed in quite a striking manner. Her gay, large-figured calico was decorated with three deep flounces. Large gold ear-rings were in her ears, and rings, which glowed with great yellow and red stones, adorned the hands which were damp with dish-water. To Mrs. Harding's inquiry she replied, in loud tones—
"I don't kalkilate to work out. I ain't obleeged teu. And I mean to go to Boston a visiting soon as haying is over."
Great as were Mrs. Harding's necessities, she felt little inclined to urge Betty Symonds to live with her, and on they were soon jogging towards Mapleton.
"Where are you going now, mother?" asked Walter, looking quite blue.
"Oh, I don't know, Wally. I am almost discouraged."
"Do let us go home, mother; we shall not find a good girl."
"We may; we will try a little longer," said Mrs. Harding, trying to be cheerful.
As they rode into Mapleton village, they met a man of whom Mrs. Harding ventured to inquire.
"Oh, there is girls enough," he replied, cheerfully. "You've just come by a house where there are three."
"How far back is it?" asked Mrs. Harding, eagerly.
"Oh, a mile or so. You can see it from here, just beyond that hemlock grove," said the man, pointing back.
Dobbin was again turned, and put in rapid motion towards the house. There she found a great corpulent woman knitting quietly by the window; but the girls were nowhere to be seen. Mrs. Harding stated her errand briefly, but earnestly.
"My gals are gone," said the woman, coldly. "One's gone to Lowell, and t'other went yesterday to work at the Meadows."
"Have you not another that would go?"
"No," was the gruff reply of the woman, who did not even deign to look up.
"It's just so everywhere," said Walter, as he caught the hopeless expression of his mother's face when she came out. "They are all just gone or going, or else 'ain't obleeged to work out.' I wish some of them had to."
"Oh no, that is wrong, Wally. I would not have a domestic unless it would be for her interest to serve me as well as for mine. But I do believe these uncultivated girls sometimes stand very much in their own light in refusing to go where they might be learning something valuable, and be really improving themselves, as well as helping those who need."
"Well, I am sick of this," said Walter, half laughing, and almost half crying. "I am tired and hungry. Cannot we have some dinner?"
His mother assured him that they would stop for dinner soon. In the mean time, they continued their inquiries. One girl who, they were assured, was at home spinning, and who intended to engage out for the season, they found had started the day before for Boston in search of a place. At another house, a sweet-looking girl, blue-eyed and fair, with her white arms bare almost to the shoulders, had her trunk already packed for Lowell. She "could not go." One pale mother had three daughters, one of whom was at the academy, a second in the paper-mill, and the third she must keep to assist herself. One stout, healthy girl, whom Mrs. Harding urged to the very verge of decency, preferred to stay at home to knit for the merchants at one dollar per pound. And one woman, with very yellow skin and snapping black eyes, wouldn't "have her girls go where folks were so grand. They were as good as anybody, and better than some who sot themselves up to be so smart."
It was two hours past noon when our tired, worn-out travellers drove up to a small tavern to dine. As they sat at table, a new thought struck Mrs. Harding. She would inquire of the table-girl.
"No, ma'am," replied the girl to her question, with a smile and a shake of the head. "We can't get girls enough here to do our work. Most all the girls here go to the factory. There was a man along last week, who had been up country to get a lot of girls, and he had engaged sixteen hundred to go to a new factory in Lowell. He pays them so much a head, and takes them down by the lot, just like cattle to the market."
"Shall you go home now, mother?" asked Walter, when the girl had left the room.
"Certainly I shall; and I can see no other way but to do my own work at present."
It was a late hour in the evening when Mrs. Harding and her son drove up to their own door. Mr. Harding, notwithstanding his rheumatism, laughed heartily as they rehearsed the incidents of the day. He still insisted, however, that it was because they had taken an unfortunate direction, and that, if they should take a different route, they would surely be more successful.
"No," said Mrs. Harding, laughing; "I can assure you I have had enough of it. All I get for my day's labor is the privilege of getting my own supper. I can get along alone, and must."
"Ah, you will think differently, wife, when the Wallaces and Pinkertons get here. It will be no trifling affair to play the parts of lady and housemaid, hostess and table-girl, with so many visitors on your hands."
Mrs. Harding, however, kept up good courage. The expected guests, some eight or ten, including the babies, arrived. By making extra preparations before their arrival, she managed to get along comfortably for a few days; but the cake and tarts could not always last where there were so many mouths, the house would not keep in order, and the care and labor of meeting the wants of her large family pressed every day, she thought, with greater weight upon her.
"I can tell you, Ellen, I will not consent to this another day," said Mr. Harding to his wife, as he met her burning face one day in the kitchen, just as dinner was ready for the table. "Why, you look as if you had baked yourself as well as the mutton," he added, laughing.
"Pray, how will you help it, my dear?" asked Mrs. Harding.
"I will go myself for help. I do believe I can find somebody who can tend the roast and wash the dishes."
"Don't be too positive, Mr. Harding; remember your good wife's experience," interposed Mrs. Pinkerton, with an arch shake of the finger and a roguish twinkle of the eye.
"Well, one thing is certain," replied Mr. Harding, laughing, "I shall not come back till I find one, extraordinaries excepted. So, when you see me driving up, you will see some one else."
Old Dobbin was duly harnessed next morning, and Mr. Harding, full of hope, started off "bright and early," while the whole family, guests and all, ran down to the gate to wish him success and a pleasant ride.
One, two, three days passed, but he did not return, and Mrs. Harding began to cast uneasy glances down the street, and to watch and listen every time she heard carriage-wheels.
"He will be as good as his word, Ellen," said her sister, Mrs. Pinkerton. "When he does come, you will have help; that is a comfort."
"Perhaps," cried little Anna Pinkerton, "he cannot find a girl, and then he will never come back."
Just then, however, a step was heard in the hall, and the next moment the parlor door was darkened by his tall form. There he stood, but alone.
"Where is your girl?" asked Mrs. Harding, anxiously.
"I left her to come in the cars. She will be here in three days."
"Oh, did you get one, then?" asked his wife and two or three others, in a breath.
"To be sure I did; but I had hard enough work to find her. My experience was almost as romantic as yours, wife."
"Do give us your history," said Mrs. Pinkerton, after Mr. Harding was settled, and quietly sipping his tea.
"Well," said Mr. Harding, with a self-satisfied air, for he had actually engaged a girl, "one experiences wonderful alternations of hope and fear in this business, I can assure you. I have made as many as fifty calls, and inquiries without number. I rode over frightful hills and almost impassable roads, and met with many discouraging receptions; but I was determined to succeed, and I did."
Mr. Harding's history of his "girl hunt" kept his family chatting, laughing, and wondering till a late hour. But we spare the reader the details of his ride.
The day that the new girl was expected was damp and cloudy. The sun scarcely showed itself all the morning, and, now and then, a heavy mist or slow drizzling rain added to the discomfort and gloom. Late in the morning, a lumbering old stage-coach came rattling up to Mr. Harding's door, and from it alighted a girl, evidently somewhat over twenty years of age, with a very dark, sallow complexion and large coal-black eyes, which seemed made on purpose to look everything through. Notwithstanding the dull, uncomfortable morning, she was dressed in a flounced lawn with a white ground. A gold pencil dangled at her side, and she flaunted the largest of gold hoops in her ears, and an enormous piece of red glass in her breast-pin.
"Can that be the new girl?" asked Mrs. Pinkerton, as the stranger whisked up the gravel-walk and pulled the bell.
"The very one," answered Mr. Harding, who caught a glimpse of her figure at the door.
Zilpah Ann Swain, for such was her euphonious appellative, was soon ushered into the kitchen, where Mrs. Harding was busy with the dinner, and quietly seating herself at the window, without offering her aid, she fixed her staring black eyes upon Mrs. Harding's red, weary face, and followed her through all the evolutions of getting up dinner.
"I am very glad you have come to-day," said Mrs. Harding, attempting to be a little social. "I have friends with me, and need very much some one to take care of the kitchen."
"Well, I thought I'd come a spell, jest to accommodate; but I told Mr. Harding I wouldn't be boun' to stay. I ain't obleeged to work out, if I ain't a mind teu," replied Zilpah Ann, her black eyes flashing with independence.
It was soon evident that Zilpah Ann came simply as "help." She had not the slightest idea of taking charge of the kitchen, or of relieving her mistress by going on independently in any department of the work. The morning after her arrival, Mrs. Harding gave her special directions about sweeping the front stairs and hall, and the brick walk which led to the gate. She was to go through a certain process every morning. But her work was so badly done that Mrs. Harding determined to speak to her about it.
"Zilpah Ann," she said, as she passed through the hall one morning, about one week after her arrival, "I wish you to be particular to sweep the corners of the stairs clean. You will find the small brush better for that purpose."
"I guess I know how to sweep, Miss Harding," exclaimed the surprised Zilpah Ann, starting up from her work and throwing the full fire of her eyes upon Mrs. Harding's calm face. "I don't want nobody to tell me how to sweep out corners. I knows some things, if I hain't got so much l'arnin' as some folks."
"Oh, yes, I presume you do know how. I only wished to remind you of the corners; I am very particular about having them swept clean, and the walk, too. You will remember that, Zilpah Ann."
"I didn't come here to be a nigger nor a sarvent, Miss Harding, I'll let you know," exclaimed Zilpah Ann, dropping her broom in a passion and bolting to her room. Half an hour afterwards, she appeared at the parlor door with her bonnet on, and her bandbox in her hand, and demanded to be carried to the depot. The Hardings let her go without a word of remonstrance. They had had "help" enough for one week, and Mrs. Harding went about her work alone again, with a feeling of positive relief.
"What do you think of girl-hunting now, brother Harding?" asked Mrs. Pinkerton, as they sat round the tea-table, making themselves merry with the trials and helps of the week.
"Oh, I call it an unprofitable business," exclaimed Mr. Harding, with a hearty laugh. "I rode three days in a broiling sun after Zilpah Ann, paid her fare fifty miles, bore with her help for a week, and received nothing for my pains. It is just like chasing your own shadow, or 'hunting a needle in a haymow.'"
