And how much do you suppose, my little city ladies, who are always in debt when allowance-day comes,—these industrious Yankee girls received, as the sum of a week’s hard work; rising at five o’clock, and never ceasing but for household duties until the sun went down? Eighteen and three-quarter cents at first, not half as much as you have wasted at the confectioner’s and the worsted stores in the same length of time! Three cents a piece for braiding a whole hat, and Abby thought herself very rich when she could do one and a half a day! So it is—but do not pity them too much—they had twice your enjoyment in spending it.
Abby was on the last round of the brim, when Hannah laid her hat down to look for the atlas. They had all been talking of father and Sam,—and wishing the captain had been going to stop at Rio.
“We should have heard of him before this if he had,” Hannah said, “for I looked in the ship list, the place that tells all about vessels, in Squire Merrill’s paper, the last time I was up there; and I saw some vessel had come in forty days from Rio. That’s less than six weeks, and it will be four months Thursday since they sailed.”
“Here comes Squire Merrill now,” remarked Abby from her post at the front window. She always took possession of it, and kept them informed of every passer-by, if it was only a boy driving a yoke of oxen. “I guess he doesn’t find it very good wheeling, his wagon is all spattered with mud. How high wagons look, after seeing sleighs all winter. Why I do believe he’s going to stop here! He is, just as sure as I’m alive. I’ll go to the door, Hannah—he’s beckoning with a letter or something, as if he didn’t want to get out.”
Mrs. Gilman, usually so calm, felt her heart give a sudden bound, as she hurried to the window in time to see Squire Merrill give the letter to Abby, and drive off again, with a smiling nod to herself, as if he shared in the pleasure it would give her. No doubt he did, knowing very well, when he found that heavy brown envelope lying at the post office, what a rejoicing it would make.
It was Sam’s coarse, but very plain school-boy hand, in the direction, and if there had been the least doubt in the matter, the ship-mark on it would have told who it came from. Abby thought her mother was the greatest while getting it open, and wondered what made her hands tremble so. Mrs. Gilman could not command her voice to read the very first lines, before Abby had made out half the first page, looking over her shoulder.
To be sure she had a right to—for it commenced:
“Dear mother and the girls.” It was dated Rio Janeiro, March 4th, and must have cost Sam a week’s hard work at least, covering three large sheets of foolscap, and full of “scratching out” and interlining.
“Here we are at last,” was the boy-like and abrupt commencement, “where I never expected to be last Thanksgiving Day, did I? The Captain doesn’t want to be here now; but I’ve told Ben all about that in my letter. What an awful storm that was, though! I never expected to see land, I can tell you, and old Jackson says (Jackson is the sailor I like best, you will see all about it in Ben’s letter) he never saw such a blow as that, and he never wants to see another. I don’t, I’m sure. I’ve got so much to tell you I don’t know where to begin. I suppose I ought to say ‘we are all well, and hope you are the same.’ Well, we are—father and me. Jackson says I’m a regular ‘lubber,’ that means very fat, with him. I shouldn’t like to have him call me a ‘land lubber,’ though. Dear mother, you don’t know how much I want to see you and the girls; I could talk to you all night, but I’m afraid I can’t tell half I want to, on paper.