CHAPTER II.
A NEW PLAN.
“Why, father!” was the surprised and cheerful exclamation of Mrs. Gilman, as her husband entered the room. It was an unusually early hour for him, and besides, she saw his step was steady. No wonder that she left the bread she was kneading, and came forward, her hands still covered with flour, to meet him. As she stood in the fire-light, she was handsome even yet, though her face looked careworn, and her figure was bent, as if she had been much older. Her ninepenny calico dress was neatly made, and though she had no collar, a small plaid silk handkerchief, tied closely around the throat, supplied the place of one. She must have had a cheerful, sunny temper originally, for in spite of her many trials, there was not a trace of despondency or fretfulness in her face or manner.
“Didn’t you go to the Corner? Oh, was that you in Squire Merrill’s sleigh? I thought I heard it stop. Abby, get father his shoes—Hannah, just look at the bannock, it must be almost done by this time, and we don’t have father home every day. Come, children, step round:” and Mrs. Gilman made a lively motion to quicken the tardy Hannah, who was straining her eyes out over a book by the very faint twilight of the west window.
Mr. Gilman felt that he did not deserve this hearty welcome, in a home to which he had brought only sorrow and trouble. There were other thoughts that kept him silent too, for after explaining that Squire Merrill had brought him home, he sat down by the fireplace and watched his wife and daughters while they prepared tea, as if it had been a holiday. Cold brown bread, that substantial New England loaf, and the smoking corn meal bannock, were all that they had to set forth, with a simple garnishing of butter and a bowlder of apple-sauce, made, also, by the good mother in the autumn. The largest and driest sticks of wood were added to the fire, so, though there was but one candle, and that but a “dip,” any thing in the room was plainly visible. The Windsor chairs and side-table were scoured clean and white; through the open door of the buttery was seen a dresser in perfect order, even to the row of shining, but, alas, too often empty milk-pans, turned up under the lower shelf, and the bread-bowl, covered by a clean towel. The looking-glass between the windows, surmounted by curious carving and gilding, and the tall peacocks’ feathers, the thin legs of the table at which they sat, indeed nearly every thing in the room were old friends of Mrs. Gilman’s childhood. The house and farm had been her father’s homestead, and she an only child. She often said she was too thankful that she did not have to go off among strangers, as so many young girls did when they were married, for she knew every rock and tree on the farm. Here she had been married, here her children were born, and here she hoped to die.
“Sam won’t be home in time to milk, I don’t believe,” observed Abby, the oldest girl, reaching her plate for a second supply of bannock. “He’s always out of the way when he’s wanted, seems to me.”
“I don’t know,” “mother” answered good-naturedly. “I think he’s worked most hard enough all day to earn a good long play-spell. Sam’s getting very handy, father. He fixed the well-sweep after dinner as well as you could have done it yourself. So after he’d brought in the wood, and gone to the store, I let him go over to Deacon Chase’s. I thought you’d have no objection.”
Mr. Gilman was home too little to know much about his children’s movements, but his wife always kept up a show of authority for him, that he might be respected at home at least. Abby had found time for another theme. “Mother, I should think you might let Hannah and me have some new hoods. Julia Chase has got an elegant one, lined with pink silk, and a new merino cloak. And there’s Anne Merrill and Jane Price. I’m sure we’re as good as any body; ain’t we, father?” for Abby, being her father’s favorite, was always sure of a hearing from him.
“So you are, Abby—every bit, and you shall ride over their heads yet. I tell you what, mother; I can’t stand this much longer; I don’t see why you shouldn’t have your silks and satins as well as Eliza Merrill, and Hannah, go to boarding school if she wants to, when she’s old enough. I’ve about made up my mind to go to California—there—and there’s the end of it!” and the excited man struck his knife upon the table so that every dish rattled.
Mrs. Gilman looked up with an anxious, questioning face. She was afraid that he had been drinking after all, and her hopes of a quiet evening, “like old times,” vanished. Hannah ceased to wonder absently what would have became of the Swiss Family Robinson, if it had not been for their mother’s wonderful bag, out of which every thing came precisely at the moment it was needed. Abby improved the opportunity to help herself to an extra quantity of “apple butter,” unobserved. Abby certainly had a strong fancy for all the good things of life, dainties and new hoods included.
“Why, what on earth has put that into your head, father?” Mrs. Gilman said, after a moment, still addressing him by the familiar household name, at first so endearing and afterwards habitual. She did not think it possible he could have any serious thoughts of such a scheme. Her husband’s plans very often ended in “talking over,” and from the time they were married some project occupied him.