For the most part people do not think at all. They have little phrases and formulas which stand in their minds for thoughts and opinions, and they repeat them parrotlike. Most of their notions and ideas and prejudices are mere extraneous accretions, barnacled on to them by men and books in their passage through life, as shells are on a vessel, but not growing out of them or really belonging to them.—Anon.
Life in her creaking shoes
Goes, and more formal grows,
A round of calls and cues.
—W. E. Henley.
At the end of the week, on Saturday morning, Anna Burgess was sitting on a low stool in the middle of her bedroom, surrounded by a curious confusion and medley of miscellaneous things. Before her was an open cedar chest of large proportions; its pungent odour was mingled with the spicy smell of winter apples, dried fruits, and maple sugar. From the half unpacked chest, quilts of calico patchwork and soft home-woven blankets were overflowing; piles of snowy linen sheets and pillowcases, finely hemstitched and bordered with delicate thread-work, lay about the floor, together with body linen of equal daintiness, and books in dull and faded binding, while the red apples, rolled everywhere, studded the confused array as commas do a printer’s page.
In the chest still lay some old-fashioned furs and other clothing. Anna, as she sat, had her lap heaped with a quantity of yellowed lace, and a number of small, thin silver spoons. She was reading a letter, and, as she read, unconsciously tears were running down her cheeks.
“You must have known,” wrote Gulielma Mallison, “that I could not let my dear daughter go empty-handed to her new home. The box has been long, however, in being made ready, but I know your husband and his mother will make excuses, the marriage having been so sudden. Lucia and I have taken comfort in sorting out and preparing the things. The linen is, much of it, what was left of my own bridal outfit, but we have bleached it on the snow, and it is still strong. The silver I have tried to divide equally among you all. This is your portion. The little porringer, you know, came over from Germany with my mother, then the Jungfrau Benigna von Brosius.
“I regret that I am unable to provide you with more dresses, etc., but there is little to do with and little to choose from in Haran. Indeed, I hardly ever get to Haran any more, my rheumatism is so bad, and the going has been terrible this winter. We got Lucia’s husband’s sister to buy the white cotton cloth, and sent it back by Joseph when he went down with a load of wood. The brown cloak I shall not be likely to need any more, going out so seldom, and Lucia says she doesn’t begrudge it to you at all, being much too long for her, and it would be a shame to cut off any of that material to waste. You know it is the best of camlet cloth, and there is no wear out to it. I have given Lucia the melodeon, and she says it is only fair that you should have the cloak and the brown silk dress. We got Amanda Turner to make that over for you by an old waist we had of yours. She was here three days, right through the worst snowstorm we have had all winter, and there was nothing to interrupt us. We turned the silk and made it all over. I think we succeeded pretty well. I thought you really ought to have one silk dress, now you are going to live in this country. Of course you’ll be invited out to tea some, there in Fulham. The grey merino will do for afternoons. I made you four aprons, two white, and two check to wear about your work, and you’ll need them afternoons for taking care of your husband’s mother. Please give her my best respects. I send the dried fruit to her,—maybe it will tempt her appetite a little,—and part of the maple sugar, that in the little cakes. Lucia ran it for her especially. We thought maybe they wouldn’t have it down there in Fulham, that was pure.
“I am sorry we haven’t anything better to send Mr. Burgess, but I put in your dear father’s quilted dressing-gown as my particular present; his health being so poor, Lucia and I thought it might be acceptable. The books are for him, from your father’s library....”