She was a middle-aged woman, with a face originally plain, and deeply seamed with the small-pox; but withal, there was an expression of honesty and goodness, and of deep sadness, that interested Mrs. Sackville, though at first it failed to draw the attention of the children from their good-humored blithe companion.
“Does this woman belong to your company, Biddy?”
“Bless you, no, my leddy.”—“I thought not,” said Mrs. Sackville, who was struck with the extreme neatness of the woman's appearance, which presented a striking contrast to all the Irish, even to our friend Biddy.—Her child's head was covered with a linen handkerchief—coarse and patched, but white as the driven snow. There was scarcely a thread of the original cloth in her children's clothes—neither was there a hole in them—their faces and hands were perfectly clean, and their hair neatly combed.
“You seem to find it possible, my friend,” said Mrs. Sackville, patting the little boy's face, “to keep your children clean in the most difficult circumstances.” “I try my best, ma'am,” replied the woman. “And a slave, my leddy,” interposed Biddy, “she makes of herself for it. Do you know that when I offered this morning to stay by the childer while she took a bit of sleep, that instead of resting her soul and body, she went and washed her things in the river, and got leave to iron in the house yonder, and did it all as particular as it might have been done for you, my leddy.”
The poor woman was wetting the sick child's lips from a cup of water that stood by her; and she took no notice of Biddy's remark. Mrs. Sackville inquired into the particulars of the child's sickness, which she thought would yield to some common restoratives which she had at hand; and just as she was dispatching Julia for the dressing case which contained them, a little rugged impish looking boy came towards them, throwing himself heels over head, with a segar in his mouth, which he continued smoking while he was making his somersets.—“Come, come, Goody Barton,” said he, without heeding Mrs. Sackville's presence, “come, we must be up and moving. If we don't get over in this boat, I shall disappoint the company at Chippewa to-night.”
“Don't speak so loud, Tristy,” replied the woman, “but take the pack to the boat, and I will follow you.”
“That surely is not your child?” said Mrs. Sackville, as the boy walked off with the bundle singing, at the top of his voice, a very vulgar song, and affecting to reel like a drunken man.
“No, thank God,” said the woman, “he is a poor heaven-forsaken lad, who is going into Canada. He has helped me along from Buffalo, and has offered to carry my bundle to Chippewa.”
It occurred to Mrs. Sackville to caution the woman to be on her guard, for she thought Tristy looked wicked enough for any mischief; but a signal from the boat obliged them all to hasten to the shore. Biddy good naturedly took the eldest boy by the hand and led him to the boat, and then took leave of all her new friends, pouring forth a shower of prayers that God would bless them all, rich and poor.
The woman, whom we shall henceforth call by her name, Mrs. Barton, was reserved in the expression of her feelings; but the tear of gratitude she dropped on Biddy's hand at parting, was an equivalent for the girl's voluble expressions.