She jumped a little off her window-sill; then sat down again. That was it. Moppet, and the baby, and her mother, and kneading, and milking, and darning, for thirty, for forty, for—the dear Lord, who pitied her, only knew how many years.
But Sharley did not incline to think much about the Lord just then. She was very miserable, and very much alone and unhelped. So miserable, so alone and unhelped, that it never occurred to her to drop down right there with her despairing little face on the window-sill and tell Him all about it. O Sharley! did you not think He would understand?
She had made up her mind—decidedly made up her mind—not to go to sleep that night. The unhappy girls in the novels always sit up, you know. Besides, she was too wretched to sleep. Then the morning train went early, at half past five, and she should stay here till it came.
This was very good reasoning, and Sharley certainly was very unhappy,—as unhappy as a little girl of eighteen can well be; and I suppose it would sound a great deal better to say that the cold morning looked in upon her sleepless pain, or that Aurora smiled upon her unrested eyes, or that she kept her bitter watch until the stars grew pale (and a fine chance that would be to describe a sunrise too); but truth compels me to state that she did what some very unhappy people have done before her,—found the window-sill uncomfortable, cramped, neuralgic, and cold,—so undressed and went to bed and to sleep, very much as she would have done if there had been no Halcombe Dike in the world. Sharley was not used to lying awake, and Nature would not be cheated out of her rights in such a round, young, healthful little body.
But that did not make her much the happier when she woke in the cold gray of the dawn to listen for the early train. It was very cold and very gray, not time for the train yet, but she could not bear to lie still and hear the shrill, gay concert of the birds, to watch the day begin, and think how many days must have beginning,—so she crept faintly up and out into the chill. She wandered about for a time in the raw, brightening air. The frost lay crisp upon the short grass; the elder-bushes were festooned with tiny white tassels; the maple-leaves hung fretted with silver; the tangle of apple-trees and spruces was powdered and pearled. She stole into it, as she had stolen into it in the happy sunset-time so long ago—why! was it only day before yesterday?—stole in and laid her cheek up against the shining, wet vines, which melted warm beneath her touch, and shut her eyes. She thought how she would like to shut and hide herself away in a place where she could never see the frescoed frost or brightening day, nor hear the sound of chirping birds, nor any happy thing.
By and by she heard the train coming, and footsteps. He came springing by in his strong, man's way as he had come before. As before, he passed near—how very near!—to the quivering white face crushed up against the vine-leaves, and went his way and knew nothing.
The train panted and raced away, shrieked a little in a doleful, breathless fashion, grew small, grew less, grew dim, died from sight in pallid smoke. The track stood up on its mound of frozen bank, blank and mute, like a corpse from which the soul had fled.
Sharley came into the kitchen at six o'clock. The fire was burning hotly under the boiler. The soiled clothes lay scattered about. Her mother stood over the tubs, red-faced and worried, complaining that Sharley had not come to help her. She turned, when the girl opened the door, to scold her a little. The best of mothers are apt to scold on Monday morning.
Sharley stood still a moment and looked around. She must begin it with a washing-day then, this other life that had come to her. Her heart might break; but the baby's aprons must be boiled—to-day, next week, another week; the years stretched out into one wearisome, endless washing-day. O, the dreadful years! She grew a little blind and dizzy, sat down on a heap of table-cloths, and held up her arms.
"Mother, don't be cross to me this morning,—don't O mother, mother, mother! I wish there were anybody to help me!"