Six Girls: A Home Story

by Fannie Belle Irving

"But I don't believe she's dead!" exclaimed Kittie firmly. "I wouldn't believe it if I wanted to; and I think some time, or somehow, we will find her, or she will come back to us."

"Well I hope so I'm sure, for it will never seem right without her," said Kat. "Seems to me, we all lived so happy, with no troubles of any kind, until all of a sudden, then everything happens all at once. Home has never seemed the same since papa died."

"When you look back and think how things have changed, don't it seem strange," said Kittie, dropping her sewing and looking pensively off at the wood-pile. "It seems so funny, to think that Miss Howard is married, and that people live in the little old school-house.

"Didn't we used to have fun there?"

"Yes, we did, and we're getting old dreadful fast," said Kat, ruefully.

"I can't imagine anything more dreadful than getting to be young ladies, and having to wear long dresses, and done-up hair, and always be polite and proper. I think it's horrible to be nearly fifteen!"

Kittie loved fun as much as Kat, but she was not quite so frolicsome in her tastes, nor so averse to a graceful train, or a lady-like structure of hair. In fact, she had many ideas of ideal young-ladyhood that would have amazed and dismayed her twin, had they been known. Any one who knew them well was no longer at a loss to know which was which, for while in childhood they had been too similar to ever be distinguished, the coming years brought different ideas to each, and left their print in looks and manner. Kat was wildly rebellious at the thought of growing up; she wanted to remain in the blissful days of short hair and dresses, when she could race with anybody, jump a fence, climb trees, and in every way be as boyish as she could, to pay up for being a girl. Consequently she always had a fly-away, unsettled look about her, rebelled at the lengthened dresses, insisted on wearing her hair in a flying braid, wouldn't be induced to cultivate ease and grace, and altogether was as wild and unconquerable on the threshold of fifteen as she had been in the freedom of twelve. Kittie, on the contrary, had a decided love for grace, and the ease of a cultivated young lady. She did her hair up in various and complicated fashions, occasionally practiced with a train, and had learned to bow with the latest grace and twist. She remembered Ernestine's little graceful ways, and profited by the remembrance, thereby driving Kat to the verge of desperation, by giving frequent lectures on the necessity of sitting still gracefully, and walking without a skip or jump every third step. With all their little growing differences, they were just as devoted and inseparable as ever. Kittie would sit and sew with a lady-like air, and a posy in her belt, while Kat would lounge in the window-seat, and read aloud, or amuse them with nonsense; or, if they went out on the pond, Kittie would wear her gloves and ply her oar with an eye to grace, while Kat would, perhaps, be encased in a sun-bonnet, or be bareheaded and row as if on a contract to outdo the champion club in existence. In their work was the same little mark of distinction, and so now-a-days it was very easy to tell which was Kittie and which was Kat.

It was just a year since Ernestine had gone, and such a long, sad, hopeless year! Not a clue or trace of any kind could they find except that she had gone to New York. The Canfield ticket agent had had his suspicions when a lady had bought a ticket and gone on the midnight train; but it was none of his business, to be sure; so she had gone on her way unmolested, and farther than that, they knew nothing. Where she went on reaching the city, no one knew, though no mode of search had been left untried, and no expense spared, either by Mrs. Dering, or the relatives and friends who so heartily sympathized in her heart-broken search. There was nothing, from himself to the last dollar he possessed, that Mr. Congreve did not offer; and Jean sent a tear-stained note with a crisp ten dollars—all she had, and saying: "Mama, please spend it to find Ernestine; and I ask God every few minutes, if He won't please let us have her again."

But it had all been in vain. In the long days when Ernestine had sat and thought and grieved, she must have matured her plans well, or else she had gone blindly forth, on the wild impulse of despair, and been swallowed in the black wickedness of the great city, into which she went. It was a ceaseless question in the anxious hearts of those who loved her, but there never came any answer; and the days and weeks dragged into months until the year had rolled around, and they had heard nothing. The name of the lost became more precious than ever, and many things she had left behind, that all spoke so eloquently of her, they treasured as priceless, and wet them with many a sad tear, while heart and lips pleaded for the return of the dear one. The year of anxiety had told on Mrs. Dering, for the soft brown hair was thickly lined with grey, and there was a never-dying look of prayerful anxiety in her face, as though in some way, her life-work had been remiss and the fault of this one, gone astray, lay at her door. Still she never once gave up hope that at some time God would return this dear one to her, though it required constant prayer to strengthen the faith that trembled on the threshold of this affliction.

Under the strain of mental and physical work, her health was slowly giving way, and for many weeks there had been the anxious question, "what can be done to relieve mama?" and there had been no way discovered, for money was low, and each one already doing her utmost; so Mrs. Dering held her position at the seminary, and was obliged to content herself with one visit home a week, and sometimes not even that, for the hack drive was so fatiguing, and besides, it cost fifty cents every time.