CHAPTER XXXIX. GERTRUDE'S STORY.
"When I was about fifteen, I lost both my parents with an epidemic, which raged in the neighborhood. Up to that time, I had known poverty and sorrow only through an occasional novel, which fell in my way. My dear father, whose silver head I never can think of without involuntarily and reverentially bowing my own, had made my child-life one dream of delight. I felt free to think aloud in his presence. I feared no monastic severity at my childish blunders, or indiscretions; he was my friend, my play-fellow, as well as my teacher and guardian.
"I had an only brother, who had imbibed an unconquerable passion for travel and adventure, and the only mistake my father ever made educationally, was shutting him off from any mention of the subject. He thought himself right in this, and meant it kindly; but it resulted in my brother's secretly leaving home in disguise for a foreign port; he has never since been heard from, and was probably lost at sea.
"Upon the death of my parents there was found nothing left for my support, and I was left to the care of a distant relative. It was an unexpected and unwelcome legacy, for Mrs. Bluff had five children of her own, and though in comfortable circumstances, desired no addition to her family. The knowledge of this added poignancy to the grief which already burdened my heart. Upon entering this new life, I made many awkward attempts, with my city-bred fingers, to propitiate Mrs. Bluff on such occasions as baking-days, cleaning-days, washing-days, and ironing-days. Mrs. Bluff's daughters were as round as pumpkins, and as flaunting as sun-flowers; could spin and weave, and quilt, and bake, and brew, and had the reputation of driving the best bargain at the village store, of any customer for miles round; they pushed me this way and that, laughed at my small, baby hands and pale face, wondered where I had been brought up that I never saw a churn; 'swapped off' my dear books, my only comforts, unknown to me, to a traveling peddler for some bright-red ribbon, and voted me on all occasions a most useless piece of furniture. As for Mr. Bluff, provided his horses, hens, cows, pigs, and chickens, fulfilled their barn-yard destiny, and Squire Tompkins's rabbits did not girdle his young trees, and his mug of cider was ready for his cobwebbed throat as soon as his oxen's horns were seen turning down the lane, the world might turn round or stand still.
"Every effort I made to conciliate the Bluffs, or to render myself useful, met with a rude rebuff. I could not understand it then. I see now that it was the rough but involuntary tribute which uneducated minds involuntarily paid to a more refined one. Yet why should they feel thus? If I could have taught them many things I had learned from books, they, on the other hand, could have initiated me into the practical duties of every-day life, without a knowledge of which any woman is in a pitiable state of helplessness, for though she may be rich enough to have servants, she is yet at their mercy, for if she chooses to order a certain pudding for dinner, they may make a reply, which her ignorance can not controvert, as to the time necessary to prepare it, or the quantity of ingredients, not on hand, to make it.
"Deprived of my books, my mind preyed upon itself. I wandered off, in my leisure hours, in the woods and fields, and built such air-castles as architects of sixteen are apt to construct. So fond I became of my wood-rambles in all weathers, and talking to myself for want of company, that an old lady in the village asked Mrs. Bluff, with the most commiserating concern, 'if it wasn't a heap of trouble to look after that crazy critter?'
"I had been at Greytown about a year when a new pastor was settled over the village church. It was an event commensurate with the taking of Sebastopol. There was not an unwedded female in the parish, my cousins included, who did not give him a call in the most unmistakable manner. What with utter disgust at these open advances, and renewed signs of hostility on the part of my cousins since his advent, I resolved to absent myself on the occasion of every parochial call, and to confine my eyes to the pew crickets on Sunday.
"The barriers which my obstinacy thus built up chance threw down. City bred as I was, I had an extraordinary gift at climbing trees and scaling fences. In one of my rambles, trusting too much to my agile ankles, when climbing over a stone wall, I lost my foothold, and was precipitated to the ground, bringing down a large stone upon my foot. The pain was so great that I fainted.