Hildegarde's Holiday: A Story for Girls

by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

"Oh, do go on, dear!" cried Hildegarde; "unless you are tired, that is. It is so delightful!"

"It was anything but delightful for me, my dear, I can assure you," rejoined Miss Wealthy. "This happened several years later, when Mildred was thirteen or fourteen. She came to me for a winter visit, and I was delighted to find how womanly she had grown. We had a great deal of bad weather, and she was with me in the house a good deal, and was most sweet and helpful; and as I did not go out much, I did not see what she did out of doors, and she always came home in time for dinner and tea. Well, one day—it was in March, and the river was just breaking up, as we had had some mild weather—the minister came to see me, and I began to tell him about Mildred, and how she had developed, and how much comfort I took in her womanly ways. He was sitting on the sofa, from which, you know, one can see the river very well. Suddenly he said, 'Dear me! what is that? Some one on the river at this time! Very imprudent! Very—' Then he broke off short, and gave me a strange look. I sprang up and went to the window. What did I see, my dear girls? The river was full of great cakes of ice, all pressed and jumbled together; the current was running very swiftly; and there, in the middle of the river, jumping from one cake to another like a chamois, or some such wild creature, was Mildred Bond."

"Oh!" cried Rose, "how dreadful! Dear Miss Bond, what did you do?"

Hildegarde was silent. It was certainly very naughty, she thought; but oh, what fun it must have been!

"Fortunately," said Miss Wealthy, "I became quite faint at the sight. Fortunately, I say; for I might have screamed and startled the child, and made her lose her footing. As it was, the minister went and called Martha, and she, like the sensible girl she is, simply blew the dinner-horn as loud as she possibly could. It was the middle of the afternoon; but as she rightly conjectured, the sound, without startling Mildred, gave her to understand that she was wanted. The minister watched her making her way to the shore, leaping the dark spaces of rushing water between the cakes, apparently as unconcerned as if she were walking along the highway; and when he saw her safe on shore, he was very glad to sit down and drink a glass of the wine that Martha had brought to revive me. 'My dear madam,' he said,—I was lying on the sofa in dreadful suspense, and could not trust myself to look,—'the young lady is safe on the bank, and will be here in a moment. I fear she is not so sedate as you fancied; and as she is too old to be spanked and put to bed, I should recommend your sending her home by the coach to-morrow morning. That girl, madam, needs the curb, and you have been guiding her with the snaffle.' He was very fond of horses, good man, and always drove a good one himself."

"And did you send her home?" asked Hildegarde, anxiously, thinking what a dreadful thing it would be to be sent back in disgrace.

"Oh, no!" said Miss Wealthy, "I could not do that, of course. Mildred was my god-child, and I loved her dearly. But she was not allowed to see me for twenty-four hours, and I fancy those were very sad hours for her. Dear Mildred! that was her last prank; for the next time she came here she was a woman grown, and all the hoyden ways had been put off like a garment. And now, dears," added Miss Wealthy, rising, "we must let Martha take these dishes, or she will be late with her work, and that always distresses her extremely."

They went into the parlor, and Hildegarde, as she patted and "plumped" the cushions of the old lady's chair, reminded her that she had promised them some work for the morning, but had not told them what it was.

"True!" said Miss Wealthy. "You are right, dear. This is my Flower-day. I send flowers once a week to the sick children in the hospital at Fairtown, and I thought you might like to pick them and make up the nosegays."

"Oh, how delightful that will be!" cried Hildegarde. "And is that what you call work, Cousin Wealthy? I call it play, and the best kind. We must go at once, so as to have them all picked before the sun is hot. Come, Rosebud!"