All night the two watched by her bed, Mrs. Jeffries and father; while Jennie nestled in my arms, occasionally putting up her mouth for a kiss, thinking it was mother.
I lived an age in that night, and how many resolves I formed and plans laid of what I would do, and how I would care for that one little sister.
Alas, I had to learn that he who wins must walk through rough places; that the sweet rest for which we long is only given to those who have been prompt in duty, resolute against temptation, strong in faith, patient in the hour of trial. Alas for the weary feet that must walk through the world without a mother’s guidance.
Before morning Jennie and I were alone, while my poor father was stricken into soberness.
Three months passed. My father was much steadier, stayed more at home, and was no longer cross and overbearing; for hours would he read to us, then taking Jennie on his knee, sing her to sleep.
“If mother could only see him,” I said frequently to myself. I had not known he was so handsome, for he kept himself much better, and looked like a new man. Then at night he would put us in bed, and sometimes sit down by himself, or go out looking so good and happy; I did not understand it.
One day I had been down to Mrs. Jeffries with Jennie, and Mr. Jeffries asked me what I would think if my father gave me a new mother. I told him that could not be; we could not have but one mother, and our mother was dead.
“But what if your father marries again?”
I went home in tears. Cheerless as our home was, I could not bear that another should enter it. It was no place for a good woman to come, and I felt it so. It was not long, however, before I found the reality of what I feared. My father, on the strength of his good looks, married a pretty, showily dressed woman, and brought her to our mountain home. Very kindly he introduced us; but she did not so much as kiss either of us. I grew indignant, and could have darted out of the house, but for my remembered promise to my mother.
A year, and she had turned us out, while a baby of her own nestled in her arms, and our father was nearly as bad as ever. Jennie had always been a delicate little thing, or my new mother would not so readily have parted with her. But my father, with all his waywardness, always said to her that we should not be parted.