Christmas at Cedar Hill

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

"'I would rather have you eight than ten,' said my new acquaintance. 'However, you are small of your age, and you look as if you could be spry enough.'"

"'Try me!' said I, confidently."

"Mr. Bangs proceeded to put me through my paces, as he was pleased to call it, and expressed himself satisfied with my activity. He then asked me how I came to be in want of such employment, and I replied by the tale I had invented beforehand, saying that my father was dead, and I had nobody to depend upon but a step-mother, who treated me cruelly, and that I had made up my mind to work my own way in the world. Mr. Bangs pitied me, applauded my resolution, and finally took me to the captain, as he called him, to whom I repeated my story. The end of the matter was that the captain engaged me to work for my board and clothes at first, though I was to have a salary in money as soon as I was skilful enough to appear in public."

"I did not go home to supper, but took my meal at a little tavern on the edge of the village, where none of the schoolboys were allowed to go upon any pretense, and which was now thronged with country people who had come in to see the show. About nine o'clock I stepped into my boarding-house and went to bed, greatly elated by my success, at the same time that my conscience tormented me grievously for the lies I had told and the disobedience I was meditating."

"I was to join my new friends the next morning as early as four o'clock, at which time they took their departure from the village. It happened at that time that a part of the school-building was undergoing repairs, so that a number of the boys, myself included, boarded in the village. I lodged at the house of a woman who had a large family of children and a sick husband, so that her time was pretty well occupied. We generally went up to the school for our meals, unless the weather was stormy, in which case we were excused and took them at our lodgings. My landlady's table, though plain enough, was more to my taste than that at the school, and I remained with her as often as I could."

"The clouds which had been gathering all day began to pour before I reached home. At four o'clock in the morning I was stirring. I gathered together such little matters as I meant to take with me, and, leaving everything in good order, and my bed made, that no suspicion might be excited, I slipped quietly out at the front door. It was raining hard, but that was all the better for my purpose, and by six o'clock I was some miles from the village, riding by the side of my friend Mr. Bangs on the driver's box of the lion's cage, not without some secret fears lest the lion might break through his bars and devour me as a judgment for my disobedience."

"I was missed at breakfast-time, but my hostess, who had not seen me since dinner the day before, supposed I had gone up to the school and staid with some of my mates, while the school authorities supposed me to be at my lodgings. It was Saturday, and a holiday, so that my absence from the schoolhouse excited no suspicion. When I made my appearance neither at dinner nor tea, nor yet at bed-time, Mrs. Leo was a little surprised, but she still imagined that I was with some of my school-mates, and, having abundance of business on her hands, she did not trouble herself about the matter. In fine, it was not till Monday that I was really missed, and by that time I was fifty miles away."

"At first it was naturally supposed that I had gone home, and Mr. Burton, the schoolmaster, wrote to my father on the subject. There were no telegraphs in those days, and the mail communication was far from rapid, so that it was a week and more before he received an answer. When it was found that I had not been home at all, the alarm became serious. The whole vicinity of the town was searched and advertisements put into all the papers."

"At last a handkerchief and knife of mine were found upon the river-bank not far from the village, where the boys were accustomed to bathe. The handkerchief was one which I often wore around my neck, and several of the boys were quite sure I had it on the last time they saw me. It was remembered that I had expressed my intention to go in swimming instead of going to the show, where none of my mates remembered to have seen me. The conclusion arrived at was that I had stolen away by myself to bathe, and, as none of my other clothes were found, it was supposed that they had been carried off by some of the vagabond Indians who hung about the place in summer."

"The river was searched for my body, and of course without success; but then there were many deep holes and some quicksands. Suspicion fell upon the Indians, who played at that time the same part in American nursery legends that the gypsies do in England, but nothing was found to justify the imputation. Somehow the notion that I could have gone away with the Indians never entered into anybody's head, perhaps because I had taken no clothes with me but those I actually had on."