Christmas at Cedar Hill

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

"I think it is this gentleman's turn next," said the squire, turning to the scholar, who sat looking at Agatha in an absent-minded way, as if he were thinking of something very far off. He started as the squire spoke, and expressed his willingness to contribute his share to the amusement of the evening.

"We have had two stories of early times-one in Michigan and one in New York State," said he. "I will tell you a story of early times in Vermont. It was related to me by the lady to whom the incident occurred, but as I cannot pretend to repeat her words, I will put the story in words of my own."

"THE LONELY THANKSGIVING."

"It would be hard to find any place where people dwell at all lonelier than Bolt's Hill. You turn up the public road, broad and well-travelled, which leads from Whitehall to Rockville, and go up, and up, and up, till it seems as if you were going to the clouds. On one side of the road is a perpendicular wall of rock, from twenty to sixty feet high, covered with grim, black spruce-trees. On the other side, the land descends rapidly to a deep ravine, at the bottom of which runs a brawling stream, which in wet weather is increased to a roaring torrent."

"There is not a house or a sign of habitation for several miles, but after a while the precipice and the road turn away from the stream, and the ravine widens out into a valley, at the bottom of which is a little, bright green meadow. The traveller comes to an old mossy apple-orchard, and then to an old red house. The house is low and needs painting, and the roof, the stone walls which surround the yard and garden, and all the little buildings about the door are covered with green moss and whitish lichens, showing how long they have been standing. The view in front of the house is bounded by a narrow grove of spruce and other trees, and behind that rises again the gray wall of rocks. Back of the house, pale green rocky pasture-land runs down to the brook, with here and there a tree growing in the scanty soil and rooting itself deep in the rifts of the rock."

"In summer, Bolt's Hill is a pleasant place enough. But the autumnal and winter gales sweep over it with a sound which may be heard for miles away, and which seems like the roar of the sea on a sandy beach."

"But if Bolt's Hill be rather a dreary spot, the little girl who lived there did not think so. It would be hard to find anywhere a more cheerful, placid little maiden than Fanny Bolt, or one who enjoyed life any more. Though she was the only child at home, she did not want for playmates. She had the dog, the cat and kittens, the cosset lambs, of which there were every summer one or two, and she was on terms of intimacy with every horse, cow, and sheep about the place. In summer, she went across lots to the district school, about three-quarters of a mile away, and there she had plenty of friends, for all the school children were fond of the bright, good-natured little girl."

"Fanny had not a great many books of her own. She possessed two or three which had been her mother's. One called 'Examples for Young Ladies,' and containing histories of various girls, good and bad. The good girls invariably made happy marriages, and the bad ones always caught cold and died, or were thrown out of carriages and became cripples ever afterwards; the history always ending with the epitaph of the young lady in question. Then she had a large 'Book of Trades,' with a great many pictures, in which she took great delight. But her chief treasures were the 'Parents' Assistant' and four big volumes of Mrs. Sherwood's works, which her sailor brother had brought her from England the last time he came home. These tales took her into a different world from her own—a world over which Fanny pondered and dreamed as she rambled over the pastures or sat with her sewing or knitting on the flat stone before the kitchen door."

"Besides these peculiar treasures, Fanny, by the time she was twelve years old, had read nearly all the books in the house. There was quite a collection of voyages and travels in the corner cupboard, which she knew almost by heart, and she had read a great deal of English and American history. But the book she loved best of all was the Bible—the great Bible with pictures, which lay on a stand in the corner, and which she was allowed to look over and study as much as she pleased, on the single condition that she should always have clean hands when she touched it."

"Mrs. Bolt had family prayers every morning, and Fanny read her two verses in turn with the rest, looking over her father as she sat by his side. Then Fanny, ever since she could remember, had learned every day first one, then two, then three verses in the New Testament, which she repeated to her mother before she went to bed; so that she was very familiar with the sacred text."