The Fairchilds

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

The winter that Flora was sixteen, Mr. Fairchild died. He had always been considered rather a wealthy man, as he owned a large and well-cultivated farm and was a successful raiser of stock, and every one supposed that the widow and her children would be well off. But it turned out that Mr. Fairchild had endorsed for a large amount for a neighbour. Mr. Furness had got tired of farming—such a slow and hard way of making money—so he had sold his farm, and with a large and expensive stock of goods, he had set up a store in the city some thirty miles away. His venture turned out as so many such ventures do. He failed utterly. Mr. Fairchild was called upon to pay his share, and when all was done, he found himself left with just a thousand dollars and a little place in Boonville to call his own and leave to his children. Grief and self-reproach brought on a paralytic shock, of which he died after some weeks of illness.

"Take care of your mother, my dears," were almost his last words to his children. "She has her little ways—all of us have—but she has been a good, faithful wife to me and a good mother to you. You will have to judge and decide for yourselves about many things, I know; but don't cross your mother if you can help it, and try to have patience, even if she is a little trying."

It was a mercy, as Eben said cheerfully, that they had such a nice little place in the village to go to when they were obliged to leave the farm. The house was small; but it was convenient, pleasant, and, like everything owned by Mr. Fairchild, in good repair; and there was quite a piece of land belonging to it, with a little orchard and a well-stocked garden. Mrs. Fairchild had her furniture, of course, and old General Dent bought in her favourite cow and gave it to her, requesting as a personal favour that it might run in the pasture with his own.

Flora had learned to run a sewing machine while away on a visit. She had twenty dollars of her own left her by an aunt, and with this she decided, after much consideration, to make the first payment on a good machine. Everything Flora had learned she learned thoroughly, and before she had ever expected to earn her living thereby, she had prepared herself to do so by acquiring great skill in using the machine on the finer kinds of fabric. She had friends at the Springs, which had become a popular summer resort, and she hoped by their aid, and that of Keziah Cooke, who took a great deal of washing from the Cure and the hotel, to be able to maintain herself and help to support her mother.

She had been fortunate at the very outset. Keziah, or Kissy, as she was much more commonly called, washed for a very fashionable and wealthy lady who wanted some copies made, as the artists say, of certain wonderfully-constructed under garments which had been sent her from Paris as patterns. Kissy secured the work for Flora, and Flora executed it to the perfect satisfaction of her employer. According to the usual course of stories, I ought now to go on and say that the fashionable lady screwed her poor work-woman down in price to the last penny, and kept her calling again and again for her pay. Such was not the case. Miss Barnard was as liberal and kind-hearted as she was rich and fashionable. She not only paid Flora a good price, but she recommended her to all her acquaintances, and the consequence was that, at the time our story begins, Flora had in the house as much fine work as would keep her busy for a month, and had already made a second payment on her machine. She was fortunate in liking her work, and took as much interest in copying all the tucks, ruffles, and embroidery of Miss Barnard's Paris-made night-dresses and skirts as she had ever done in following out the intricacies of a piece of worsted work. She preferred sewing to farm-work, and if she could a little have forgotten her grief for her father, and the disappointment about Eben's education, she would not very much have regretted the change in their circumstances.

Eben had not yet succeeded in finding anything to do for a living. He was naturally unwilling to give up the plan of going to college and afterwards studying medicine,—a plan on which his heart had been set for the past three years, and which he had talked over with Mr. Fairchild a hundred times. As many times since his father's death he had gone over the circumstances in his own mind, trying to see some way in which to bring about the accomplishment of his desires. He had at last come to a conclusion, and that conclusion he had announced to his mother and sister this very afternoon. He must go to work at any honest employment he could find, at which he could earn wages enough to support himself, and his schemes of study must be laid aside to some future time, if not given up altogether.

"But there's no need of doing that," said Eben to himself as he walked up the bank of the stream towards the mill. "I can keep it in mind, and maybe it will be brought about for me yet. I am sure it will, if it is best, and I won't worry about it, there! But try to do the best I can in whatever place I can find."

Eben stopped short in his walk, and stood looking across the fields towards the west for a minute or two. Then he broke out into a cheery whistle, and walked quickly on towards the mill.

As he came within sight of the dam, he broke off his whistling, and with an exclamation jumped over the fence and ran down to the edge of the pond. The cause of his haste was soon apparent. Somebody had tied a horse to a tree close to the edge of the water. The horse, in his impatience at the tormenting flies, had backed from under the tree towards the edge of the pond behind him. The consequence was that the hind wheels had gone over the bank into the water, and the fore wheels, with the old horse, were like to follow them before any one saw what was going on. Eben sprung to the wagon and tried to lift it up on the bank, at the same time calling for help, but as no help came, and the task proved beyond his own strength, he dexterously cut the traces and let the load go, thus saving the horse at the expense of the wagon. While he was patting and soothing the poor trembling beast, Jeduthun Cooke jumped out of the mill window, and came down the sloping bank like a deer.

"Well done, you!" was his first exclamation. "I was in the upper story when I looked out and saw you, and I don't believe I made more than two steps for each flight of stairs. Where's the wagon?"