Papa's own girl: A novel

by Marie Stevens Howland

“Did he? Why he was a perfect blockhead himself in school, and forever at the foot of the spelling class.”

“Why, Miss Forest! I thought he was a beautiful writer and speller,” said Susie, wondering if this could be so.

“Have you any of his letters?” asked Clara, laughing and thinking it would be a good stroke of policy to show Susie that her tyrant was not quite omnipotent in wisdom.

Susie produced from the bottom of a well-worn paper box, whose corners, both of box and cover, had been carefully sewed together, a package of letters, and handed it confidently to Clara, who took out one at random, which was written while Dan was in the peddling business. It ran thus:

“My Darling Susie: I have gone all over this one horse town of Boilston to-day, and have sold a peice of red coton velvit for a safer covering and some pins and matches and that is all. To-morrow I shall be in Marlboro and expect to do a big business. I have not written to the governer yet because I want to show him I can live and succede to, away from home, so dont tell whear I am til I come back whitch will be next weak. Thear is a pretty little house here for sail and I mean to buy it as soon as I get money enough. How would you like it as a present? Only I shall expect you to take me as a purmanent border and I may be a very dyspeptic one and hard to pleas.”

There was much more about the cottage, and many expressions of tenderness and anxiety because he thought Susie did not fully return his love. Clara sighed as she refolded the letter, to think that one of her sex should be so deficient in culture as to take this effusion as a masterpiece of composition; but it revealed the fact that Dan had loved Susie sincerely in his way, and made her look very leniently upon Susie’s inordinate faith in him.

“Are there any mistakes in that?” asked Susie, seeing that Clara was silent.

“Yes, dear; plenty of them,” she answered, regretting her determination to destroy any of the poor child’s illusions; but she had committed herself to it, and so she pointed out the errors consecutively, beginning with “peice” in the first line, and then she said, “You see, if he had any serious education himself, he would not laugh at your mistakes in spelling. Only ignoramuses are vain about small accomplishments. I do not doubt in the least that your own letters were superior to this.”

“Oh, I think not; but you can see for yourself. He gave them to me to keep, because he is always going about. He always keeps my last till I write again, and then returns it for me to keep—I mean he always did do so—but he will never write me again,” she said, struggling with her emotion, as she gave Clara one of her letters to Dan. Clara read with quiet interest, forgetting all thought of the orthography in the simple eloquence expressed in every sentence. Tears came into her eyes as she read the closing paragraphs, “but I must not sit up later though I could never wish to stop. It is so sweet to know where you are and to send you words of love and then so much more sweet to know that you care for them. I must be up early to help your mother who is so kind to me. I keep thinking all the day that sometime she may come to like me and be willing that I should be your wife though I know I am not worthy of so high an honor. Your family would be ashamed of mine, Dan. This is a hard thought, but it is not my fault, and I mean to be good and true always. I read all the time I can get, and try to improve all I can. Do not laugh at my spelling, dearest. Remember I never went to school steadily but two months in my life. When we are together you will teach me, and I shall show you how seriously I can study. Good-night, dearest one. I kiss you in my thoughts and all my love and all my life are yours forever.”

“Oh, how blind your love has made you, Susie. Why, this letter is eloquent. If my brother had been capable of understanding your generous sensibility, he would rather have sought to learn of you, than to have presumed to be your teacher. There are errors in orthography, but not half so many as there are in his; besides the sentiment of yours is noble, and that of his is not. You spell beautiful with two ll’s, and there are one or two other errors; but I believe they are all from studying Dan’s ridiculous style. You write a pretty hand, and your head, as papa says, is an excellent one. There is nothing to hinder your getting a fair education. I will teach you the Latin and Greek words from which ours are made up, also rhetoric, and history, and geography, and we will study botany together. You will be charmed with botany. I have all the text-books, and I want you to commence even to-morrow, so that you can have no time to brood over your miseries. I know you won’t do as silly girls do who, when persecuted for falling one step, think they may as well go quite down to perdition. Remember, you are not really degraded in my eyes, and I want you to take me into your heart as a true friend.”