Strange perplexities for these little people, but money always brings as much pain as pleasure. Mrs. Webb had, however, accommodated herself wonderfully to circumstances; she generally looked on the sunny side of a question, and she had, by working it over in her mind early and late, viewing it in every possible shape, fairly brought herself to think, that all things considered (this was a favourite expression of hers) farm, income, money and health, and, though last not least, the pleasure of obliging her husband; and if it must be told, the hold she would have on him for this double disappointment of hers—the plan of living in the country would be the very best thing for them all.
The spring opened delightfully, and the farm was to be ready for them in a few days; but Mr. Webb, wishing to make the removal as pleasant as possible, could not bear to let his wife go until every thing was tolerably well arranged in their new house. He proposed, therefore, that she and the child should go to see a relation of his who had never yet seen her, and who had several times given her pressing invitations to pay her a visit. The rooms they occupied at present had been let, and new boarders were to take possession of them immediately.
But Mrs. Webb strongly objected to this plan—“My dear Hassy,” said she, “no fear of my fatiguing myself or of taking cold. I shall remain quietly in my room until the carpets are down and the furniture unpacked. You will never catch me paying a visit to a near relation in the spring of the year, unless there be other guests there at the same time; I have seen too much of that.”
“But why,” said Mr. Webb, “why in the spring of the year more than in any other season?”
“Because, then you are treated most scandalously. In the first place, they begin with—a constrained smile on their face all the while—I am very sorry that you have come just at this time, not sorry on our account, but on your own; we are pulling every thing to pieces to commence house cleaning. Our best bed-room, which you ought to have, is all upside down; you will have to take the third story—and such a room, my dear Hassy—you can have no idea of it; I shudder when I think of exposing my baby to it. Perhaps it has been a nursery or neglected school room; spots of ink and grease cover the floor, great black knots show themselves, and the unseasoned boards gape wide. Three odd chairs, a half circular wooden toilet table without a cover, and a slim-posted, ricketty bedstead, with a feather bed scantily filled, and which still more scantily covers the bedstead—happy if it have a sacking instead of a rope bottom—coarse patched sheets, darned pillow cases, an old heirloom blue chequered counterpane, a broken wash basin on a little foot-square tottering table, and a blurred looking glass, complete the furniture of this cold north room. I shall say nothing of ‘the hearth unconscious of a fire,’ nor of the long deep cracks in the coarse whitewashed walls, nor of the rattling of the window sashes.”
“What a picture you have drawn, Winny! you speak very feelingly; have you ever been compelled to sleep in such a room? But what sort of fare do you receive under such circumstances?”
“Oh, the worst in the world; when it is meal time, then you hear this, or something like it: ‘How unfortunate to come at this unpropitious season? it is so uncomfortable for you; no vegetables, but old potatoes; no salad yet; all our hams gone; nothing but shoulders; and the hens are so backward this spring.’—No, no, my dear Hassy, unless there be visiters of some consequence in the house, never go near a relation in the spring of the year; I mean, if they live in the country. There is no exertion made to gratify your taste or your palate; a more forlorn state of things cannot be imagined. Now in June, or July, you may, on the score of your being a near relation, which is always a justifiable excuse, be ushered up in that comfortless north room; but then coolness and shade is not unpleasant—there are strawberries and blackberries, in their season, along the hedges and meadows, if none are to be had in the garden—then there are fresh milch cows, and the hens cannot help laying if they would—new potatoes come in plenty, and dock and pigweed grow without culture. I would rather have them than spinach at any time; buttermilk too can be had for asking; and you can rove about uncared for and unheeded, which I can tell you is as great a luxury when you are in the country, as to eat fresh eggs and breathe fresh air.”
Mr. Webb was exceedingly amused with this description, and as his wife did not seem to consider it an evil to go to an unaired house, he did not think it prudent to make her think it one. Her pliant, well-regulated mind soon enabled her to overcome her dislike to country occupations; and even to exult in her achievement in the way of making butter and cheese, and she soon excelled in raising poultry—three things which formerly belonged to female management alone. Now, however, in these wonder-working days, so ravenous are men for monopolies and for experimentalizing, that they have encroached on privileges, which even the old taskmasters of the female sex unreluctantly yielded to them.
Mrs. Webb, although of slender figure, and small in size, had a mind as active and as comprehensive, a temper as irritable, and was as bold an asserter of her own rights, as the stoutest of her sex. She soon regulated her household in a quiet, economical way, and had none but female servants within doors; detesting, as well she might, the appearance of a stale, heavy-looking, half-dirty man about the room, doing woman’s work, when he should be out of doors with a spade or a hoe.
What a bower did the happy Mr. Webb make of Oak Valley! Such a profusion of sweet-scented shrubs and flowers had never before been seen in the neighbourhood. Fruit trees soon made their appearance; and their crops of grain and grass were abundant and good. But what his wife most admired was, the regular supply of wood which he provided for the house—nicely cut and piled; a thing generally less attended to, and the cause of more vexatious disputes between the farmer and his wife than any other part of their arrangements. All things, therefore, considered, which Mrs. Webb was still in the habit of saying, “it really was preferable to live on such a pleasant, well regulated farm than in a narrow street or at lodgings.”