Homestead on the Hillside

by Mary Jane Holmes

CHAPTER II.

THE BELLE OF RICE CORNER.

Yes, Rice Corner had a belle, but it was not I. Oh, no, nobody ever mistook me for a belle, or much of anything else, in fact; I was simply "Mary Jane," or, if that was not concise enough, "Crazy Jane" set the matter all right. The belle of which I speak was a bona fide one—fine complexion, handsome features, beautiful eyes, curling hair, and all. And yet in her composition there was something wanting, something very essential, too; for she lacked soul, and would at any time have sold her best friend for a flattering compliment.

Still Carrie Howard was generally a favorite. The old people liked her because her sparkling eye and merry laugh brought back to them a gleam of youth; the young people liked her, because to dislike her would seem like envy; and I, who was nothing, liked her because she was pretty, and I greatly admired beauty, though I am not certain that I should not have liked a handsome rosebud quite as well as I did Carrie Howard's beautiful face, for beautiful she was.

Her mother, good, plain Mrs. Howard, was entirely unlike her daughter. She was simply "Mrs. Captain Howard," or, in other words, "Aunt Eunice," whose benevolent smile and kindly beaming eye carried contentment wherever she went. Really, I don't know how Rice Corner could have existed one day without the presence of Aunt Eunice. Was there a cut foot or hand in the neighborhood, hers was the salve which healed it, almost as soon as applied. Was there a pale, fretful baby, Aunt Eunice's large bundle of catnip was sure to soothe it, and did a sick person need watchers, Aunt Eunice was the one who, three nights out of the seven, trod softly and quietly about the sick-room, anticipating each want before you yourself knew what it was, and smoothing your tumbled pillow so gently that you almost felt it a luxury to be sick, for the sake of being nursed by Aunt Eunice. The very dogs and cats winked more composedly when she appeared; and even the chickens learned her voice almost as soon as they did the cluck of their "maternal ancestor."

But we must stop, or we shall make Aunt Eunice out to be the belle, instead of Carrie, who, instead of imitating her mother in her acts of kindness, sat all day in the large old parlor, thumping away on a rickety piano, or trying to transfer to broadcloth a poor little kitty, whose face was sufficiently indicative of surprise at finding its limbs so frightfully distorted.

When Carrie was fifteen years of age her father, concluding that she knew all which could possibly be learned in the little brown house where Joe and Jim once fought so fiercely, sent her for three years to Albany. It was currently reported that the uncle with whom she boarded received his pay in butter, cheese, potatoes, apples, and other commodities, which were the product of Captain Howard's farm. Whether this was true or not I am not prepared to say, but I suppose it was, for it was told by those who had no ostensible business except to attend to other people's affairs, and I am sure they ought to have known all about it, and probably did.

I cannot help thinking that Captain Howard made a mistake in sending Carrie away; for when at the end of three years she had "finished her education," and returned home, she was not half so good a scholar as some of those who had pored patiently over their books in the old brown house. Even I could beat her in spelling, for soon after she came home the boys teased for a spelling school. I rather think they were quite as anxious for a chance to go home with the girls as they were to have their knowledge of Webster tested. Be that as it may, Carrie was there, and was, of course, chosen first; but I, "little crazy Jane," spelled the the whole school down! I thought Carrie was not quite so handsome as she might be, when with an angry frown she dropped into her seat, hissed by a big, cross-eyed, red-haired boy, in the corner, because she happened to spell pumpkin, "p-u-n pun k-i-n kin, punkin." I do not think she ever quite forgave me for the pert, loud way in which I spelled the word correctly, for she never gave any more calicos or silks, and instead of calling me "Mollie," as she had before done, she now addressed me as "Miss Mary."

Carrie possessed one accomplishment which the other girls did not. She could play the piano most skilfully, although as yet she had no instrument. Three weeks, however, after her return a rich man, who lived in the village which was known as "Over the River," failed, and all his furniture was sold at auction. Many were the surmises of my grandmother, on the morning of the sale, as to what "Cap'n Howard could be going to buy at the vandue and put in the big lumber wagon," which he drove past our house.

As the day drew to a close I was posted at the window to telegraph as soon as "Cap'n Howard's" white horses appeared over the hill. They came at last, but the long box in his wagon told no secret. Father, however, explained all, by saying that he had bid off Mr. Talbott's old piano for seventy dollars! Grandma shook her head mournfully at the degeneracy of the age, while sister Anna spoke sneeringly of Mr. Talbott's cracked piano. Next day, arrayed in my Sunday red merino and white apron—a present from some cousin out West—I went to see Carrie; and truly, the music she drew from that old piano charmed me more than the finest performances since have done. Carrie and her piano were now the theme of every tongue, and many wondered how Captain Howard could afford to pay for three years' music lessons; but this was a mystery yet to be solved.