Beth saw her mother's countenance drop.
"Then I may speak to him," she decided for herself. "What's a copyright, mamma?"
"Oh, don't bother, Beth!" Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed irritably.
When they went home, Bernadine clamoured for food, and her mother gave her a piece of bread. They were to have dinner at four o'clock, but no luncheon, for economy's sake. Beth was hungry too, but she would not confess it. What she had heard of their poverty had made a deep impression on her, and she was determined to eat as little as possible. Aunt Victoria glanced at Bernadine and the bread as she went up to her room, and Beth fancied she heard her sigh. Was the old lady hungry too, she wondered, and her little heart sank.
This was Beth's first exercise in self-denial, but she had plenty of practice, for the scene was repeated day after day.
The children being free, had to amuse themselves as best they could, and went out to play in the little garden at the back of the house. Mrs. Caldwell's own freedom was merely freedom for thought. Most of the day she spent beside the dining-room table, making and mending, her only distraction being an occasional glance through the window at the boughs of the apple-trees which showed above the wall opposite, or at the people passing. Even when teaching the children she made, mended, and pursued her own thoughts, mapping out careers for her boys, making brilliant matches for Mildred and Bernadine, and even building a castle for Beth now and then. She made and mended as badly as might be expected of a woman whose proud boast it was that when she was married she could not hem a pocket-handkerchief; and she did it all herself. She had no notion of utilising the motive-power at hand in the children. As her own energy had been wasted in her childhood, so she wasted theirs, letting it expend itself to no purpose instead of teaching them to apply it. She was essentially a creature of habit. All that she had been taught in her youth, she taught them; but any accomplishment she had acquired in later life, she seemed to think that they also should wait to acquire. She had always dressed for dinner; so now, at half-past three every day, she put away her work, went into the kitchen for some hot water, which she carried upstairs herself, called the children, and proceeded to brush her own hair carefully, and change her dress. She expected the children to follow her example, but did not pay much attention to their proceedings, and they, childlike, constantly and consistently shirked as much of the ceremony as possible. If their mother caught them with unwashed hands and half-brushed hair, she thumped them on the back, and made them wash and brush; but she was generally thinking about something else, and did not catch them. The rite, however, being regularly although imperfectly performed, resulted in a good habit.
There was another thing too for which Beth had good reason to be grateful to her mother. During winter, when the days were short, or when bad weather made it impossible to go out on summer evenings, Mrs. Caldwell always read aloud to the children after tea till bed-time. Most mothers would have made the children read; but there was a great deal of laxity mixed with Mrs. Caldwell's harshness. She found it easier to do things herself than to make the children do them for her. They objected to read, and liked to be read to, so she read to them; and as, fortunately, she had no money to buy children's books, she read what there were in the house. Beth's ear was still quicker than her eye, and she would not read to herself if she could help it; but before she was fourteen, thanks to her mother, she knew much of Scott, Jane Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, Bulwer Lytton, and even some of Shakespeare, well; besides such books as "The Woman in White," "The Dead Secret," "Loyal Heart; or, The Trappers," "The Scalp Hunters," and many more, all of which helped greatly to develop her intelligence.
CHAPTER XV
During the next two years, Beth continued to look on at life, with eyes wide open, deeply interested. Her mind at this time, acting without conscious effort, was a mere photographic apparatus for the registration of impressions on the brain. Every incident stored and docketed itself somewhere in her consciousness for future use, and it was upon this hoard that she drew eventually with such astonishing effect.