When merriment subsided into a more serious mood, each gave her opinion whether Harry Blake, the young lawyer, or Frank May, the young store-keeper, had the handsomest eyes. Jane said, there was a report that the young lawyer was engaged to somebody before he came to their village; but Harriet said she didn’t believe it, because he pressed her hand when they came home from the County Ball, and he whispered something, too; but she didn’t know whether it would be fair to tell of it. Then came the entreaty, “Do tell”; and she told. And with various similar confidings, they at last fell asleep.
Thus life flowed on, like a sunny, babbling brook, with these girls of sixteen summers. Fond as they were of recreation, they were capable, in the New England sense of the term, and accomplished a great deal of work. It was generally agreed that Harriet made the best butter and Jane the best bread that the village produced. Thrifty fathers said to their sons, that whoever obtained one of those girls for a wife would be a lucky fellow. Harriet refused several offers, and the rejected beaux revenged themselves by saying, she was fishing for the lawyer, in hopes of being the wife of a judge, or a member of Congress. There was less gossip about Jane’s love affairs. Nobody was surprised when the banns were published between her and Frank May. She had always maintained that his eyes were handsomer than the lawyer’s. It was easy enough for anybody to read her heart. Soon after Jane’s marriage with the young store-keeper Harriet went to visit an uncle in New York. There she attracted the attention of a prosperous merchant, nearly as old as her father, and came home to busy herself with preparations for a wedding. Jane expressed surprise, in view of certain confidences with regard to the young lawyer; but Harriet replied: “Mr. Gray is a very good sort of man, and really seems to be very much in love with me. And you know, Jenny, it must be a long time before Harry Blake can earn enough to support a wife handsomely.”
A few weeks afterward, they had their parting interview. They kissed and shed tears, and exchanged lockets with braids of hair. Jane’s voice was choked, as she said: “O Hatty, it seems so hard that we should be separated! I thought to be sure we should always be neighbors.”
And Harriet wiped her eyes, and tried to answer cheerfully: “You must come and see me, dear Jenny. It isn’t such a great way to New York, after all.”
The next day Jane attended the wedding in her own simple bridal dress of white muslin; and the last she saw of Harriet was the waving of her white handkerchief from a genteel carriage, drawn by two shining black horses. It was the first link that had been broken in the chain of her quiet life; and the separation of these first links startles the youthful mind with a sort of painful surprise, such as an infant feels waking from sleep to be frightened by a strange face bending over its cradle. She said to her husband: “I didn’t feel at all as I always imagined I should feel at Hatty’s wedding. It was so unexpected to have her go off with that stranger! But I suppose she is the best judge of what is for her own happiness.”
The void left by this separation was soon filled by new pleasures and duties. A little boy and girl came. Then her husband was seized with a disease of the spine, which totally unfitted him for business. Jane had acquired considerable skill in mantua-making, which now proved a valuable assistance in the support of her family. The neighboring farmers said, “Young Mrs. May has a hard row to hoe.” But her life was a mingled cup, which she had no wish to exchange for any other. Care and fatigue were sweetened by the tenderness and patience of her household mate, and brightened by the gambols of children, who clung to her with confiding love. When people expressed sympathy with her hard lot, she answered, cheerfully: “I am happier than I was when I was a girl. It is a happiness that I feel deeper down in my heart.” This feeling was expressed in her face also. The innocent blue eyes became motherly and thoughtful in their tenderness, but still a smile lay sleeping there. Her husband said she was handsomer than when he first loved her; and so all thought who appreciated beauty of expression above fairness of skin.
During the first year of her residence in New York, Harriet wrote every few weeks; but the intervals between her letters lengthened, and the apology was the necessity of giving dinner-parties, making calls, and attending to mantua-makers. To Jane, who was constantly working to nurse and support her dear ones, they seemed like letters in a foreign language, of which we can study out the meaning, but in which it is impossible for us to think. She felt herself more really separated from the friend of her girlhood than she could have been by visible mountains. They were not only living in different worlds, but the ways of each world did not interest the other. The correspondence finally ceased altogether, and years passed without any communication.
The circle of Jane’s duties enlarged. Her husband’s parents became feeble in health; they needed the presence of children, and could also assist their invalid son by receiving him into their house. So Frank May and his wife removed to their home, in a country village of Massachusetts. Her parents, unwilling to relinquish the light of her presence, removed with them. There was, of course, great increase of care, to which was added the necessity for vigilant economy; but the energy of the young matron grew with the demands upon it. Her husband’s mother was a little unreasonable at times, but it was obvious that she considered her son very fortunate in his wife; and Jane thankfully accepted her somewhat reluctant affection. If a neighbor alluded to her numerous cares, she replied cheerfully: “Yes, it is true that I have a good deal on my shoulders; but somehow it never seems very heavy. The fact is,” she added, smiling, “there’s great satisfaction in feeling one’s self of so much importance. There are my husband, my two children, my two fathers, and my two mothers, all telling me that they couldn’t get along without me; and I think that’s blessing enough for one poor woman. Nobody can tell, until they try it, what a satisfaction there is in making old folks comfortable. They cling so to those that take good care of them, that, I declare, I find it does me about as much good as it did to tend upon my babies.” Blessed woman! she carried sunshine within her, and so external circumstances could not darken her life.
The external pressure increased as years passed on. Her husband, her parents, her son, departed from her, one after another. Still she smiled through her tears, and said: “God has been very merciful to me. It was such a comfort to be able to tend upon them to the last, and to have them die blessing me!” The daughter married and removed to Illinois. The heart of the bereaved mother yearned to follow her; but her husband’s parents were very infirm, and she had become necessary to their comfort. When she gave the farewell kiss to her child, she said: “There is no one to take good care of the old folks if I leave them. I will stay and close their eyes, and then, if it be God’s will, I will come to you.”
Two years afterward, the old father died, but his wife survived him several years. When the estates of both fathers were settled, there remained for the two widowed women a small house, an acre of land, and a thousand dollars in the bank. There they lived alone. The rooms that had been so full of voices were silent now. Only, as Jane moved about, “on household cares intent,” she was often heard singing the tune her dear Frank used to sing under the apple-tree by her window, in their old courting days:—