"You are too meek with William, Rachael, and so fail of due influence. Wifely obedience is commanded in the Bible, it is true, but I do not think the sacrifice of our principles is required."
"Preaching still, eh, Martha—" called my father's cheery voice from the big room, having come in to put another log upon the roaring pile; "well, you'll have to stop now, for I see Justices McDowell and Willson riding up, and, as you know, we like not solemn faces in this house on Christmas day," and he hurried out again to meet his guests, before Aunt Martha was sufficiently recovered from her indignant surprise to make him proper answer.
The ensuing hour brought a dozen others, the most substantial freeholders in the community, nearly all of them members of the church, as well as men of influence in public affairs. A few drank only cider or beer, but most of them quaffed full cups of the spiced, apple-seasoned toddy with evident appreciation, and ate the cakes, apples and nuts without stint.
I sat about the fire with the men, proud of my privilege, but mother and Aunt Martha, after ceremonious greetings were exchanged, retired, as was customary for women when several men were met together. The talk was animated, and at times exciting, though there was but small difference of opinion among them. The Boston massacre, and recent unjust restrictions upon our commerce, were indignantly condemned, and the determined spirit of the colonists of Massachusetts warmly commended. Presently it was proposed by Justice Willson, and warmly seconded by my father, that the citizens of Augusta County, or a committee elected by them, should draw up resolutions to be sent to the Virginia assembly, expressing with no uncertain sound their fixed determination not to submit to tyranny, and to sustain Massachusetts in her noble stand against injustice and oppression at every hazard. In truth the leaders of the New England "Town Meeting," could not have shown more fervor nor more determination than these representative men of this Scotch Irish settlement in the Virginia mountains. The discussion was unabated still, and not a man had suggested returning home, when my mother announced dinner. The table had been lengthened to its utmost, by raising all its "wings" and putting the side tables at either end; but there was still no seat for me, so I wandered into my mother's room, and then across the yard to the kitchen to look for Jean and Ellen. Jean, and John Mitchell I found, eating turkey livers, gravy and potatoes before the embers, over which hung the now idle cranes, and Thomas was mending John's sled at the work bench in the back kitchen. But Ellen was not to be found, and no one had seen her for two hours. Returning to the house, I mounted the steps to the room under the gable, where grandma and Jean slept, and there found Ellen, wrapped in a blanket, and lying prone on the floor in the stream of sunshine pouring through the western window. Her chin was supported by her hands and an open book lay before her.
"Are you hiding from Aunt Martha, Ellen?" I asked teasingly.
"I slipped away while she was helping your mother set table," she answered, "and stole up here to read. I don't often get a chance; your Aunt Martha keeps me at work from sun up till dark, and then sends me to bed. She says it is a wicked waste of time to read anything but one's Bible—and the holy father in Baltimore told me that the way Protestants presumed to read the sacred book, and determine for themselves its sacred meaning is blasphemous."
"What book are you reading?" I asked.
"One of the Shakespeare books my father gave me. I have six more like it," and she held up to my view a small leather bound volume, a good deal the worse for wear. "I slipped it into my satchel when Aunt Martha sent me up stairs to get my things, the morning you came for us, but please don't tell her, Cousin Donald—she said she'd take the books away from me if she saw me reading them again, for they were not fit reading for me, and I had no time to waste on them."
"How did she know they were not fit reading for you?" I asked, curious to learn if Aunt Martha had stopped work long enough to examine a book.
"She made Uncle Thomas read some out of one of the volumes to her," answered Ellen, smiling in response to my thought. "And she said, at breakfast table next morning, that a great deal of it had neither sense nor meaning, and the part she could understand was about fighting and killing, or else foolish love stuff—all of it unfit for any young person to hear. She wanted to burn my books, as she did my crucifix, but I ran and hid them, and cried so, all day, that Uncle Thomas said 'Let the child's books alone, Martha; her father gave them to her; if they harm her it's no fault of yours.'"