The life of a school-girl presents but few salient points to arrest the
interest. It is true, every day had its history, and every rising and
setting sun found something added to the volume of my life. But there
seems so little to describe! I could go on for ever, giving utterance to
thoughts that used to crowd in my young brain, thoughts that would
startle as well as amuse,--but I fear they might become monotonous to
the reader.
I had become a hard student. My mother wished me to fit myself for a
teacher. It was enough.
It was not, however, without many struggles. I had acquired this
submission to her wishes. Must I forever be a slave to hours? Must I
weave for others the chain whose daily restraint chafed and galled my
free, impatient spirit? Must I bear the awful burden of authority, that
unlovely appendage to youth? Must I voluntarily assume duties to which
the task of the criminal that tramps, tramps day after day the revolving
tread-mill, seems light; for that is mere physical labor and monotony,
not the wear and tear of mind, heart, and soul?
"What else can you do, my child?" asked my mother.
"I could sew."
My mother smiled and shook her head.
"Your skill does not lie in handicraft," she said, "that would never
do."
"I could toil as a servant. I would far rather do it."
I had worked myself up to a belief in my own sincerity when I said this,
but had any tongue but mine suggested the idea, how would my aspiring
blood have burned with indignation.
"It is the most honorable path to independence a friendless young girl
can choose,--almost the only one," said my mother, suppressing a deep
sigh.
"Oh, mother! I am not friendless. How can I be, with you and Peggy?"
"But we are not immortal, my child. Every day loosens my frail hold of
earthly things, and even Peggy's strong arm will in time grow weak. Your
young strength will then be _her_ stay and support."
"Oh, mother! as if I could live when you are taken from me! What do I
live for, but you? What have I on earth but thee? Other children have
father and mother, and brothers and sisters, and friends. If one is
taken from them, they have others left to love and care for them, but I
have nobody in the wide world but you. I could not, would not live
without you."
I spoke with passionate earnestness. Life without my mother! The very
thought was death! I looked in her pale, beautiful face. It was more
than pale,--it was wan--it was sickly. There was a purplish shadow under
her soft, dark eyes, which I had not observed before, and her figure
looked thin and drooping. I gazed into the sad, loving depths of her
eyes, till mine were blinded with tears, when throwing my arms across
her lap, I laid my face upon them, and wept and sobbed as if the doom of
the motherless were already mine.
"Grief does not kill, my Gabriella," she said, tenderly caressing me.
"It is astonishing how much the human heart can bear without breaking.
Sorrow may dry up, drop by drop, the fountain of life, but it is
generally the work of years. The heart lives, though every source of joy
be dead,--lives without one well-spring of happiness to quench its
burning thirst,--lives in the midst of desolation, darkness, and
despair. Oh, my Gabriella," she continued, with a burst of feeling that
swept over her with irresistible power, and bowed her as before a stormy
gust, "would to God that we might die together,--that the same almighty
mandate would free us both from this prison-house of sorrow and of sin.
I have prayed for resignation,--I have prayed for faith; but, O my God!
I am rebellious, I am weak, I have suffered and struggled so long."
She spoke in a tone of physical as well as menial agony. I was looking
up in her face, and it seemed as if a dark shadow rolled over it. I
sprang to my feet and screamed. Peggy, who was already on the threshold,
caught her as she fell forward, and laid her on the bed as if she were a
little child. She was in a fainting fit. I had seen her before in these
deathlike swoons, but never had I watched with such shuddering dread to
see the dawn of awakening life break upon her face. I stood at her
pillow scarcely less pale and cold than herself.
"This is all your doings, Miss Gabriella," muttered Peggy, while busily
engaged in the task of restoration. "If you don't want to kill your
mother, you must keep out of your tantrums. What's the use of going on
so, I wonder,--and what's the use of my watching her as carefully as if
she was made of glass, when you come like a young hurricane and break
her into atoms. There,--go away and keep quiet. Let her be till she gets
over this turn. I know exactly what's best for her."
She spoke with authority, and I obeyed as if the voice of a superior
were addressing me. I obeyed,--but not till I had seen the hue of
returning life steal over the marble pallor of her cheek. I wandered
into the garden, but the narrow paths, the precise formed beds, the
homely aspect of vegetable nature, filled me with a strange loathing. I
felt suffocated, oppressed,--I jumped over the railing and plunged into
the woods,--the wild, ample woods,--my home,--my wealth,--my God-granted
inheritance. I sat down under the oaks, and fixed my eyes upwards on the
mighty dome that seemed resting on the strong forest trees. I heard
nothing but the soft rustling of the leaves,--I saw nothing but the
lonely magnificence of nature.
Here I became calm. It seemed a matter of perfect indifference to me
then what I did, or what became of me,--whether I was henceforth to be a
teacher, a seamstress, or a servant. Every consideration was swallowed
in one,--every fear lost in one absorbing dread. I had but one
prayer,--"Let my mother live, or let me die with her!"
Poverty offered no privation, toil no weariness, suffering no pang,
compared to the one great evil which my imagination grasped with firm
and desperate clench.
Three years had passed since I had lain a weeping child under the shadow
of the oaks, smarting from the lash of derision, burning with shame,
shrinking with humiliation. I was now fifteen years old,--at that age
when youth turns trembling from the dizzy verge of childhood to a
mother's guardian arms, a mother's sheltering heart. How weak, how
puerile now seemed the emotions, which three years ago had worn such a
majestic semblance.
I was but a foolish child then,--what was I now? A child still, but
somewhat wiser, not more worldly wise. I knew no more of the world, of
what is called the world, than I did of those golden cities seen through
the cloud-vistas of sunset. It seemed as grand, as remote, and as
inaccessible.
At this moment I turned my gaze towards the distant cloud-turrets
gleaming above, walls on which chariots and horsemen of fire seemed
passing and repassing, and I was conscious of but one deep, earnest
thought,--"my mother!"
One prayer, sole and agonizing, trembled on my lips:--
"Take her not from me, O my God! I will drink the cup of poverty and
humiliation to the dregs if thou wilt, without a murmur, but spare, O
spare my mother!"
God did spare her for a little while. The dark hands on the dial-plate
of destiny once moved back at the mighty breath of prayer.