"What can I do, Miss Charlotte?" I asked her. "The trouble is she is
half crazy about sin and judgment, and things of that sort that I don't
even believe in at all. What can I say? You don't want me to tell her
her father's religion is a mistake, I suppose."
Miss Charlotte smiled serenely, and regarded me with a look of much
sweet kindliness.
"You're a fearful heathen, Ruth," was her response, "but you have a fine
wheedling way with you. Couldn't you persuade her she's too young to
think about such things?"
"I've tried something of the kind, but she says she is not too young to
die. She is like a child out of an old memoir. She isn't of our time at
all. We read of that sort of a girl, but I supposed they all died a
hundred years ago."
"I doubt if there ever were such girls," Miss Charlotte returned with
candor; "except once in a very great while. I think the girls of the
memoirs were very much like the rest of us most of the time. They
probably had spells of being like Kathie. The difference is that she is
at boiling point all the time."
"Of course it's her father," I said thoughtfully.
"Yes," she assented. "He's such a rampant Methodist."
I could not help the shadow of a smile, and when she saw it Miss
Charlotte could no more help smiling in her turn.
"Of course you think it's a case of the pot's calling the kettle black,"
she said, "but the Methodists do make such a business of frightening
folks out of their wits. We don't do that."
I let this pass, and asked if she couldn't make some practical
suggestion for the treatment of Kathie.
"I can't tell you how to dilute her Methodism," she returned with a
shrewd twinkle in her eye. "You must know the way better than I do."
I am troubled and perplexed. I have so many times wondered what I ought
to do about talking to Kathie. I have always felt that the fact her
father trusted her with me put me on my honor not to say things to her
of which he would not approve. It seemed unwise, too, for the child to
have any more turmoil in her brain than is there already; and I know
that to make her doubt would be to drive her half distracted. The
question is whether she has not really begun to doubt already, and needs
to be helped to think fearlessly. She is a strange survival from another
century. Our grandmothers used to agonize over sin, it is claimed,
although I think Miss Charlotte is probably right when she says they
were after all a good deal like us. At any rate they were brought up to
dread eternal punishment, but it is astonishing to find anybody now who
receives this as anything but a theory. Belief in the old creeds would
seem impossible in these days except in a conventional and remote
fashion; and yet Kathie takes it all with the desperation of two hundred
years ago. If she were to listen to a suggestion of using her creed less
like a hair-shirt, she would feel she had committed an appalling
transgression. She is only a baby after all, and heaven knows what
business she has with creeds anyway. I would as soon think of giving
Tomine dynamite bombs to play with.
I said something of this sort to Miss Charlotte, and she agreed with me
that Kathie ought not to brood over theologic questions, but she thought
even a child ought, as she put it, instinctively falling into the
conventional phraseology of the church, to make her peace with God. I am
so glad that nobody ever put it into my childish head that I could ever
be at war with God.
Peter has made a leap to the table, and set his foot on my wet writing.
Evidently he thinks it foolish to waste time in this sort of scribbling;
but I do wish I knew what I can do and what I ought to do.
July 15. Deacon Daniel Webbe came this afternoon to see his
granddaughter. Mrs. Webbe--had forbidden him, I was about to write, but
perhaps that is not fair. He only said she thought he had better not
come, and he tried clumsily to hint that he hoped I would not betray
him. It was touching to see him, he was so much moved by the beauty and
the daintiness of baby, and by all the thoughts he must have had about
Tom. He said little, only that he spoke with a good deal of feeling of
how good it is in Tom to stay at home and take charge of the farm; but
tears were in his patient eyes, and he looked at Tomine with a glance so
pathetic that I had to go away to wipe my own.
I find that having baby here naturally keeps my thoughts a good deal on
Tom and his possible future. I can't help the feeling that I owe him
some sort of reparation for the devotion he has given me all these
years. Surely a woman owes a man something for his caring for her so,
even if she cannot feel in the same way toward him. Tom has always been
a part of my life. We were boy and girl together long before I knew
George. When the Westons moved here, I must have been ten or twelve
years old; and I never knew George until Father took him into the
office. It was the winter Father had first been ill, and he had to have
an assistant at once. I remember perfectly the excellent reports Father
got from some office in Boston where George had been, and these decided
him. He had been inclined not to like George at the beginning. I think I
first became interested in George through defending him.
George always seemed rather to prefer that I should not know his people,
and this struck me as strange. The less admirable they were the more Tom
would have insisted upon my knowing them. Dear old Tom! How many times
he has told me of his own faults, and never of his good deeds. He is
certainly one of the most stubbornly honest creatures alive.
Tom and George are about as different as two mortals could be. George
has very little of Tom's frankness, and he has not much of Tom's
independence. Father used to declare that George would always be led by
a woman, but would never own it to himself. I wonder if this is true. He
is being led now by his wife. I fancy, though, he has no idea of such a
thing. Tom would lead wherever he was.
I have rambled far enough away from Deacon Daniel and the baby. I do
hope Tomine will have her father's honesty. If she have that, other
things may be got over. Deacon Daniel spoke of her having her father's
eyes, and she could hardly have Tom's eyes and not be straightforward.
July 20. Mr. Saychase has taken to frequent pastoral visitations of
late. He probably feels now that the moral welfare of baby is involved
he must be especially active. I wish he did not bore me so, for he comes
often, and I do wish to be friendly.
To-night he seemed rather oddly interested in my plans for the future.
"I hope that you mean to remain in Tuskamuck," he said. "Some folks
think you are likely to move to Boston."
I told him that I had no such intention, and reminded him that baby made
a new bond between me and the place.
"Oh, the baby," he responded, it seemed to me rather blankly. "You mean,
I presume, that you contemplate keeping the infant."
"Keeping her?" I responded. "Why, I have adopted her."
"I heard so," Mr. Saychase admitted; "but I did not credit the report. I
suppose you will place her in some sort of a home."
"Yes," I answered; "in my home."
He flushed a little, and as he was my guest I set myself to put him at
his ease. But I should like to understand why everybody is so determined
that Tomine shall be sent to a "Home."
July 21. I went to see old lady Andrews to-day. She was as sweet and
dear as ever, and as immaculate as if she had just been taken out of
rose-leaves and lavender. She never has a hair of her white curls out of
place, and her cheeks are at seventy-five pinker than mine. I like to
see her in her own house, for she seems to belong to the time of the
antique furniture, so entirely is she in harmony with it. I get a fresh
sense of virtue every time I look at her beautiful old laces. I wonder
if the old masters ever painted angels in thread laces; if not it was a
great oversight. Dear old lady Andrews, she has had enough sorrow in her
life to embitter any common mortal; her husband, her two sons, and her
near kin are all dead before her; but she is too sweet and fine to
degenerate. When sorrow does not sour, how it softens and ennobles.
Old lady Andrews was greatly interested about baby, and we gossiped of
her in a delightful way for half an hour.
"It pleases me very much, Ruth," she said at last, "to see how motherly
you are. I never had any doubt about you at all except that I wondered
whether you could really mother a baby. I knew you would love it, and
be kind, of course; but babies ought to have motherliness if they are
really to thrive."
I flushed with pleasure, and asked if she meant that she had thought me
cut out for an old maid.
"If I did," she answered, with that smile of hers which always makes me
want to kiss her on the spot, "I shall never think so again. You've the
genuine mother-instinct."
She looked at me a moment as if questioning with herself.
"The truth is," she went on, as if she had made up her mind to say the
whole, "you have been for years making an intellectual interest do
instead of real love, and of course your manner showed it."
I could not ask her what she meant, though I only half understood, and I
wished to hear more. She grew suddenly more serious, and spoke in a
lower tone.
"Ruth," she asked, "I am an old woman, and I am fond of you. May I say
something that may sound impertinent?"
Of course I told her she might say anything, and that I knew she could
not be impertinent. I could not think what was coming. She leaned
forward, and put her thin hand on mine, the little Tennant hand with its
old-fashioned rings.
"It is just this, Ruth. Be careful whom you marry. I'm so afraid you'll
marry somebody out of charity. At least don't think of being a parson's
wife."
"A parson's wife?" I echoed stupidly, not in the least seeing what she
meant.
"That would be worse than to take up with the prodigal son," she added,
not heeding my interrogation; "though it does seem to me, my dear, that
you are too good to be just served up like a fatted calf in honor of his
return."
I stared at her with bewilderment so complete that she burst into a soft
laugh, as mellow as her old laces.
"I am speaking parables, of course, and it's no matter now about the
prodigal. I only wanted to suggest that you are not just the wife for
Mr. Saychase, and"--
"Mr. Saychase!" I burst out, interrupting her, I think, for the first
time in my life. "Why, who ever thought of anything so preposterous?"
"Oh, you innocent!" she laughed. "I knew you'd be the last one to see
it, and I wanted to warn you so that he need not take you entirely by
surprise. He is my pastor, and a very good man in his way; but he isn't
our kind, my dear."
I sat staring at her in a sort of daze, while I suddenly remembered how
much Mr. Saychase has been to see me lately, and how self-conscious he
has seemed sometimes. I had not a word to say, even in protest, and old
lady Andrews having, I suppose, accomplished all she wished in warning
me, dropped the subject entirely, and turned back to Thomasine's doings
and welfare.
The idea that Mr. Saychase has been thinking of me as a possible
helpmate is certainly ludicrous. I believe thoroughly any girl should
"thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love," but in this case I do
not see how love comes into the question at all. I cannot help feeling
that he would intellectually be the sort of a husband to put into a
quart-pot, there to bid him drum, and at least he will lose no sleep
from a blighted passion for me. Certainly I should be intellectually
starved if I had to live with him. He is not naturally a man of much
power of thinking, I suppose, and he has never cultivated the habit. One
cannot help seeing that whatever his original capabilities they have
been spoiled by his profession. A minister, Father said to me once, must
either be so spiritual that his creed has no power to restrain him, or a
poor crippled thing, pathetic because the desire of rising has made him
hamper himself with vows. I think I understand what he meant, and I am
afraid Mr. Saychase is of the latter sort: a man who meant well, and so
pledged himself always to cling to the belief the church had made for
him, no matter what higher light might come into his life. He is to be
pitied,--though he would not understand why. He could hardly care for
anybody so far from his way of thinking as I am, so old lady Andrews
cannot be right there.
July 25. George is having his house enlarged. Mrs. Weston is certainly
energetic, with what is perhaps a Western energy. She has been married
only about four months. George told me the other day that he meant to
make the house larger.
"Gertrude wants a bigger parlor," he explained, rather ill at ease, I
thought. "The house is big enough for me, but when a man has a wife
things are different."
There was a labored playfulness in his manner which troubled me. He has
bought a phaeton and pony for her. I hope that he is not going beyond
his means. As for a larger parlor, I am afraid that Mrs. Weston will
have to fill it with rather odd people.
July 27. Kathie has shown a new side to her character which troubles me.
It is all, I suppose, part of her morbid, unhinged condition, but it is
unpleasant. She has conceived a violent jealousy of baby. She refuses to
stay in the house if I have Thomasine with me. This afternoon I had sent
for her to come over and stay to tea. She came in about five, with a
wild look in her eyes which she has almost all the time now. She sat
down without saying anything, and began to pull the roses in a bowl on
the table to pieces, scattering the petals on the floor.
I laughingly told her that she evidently thought she was in the woods
where roses grew wild and there were no rugs. Instead of answering me,
or apologizing, she looked at me strangely, and for a moment said
nothing.
"Are you going to have baby brought down here this afternoon?" she
demanded at last.
I said Tomine was out with Rosa, but that I expected them in soon, as it
was almost time for baby's supper.
"Will she come in here?" Kathie asked.
"Oh, yes," was my reply. "You will see her. Never fear."
"Then I may as well go home now," observed this astounding child,
rising, and going deliberately toward the door.
"What in the world do you mean?" I cried out, completely taken by
astonishment.
"I never will stay in the room with her again," Kathie responded
emphatically. "I just hate her!"