"On garde longtemps son premier amant, quand on n'en prend point de
second."
_Maximes Morales du Duc de la Rochefoucauld._.
It is not suffering alone that wears out our lives. We sometimes are in
a state when a sharp pang would be hailed almost as a blessing,--when,
rather than bear any longer this living death of calm stagnation, we
would gladly rush into action, into suffering, to feel again the warmth
of life restored to our blood, to feel it at least coursing through our
veins with something like a living swiftness.
This death-in-life comes sometimes to the most earnest men, to those
whose life is fullest of energy and excitement It is the reaction, the
weariness which they name Ennui,--foul fiend that eats fastest into the
heart's core, that shakes with surest hand the sands of life, that makes
the deepest wrinkles on the cheeks and deadens most surely the lustre of
the eyes.
But what are the occasional visits of this life-consumer, this vampire
that sucks out the blood, to his constant, never-failing presence? There
are those who feel within themselves the power of living fullest lives,
of sounding every chord of the full diapason of passion and feeling, yet
who have been so hemmed around, so shut in by adverse and narrowing
circumstances, that never, no, not once in their half-century of years
which stretch from childhood to old age, have they been free to breathe
out, to speak aloud the heart that was in them. Ever the same wasting
indifference to the things that are, the same ill-repressed longing for
the things that might be. Long days of wearisome repetition of duties in
which there is no life, followed by restless nights, when Imagination
seizes the reins in her own hands, and paints the out-blossoming of
those germs of happiness and fulness of being of whose existence within
us we carry about always the aching consciousness.
And such things I have known from the moment when I first stepped from
babyhood into childhood, from the time when life ceased to be a play and
came to have its duties and its sufferings. Always the haunting sense of
a happiness which I was capable of feeling, faint glimpses of a paradise
of which I was a born denizen,--and always, too, the stern knowledge of
the restraints which held me prisoner, the idle longings of an exile.
But would no strong effort of will, no energy of heart or mind, break
the bonds that held me down,--no steady perseverance of purpose win me a
way out of darkness into light? No, for I was a woman, an ugly woman,
whose girlhood had gone by without affection, and whose womanhood was
passing without love,--a woman, poor and dependent on others for daily
bread, and yet so bound by conventional duties to those around her that
to break from them into independence would be to outrage all the
prejudices of those who made her world.
I could plan such escape from my daily and yearly narrowing life, could
dream of myself walking steadfast and unshaken through labor to
independence, could picture a life where, if the heart were not fed, at
least the tastes might be satisfied, could strengthen myself through all
the imaginary details of my going-forth from the narrow surroundings
which made my prison-walls; but when the time came to take the first
step, my courage failed. I could not go out into that world which looked
to me so wide and lonely; the necessity for love was too strong for me,
I must dwell among mine own people. There, at least, was the bond of
custom, there was the affection which grows out of habit; but in the
world what hope had I to win love from strangers, with my repellent
looks, awkward movements, and want of personal attractions?
Few persons know that within one hundred and fifty miles of the Queen
City of the West, bounded on both sides by highly cultivated tracts of
country, looking out westwardly on the very garden of Kentucky, almost
in the range of railroad and telegraph, in the very geographical centre
of our most populous regions, there lie some thousand square miles of
superb woodland, rolling, hill above hill, in the beautiful undulations
which characterize the country bordering on the Ohio, watered by fair
streams which need only the clearing away of the few obstructions
incident to a new country to make them navigable, and yet a country
where the mail passes only once a week, where all communication is by
horse-paths or by the slow course of the flat-boat, where schools are
not known and churches are never seen, where the Methodist itinerant
preacher gives all the religious instruction, and a stray newspaper
furnishes all the political information. Does any one doubt my
statement? Then let him ask a passage up-stream in one of the flat-boats
that supply the primitive necessities of the small farmers who dwell on
the banks of the Big Sandy, in that debatable border-land which lies
between Kentucky and Virginia; or let him, if he have a taste for
adventure, hire his horse at Catlettsburg, at the mouth of the river,
and lose his way among the blind bridle-paths that lead to Louisa and to
Prestonburg. If he stops to ask a night's lodging at one of the
farm-houses that are to be found at the junction of the creeks with the
rivers, log-houses with their primitive out-buildings, their
half-constructed rafts of lumber ready to float down-stream with the
next rise, their 'dug-outs' for the necessities of river-intercourse,
and their rough oxcarts for hauling to and from the mill, he will see
before him such a home as that in which I passed the first twenty years
of my life.
I had little claim on the farmer with whom I lived. I was the child by a
former marriage of his wife, who had brought me with her into this
wilderness, a puny, ailing creature of four years, and into the three
years that followed was compressed all the happiness I could remember.
The free life in the open air, the nourishing influence of the rich
natural scenery by which I was surrounded, the grand, silent trees with
their luxuriant foliage, the fresh, strong growth of the vegetation, all
seemed to breathe health into my frame, and with health came the
capacity for enjoyment. I was happy in the mere gift of existence, happy
in the fulness of content, with no playmate but the kindly and lovely
mother Earth from whose bosom I drew fulness of life.
But in my seventh year my mother died, worn out by the endless,
unvarying round of labors which break down the constitutions of our
small farmers' wives. She grew sallow and thin under repeated attacks of
chills and fever, brought into the world, one after another, three puny
infants, only to lay them away from her breast, side by side, under the
sycamore that overshadowed our cornfield, and visibly wasted away,
growing more and more feeble, until, one winter morning, we laid her,
too, at rest by her babies. Before the year was out, my father (so I
called him) was married again.
My step-mother was a good woman, and meant to do her duty by me. Nay,
she was more than that: she was, as far as her poor light went, a
Christian. She had experienced religion in the great revival of 18--,
which was felt all through Western Kentucky, under the preaching of the
Reverend Peleg Dawson, and when she married my father and went to bury
herself in the wilds of "Up Sandy" was a shining light in the Methodist
church, a class-leader who had had and had told experiences.
But all that glory was over now; it had flashed its little day: for
there is a glow in the excitement of our religious revivals as potent in
its effect on the imaginations of women and young men as ever were the
fastings and penances which brought the dreams and reveries, the holy
visions and the glorious revealings, of the Catholic votaries. In this
short, triumphant time of spiritual pride lay the whole romance of my
step-mother's life. Perhaps it was well for her soul that she was taken
from the scene of her triumphs and brought again to the hard realities
of life. The self-exaltation, the ungodly pride passed away; but there
was left the earnest, prayerful desire to do her duty in her way and
calling, and the first path of duty which opened to her zeal was that
which led to the care of a motherless child, the saving of an immortal
soul. And in all sincerity and uprightness did she strive to walk in it.
But what woman of five-and-thirty, who has outlived her youth and
womanly tenderness in the loneliness and hardening influences of a
single life, and who marries at last for a shelter in old age, knows the
wants of a little child? Indeed, what but a mother's love has the
long-enduring patience to support the never ceasing calls for
forbearance and perseverance which a child makes upon a grown person?
Those little ones need the nourishment of love and praise, but such milk
for babes can come only from a mother's breast. I got none of it. On the
contrary, my dearly loved independence, my wild-wood life, where Nature
had become to me my nursing-mother, was exchanged for one of never
ceasing supervision. "Little girls must learn to be useful," was the
phrase that greeted my unwilling ears fifty times a day, which pursued
me through my daily round of dish-washings, floor-sweepings, bed-making
and potato-peeling, to overtake me at last in the very moment when I
hoped to reap the reward of my diligence in a free afternoon by the
river-side in the crotch of the water-maple that hung over the stream,
clutching me and fastening me down to the hated square of patchwork,
which bore, in the spots of red that defaced its white purity in
following the line of my stitches, the marks of the wounds that my
awkward hands inflicted on themselves with their tiny weapon.
And so the years went on. It was a pity that no babies came to soften
our hearts, my step-mother's and mine, and to draw us nearer together as
only the presence of children can. A household without children is
always hard and angular, even when surrounded by all the softening
influences of refinement and education. What was ours with its poverty
and roughness, its every-day cares and its endless discomforts? One day
was like all the rest, and in their wearying succession they rise up in
my memory like ghosts of the past coming to lay their cold, death-like
hands on the feebly kindling hopes of the present. I see myself now, as
I look back, a tall, awkward girl of fifteen, with my long, straggling,
sunburnt hair, my sallow, yet pimply complexion, my small, weak-looking
blue eyes, that every exposure to the sun and wind would redden, and my
long, lean hands and arms, that offended my sense of beauty constantly,
as I dwelt on their hopelessly angular turns. I had one beauty; so my
little paper-framed glass, that rested on the rough rafter that edged
the sloping roof of my garret, told me, whenever I took it down to gaze
in it, which, but for that beauty, would have been but seldom. It was a
finely cut and firmly set mouth and chin. There was, and I felt it,
beauty and character in the curves of the lips, in the rounding of the
chin; there was even a healthy ruddiness in the lips, and something of
delicacy in the even, well-set teeth that showed themselves when they
parted.
The gazing at these beauties gave me great pleasure, not for any effect
they might ever produce in others,--what did I know of that?--but
because I had in myself a strong love of the beautiful, a passion for
grace of form and brilliancy of color which made doubly distasteful to
me our bare, uncouth walls, with their ugly, straight-backed chairs, and
their frightfully painted yellow or red tables and chests-of-drawers.
My step-mother's appearance, too, was a constant offence to my
beauty-loving eye,--with her lank, tall figure, round which clung those
narrow skirts of "bit" calico, dingy red or dreary brown,--her feet shod
in the heavy store-shoes which were brought us from Catlettsburg by the
returning flat-boat men,--her sharp-featured face, the forehead and
cheeks covered with brown, mouldy-looking spots, the eyes deep-set, with
a livid, dyspeptic ring around them, and the lips thin and pinched,--the
whole face shaded by the eternal sun-bonnet, which never left her head
from early sunrise till late bedtime (no Sandy woman is ever seen
without her sun-bonnet). All these were perpetual annoyances to me; they
made me discontented without knowing why; they filled me with disgust, a
disgust which my respect for her good qualities could not overcome.
And then our life, how dreary! The rising in the cold, gray dawn to
prepare the breakfast of corn-dodgers and bacon for my father and his
men,--the spreading the table-cloth, stained with the soil-spots of
yesterday's meal,--the putting upon it the ugly, unmatched
crockery,--the straggling-in of the unwashed, uncombed men in their
coarse working-clothes, redolent of the week's unwholesome toil,--their
washings, combings, and low talk close by my side,--the varied uses to
which our household utensils were put,--the dipping of dirty knives into
the salt and of dirty fingers into the meat-dish,--all filled me then,
and fill me now, with loathing.
There was a relief when the men left the house; but then came the dreary
"slicking-up," almost more disgusting, in its false, superficial show of
cleanliness, than had been the open carelessness of the workmen.
But there was no time for rest; my step-mother's sharp, high-pitched
voice was heard calling, "Janet!" and I followed her to the garden to
dig the potatoes from the hills or to the cornfield to pull and husk the
three dozen ears of corn which made our chief dish at dinner. Then came
the week's washing, the apple-peeling, the pork-salting, work varied
only with the varying season, until the blowing of the horn at twelve
brought back the men to dinner, after which came again the clearing up,
again the day's task, and again the supper.
I often thought that the men around us were always more cheerful and
merry than the women. They worked as hard, they endured as many
hardships, but they had, certainly, more pleasures. There was the
evening lounge by the fire in winter, the sitting on the fence or at the
door-step in summer, when, pipe or cigar in mouth, knife and
whittling-stick in hand, jest and gibe would pass round among them, and
the boisterous laugh would go up, reaching me, as I lay, tired out, on
my little cot, or leaned disconsolate at my garret-window, looking with
longing eyes far out into the darkness of the woods. No such
gatherings-together of the women did I ever see. If one of our neighbors
dragged her weary steps to our kitchen, and sat herself down, baby, in
lap, on the upturned tub or flag-bottomed chair that I dusted off with
my apron, it was to commence the querulous complaint of the last week's
chill or the heavy washing of the day before, the ailing baby or the
troublesome child, all told in the same whining voice. Even the choice
bit of gossip which roused us at rare intervals always had its dark
side, on which these poor women dwelt with a perverse pleasure.
In short, life was too hard for them; it brought its constant cares
without any alleviating pleasures. Their homes were only places of
monotonous labor,--their husbands so many hard taskmasters, who exacted
from them more than their strength could give,--their children, who
should have been the delight of their mothers' hearts, so many
additional burdens, the bearing and nursing of which broke down their
poor remaining health; the glorious and lavish Nature in which they
lived only brought to them added labor, and shut them out from the few
social enjoyments that they knew of.
I was old enough to feel all this,--not to reason on it as I can now,
but to rebel against it with all the violence of a vehement nature which
feels its strength only in the injuries it inflicts upon itself in its
useless struggles for freedom. Bitter tears did I shed sometimes, as I
lay with my head on my arms, leaning on that narrow window-sill,--tears
of passionate regret that I was not a boy, a man, that I might, by the
very force of my right arm, hew my way out of that encircling forest
into the world of which I dreamed,--tears, too, that, being as I was,
only an ugly, ignorant girl, I could not be allowed to care only for
myself, and dream away my life in this same forest, which charmed me
while it hemmed me in. My rude, chaotic nature had something of force in
it, strength which I knew would stand me in good stead, could I ever
find an outlet for it; it had also a power of enjoyment, keen, vivid,
could I ever get leave to enjoy.
At length came the opening, the glimpse of sunlight. I remember, as if
it were but yesterday, that afternoon which first showed to my physical
sight something of that full life of which my imagination had framed a
rude, faint sketch. I was standing at the end of the meadow, just where
the rails had been thrown down for the cows, when, looking up the path
that led through the wood by the river, I saw, almost at my side, a man
on horseback. He stopped, and, half raising his hat, a motion I had
never seen before, said,--
"Is this Squire Boarders's place?"
I pushed back my sun-bonnet, and looked up at him. I see him now as I
saw him then; for my quick, startled glance took in the whole face and
figure, which daguerreotyped themselves upon my memory. A frank, open
face, with well-cut and well-defined features and large hazel eyes, set
off by curling brown hair, was smiling down upon me, and, throwing
himself from his horse, a young man of about five-and-twenty stood
beside me. He had to repeat his question before I gained presence of
mind enough to answer him.
"Is this Squire Boarders's house, and do you think I could get a night's
lodging here?"
It was no unusual thing for us to give a night's lodging to the boatmen
from the river, or to the farmers from the back-country, as they passed
to or from Catlettsburg; but what accommodation had we for such a guest
as here presented? I walked before him up the path to the house, and,
shyly pointing to my step-mother, who stood on the porch, said,--
"That's Miss Boarders; you can ask her."
And then, before he had time to answer, I fled in an agony of
bashfulness to my refuge under the water-maple behind the house. I
lingered there as long as I dared,--longer, indeed, than I had any right
to linger, for I heard my mother's voice crying, "Janet!" and I well
knew that there was nobody but myself to mix the corn-cake, spread the
table, or run the dozen errands that would be needed. I slipped in by
the back-door, and, escaping my step-mother's peevish complaints, passed
into the little closet which served us for pantry, and, scooping up the
meal, began diligently to mix it.
The window by which I stood opened on the porch. My father and his men
had come in, and, tipping their chairs against the wall, or mounted on
the porch-railing, were smoking their cigars, laughing, joking,
talking,--and there in the midst of them sat the stranger, smoking too,
and joining in their talk with an easy earnestness that seemed to win
them at once. Our country-people do not spare their questions. My father
took the lead, the men throwing in a remark now and then.
"I calculate you have never been in these parts before?"
"No, never. You have a beautiful country here."
"The country's well enough, if we could clear off some of them trees
that stop a man every way he turns. Did you come up from Lowiza to-day?"
"No; I have only ridden from the mouth of Blackberry, I believe you call
it. I have left a boat and crew there, who will be up in the morning."
"What truck have you got on your boat?"
"Lumber and so forth, and plenty of tools of one sort or other."
"Damn me if I don't believe you're the man who is coming up here to open
the coal mines on Burgess's land!" And the whole crowd gathered round
him.
He laughed good-naturedly.
"Yes, I am coming to live among you. I hope you'll give me a welcome."
There was a cheery sound of welcome from the men, but my father shook
his head.
"We don't like no new-fangled notions, noways, up here, and I'll not say
that I'm glad you're bringing them in; but, at any rate, you're welcome
here to-night."
The young man held out his hand.
"We are to be close neighbors, Squire Boarders, and I hope we shall be
good friends; but I ought to tell you all about myself. Mr. Burgess's
land has been bought by a company, who intend to open the coal mines, as
you know, and I am sent up here as their agent, to make ready for the
miners and the workmen. We shall clear away a little, and put up some
rough shanties, to make our men comfortable before we go to work. We
shall bring a new set of people among you, those Scotch and Welsh
miners; but I believe they are a peaceable set, and we'll try to be
friendly with each other."
The frank speech and the free, open face seemed to mollify my father.
"And how do you call yourself, stranger, when you are at home?"
"My name is George Hammond."
"Well, as I was telling you, you're welcome here to-night, and I don't
know as I've anything against your settling over the river on Burgess's
land. The people round here have been telling me your coming will be a
good thing for us farmers, because you'll bring us a market for our corn
and potatoes; but I don't see no use of raising more corn than we want
for ourselves. We have enough selling to do with our lumber, and you'll
be thinning out the trees.--But there's my old woman's got her supper
ready."
I listened as I waited on the table. The talk varied from farming to
mining and the state of the river, merging at last into the politics of
the country, and through the whole of it I watched the stranger: noticed
how different was his language from anything I had ever heard before;
marked the clear tones of his voice and the distinctness of his
utterance, contrasting with the heavy, thick gutturals, the running of
words into each other, the slovenly drawl of my father and his men;
watched his manner of eating, his neat disposition of his food on his
plate; saw him move his chair back with a slight expression of
annoyance, unmarked by any one else, as Will Foushee spit on the floor
beside him. All this I observed, in a mood half envious, half sullen,--a
mood which pursued me that night into my little attic, as I peevishly
questioned with myself wherein lay the difference between us.
"Why is this man any better than Will Foushee or Ned Burgess? He is no
stronger nor better able to do a day's work. Why am I afraid of him,
when I don't care an acorn for the others? Why do my father and the men
listen to him and crowd round him? What makes him stand among them as if
he did not belong to them, even when he talks of what they know better
than he? There is not a man round Sandy that could make me feel as
ashamed as that gentleman did when he spoke to me this afternoon. Is it
because he is a gentleman?" And sullenly I resolved that I would be put
down by no airs. I was as good as he, and would show him to-morrow
morning that I felt so. Then came the bitter acknowledgment, "I am not
as good as he is. I am a stupid, ugly girl, who knows nothing but
hateful housework and a little of the fields and trees; and he,--I
suppose he has been to school, and read plenty of books, and lived among
quality." And I cried myself to sleep before I had made up my mind fully
to acknowledge his superiority.
It was one of my greatest pleasures to get up early. Our people were not
early risers, except when work pressed upon them, and I often secured my
only leisure hour for the day by stealing down the staircase, out into
the woods, by early sunrise, when, wrapped in an old shawl, and
sheltered from the dew by climbing into the lower branches of my pet
maple, I would watch the fog reaching up the opposite hills, putting
forth as it were an arm, by which, stretched far out over the trees, it
seemed to lift itself from the valley,--or perhaps carrying with me one
of the few books which made my library, I would spell out the sentences
and attempt to extract their meaning.
They were a strange medley, my books: some belonging to my step-mother,
and others borrowed or begged from the neighbors, or brought to me by
the men, with whom I was a favorite, and who knew my passion for
reading. My mother's books were mostly religious: a life of Brainerd,
the missionary, whose adventures roused within me a gleam of religious
enthusiasm; some sermons of the leading Methodist clergy, which, to her
horror, I pronounced stupid; and a torn copy of the "Imitation of
Christ," a book which she threatened to take from me, because she
believed it had something to do with the Papists, but to which, for that
very reason, I clung with a tenacity and read with an earnestness which
brought at last its own beautiful fruits. Then, there was the "Scottish
Chiefs," a treasure-house of delight to me,--two or three trashy novels,
given me by Tom Salyers, of which my mother knew nothing,--and (the only
poetry I had ever seen) a song-book, which had, scattered among its
vulgarisms and puerilities, some gems of Burns and Moore. These my
natural, unvitiated taste had singled out, and I would croon them over
to myself, set them to a tune of my own composing, and half sing, half
chant them, when at work out-of-doors, till my mother declared I was
going crazy.
This morning I did not read. I sat looking down into the water from my
perch, carrying on the inward discussion of the night before, and
wishing that breakfast-time were come, that I might try my strength and
show that I was not to be put down by any assumption of superiority,
when suddenly a voice near me made me start so that I almost lost my
balance. Mr. Hammond was standing beneath. He laughed, and held out his
hand to help me down; but I sprang past him and was on my way to the
house, when suddenly my brave resolutions came back to my mind, and I
stood still with a feeling of defiance. I wondered what he would dare to
say. Would he tell me how stupid he thought us all, how like the very
pigs we lived? or would he describe his own grand house and the great
places he had seen? I scowled up sullenly.
"Will you tell me where to find a towel, that I may wash my face here by
the river-side?"
I laughed aloud, and with that laugh fled my sullenness. He looked a
little puzzled, but went on,--
"I went to bed so early that I cannot sleep any longer; and if I could
only find some way of getting across the river, I could get things under
way a little before my men come up."
There were ways, then, in which I could help him,--he was not so
immeasurably above me,--and down went my defiant spirit. The towel, a
crash roller, luckily clean, was brought at once, and, gathering courage
as I stood by and saw him finish his washing, I said,--
"I can scull you over the river in a few minutes, if you will go in our
skiff."
"You? can you manage that shell of a thing? will your father let you
take it, Miss Boarders?"
"My name is Janet Rainsford, and Squire Boarders is not my father," said
I, some of my sullenness returning.
"If you will take me, Janet," said he, with the frank, open-hearted tone
which had won my step-father the night before,--a tone before which my
sullenness melted.
I jumped in, and, letting him pass me before I threw off the rope,
sculled the little dug-out into the middle of the river. No boatman on
the Sandy was more skilful than I in the management of the little
vessel, for in it most of my leisure time had been passed for the last
year or two. My step-mother had scolded, my father grumbled, and the
farmers' wives and daughters had shaken their heads and "allowed that
Janet Rainsford would come to no good, if she was let fool about here
and there, like a boy." But on that point I was incorrigible; the boat
was my one escape from my daily drudgery, and late at night and early in
the morning I went up and down among the shoals and bars, under the
trees and over the ripples, till every turn of the current was familiar
to me. I knew all the boatmen, too, up and down the river, would pull
along-side their rafts or pushing-boats, and get from them a slice of
their corn-bread or a cup of coffee, or at least a pleasant word or
jest. And none but pleasant words did I ever receive from the rough, but
honorable men whom I met. They respected, as the roughest men will
always do, my lonely girlhood, and felt a sort of pride in the daring,
adventurous spirit that I showed.
My knowledge of the river stood Mr. Hammond in good stead that morning,
as soon as I understood that he was looking for a place where his men
could land easily. It was only to sweep round a small bluff that jutted
into the river, and carry the skiff into the mouth of Nat's Creek,
where the bank sloped gradually down to the water from a level bit of
meadow-land that extended back some rods before the hills began to rise.
Mr. Hammond leaped out.
"The very place,--and here, on this point, shall be my saw-mill. I'll
run the road through here and up the creek to the mining-ground, and
build my store under the ledge there, and my shanties on each side the
road."
I caught his enthusiasm, and, my shyness all gone, I found myself
listening and suggesting; more than that, I found my suggestions
attended to. I knew the river well; I knew what points of land would be
overflowed in the June rise; I knew how far the backwater would reach up
the creek; I knew the least obstructed paths through the woods; I could
even tell where the most available timber was to be found. I felt, too,
that my knowledge was appreciated. George Hammond had that one best gift
that belongs to all successful leaders, whether of armies, colonies, or
bands of miners: he recognized merit when he saw it. From that morning a
feeling of self-respect dawned upon me, I was not so altogether ignorant
as I had thought myself, I had some available knowledge; and with that
feeling came the determination to raise myself out of that slough of
despond into which I had fallen the night before.
From that time a sort of friendship sprang up between George Hammond and
myself. Every morning I rowed him across the river, and, in the early
morning light, before the workmen were out of bed, he talked over,
partly to himself and partly to me, his plans for the day and his
vexations of the day before, until I began to offer advice and make
suggestions, which made him laughingly call me his little counsellor.
Then in the evenings (he slept at my father's) he would pick up my books
and amuse himself with talking to me about them, laugh at my crude
enthusiasms, clear up some difficult passage, prune away remorselessly
the trash that had crept into my little collection, until, one day,
returning from Cincinnati, where business had called him, he brought
with him a store of books inexhaustible to my inexperienced eyes, and
declared himself my teacher for the winter.
"Never mind Janet's knitting and mending, Mrs. Boarders," said he, in
reply to my mother's complaints; "she is a smart girl, and may be a
school-mistress yet, and earn more money than any woman on Sandy."
"But I am afraid," my step-mother answered, "that the books she reads
are not godly, and have no grace in them. They look to me like players'
trash. I've tried to do my duty to Janet," she continued, plaintively;
"but I hope the Lord won't hold me accountable for her headstrong ways."
Meantime, as I read in one of my books, and repeated to myself over and
over again in my fulness of content,--
"How happily the days
Of Thalaba went by!"
How rapidly fled that winter, and how soon came the spring, that would
bring me, I thought, new hopes, new interests, new companions!
How changed a scene did I look upon, that bright April morning, when I
went over the river to see that all was in readiness for the boats from
below which were to bring Esther Hammond to her new home! She was to
keep her brother's house; and furniture, books, and pictures, such as I
had never dreamed of, had been sent up by the last-returning boatmen,
all of which I had helped Mr. Hammond to arrange in the little two-story
cottage which stood on the first rise of the hill behind the store.
A little plat of ground was hedged in with young Osage-orange shrubs,
and within it one of the miners, who had formerly been an under-gardener
in a great house in Scotland, had already prepared some flower-beds and
sodded carefully the little lawn, laying down the walks with
bright-colored tan, which contrasted pleasantly with the lively green
of the grass. From the gate one might look up and down the road,
bordered on one side by the trees that hung over the river, and on the
other by the miners' houses, one-story cottages, each with its small
inclosure, and showing every degree of cultivation, from the neat
vegetable-patch and whitewashed porch of the Scotch families to the
neglected waste ground and slovenly potato-patch of the Irishmen. There
were some Sandians among the hands, but they never could be made to take
one of the houses prepared for the miners. They lived back on the
creeks, generally on their own lands, raised their corn and tobacco, cut
their lumber, and hunted or rode the country, taking jobs only when they
felt so inclined, but showing themselves fully able to compete with the
best hands both in skill and in endurance, when they were willing to
work.
On the side of the hill across the creek could be seen the entrance to
the mines, and down that hill were passing constantly the cars, loaded
with earth and stone taken from the tunnel, which fell with a thundering
sound into the valley beneath. Below me was the store, gay with its
multifarious goods, which supplied all the needs of the miners and their
wives, from the garden-tools and seeds for the afternoon-work to the
gay-colored dresses for the Sunday leisure,--where, too, on Saturday
night, whiskey was to be had in exchange for the scrip in which their
wages were paid, and where, sometimes, the noise waxed fast and furious,
till Mr. Hammond would cut off the supply of liquor, as the readiest
means of stilling the tumult.
On this side the river all was changed. But as I looked that morning
across the stream towards my step-father's farm, my own home, everything
there lay as wild and unimproved as I had known it since the first day
my mother brought me there, comfortless and disorderly as it was when,
child as I was, I could remember the tears of fatigue and discouragement
which she dropped upon my face as she put me for the first time into my
little crib; but there, too, were still (and my heart exulted as I saw
them) the glorious water-maples, the giant sycamores, and the
bright-colored chestnut-trees, which I had known and loved so long.
Would Miss Hammond see how beautiful they were? would she praise them as
her brother had done? would she listen as kindly to my rhapsodies about
them? and would she say, as he had said, that I was a poet by nature,
with a poet's quick appreciation of beauty and the poet's gift of
enthusiastic expression? I could not tell whether Esther Hammond would
be to me the friend her brother had been, with the added blessing, that,
being a woman, I could go freely to her with my deficiencies in sure
dependence upon her aid and sympathy,--or if she would come to stand
between me and him, to take away from me my friend and teacher. Time
alone would show; and meanwhile I must be busy with my preparations, for
the boats were expected at noon, and Mr. Hammond, who had ridden down to
Louisa to meet them, had said that he depended upon me to have things
cheerful and in order when they arrived.
Two hours' hard work saw everything in its place, the furniture arranged
to the best of my ability, but wanting, as I sorely felt, the touch of a
mistress's hand to give it a home-like look. I had done my best, but
what did I know of the arrangement of a lady's house? I hardly knew the
use of half the things I touched. But I _would_ not let my old spirit of
discontent creep over me now; so, betaking myself to the woods, which
were full of the loveliest spring flowers, I brought back such a
profusion of violets, spring-beauties, and white bloodroot-blossoms,
that the whole room was brightened with their beauty, while their faint,
delicate perfume filled the air.
"Surely these must please her," I said to myself, as I put the last
saucerful on the table, and stepped back to see the result of my work.
"They certainly will, Janet," said George Hammond, who had entered
behind me. "How well you have worked, and how pleasant everything
looks! Esther will be so much obliged to you. She is just below, in the
boat. Will you not come with me and help her up the bank?"
But I hung back, bashful and frightened, while he called some of the men
to his assistance, and, hurrying down to the river, landed the boat, and
was presently seen walking toward the house with a lady leaning upon his
arm. I saw her from the window. A tall, dignified woman, with a
face--yes, beautiful, certainly, for there were the regular features,
the dark eyes, with their straight brows, the heavy, dark hair, parted
over the fair, smooth forehead, but so quiet, so cold, so almost
haughty, that my heart stood still with an undefined alarm.
She came in and sat down in one of the chairs without taking the least
notice of me. Mr. Hammond spoke,--
"This is Janet Rainsford, my little friend that I told you of, Esther. I
hope you will be as good friends as we have been. She will show you
every beautiful place around the country, and make you acquainted with
the people, too."
Miss Hammond looked at me with a steadiness of gaze under which my eyes
sank.
"I shall not trouble the young person much, since I shall only walk when
you can go with me; and as for the people, it is not necessary for me to
know them, I suppose."
George Hammond bit his lip.
"Janet has taken great pains to put everything in order for us here. I
should hardly know the room, it is so improved since I left it this
morning."
"She is very kind," said his sister, languidly; "but, George, how
horribly this furniture is arranged,--the sofa across the window, the
centre-table in the corner!"
"Oh, you will have plenty of time to arrange it, Esther. Come, let me
show you your own room; you will want to rest while your Dutch
girl--what's her name? Catrine?--gets us something to eat."
Miss Hammond followed her brother to her room, while, mortified and
angry with her, with myself, I escaped from the house, jumped into my
skiff, and hardly stopped to breathe till I had reached my own little
garret. I flung myself on my bed, and burst into bitter tears of
resentment and despair. So, after all my pains, after my endeavors to
improve myself, after all I had done, I was not worth the notice of a
real lady. I supposed I was an uncouth, awkward girl, disagreeable
enough to her; she would not want to see me near her. All I had done was
miserable; it would have been better to let things alone. I never would
go near her again,--that was certain,--she should not be troubled by
me;--and my tears fell hot and fast upon my pillow. Then came my old
sullenness. Why was she any better than I? Her brother thought me worth
talking to; could she not find me worthy of at least a kind look?
Perhaps she knew more than I did of books; but what of that? She had not
half the useful knowledge wherewith to make her way here in the woods.
And what right had she to bring her haughty looks and proud ways here
among our people? My sullenness gave way before my bitter disappointment
and my offended pride. I was only a child of sixteen, sensitive and
distrustful of myself, and her cold looks and colder words had keenly
wounded me.
A week passed, in which I gave myself most earnestly to the household
tasks, going through them with dogged pertinacity, and accomplishing an
amount of work which made my step-mother declare that Janet was coming
back to her senses after all. It was only my effort to forget my
disappointment.
On the Saturday evening when I sat tired out with my exertions, Mr.
Hammond came up the path. How my heart leaped at seeing him! How good he
was to come! His sister had not taught him to despise me. But when he
asked me to come over, the next day, and see what he had done to his
house and garden, the demon of sullen pride took possession of me again.
I would not go. I had too much to do; my mother would want me to get
the dinner. In short, I could not go. He bore it good-naturedly, though
I think he understood it, and, leaving with me a package of books which
he had promised me, said he must go, as Esther would be waiting tea for
him.
Many another endeavor did George Hammond make to bring his sister and
myself together, but the first impression had been too strong for me,
and Miss Hammond made no effort to remove it. I do not believe it ever
crossed her mind to try to do so. Little was it to her whether or no she
made herself pleasant to a stupid, ugly girl. She had her books, her
light household cares, her letter-writing, her gardening, her walks and
drives with her brother, and she felt and showed little interest in
anything else. Very unpopular she was among the people around her, who
contrasted her cold reserve with her brother's frank cordiality; but she
troubled herself not at all about her unpopularity. For me, I kept shyly
out of her way, and fell back into my old habits.
I had not lost my friend, Mr. Hammond. He did not read with me regularly
as before, but he kept me supplied with books, and the very infrequency
of his lessons stimulated me to redoubled effort, that I might surprise
him by my progress when we met again. Then there was scarcely a day that
some business did not take him past our house, or that I did not meet
him by the river-bank or at the store. Sometimes he would ask me to row
him down the stream on some errand, sometimes he would take me with him
in his rides. I was a fearless horsewoman, and Miss Hammond did not
ride. In all those meetings he was frank and kind as ever; he told me of
his plans, his annoyances, his projects. No, I had not lost my friend,
as I had feared, and when assured of this, I could do without Miss
Hammond.
And so the weeks glided into months, and the months into years, and I
was nineteen years old. Four years had passed since the morning when
George Hammond first awakened my self-esteem, first gave me the impulse
to raise myself out of my awkwardness and ignorance, to make of myself
something better than one of the worn, depressed, dispirited women I saw
around me. Had I done anything for myself? I asked. I was not educated,
I had no acquirements, so-called; but I had read, and read well, some
good and famous books, and I knew that I had made their contents my own.
I was richer for their beauties and excellences. With my self-respect
had come, too, a desire to improve my surroundings, and, as far as they
lay under my control, they had been improved. Our household was more
orderly; some little attempt at neatness and decoration was to be seen
around and in the house, and my own room, where I had full sway, was
beautiful in its rustic adornment.
My glass, too, the poor little three-cornered, paper-framed companion of
my girlhood, showed me some change. The complexion had cleared, the hair
had taken a decided brown, and the angular figure had rounded and
filled. It was hardly a week since, standing in Miss Hammond's kitchen
counting over with her servant-girl the basketful of fresh eggs which
were sent from our house every week, I had overheard Mr. Hammond say to
his sister,--
"Really, Janet Rainsford has improved so much that she is almost pretty.
Her brown hair tones so well with her quiet eyes; and as to her mouth,
it is really lovely, so finely cut, and with so much character in it."