MADELINE CLYDE.
Maddy, her grandfather and grandmother called her, and there was a world
of unutterable tenderness in the voices of the old couple when they
spoke that name, while their dim eyes lighted up with pride and joy
whenever they rested upon the young girl who made the sunlight of their
home. She was the child of their only daughter, and had lived with them
since her mother’s death, for her father was a sea captain, who never
returned from his last voyage to China, made two months before she was
born.
For forty years the aged couple had lived in the old red farm-house,
tilling the barren soil of the rocky homestead, and, save on the sad
night when they heard that Richard Clyde was lost at sea, and the far
sadder morning when their daughter died, they had been tolerably free
from sorrow; and, truly thankful for the blessings so long vouchsafed
them, they had retired each night in peace with God and man, and risen
each morning to pray. But a change was coming over them. In an evil hour
Grandpa Markham had signed a note for a neighbor and friend, who failed
to pay, and so it all fell upon Mr. Markham, who, to meet the demand,
had been compelled to mortgage his homestead; the recreant neighbor
still insisting that long before the mortgage was due he should be able
himself to meet it. This, however, he had not done, and, after twice
begging off a foreclosure, poor old Grandfather Markham found himself at
the mercy of a grasping, remorseless man, into whose hands the mortgage
had passed. It was vain to hope for mercy from a man like Silas Slocum.
The money must either be forthcoming, or the red farm-house be sold,
with its few acres of land; and as among his neighbors there was not one
who had the money to spare, even if they had been willing to do so, he
must look for it among strangers.
“If I could only help,” Madeline said one evening when they sat talking
over their troubles; “but there’s nothing I can do, unless I apply for
our school this summer. Mr. Green is the committee-man; he likes us, and
I don’t believe but what he’ll let me have it. I mean to go and see;”
and, before the old people had recovered from their astonishment,
Madeline had caught her bonnet and shawl and was flying down the road.
Madeline was a favorite with all, especially with Mr. Green, and as the
school would be small that summer, the plan struck him favorably. Her
age, however, was an objection, and he must take time to inquire what
others thought of a child like her becoming a school-mistress. The
people thought well of it, and before the close of the next day it was
generally known through Honedale, as the southern part of Devonshire was
called, that pretty little Maddy Clyde had been engaged as teacher, and
was to receive three dollars a week, with the understanding that she
must board herself. It did not take Madeline long to calculate that
twelve times three dollars were thirty-six dollars, more than a tenth of
what her grandfather must borrow. It seemed like a little fortune, and
blithe as a singing bird she flitted about the house, now stopping a
moment to fondle her pet kitten, while she whispered the good news in
its very appreciative ear, and then stroking her grandfather’s silvery
hair, as she said:
“You can tell them that you are sure of paying thirty-six dollars in the
fall, and if I do well, maybe they’ll hire me longer. I mean to try my
very best. I wonder if ever anybody before me taught a school when they
were only fourteen and a half. Do I look as young as that?” and for an
instant the bright, childish face scanned itself eagerly in the
old-fashioned mirror, with the figure of an eagle on the top.
She _did_ look very young, and yet there was something womanly too in
the expression of the face, something which said that life’s realities
were already beginning to be understood by her.
“If my hair were not short I should do better. What a pity I cut it the
last time. It would have been so long and splendid now,” she continued,
giving a kind of contemptuous pull at the thick, beautiful brown hair,
on which there was in certain lights a reddish tinge, which added to its
richness and beauty.
“Never mind the hair, Maddy,” the old man said, gazing fondly at her
with a half sigh as he remembered another brown head, pillowed now
beneath the graveyard-turf. “Maybe you won’t pass muster, and then the
hair will make no differ. There’s a new committee-man, that Dr.
Holbrook, from Boston, and new ones are apt to be mighty strict, and
especially young ones like him. They say he is mighty larned, and can
speak in furrin tongues.”
Instantly Maddy’s face flushed with nervous dread, as she thought, “What
if I should fail?” fancying that to do so would be an eternal disgrace.
But she should not fail. She was called by everybody the very best
scholar in the Honedale school, the one whom the teachers always put
forward when desirous of showing off, the one whom Mr. Tiverton, and
Squire Lamb, and Lawyer Whittemore always noticed and praised so much.
Of course she should not fail, though she _did_ dread Dr. Holbrook,
wondering much what he would ask her first, and hoping it would be
something in arithmetic, provided he did not stumble upon decimals,
where she was apt to get bewildered. She had no fears of grammar. She
could pick out the most obscure sentence and dissect a double relative
with perfect ease; then, as to geography, she could repeat whole pages
of that; while in the spelling-book, the foundation of a thorough
education, as she had been taught, she had no superiors, and but few
equals. Still, she would be very glad when it was over, and she
appointed Monday, both because it was close at hand, and because that
was the day her grandfather had set in which to ride to Aikenside, in an
adjoining town, and ask its young master for the loan of three hundred
dollars.
He could hardly tell why he had thought of applying to Guy Remington for
help, unless it were that he once had saved the life of Guy’s father,
who, as long as he lived, had evinced a great regard for his benefactor,
frequently asserting that he meant to do something for him. But the
something was never done, the father was dead, and in his strait the old
man turned to the son, whom he knew to be very rich, and who, he had
been told, was exceedingly generous.
“How I wish I could go with you clear up to Aikenside! They say it’s so
beautiful,” Madeline had said, as on Saturday evening they sat
discussing the expected events of the following Monday. “Mrs. Noah, the
housekeeper, had Sarah Jones there once, to sew, and she told me all
about it. There are graveled walks, and nice green lawns, and big, tall
trees, and flowers—oh! so many!—and marble fountains, with gold fishes
in the basin; and statues, big as folks, all over the yard, with two
brass lions on the gate-posts. But the house is finest of all. There’s a
drawing-room bigger than a ball-room, with carpets that let your feet
sink in so far; pictures and mirrors clear to the floor—think of that,
grandpa! a looking-glass so tall that one can see the very bottom of her
dress and know just how it hangs. Oh, I do so wish I could have a peep
at it! There are two in one room, and the windows are like doors, with
lace curtains; but what is queerest of all, the chairs and sofas are
covered with real silk, just like that funny gored gown of grandma’s up
in the oak chest. Dear me! I wonder if I’ll ever live in such a place as
Aikenside?”
“No, no, Maddy, no. Be satisfied with the lot where God has put you, and
don’t be longing after something higher. Our Father in Heaven knows just
what is best for us; as He didn’t see fit to put you up at Aikenside,
’tain’t no ways likely you’ll ever live in the like of it.”
“Not unless I should happen to marry a rich man. Poor girls like me have
sometimes done that, haven’t they?” was Maddy’s demure reply.
Grandpa Markham shook his head.
“They have, but it’s mostly their ruination; so don’t build castles in
the air about this Guy Remington.”
“_Me!_ oh, grandpa, I never dreamed of Mr. Guy!” and Madeline blushed
half indignantly. “He’s too rich, too aristocratic, though Sarah said he
didn’t act one bit proud, and is so pleasant that the servants all
worship him, and Mrs. Noah thinks him good enough for the Queen of
England. I shall think so, too, if he lets you have the money. How I
wish it was Monday night, so we could know for sure!”
“Perhaps we both shall be terribly disappointed,” suggested grandpa, but
Maddy was more hopeful.
_She_, at least, should not fail; while what she had heard of Guy
Remington, the master of Aikenside, made her believe that he would
accede at once to her grandfather’s request.
All that night in her dreams she was working to pay the debt, giving the
money herself into the hands of Guy Remington, whom she had never seen,
but who came up before her the tall, handsome-looking man she had so
often heard described by Sarah Jones after her return from Aikenside,
where she had once done some plain sewing for the housekeeper. Even the
next day, when, by her grandparent’s side, Maddy knelt reverently in the
small church at Honedale, her thoughts were more intent upon the
to-morrow and Aikenside than the sacred words her lips were uttering.
She knew it was wrong, and with a nervous start tried to bring her mind
back from decimal fractions to what the minister was saying; but Maddy
was mortal, and right in the midst of the Collect, Aikenside and its
owner would rise before her, together with the wonder how she and her
grandfather would feel one week from that day. Would the desired
certificate be hers? or would she be disgraced forever and ever by a
rejection? Would the mortgage be paid and her grandfather at ease, or
would his heart be breaking with the knowing he must leave what had been
his home for so many years?
But no such thoughts troubled the aged disciple beside her—the good old
man, whose white locks swept the large-lettered book over which his
wrinkled face was bent, as he joined in the responses, or said the
prayers whose words had so soothing an influence upon him, carrying his
thoughts upward to the house not made with hands, which he felt assured
would one day be his. Once or twice, it is true, the possibility of
losing the dear old red cottage flitted across his mind with a keen,
sudden pang, but he put it quickly aside, remembering at the same
instant how the Father he loved doeth all things well to such as are his
children. Grandpa Markham was old in the Christian course, while Maddy
could hardly be said to have commenced it as yet, and so to her that
April Sunday was long and wearisome. How she did wish she might just
look over the geography, by way of refreshing her memory, and see
exactly how the rule for extracting the cubic root did read, but Maddy
forbore, and read only the Pilgrim’s Progress, the Bible, and the book
brought from the Sunday-school, vainly imagining that by so doing she
was earning the good she so much desired.
With the earliest dawn of day she was up, and her grandmother heard her
repeating to herself much of what she fancied Dr. Holbrook might
question her upon. Even when bending over the wash-tub, for there were
no servants at the red cottage, a book was arranged before her so that
she could study with her eyes, while her fat hands and dimpled arms were
busy in the suds. Before ten o’clock everything was done, the clothes,
white as snow-drops in the garden beds, were swinging upon the line, the
kitchen floor was scrubbed, the windows washed, the best room swept, the
vegetables cleaned for dinner, and then Maddy’s work was finished.
Grandma could do all the rest, and Madeline was free to pore over her
books until called to dinner; she could not eat so great was her
excitement.
Swiftly the hours flew until it was time to be getting ready, when again
the short hair was deplored, as before her looking-glass Madeline
brushed and arranged her shining, beautiful locks. Would Dr. Holbrook
think of her age? Suppose he should ask it. But no, he wouldn’t. Only
census-takers did that. If Mr. Green thought her old enough, surely it
was not a matter with which the doctor need trouble himself; and,
somewhat at ease on that point, Madeline donned her longest frock, and,
standing on a chair, tried to discover how much of her pantalet was
visible.
“I could see splendidly in Mr. Remington’s mirrors. Sarah Jones says
they come to the floor,” she said to herself, with a half sigh of regret
that her lot had not been cast in some such place as Aikenside, instead
of there beneath the hill in that wee bit of a cottage, whose roof
slanted back until it almost touched the ground. “After all, I guess I’m
happier here,” she thought. “Everybody likes me, while if I were Mr.
Guy’s sister and lived at Aikenside, I might be proud and wicked, and——”
She did not finish the sentence, but somehow the story of Dives and
Lazarus, read by her grandfather that morning, recurred to her mind, and
feeling how much rather she would rest in Abraham’s bosom than share the
fate of him who once was clothed in purple and fine linen, she pinned on
her little neat plaid shawl, and, tying the blue ribbons of her coarse
straw hat under her chin, glanced once more at the rule for the
formidable cube root, and then hurried down to where her grandfather and
old Sorrel were waiting for her.
“I shall be so happy when I come back, because it will then be over,
just like having a tooth out, you know,” she said to her grandmother,
who bent down for the good-bye kiss, without which Maddy never left her.
“Now, grandpa, drive on; I was to be there at three,” and chirruping
herself to Sorrel, the impatient Maddy went riding from the cottage
door, chatting cheerily until the village of Devonshire was reached;
then, with a farewell to her grandfather, who never dreamed that the man
he was seeking was so near, she tripped up the walk, and soon stood in
the presence of not only Dr. Holbrook, but also of Guy Remington.