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BOOKS FOR “OUR GIRLS.”
THE MAIDENHOOD SERIES.
By Popular Authors.
SEVEN DAUGHTERS.
By Miss A. M. DOUGLAS, Author of “In Trust,” “Stephen Dane,” “Claudia,”
“Sydnie Adriance,” “Home Nook,” “Nelly Kennard’s Kingdom.” 12mo, cloth,
illustrated. $1.50.
“A charming romance of Girlhood,” full of incident and humor. The
“Seven Daughters” are characters which reappear in some of Miss
Douglas’ later books. In this book they form a delightful group,
hovering on the verge of Womanhood, with all the little perplexities of
home life and love dreams as incidentals, making a fresh and attractive
story.
OUR HELEN.
By SOPHIE MAY. 12mo, cloth, illustrated. $1.50.
“The story is a very attractive one, as free from the sensational and
impossible as could be desired, and at the same time full of interest,
and pervaded by the same bright, cheery sunshine that we find in the
author’s earlier books. She is to be congratulated on the success of
her essay in a new field of literature, to which she will be warmly
welcomed by those who know and admire her ‘Prudy Books.’”—_Graphic._
THE ASBURY TWINS.
By SOPHIE MAY, Author of “The Doctor’s Daughter,” “Our Helen,” &c.
12mo, cloth, illustrated. $1.50.
“Has the ring of genuine genius, and the sparkle of a gem of the
first water. We read it one cloudy winter day, and it was as good as
a Turkish bath, or a three hours’ soak in the sunshine.”—_Cooperstown
Republican._
THAT QUEER GIRL.
By Miss VIRGINIA F. TOWNSEND, Author of “Only Girls,” &c. 12mo, cloth,
illustrated. $1.50.
Queer only in being unconventional, brave and frank, an “old-fashioned
girl,” and very sweet and charming. As indicated in the title, is a
little out of the common track, and the wooing and the winning are as
queer as the heroine. The _New Haven Register_ says: “Decidedly the
best work which has appeared from the pen of Miss Townsend.”
RUNNING TO WASTE.
=The Story of a Tomboy.= By GEORGE M. BAKER. 16mo, cloth, illustrated.
$1.50.
“This book is one of the most entertaining we have read for a long
time. It is well written, full of humor, and good humor, and it has not
a dull or uninteresting page. It is lively and natural, and overflowing
with the best New England character and traits. There is also a touch
of pathos, which always accompanies humor, in the life and death of the
tomboy’s mother.”—_Newburyport Herald._
DAISY TRAVERS;
=Or the Girls of Hive Hall=. By ADELAIDE F. SAMUELS, Author of
“Dick and Daisy Stories,” “Dick Travers Abroad,” &c. 16mo, cloth,
illustrated. $1.50.
The story of Hive Hall is full of life and action, and told in the same
happy style which made the earlier life of its heroine so attractive,
and caused the Dick and Daisy books to become great favorites with the
young. What was said of the younger books can, with equal truth, be
said of Daisy grown up.
* * * * *
_The above six books are furnished in a handsome box for $9.00, or sold
separate, by all booksellers, and sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of
price._
LEE AND SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston.
SEVEN DAUGHTERS.
[Illustration: SEVEN DAUGHTERS.]
_THE MAIDENHOOD SERIES._
SEVEN DAUGHTERS.
BY
AMANDA M. DOUGLAS,
_Author of “In Trust,” “Home Nook,” “Katie’s Stories,” &c._
BOSTON:
LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874,
By LEE AND SHEPARD,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
TO
KATE ISABELLE HIBBARD.
In thy book, oh Lord, are written all that do what they can, though
they cannot do what they would.
ST. BERNARD.
_Belvidere, N. J._
SEVEN DAUGHTERS.
CHAPTER I.
“‘How many? Seven in all,’ she said,
And wondering looked at me.”
WORDSWORTH.
“Another girl!”
“Seven of ’em!”
“What a pity!”
“The land sakes alive! Brother Endicott will have to buy calico by the
piece for their gowns! He might get a little throwed off, or a spool
of cotton extry. He, he! ho, ho! Well, children are a great risk! You
don’t s’pose there’ll be a donation party right away—do you!”
“There is donation enough for the present, I think; and the sewing
society will not be called upon.”
I liked that soft, silvery voice of Mrs. Whitcomb. It was just like
her pretty light hair, beginning to be plentifully sprinkled with
silver, and her clear peachy skin, that was just a little wrinkled. Her
touch was so gentle, her motions so graceful and pleasing!
“I was only joking about it. They’ll miss her in the s’ciety—that’s
what they will.”
Aunt Letty Perkins was—dreadful! a thorn in the flesh; a sort of
bitter, puckery presence, as if you had just tasted an unripe persimmon.
“And it’ll be a puzzle to get husbands for ’em all. That’s the most
unfort’net thing about girls.”
I suppose she meant _us_, not the society. My face was in a blaze of
indignation. Then the door was shut, and I went on with my dusting.
It was a sunny April morning, and a pair of swallows were twittering
about the windows.
Another girl and there _were_ seven of us. Some one in the parish had
said that Mrs. Endicott would always be sure of a Sunday school class,
for she could fill it up with her own children. I couldn’t help wishing
that there was just _one_ boy among us, even if it were that wee
bairnie they had been discussing. Boys are nice—in some ways.
I don’t know that I should have modified my opinion so suddenly but for
two things. My eye happened to fall on my pretty pearl paper-cutter,
that had been sent to me at Christmas. On one side of the handle was my
monogram, done in scarlet and gold, on the other a little trail of blue
forget-me-nots. A few weeks ago Harry Denham had been in spending the
evening with us,—that means Fan and I, the elders. He and Fanny were
having a little scrimmage, and, in a half tragic manner, he seized my
pretty gift, pretending to arm himself with a dagger, and, somehow, in
the _melee_, the poor thing snapped in twain.
Hal was very sorry. Then he had such great, beseeching brown eyes, that
when he turned them so appealingly to me, I pitied him more than I did
myself. It was very foolish, I know. I ought to have scolded. I should
have said,—
“You great, rough, careless boy! now see what you have done! I wish you
would never come here again!”
“I can get it mended, I know. There is some beautiful white cement used
for such articles. O, Rose, I am _so_ sorry! I’d get you another one,
only it wouldn’t be _it_.”
“Never mind,” I said, meekly, with a wonderful tendency towards tears,
though whether they would have been for Harry, or the knife, or myself,
I could not exactly tell.
So he had it mended, and it _looked_ as good as new. But little Frank
Mortimer came to call with his mother, and brought it to grief again.
The other event that reconciled me to the advent of my little sister,
whom I had not yet seen, was Tabby, who sprang up on the window sill,
with her cunning salutation, like three or four n’s, strung together in
a prolonged musical fashion, not quite a mew. I don’t want you to think
the word back there was meant for a pun, for it wasn’t. I’ll tell you
in the beginning that I am not a bit bright, or sharp, or funny. I have
even heard jokes that I did not see the point of until the next day.
Tabby is just as beautiful as she can be. A Maltese cat, with a white
nose and two white front paws. She is very cunning, and knows almost
everything within the domain of cat knowledge. If there is one thing
I do love better than another, in the way of pets, it is cats. A
clean-faced, sleek cat, sitting on the hearth-rug before the grate, is
enough to give the whole household a feeling of contentment. Then the
kittens are always so funny and frolicksome!
“Tabby,” I said, as she arched her back and rubbed her head against
my sleeve,—“Tabby, _you_ wouldn’t be half so happy if there was a boy
in the house. He would lift you by the tail, turn your ears back, put
walnut shells on your feet, and make you dance on your hind legs. Then
he would be forever tormenting your kittens. Boys are bad naturally.
Maybe they are born so, and can’t help it,” I continued, reflectively.
“I suppose they _do_ have a good deal more of the old Adam in them than
girls, because, you see, we inherit Eve’s propensity to curiosity;
but then boys are fully as curious—aren’t they, Tabby? and as full of
curiosity!”
“Yes,” answered Tabby.
She says it as plainly as you do. In fact, we sometimes hold quite
lengthy conversations.
“So we don’t care—do we? If Aunt Letty Perkins would not make such a
row about it! How would _she_ like to have a lot of boys, I wonder?”
Tabby shook her head sagely, and scratched her left ear. I knew she
felt just the same as I did.
I finished the parlor, and shut down the windows. Then I went to papa’s
study, took the ashes softly out of the grate, and laid another fire,
in case the evening should be cool, picked up papers and magazines, and
dusted with the very lightest of touches. It was my part of the work to
look after the study. I was so glad to be able to suit papa!
Just then the door opened. It was papa himself, fresh from a walk. _I_
think him ever and ever so handsome, though sometimes I wish he was
not quite so thin. He is rather tall, has a fine chest and shoulders;
but it is his sweet, dear old face that I like so much. It’s a little
wrinkled, to be sure, and may be his mouth _is_ a trifle wide. I never
considered it any defect, however, for he shuts his lips together with
such a cordial smile! He has lovely deep-gray eyes, and his hair, which
was once a bright brown, begins to be toned with silvery threads, as
well as his soft brown beard, which he wears full, except a mustache.
“O, papa!” I cried, clasping my arms around his neck, “_are_ you very
sorry?”
“Sorry for what, my daughter?” And he looked a good deal surprised.
“That we haven’t a boy. There are so many of us girls!”
“My dear, I have always had a great fancy for little girls, as you
know. And we take whatever God sends. She is very pretty.”
“O, you dear, blessed papa!”
“You will have to be the mother now, for a little while, Rose. You must
try to manage the children nicely.”
“Indeed, I will do my best. Papa, do you not believe that I could go in
and see her? Aunt Letty Perkins is there.”
“O, how could Mrs. Whitcomb! Yes; come along, child.”
I followed him to the sitting-room. The Rectory was a great, rambling
old house, with a wide hall through the middle. Back of the parlor,
quite shut off, indeed, were the dining-room and the two kitchens; on
the other side, study, sitting-room, nursery, and mamma’s sleeping
apartment.
Mamma’s door was shut. Mrs. Whitcomb was wise enough to keep guard over
that. There was a little fire in the Franklin stove, and before it sat
Mrs. Perkins, though everybody called her Aunt Letty. Her feet were on
the fender, her brown stuff dress turned up over her knees, her black
alpaca skirt not quite so high, and a faded quilted petticoat taking
the heat of the fire. She always wore substantial gray yarn stockings
in the winter, and lead-colored cotton in summer, except on state
occasions. Her bonnet was always a little awry, and the parting of her
hair invariably crooked. I’m sure I don’t know what she did, except to
attend to other people’s affairs.
Mrs. Downs was beside her, a helpless-looking little fat woman, who,
Fan declared, looked like a feather pillow with a checked apron tied
around it. She was always out of breath, had always just left her work,
and was never going to stay more than a moment.
“O, brother Endicott!” exclaimed Aunt Letty, reaching her hand out so
far that she nearly tipped her chair over; “I s’spose you ought to be
congrat_your_lated.” (She always put _your_ in the word, and always
said _equi_nomical, regardless of Noah Webster.) “What does the Bible
say about a man having his quiver full of olive branches? or is it that
they sit round the table? now I disremember. I don’t go much according
to Old Testament. It was well enough for them heathenish Jews and the
old times; but I want the livin’ breathin’ gospel. What you goin’ to
call her?”
Papa smiled, at the absurd transition, I suppose. Fan said Aunt Letty
had only one resemblance to a dictionary—she changed her subjects
without any warning.
“Would Keren-happuch do?” papa asked, with a droll twinkle in his eye.
“O, now, Mr. Endicott!”
“It’s a nice little thing,” put in Mrs. Downs. “Favors its mar I think.”
“Come and see it, Rose.—May we, Mrs. Whitcomb?”
“O, yes, indeed,” with her sweet smile.
She led me to the corner of the room, between the stove and mamma’s
door. There, on two chairs, was a tiny bed, and under the blanket a
tiny baby with a broad forehead, black, silky hair, a cunning little
mouth, but no nose to speak of. Yet she _was_ pretty. I thought I
should like to squeeze her to a jelly, and cover her with kisses,
though I don’t know as that would be orthodox jelly-cake for any but a
cannibal.
Papa glanced at her with a tender smile, then sighed. Perhaps he was
thinking of the long way the little feet would have to travel. It is
a great journey, after all, from the City of Destruction to the New
Jerusalem. Something in the baby-face brought to mind Christiana and
the children.
“Great pity ’tisn’t a boy,” persisted Aunt Letty.
“O, I don’t know about that. They are so handy to take one another’s
clothes,” said papa, humorously.
“To be sure. But yours could be cut over,” returned the literal woman.
“I am afraid that I shall always need mine to the last thread. I have
lost the trick of outgrowing them. O, have you heard that Mrs. Bowers’s
sister has come from the west? Arrived last evening.”
“Land sakes alive! Why, I guess I’ll run right over. Sally and me was
thick as peas in our young days. And her husband’s been a what you call
it out there, senate, or constitution, or something.”
“Member of the legislature,” corrected father, quietly.
“O, yes. Some folks _do_ get along. There’s the middle of my needle. I
should knit there if the house was afire!”
She brushed down her skirts, put her knitting in her satchel, jerked
her shawl up, and pinned it, and settled her old black bonnet more
askew than ever. Mrs. Whitcomb kindly pulled it straight for her.
“Thank’ee. If you want any help, Mrs. Whitcomb, send right straight
over. Ministers are always the chosen of the Lord, and I feel as if one
ought to come at their call.”
“I am much obliged,” returned Mrs. Whitcomb, in her quiet, lady-like
way.
Mrs. Downs took her departure at the same moment. There was a great
bustle, and talking; but father finally succeeded in getting them to
the porch. When Aunt Letty was safely off the steps, she turned and
said,—
“I’m glad you are so well satisfied, Mr. Endicott. It’s a sure sign of
grace to take thankfully what the Lord sends.”
“O, dear,” said papa, with a sigh; “I am afraid I don’t give thanks for
_quite_ everything. ‘Tribulation worketh patience.’ But didn’t those
women almost set you crazy? If I thought another sermon on bridling the
tongue would do any good; I should preach it next Sunday.”
Mrs. Whitcomb smiled and said, in her cool, silvery voice,—
“It takes a great deal of powder and shot to kill a man in battle, and
it takes a great deal of preaching to save a soul.”
“Yes. I get almost discouraged when I find how strong the old Adam is
in human souls.”
I looked at papa rather reproachfully; but just then he opened the door
of mamma’s room, and called me thither.
Mamma was very sweet and lovely. She kissed me many times, and hoped
I would prove a trusty house-keeper, and see that papa had everything
he needed, especially to notice that his cuffs and handkerchiefs were
clean, and that he was in nice order on Sunday.
“And—did I like the baby?” She asked it almost bashfully.
“It is just as sweet as it can be. I only wish it was large enough to
hold and to carry about.”
“Thank you, dear.”
Years afterwards I knew what that meant.
I went out to the kitchen to see about the dinner. We never had regular
servants like other people. It was the lame, and the halt, and the
blind, and the ignorant, metaphorically speaking. Papa brought them
home and mamma took pity on them. Now it was Becky Sill, a great,
overgrown girl of sixteen, whose intemperate father had just died in
the poorhouse, where the three younger children—boys—were waiting for a
chance to be put out to the farmers.
“Look at this ’ere floor, Miss Rose! I’ve scrubbed it white as snow.
And I’ve been a peelin’ of pertaters.”
“_This_ floor is sufficient, Becky; and _peeling_, and _potatoes_.”
“O, law, you’re just like your mother. Some people are born ladies and
have fine ways. I wasn’t.”
“You have been very industrious,” I returned, cheerfully; and then I
went at the dinner.
The hungry, noisy troop came home from school. What if they were _all_
boys!
Do you want a photograph of us? I was past seventeen, not very tall,
with a round sort of figure, and dimples everywhere in my face, where
one could have been put by accident or design. My skin was fair, my
hair—that was my sore point. I may as well tell the truth; it _was_
red, a sort of deep mahogany red, and curled. My features were just
passable. So, you see, I was not likely to set up for a beauty. Fan
was sixteen, taller than I, slender, blonde, with saucy blue eyes and
golden hair, and given to rather coquettish ways. Nelly was fourteen,
almost as tall as I, with papa’s gray eyes,—only hers had a violet
tint,—and mamma’s dark hair. Daisy was next, eleven, and on the blonde
order. Lily, whose name was Elizabeth, and Tim, aged seven. Her real
cognomen was Gertrude; but we began to call her Tiny Tim, and the name,
somehow stuck to her. What a host of girls, to be sure!
“Papa,” I said that evening, going to the study for a good night kiss,
where he was writing in the quiet,—“papa, _are_ you sorry to have so
many girls?”
I had been exercised on the subject all day, and I wanted to dispose of
it before I slept.
“Why, my dear! no;” with a sweet gravity.
“But, papa,”—and I stumbled a little,—“it isn’t likely that—that—we
shall all—get married—”
I could not proceed any farther, and hid my face on his shoulder.
“Married! What ever put such an absurd idea into your head, Rosalind?
A parcel of children—married!”
I knew papa was displeased, or he would never have called me Rosalind.
“O, dear papa, don’t be angry!” I cried. “I was not thinking of being
married, I’m sure. I don’t believe any one will ever like me very much,
because my hair is red, and I may be fat as Mrs. Downs. And if I should
be an old maid,—and I know I shall,—I want you to love me a little; and
if I’m queer and fussy, and all that, you must be patient with me. I
will try to do my best always.”
“My dear darling! what a foolish little thing you are! Some of the old
women have been talking to you, I know. I shall certainly have to turn
the barrel upside down, and find the sermon on bridling the tongue. You
are all little girls, and I will not have the bloom rudely rubbed off
of my peaches. There don’t cry about it;” and he kissed my wet face so
tenderly that I _did_ cry more than ever.
“My little girl, I want us to have a good many years of happiness
together,” he said, with solemn tenderness. “Put all these things out
of your head, and love your mother and me, and do your duty in that
state of life to which it shall please God to call you. I want you to
be like Martin Luther’s bird, who sat on the tree and sang, and let God
think for him. And now, run to bed, for I wish to finish this sermon
while I am in the humor.”
I kissed him many, many times. I was so sure of his sweet,
never-failing love. And I suppose fathers and mothers never _do_ get
tired of us!