THE NEW HOME.
It was a large, square, wooden building, built in the olden time,
with a wide hall in the center, a tiny portico in front, and a long
piazza in the rear. In all the town there was not so delightful a
location, for it commanded a view of the country for many miles
around, while from the chamber windows was plainly discernible the
sparkling Honeoye, whose waters slept so calmly 'mid the hills which
lay to the southward. On the grassy lawn in front tall forest trees
were growing, almost concealing the house from view, while their
long branches so met together as to form a beautiful arch over the
graveled walk which lead to the front door. It was, indeed, a
pleasant spot, and Matty, as she passed through the iron gate, could
not account for the feeling of desolation settling down upon her.
"Maybe it's because there are no flowers here--no roses," she
thought, as she looked around in vain for her favorites, thinking
the while how her first work should be to train a honeysuckle over
the door and plant a rose bush underneath the window.
Poor Matty! Dr. Kennedy had no love for flowers, and the only rose
bush he ever noticed was the one which John had planted at his
mistress' grave, and even this would, perchance, have been unseen,
if he had not scratched his hand unmercifully upon it as he one day
shook the stone to see if it were firmly placed in the ground ere he
paid the man for putting it there! It was a maxim of the doctor's
never to have anything not strictly for use, consequently his house,
both outside and in, was destitute of every kind of ornament; and
the bride, as she followed him through the empty hall into the
silent parlor, whose bare walls, faded carpet, and uncurtained
windows seemed so uninviting, felt a chill creeping over her
spirits, and sinking into the first hard chair she came to, she
might, perhaps, have cried had not John, who followed close behind
her, satchel on arm, whispered encouragingly in her ear, "Never you
mind, missus, your chamber is a heap sight brighter than this, 'case
I tended to that myself."
Mrs. Kennedy smiled gratefully upon him, feeling sure that beneath
his black exterior there beat a kind and sympathizing heart, and
that in him she had an ally and a friend.
"Where is Nellie?" said the doctor. "Call Nellie, John, and tell
your mother we are here."
John left the room, and a moment after a little tiny creature came
tripping to the door, where she stopped suddenly, and throwing back
her curls, gazed curiously first at Mrs. Kennedy and then at Maude,
whose large black eyes fastened themselves upon her with a gaze
quite as curious and eager as her own. She was more than a year
older than Maude, but much smaller in size, and her face seemed to
have been fashioned after a beautiful waxen doll, so brilliant was
her complexion and so regular her features. She was naturally
affectionate and amiable, too, when suffered to have her own way.
Neither was she at all inclined to be timid, and when her father,
taking her hand in his, bade her speak to her new mother, she went
unhesitatingly to the lady, and climbing into her lap, sat there
very quietly so long as Mrs. Kennedy permitted her to play with her
rings, pull her collar, and take out her side-combs, for she had
laid aside her bonnet; but when at last her little sharp eyes
ferreted out a watch, which she insisted upon having "all to
herself," a liberty which Mrs. Kennedy refused to grant, she began
to pout, and, sliding from her new mother's lap, walked up to Maude,
whose acquaintance she made by asking if she had a pink silk dress.
"No, but I guess Janet will bring me one," answered Maude, whose
eyes never for an instant left the face of her stepsister.
She was an enthusiastic admirer of beauty, and Nellie had made an
impression upon her at once; so, when the latter said, "What makes
you look at me so funny?" she answered, "Because you are so pretty."
This made a place for her at once in the heart of the vain little
Nellie, who asked her to go upstairs and see the pink silk dress
which "Aunt Kelsey had given her."
As they left the room Mrs. Kennedy said to her husband, "Your
daughter is very beautiful."
Dr. Kennedy liked to have people say that of his child, for he knew
she was much like himself, and he stroked his brown beard
complacently, as he replied: "Yes, Nellie is rather pretty, and,
considering all things, is as well-behaved a child as one often
finds. She seldom gets into a passion or does anything rude," and he
glanced at the long scratch upon his hand; but as his wife knew
nothing of said scratch, the rebuke was wholly lost, and he
continued: "I was anxious that she should be a boy, for it is a
maxim of mine that the oldest child in every family ought to be a
son, and so I said, repeatedly, to the late Mrs. Kennedy, who,
though a most excellent woman in most matters, was in others
unaccountably set in her way. I suppose I said some harsh things
when I heard it was a daughter, but it can't be helped now," and
with a slightly injured air the husband of "the late Mrs. Kennedy"
began to pace up and down the room, while the present Mrs. Kennedy
puzzled her rather weak brain to know "what in the world he meant."
Meantime between John and his mother there was a hurried
conversation, the former inquiring naturally after the looks of her
new mistress.
"Pretty as a pink," answered John, "and neat as a fiddle, with the
sweetest little baby ways; but I tell you what 'tis," and John's
voice fell to a whisper: "he'll maxim her into heaven a heap sight
quicker'n he did t'other one; 'case you see she haint so much--what
you call him--so much go off to her as Miss Katy had, and she can't
bar his grinding ways. They'll scrush her to onct--see if they
don't. But I knows one thing, this yer nigger 'tends to do his duty,
and hold up them little cheese-curd hands of her'n, jest as some of
them Scripter folks held up Moses with the bulrushes."
"And what of the young one?" asked Hannah, who had been quite
indignant at the thoughts of another child in the family, "what of
the young one?"
"Bright as a dollar!" answered John. "Knows more'n a dozen of
Nellie, and well she might, for she aint half as white, and as
Master Kennedy says, it's a maxim of mine, the blacker the hide the
better the sense!"
By this time Hannah had washed the dough from her hands, and taking
the roast chicken from the oven she donned a clean apron and started
to see the stranger for herself. Although a tolerably good woman,
Hannah's face was not very prepossessing, and Mrs. Kennedy
intuitively felt that 'twould be long before her former domestic's
place was made good by the indolent African. It is true her
obeisance was very low, and her greeting kindly enough, but there
was about her an inquisitive, and at the same time, rather
patronizing air which Mrs. Kennedy did not like, and she was glad
when she at last left the parlor, telling them, as she did so, that
"dinner was done ready."
Notwithstanding that the house itself was so large, the dining room
was a small, dark, cheerless apartment, and though she was beginning
to feel the want of food, Mrs. Kennedy could scarcely force down a
mouthful, for the homesick feeling at her heart; a feeling which
whispered to her that the home to which she had come was not like
that which she had left. Dinner being over, she asked permission to
retire to her chamber, saying she needed rest, and should feel
better after she had slept. Nellie volunteered to lead the way, and
as they left the dining room old Hannah, who was notoriously lazy,
muttered aloud: "A puny, sickly thing. Great help she'll be to me;
but I shan't stay to wait on more'n forty more."
Dr. Kennedy had his own private reason for wishing to conciliate
Hannah. When he set her free he made her believe it was her duty to
work for him for nothing, and though she soon learned better, and
often threatened to leave, he had always managed to keep her, for,
on the whole, she liked her place, and did not care to change it for
one where her task would be much harder. But if the new wife proved
to be sickly, matters would be different, and so she fretted, as we
have seen, while the doctor comforted her with the assurance that
Mrs. Kennedy was only tired--that she was naturally well and strong,
and would undoubtedly be of great assistance when the novelty of her
position had worn away.
While this conversation was taking place Mrs. Kennedy was examining
her chamber and thinking many pleasant things of John, whose
handiwork was here so plainly visible. All the smaller and more
fanciful pieces of furniture which the house afforded had been
brought to this room, whose windows looked out upon the lake and the
blue hills beyond. A clean white towel concealed the marred
condition of the washstand, while the bed, which was made up high
and round, especially in the middle, looked very inviting with its
snowy spread. A large stuffed rocking chair, more comfortable than
handsome, occupied the center of the room, while better far than
all, the table, the mantel, and the windows were filled with
flowers, which John had begged from the neighboring gardens, and
which seemed to smile a welcome upon the weary woman, who, with a
cry of delight, bent down and kissed them through her tears.
"Did these come from your garden?" she asked of Nellie, who, child-like,
answered, "We haint any flowers. Pa won't let John plant any.
He told Aunt Kelsey the land had better be used for potatoes, and
Aunt Kelsey said he was too stingy to live."
"Who is Aunt Kelsey?" asked Mrs. Kennedy, a painful suspicion
fastening itself upon her that the lady's opinion might be correct.
"She is pa's sister Charlotte," answered Nellie, "and lives in
Rochester, in a great big house, with the handsomest things; but she
don't come here often, it's so heathenish, she says."
Here spying John, who was going with the oxen to the meadow, she ran
away, followed by Maude, between whom and herself there was for the
present a most amicable understanding. Thus left alone Mrs. Kennedy
had time for thought, which crowded upon her so fast that, at last
throwing herself upon the bed, she wept bitterly, half wishing she
had never come to Laurel Hill, but was still at home in her own
pleasant cottage. Then hope whispered to her of a brighter day, when
things would not seem to her as they now did. She would fix up the
desolate old house, she thought; the bare windows which now so
stared her in the face should be shaded with pretty muslin curtains,
and she would loop them back with ribbons. The carpet, too, on the
parlor floor should be exchanged for a better one, and when her
piano and marble table came, the only articles of furniture she had
not sold, it would not seem so cheerless and so cold.
Comforted with these thoughts, she fell asleep, resting quietly
until, just as the sun had set and it was growing dark within the
room, Maude came rushing in, her dress all wet, her face flushed,
and her eyes red with tears. She and Nellie had quarreled--nay,
actually fought; Nellie telling Maude she was blacker than a nigger,
and pushing her into the brook, while Maude, in return, had pulled
out a handful of the young lady's hair, for which her stepfather had
shaken her soundly and sent her to her mother, whom she begged "to
go home, and not stay in that old house where the folks were ugly
and the rooms not a bit pretty."
Mrs. Kennedy's heart was already full, and drawing Maude to her
side, the two homesick children mingled their tears together, until
a heavy footstep upon the stairs announced the approach of Dr.
Kennedy. Not a word did he say of his late adventure with Maude, and
his manner was very kind toward his weary wife, who, with his hand
upon her aching forehead, and his voice in her ear, telling her how
sorry he was that she was sick, forgot that she had been unhappy.
"Whatever else he may do," she thought, "he certainly loves me," and
after a fashion he did perhaps love her. She was a pretty little
creature, and her playful, coquettish ways had pleased him at first
sight. He needed a wife, and when their mutual friend, who knew
nothing of him save that he was a man of integrity and wealth,
suggested Matty Remington, he too thought favorably of the matter,
and yielding to the fascination of her soft blue eyes he had won her
for his wife, pitying her, it may be, as he sat by her in the
gathering twilight, and half guessed that she was homesick. And when
he saw how confidingly she clung to him, he was conscious of a
half-formed resolution to be to her what a husband ought to be. But
Dr. Kennedy's resolves were like the morning dew, and as the days wore
on his peculiarities, one after another, were discovered by his
wife, who, womanlike, tried to think that he was right and she was
wrong.
In due time most of the villagers called upon her, and though they
were both intelligent and refined, she did not feel altogether at
ease in their presence, for the fancy she had that they regarded her
as one who for some reason was entitled to their pity. And in this
she was correct. They did pity her, for they remembered another
gentle woman, whose brown hair had turned gray, and whose blue eyes
had waxed dim beneath the withering influence of him she called her
husband. She was dead, and when they saw the young, light-hearted
Matty, they did not understand how she could ever have been induced
to take that woman's place and wed a man of thirty-eight, and they
blamed her somewhat, until they reflected that she knew nothing of
him, and that her fancy was probably captivated by his dignified
bearing, his manly figure, and handsome face. But these alone they
knew could not make her happy, and ere she had been six weeks a wife
they were not surprised that her face began to wear a weary look, as
if the burden of life were hard to bear.
As far as she could she beautified the home, purchasing with her own
means several little articles which the doctor called useless,
though he never failed to appropriate to himself the easy chair
which she had bought for the sitting room, and which when she was
tired rested her so much. On the subject of curtains he was
particularly obstinate. "There were blinds," he said, "and 'twas a
maxim of his never to spend his money for anything unnecessary."
Still, when Matty bought them herself for the parlor, when her piano
was unboxed and occupied a corner which had long been destitute of
furniture, and when her marble table stood between the windows, with
a fresh bouquet of flowers which John had brought, he exclaimed
involuntarily, "How nice this is!" adding the next moment, lest his
wife should be too much pleased, "but vastly foolish!"
In accordance with her husband's suggestion Mrs. Kennedy wrote to
Janet, breaking to her as gently as possible the fact that she was
not to come, but saying nothing definite concerning her new home or
her own happiness as a second wife. Several weeks went by, and then
an answer came.
"If you had of wanted me," wrote Janet, "I should of come, but bein'
you didn't, I've went to live with Mr. Blodgett, who peddles milk,
and raises butter and cheese, and who they say is worth a deal of
money, and well he may be, for he's saved this forty years."
Then followed a detailed account of her household matters, occupying
in all three pages of foolscap, to which was pinned a bit of paper,
containing the following:
"Joel looked over my writing and said I'd left out the very thing I
wanted to tell the most. We are married, me and Joel, and I only
hope you are as happy with that doctor as I am with my man."
This announcement crushed at once the faint hope which Mrs. Kennedy
had secretly entertained, of eventually having Janet to supply the
place of Hannah, who was notoriously lazy, and never under any
circumstances did anything she possibly could avoid. Dr. Kennedy did
not tell his wife that he expected her to make it easy for Hannah,
so she would not leave them; but he told her how industrious the
late Mrs. Kennedy had been, and hinted that a true woman was not
above kitchen work. The consequence of this was that Matty, who
really wished to please him, became in time a very drudge, doing
things which she once thought she could not do, and then without a
murmur ministering to her exacting husband when he came home from
visiting a patient, and declared himself "tired to death." Very
still he sat while her weary little feet ran for the cool drink--the
daily paper--or the morning mail; and very happy he looked when her
snowy fingers combed his hair or brushed his threadbare coat; and
if, perchance, she sighed amid her labor of love, his ear was deaf,
and he did not hear, neither did he see how white and thin she grew
as day by day went by.
Her piano was now seldom touched, for the doctor did not care for
music; still he was glad that she could play, for "Sister Kelsey,"
who was to him a kind of terror, would insist that Nellie should
take music lessons, and, as his wife was wholly competent to give
them, he would be spared a very great expense. "Save, save, save,"
seemed to be his motto, and when at church the plate was passed to
him he gave his dime a loving pinch ere parting company with it; and
yet none read the service louder or defended his favorite liturgy
more zealously than himself. In some things he was a pattern man,
and when once his servant John announced his intention of
withdrawing from the Episcopalians and joining himself to the
Methodists, who held their meetings in the schoolhouse, he was
greatly shocked, and labored long with the degenerate son of
Ethiopia, who would render to him no reason for his most
unaccountable taste, though he did to Matty, when she questioned him
of his choice.
"You see, missus," said he, "I wasn't allus a herrytic, but was as
good a 'Piscopal as St. George ever had. That's when I lived in
Virginny, and was hired out to Marster Morton, who had a school for
boys, and who larnt me how to read a little. After I'd arn't a heap
of money for Marster Kennedy he wanted to go to the Legislatur', and
as some on 'em wouldn't vote for him while he owned a nigger, he set
me free, and sent for me to come home. 'Twas hard partin' wid dem
boys and Marster Morton, I tell you, but I kinder wanted to see
mother, who had been here a good while, and who, like a fool, was
a-workin' an' is a-workin' for nothin'."
"For nothing!" exclaimed Mrs. Kennedy, a suspicion of the reason why
Janet was refused crossing her mind.
"Yes, marm, for nothin'," answered John, "but I aint green enough
for that, and 'fused outright. Then marster, who got beat 'lection
day, threatened to send me back, but I knew he couldn't do it, and
so he agreed to pay eight dollars a month. I could get more somewhar
else, but I'd rather stay with mother, and so I stayed."
"But that has nothing to do with the church," suggested Mrs.
Kennedy, and John replied:
"I'm comin' to the p'int now. I live with Marster Kennedy, and went
with him to church, and when I see how he carried on week days, and
how peart like he read up Sabba' days, sayin' the Lord's Prar and
'Postle's Creed, I began to think thar's somethin' rotten in
Denmark, as the boys use to say in Virginny; so when mother, who
allus was a-roarin' Methodis', asked me to go wid her to meetin', I
went, and was never so mortified in my life, for arter the elder had
'xorted a spell at the top of his voice, he sot down and said there
was room for others. I couldn't see how that was, bein' he took up
the whole chair, and while I was wonderin' what he meant, as I'm a
livin' nigger, up got marm and spoke a piece right in meetin'! I
never was so shamed, and I kep' pullin' at her gownd to make her set
down, but the harder I pulled the louder she hollered, till at last
she blowed her breath all away, and down she sot."
"And did any of the rest speak pieces?" asked Mrs. Kennedy,
convulsed with laughter at John's vivid description.
"Bless your heart," he answered, with a knowing look, "'twarn't a
piece she was speaking--she was tellin' her 'sperience; but it
sounded so like the boys at school that I was deceived, for I'd
never seen such work before. But I've got so I like it now, and I
believe thar's more 'sistency down in that schoolhouse than thar is
in--I won't say the 'Piscopal church, 'case thar's heaps of shinin'
lights thar, but if you won't be mad, I'll say more than thar is in
Marster Kennedy, who has hisself to thank for my bein' a Methodis'."
Whatever Mrs. Kennedy might have thought she could not help laughing
heartily at John, who was now a decided Methodist, and adorned his
profession far more than his selfish, hard-hearted master. His
promise of holding up his mistress' hands had been most faithfully
kept, and, without any disparagement to Janet, Mrs. Kennedy felt
that the loss of her former servant was in a great measure made up
to her in the kind negro, who, as the months went by and her face
grew thinner each day, purchased with his own money many a little
delicacy which he hoped would tempt her capricious appetite. Maude,
too, was a favorite with John, both on account of her color, which
he greatly admired, and because, poor, ignorant creature though he
was, he saw in her the germ of the noble girl who in the coming
years was to bear uncomplainingly a burden of care from which the
selfish Nellie would unhesitatingly turn away.
Toward Maude the doctor had ever manifested a feeling of aversion,
both because of her name and because she had compelled him to yield
when his mind was fully made up to do otherwise. She had resolutely
refused to be called Matilda, and as it was necessary for him
sometimes to address her, he called her first, "You girl," then
"Mat," and finally arrived at "Maude," speaking it always
spitefully, as if provoked that he had once in his life been
conquered. With the management of her he seldom interfered, for that
scratch had given him a timely lesson, and as he did not like to be
unnecessarily troubled, he left both Maude and Nellie to his wife,
who suffered the latter to do nearly as she pleased, and thus
escaped many of the annoyances to which stepmothers are usually
subject.
Although exceedingly selfish Nellie was affectionate in her
disposition, and when Maude did not cross her path the two were on
the best of terms. Disturbances there were, however--quarrels and
fights, in the latter of which Maude, being the stronger of the two,
always came off victor; but these did not last long, and had her
husband been to her what he ought Mrs. Kennedy's life would not have
been as dreary as it was. He meant well enough, perhaps, but he did
not understand a woman, much less know how to treat her, and as the
winter months went by Matty's heart would have fainted within her
but for a hope which whispered to her, "He will love me better when
next summer comes."