A NEW LIFE.
"Bell," said Hildegarde, "I really think I must be a cat in
disguise."
"What do you mean, dear?" inquired Bell, looking up from her
dishpan.
"Why, I have had so many lives. This is the fifth, at the least
computation. It is very extraordinary."
Quiet Bell waited, seeing that more was coming. The two girls were
sitting on the end of a wharf, in the sparkling clearness of a
September morning. Before them stretched a great lake, a sheet of
silver, dotted as far as the eye could see with green islands.
Behind lay a pebbly beach, and farther up, nestled among a fringe
of forest trees, stood a bark hut, with broad verandahs and
overhanging eaves. Hildegarde looked up and around, her face
shining with pleasure.
"They have all been so happy--the lives," she said. "But this
surely is the most beautiful to look at. You see," here she turned
again to her companion, "first I was a little girl, and then a big
one, at home in New York; and a very singularly odious specimen of
both I was."
"Am I expected to believe this?" asked Bell, quietly.
"Oh yes! because I know, you see, and I remember just how
detestable I was. Children are so sometimes, you know, even with
the very best parents, and I certainly had those. Well, at last I
grew so unbearable that I had to be sent away. Oh, you need not
raise your eyebrows, my dear! It's very nice of you, but you never
saw me then. I don't mean that I was sent to the Reform School;
but my father and mother had to go to California, and I was not
strong, so the journey was not thought best for me; and besides,
dear mamma saw that if I was ever going to amount to anything I
must be taken away from the fashionable school and the set of
girls I was getting intimate with. I wasn't intimate with mamma
then; I didn't want to be. The other girls were not, and I thought
it would be silly; think of it, Bell! Well, I was sent, a forlorn
and furious child (fifteen years old though, the same age as dear,
sweet Gertrude), to my mother's old nurse in the country,--a
farmer's wife, living on a small farm, twenty miles from a city.
There, my dear, I first learned that there was a world outside the
city of New York. I must tell you all about it some day,--the
happy, blessed time I had with those dear people, and how I
learned to know my own dearest ones while I was away from them. I
buried that first Hildegarde, very dead, oh, very dead indeed!
Then the next summer I went to a new world, and my Rose went with
me. I have told you about her, and how sweet she is, and how ill
she was, and now how she is going to marry the good doctor who
cured her of her lameness. We spent the summer with Cousin Wealthy
Bond, a cousin of my mother's,--the loveliest old lady, living
down in Maine. That was a very new world, Bell; and oh! I have a
child there, a little boy, my Benny. At least, he is Cousin
Wealthy's Benny now, for she is bringing him up as her own, and
loves him really as if he were; but I always think of him as
partly mine, because Rose and I found him in the hospital where we
used to go to carry flowers. He had been very ill, and we got
Cousin Wealthy to let him come to her house to get well. And
through, that, somehow, there came to be a little convalescent
home for the children from the hospital,--oh, I must tell you that
story too, some day, and it is called Joyous Gard. Yes, of course
I named it, and I was there for a month this spring, before you
came, and had the most enchanting time. I took Hugh with me, and
the only trouble was that Benny was madly jealous of him, and gave
him no peace. Poor Benny! he is a dear, nice little boy, but not
like Hugh, of course, and that exasperated him past belief. It was
just like Lord Lardy and the waiter in the Bab Ballad, for Hugh
was entirely unconscious, and would smile peacefully at Benny's
demonstrations of wrath, thinking it all a joke.
"Oh, I could talk all day about Benny and Cousin Wealthy, and
nice, funny Mrs. Brett, and all of them. Well, then, two years ago
came our trouble, you know. Dear papa died, and we came out here,
feeling very strange and lost. It was sad at first, of course; but
oh, we have had such peace and happiness together, my mother dear
and I! The last year, when we had grown used to doing without the
dear one, and knew--but mamma always knew it--that we must make
happiness for each other,--the last year has been a most lovely
time. But sweet and happy as it has all been, Bell, still I have
always had a small circle to love and to be with. Mamma, bless
her, and at one time one set of dear friends, and at another time
another; never many people at once, and life peaceful and lovely,
but one day pretty much like another, you see. But since you all
came, I have been in a new world altogether,--a great, merry,
laughing world, with such lots of children and fun--"
"And noise!" put in Bell. "We are a dreadfully noisy set, I fear."
"Oh, noise is good," cried Hildegarde, "such happy, healthy noise
as this. I love it, though it did startle me at first. It seemed
pleasant enough to have you all next door; but then came this last
development,--Cousin Wealthy's illness, and her sending for mamma,
and your mother's kindness in bringing me out to this delightful
place. It is all like a fairy tale. I used to hear of people's
camping out, but I always thought I should hate it. Hate this!"
She looked up at the brilliant sky above her, and around at the
shining lake, the dark trees drooping to the water's edge, the
green islands sleeping in the sunshine. "Oh, pleasant place!" she
sighed.
They were silent for a few moments; Bell was scouring dishpans
till they shone like silver, while Hildegarde thoughtfully wrung
out the dishcloths that she had been washing as she talked.
"I suppose," said Bell, slowly, "life is always good, when we want
to make it so. There are so many different kinds of life,--I have
known so many in the short time I have been alive, and it didn't
seem to make much difference about the outside of them. Some of
the poorest and most suffering lives have been the happiest and
blessedest, and again some that have money and health and
everything that so many people sigh for, are miserable, for one
reason or another. I can't bear to hear girls say, 'Oh, if I only
had money! I would do so much, and be so good, and all that sort
of thing.' I always want to say, 'Why don't you begin with what
you have?' I did say it once to a girl, and she has hardly spoken
to me since. She had been wishing that she had a hundred dollars
to give to the Mission Society, and when I asked her for ten cents
(I was the collector) she said she had only one dime, and she must
get some soda water, or she should die."
"The creature! what did you say to her?"
"I said, 'Possibly the world would continue to revolve if you
did!' and stalked away. Oh, I cannot stand that sort of thing, you
know! And if you are a girl, you can't knock people down when they
are cads."
Bell spoke regretfully, and Hildegarde could not help laughing at
her friend's angry eyes and kindling cheek. The strong white bare
arms, the deep chest and square shoulders, looked as if Bell would
be no mean antagonist.
"I should not like to have you knock me down, my dear!" said
Hilda.
"You never would need it," said Bell. "But I can tell you, Hilda,
there are times when I feel as if a blow from the shoulder would
be the best argument in the world. I love fighting! and I think I
am rather a bonny fighter, as Alan Breck says. Roger taught me to
box."
Hildegarde opened her eyes a little at this, boxing never having
come within her horizon of feminine accomplishments.
"Does Professor Merryweather know how to do everything?" she
asked. "He seems to be the Admirable Crichton come to life again."
"Nearly everything," said Bell, with judicious candour. "He cannot
write verses, and he does not like dancing; those are the only
things I can think of just now."
A birch canoe glided silently round the point; Roger was kneeling
in the stern, paddling, Indian fashion, while Will and Kitty were
curled up like two kittens in the bow. Hildegarde thought to
herself that he was the handsomest man she had ever seen, so
strong, so gentle, so perfectly graceful; but she did not say so.
"What luck?" cried Bell, as the Cheemaun came alongside the wharf.
Roger held up a string of gleaming fish, two of them long, deep-bodied fellows, striped with pink and silver. Willy was happy with
three hideous horned pouts, which he declared were the best fish
that swam.
"Oh, pickerel! how delightful!" cried Bell, as she took the
beauties from her brother's hands. "We will bake them for supper,
Hilda; it is our turn, isn't it?"
"Oh!" said Willy, "I thought it was Toots' and Roger's turn. Toots
makes the best griddle-cakes, and she ought always to get supper."
"Willy, you ungrateful little monster!" cried Bell. "And you said
only last night that my biscuits were a dream of joy. You won't
find me baking an extra pan for you, if you are going to turn upon
me in this way."
"Oh yes! so you did, sister," said Willy, penitently. "But you
see, I am griddle-cake hungry to-day, and yesterday I wasn't."
"Come, Hilda! we'll make our little gentleman pickerel-hungry
before he is an hour older!" and the two girls hurried into the
house.
Inside the camp was a large, low room, with a huge open fireplace
filling nearly one side. A plain table stood in the middle; two
hammocks were slung against the walls, which were hung with guns
and fishing-rods. A bookcase in one corner, and Mrs.
Merryweather's workstand in another, completed the furniture of
the primitive parlour. On one side a door opened into the tiny
kitchen, and hither the girls now betook themselves, after
reminding Will and Kitty that it was their turn to set the supper
table. The fire was soon burning brightly in the stove, the kettle
put on to boil, and Hildegarde, rolling up her sleeves, set to
work mixing and moulding biscuits, while Bell devoted herself to
the stuffing and dressing of the big fish.
"I wish I had Izaak Walton here!" she said, as she mixed the bread
stuffing.
"Father Izaak pleasant company would be at any moment," Hilda
assented; "but what do you want him for just now? To cook the fish
for you?"
"Not exactly; I doubt if he was as good in the kitchen as by the
brookside; but to give me his famous receipt for cooking pickerel.
I should like to astonish the family with it. I remember that it
has thyme in it, and sweet marjoram and summer savory, not to
mention oysters and anchovies, a pound of butter, a bottle of
claret and three or four oranges; he gives you your choice about
two cloves of garlic, and says you need not have them unless you
like. Perhaps on the whole it is just as well not to try the dish
at present; the anchovies were left behind, and the orange trees
are not bearing very well this year."
"Dear me!" said Hildegarde. "That is as bad as my Southern receipt
for wedding cake. Two hundred and one pounds of flour and fruit,
and ten eggs to the pound; and if it isn't rich enough then, you
can add two pounds of currants and one of raisins for each pound
of flour. That would make,--let me see! I worked it all out once:
two hundred and seventy pounds of things, and two thousand seven
hundred eggs. What do you suppose they baked it in?"
"In the well!" said Bell. "That would hold it. Or else they built
a pavilion round it, and had the bride and groom dance a minuet on
the top after the ceremony. What fun cook-books are! Any more
pleasantnesses in your Southern friend?"
"Oh, all kinds of good things! I remember the receipt for Seminole
soup; we ought to try that out here, if we could find the
ingredients. 'Take a squirrel, cut it up and put it on to boil.
When the soup is nearly done add to it one pint of picked hickory-nuts and a spoonful of parched and powdered sassafras leaves, or
the tender top of a young pine tree, which gives a very aromatic
flavour to the soup.'"
"Oh, do somebody get us a pine tree!" cried Bell. "That is truly
delightful! We must try it some day. Now it is my turn. I quote
from Mrs. Rundell the glorious. This is what she gives to the
poor; I don't want to be poor in Mrs. Rundell's parish.
"'Cut a very thick upper crust of bread, and put it into the pot
where salt beef is boiling and near ready; it will attract some of
the fat, and, when swelled out, will be no unpalatable dish to
those who rarely taste meat.' That is called a brewis, my dear;
suppose we give it to our pampered family here some day, and see
what they say. How nearly are your biscuits done? I hear the
people growling inside, like hungry bears. Uncle Pickerel is
beginning to smell very good."
"Another five minutes will give them the requisite 'beautiful
light brown'" said Hildegarde, peeping into the oven. "And the tea
is made, and the potatoes are tearing off their jackets in
impatience to be eaten."
"Are we going to have any supper?" asked Phil, looking in from the
dining-room. "Roger has fainted with hunger, and lies a pallid
heap on the floor, and Obadiah is gnawing his boots in his agony."
"As long as he does not swallow the nails," said Bell, calmly, "it
will do him no harm. Have the babes got the table ready?"
"All ready, sister!" cried Kitty. "Cups and saucers and plates,
and--oh, Willy, we have forgotten the butter! Why do we always
forget the butter?"
In five minutes the whole family were seated round the table, with
the lamp burning brightly above their heads. Bell came in
triumphantly, bearing the mighty pickerel in their glory, on a
huge platter decorated with green leaves and golden-rod.
Hildegarde followed, flushed and sparkling, with her biscuits and
coffee; and every one fell to with right good will.
"Why is it that everything tastes so good here?" demanded Will.
"At home I can't always eat as much as I want to, and here I can
always eat more than there is; and yet there is lots!" he added,
surveying the broad table, heaped with substantial victuals of
every sort.
"Ah! that's the beauty of it!" cried Gerald, spearing a potato.
"The human capacity enlarges, my son, with every mile one retires
from civilisation. When I was a Kickapoo Indian, Willy, I ate for
three weeks without stopping, and I had three buffaloes at a--"
"Gerald, my dear!" said Mrs. Merryweather.
"Yes, Mater, my dear!" said the unblushing Gerald. "I was only
trying to expand his mind, like the Ninkum. Excellent biscuits,
Miss Hilda! three more, if you please."