energy in her voice, "I'm going to read Webster through."
"Well," smiled Miss Prudence.
"Don't you believe I _can?_"
"Oh, yes."
"Then I will. I'll be like Buckle in one thing. I'll plan to read so many
pages a day. We've got a splendid one; mother got it by getting
subscriptions to some paper. Mother will do _anything_ to help us on,
Miss Prudence."
"I have learned that. I have a plan to propose to her by and by."
"Oh, can't you tell us?" entreated Linnet, forgetting her work.
"Not yet."
"Does it concern _us?_" asked Marjorie.
"Yes, both of you."
Two hours since it had "concerned" only Marjorie, but in this hour under
the apple-tree Miss Prudence had been moved to include Linnet, also.
Linnet was not Marjorie, she had mentally reasoned, but she was Linnet
and had her own niche in the world. Was she not also one of her little
sisters that were in the world and not of it?
"When may we know?" questioned Linnet
"That depends. Before I leave your grandfather's, I hope."
"I know it is something good and wonderful, because you thought of it,"
said Marjorie. "Perhaps it is as good as one of our day-dreams coming
true."
"It may be something very like one of them, but the time may not be yet.
It will not do you any harm to know there's something pleasant ahead,
if it can be arranged."
"I do like to know things that are going to happen to us," Linnet
confessed. "I used to wish I could dream and have the dreams come true."
"Like the wicked ancients who used to wrap themselves in skins of beasts
and stay among the graves and monuments to sleep and dream--and in the
temples of the idols, thinking the departed or the idols would foretell
to them in dreams. Isaiah reproves the Jews for doing this. And Sir
Walter Scott, in his notes to 'The Lady of the Lake,' tells us something
about a similar superstition among the Scotch."
"I like to know about superstitions," said Linnet, "but I'd be afraid to
do that."
"Miss Prudence, I haven't read 'The Lady of the Lake'!" exclaimed
Marjorie.
"No, imitator of Buckle, you haven't. But I'll send it to you when I go
home."
"What did Buckle _do_ with all his learning?" inquired Marjorie.
"I haven't told you about half of his learning. He wrote a work of great
learning, that startled the world somewhat, called 'The History of
Civilization,' in which he attempted to prove that the differences
between nations and peoples were almost solely to be attributed to
physical causes that food had more to do with the character of a
nation than faith."
"Didn't the Israelites live on the same food that the Philistines did?"
asked Marjorie, "and didn't--"
"Are you getting ready to refute him? The Jews could not eat pork, you
remember."
"And because they didn't eat pork they believed in one true God!"
exclaimed Marjorie, indignantly. "I don't like his book, Miss Prudence."
"Neither do I. And we need not read it, even if he did study twenty-two
thousand books and Johnson's Dictionary to help him write it."
"Why didn't he study Webster?" asked Linnet.
"Can't you think and tell me?"
"No."
"Can you not, Marjorie?"
"Because he was English, I suppose, and Johnson wrote the English
Dictionary and Webster the American."
"An Irish lady told me the other day that Webster was no authority. I
wish I could tell you all about Johnson; I love him, admire him, and pity
him."
Marjorie laughed and squeezed Miss Prudence's hand. "Don't you wish you
could tell us about every _body_ and every _thing_, Miss Prudence?"
"And then help you use the knowledge. I am glad of your question,
Marjorie, 'What did Mr. Buckle _do_ with his knowledge?' If I should
learn a new thing this week and not use it next week I should feel
guilty."
"I don't know how to use knowledge," said Linnet.
"You are putting your knowledge of tatting to very good service."
"Miss Prudence, will you use your things on me?" inquired Marjorie,
soberly.
"That is just what I am hoping to do."
"Hillo! Hillo! Hillo!" sounded a voice behind the woodshed. After a
moment a tall figure emerged around a corner, arrayed in coarse working
clothes, with a saw over his shoulders.
"Hillo! gals, I can't find your father. Tell him I left my saw here for
him to file."
"I will," Linnet called back.
"That's African John," explained Linnet as the figure disappeared around
the corner of the woodshed. "I wish I had asked him to stay and tell you
some of his adventures."
"_African_ John. He is not an African;" said Miss Prudence.
"No, oh no; he's Captain Rheid's cousin. People call him that because he
was three years in Africa. He was left on the coast. It happened this
way. He was only a sailor and he went ashore with another sailor and they
got lost in a jungle or something like it and when they came back to the
shore they saw the sails of their ship in the distance and knew it had
gone off and left them. The man with him fell down dead on the sand and
he had to stay three years before a ship came. He's an old man now and
that happened years and years ago. Captain Rheid can't tell anything more
frightful than that. Mother had a brother lost at sea, they supposed so,
for he never came back; if I ever have anybody go and not come back I'll
never, never, _never_ give him up."
"Never, never, never give him up," echoed Miss Prudence in her heart.
"They thought Will Rheid was lost once, but he came back! Linnet didn't
give him up, and his father and mother almost did."
"I'd never give him up," said Linnet again, emphatically.
"Will Rheid," teased Marjorie, "or anybody?"
"Anybody," replied Linnet, but she twitched at her work and broke her
thread.
"Now, girls, I'm going in to talk to your mother awhile, and then perhaps
Linnet will walk part of the way home with me," said Miss Prudence.
"To talk about _that_," cried Marjorie.
"I'll tell you by and by."
VIII.
BISCUITS AND OTHER THINGS.
"I am rather made for giving than taking."--_Mrs. Browning._
Mrs. West had been awakened from her nap with an uncomfortable feeling
that something disagreeable had happened or was about to happen; she felt
"impressed" she would have told you. Pushing the light quilt away from
her face she arose with a decided vigor, determined to "work it off" if
it were merely physical; she brushed her iron gray hair with steady
strokes and already began to feel as if her presentiment were groundless;
she bathed her cheeks in cool water, she dressed herself carefully in her
worn black and white barège, put on her afternoon cap, a bit of black
lace with bows of narrow black ribbon, fastened the linen collar Linnet
had worked with button-hole stitch with the round gold and black
enamelled pin that contained locks of the light hair of her two lost
babes, and then felt herself ready for the afternoon, even ready for the
minister and his stylish wife, if they should chance to call. But she was
not ready without her afternoon work; she would feel fidgety unless she
had something to keep her fingers moving; the afternoon work happened to
be a long white wool stocking for Linnet's winter wear. Linnet must have
new ones, she decided; she would have no time to darn old ones, and
Marjorie might make the old ones do another winter; it was high time for
Marjorie to learn to mend.
The four shining knitting needles were clicking in the doorway of the
broad little entry that opened out to the green front yard when Miss
Prudence found her way around to the front of the house. The ample figure
and contented face made a picture worth looking at, and Miss Prudence
looked at it a moment before she announced her presence by speaking.
"Mrs. West, I want to come to see you a little while--may I?"
Miss Prudence had a pretty, appealing way of speaking, oftentimes, that
caused people to feel as if she were not quite grown up. There was
something akin to childlikeness in her voice and words and manner,
to-day. She had never felt so humble in her life, as to-day when her
whole life loomed up before her--one great disappointment.
"I was just thinking that I would go and find you after I had turned the
heel; I haven't had a talk with you yet."
"I want it," returned the younger lady, seating herself on the upper step
and leaning back against the door post. "I've been wanting to be
_mothered_ all day. I have felt as if the sunshine were taking me into
its arms, and as if the soft warm grass were my mother's lap."
"Dear child, you have had trouble in your life, haven't you?" replied the
motherly voice.
Miss Prudence was not impulsive, at least she believed that she had
outgrown yielding to a sudden rush of feeling, but at these words she
burst into weeping, and drawing nearer dropped her head in the broad lap.
"There, there, deary! Cry, if it makes you feel any better," hushed the
voice that had rocked babies to sleep.
After several moments of self-contained sobbing Miss Prudence raised her
head. "I've never told any one, but I feel as if I wanted to tell you. It
is so long that it makes me feel old to speak of it. It is twenty years
ago since it happened. I had a friend that I love as girls love the man
they have chosen to marry; father admired him, and said he was glad to
leave me with such a protector. Mother had been dead about a year and
father was dying with consumption; they had no one to leave me with
excepting this friend; he was older than I, years older, but I admired
him all the more for that. Father had perfect trust in him. I think
the trouble hastened father's death. He had a position of trust--a great
deal of money passed through his hands. Like every girl I liked diamonds
and he satisfied me with them; father used to look grave and say:
'Prudie, your mother didn't care for such things.' But I cared for mine.
I had more jewels than any of my friends; and he used to promise that I
should have everything I asked for. But I did not want anything if I
might have him. My wedding dress was made--our wedding tour was all
planned: we were to come home to his beautiful house and father was to be
with us. Father and I were so contented over our plans; he seemed just
like himself that last evening that we laughed and talked. But he--my
friend was troubled and left early; when he went away he caught me in his
arms and held me. 'God bless you, bless you' he said, and then he said,
'May he forgive me!' I could not sleep that night, the words sounded in
my ears. In the morning I unburdened myself to father, I always told him
everything, and he was as frightened as I. Before two days we knew all.
He had taken--money--that was not his own, thousands of dollars, and he
was tried and sentenced. I sent them all my diamonds and everything that
would bring money, but that was only a little of the whole. They sent
him--to state-prison, to hard labor, for a term of five years. Father
died soon after and I had not any one nearer than an aunt or cousin. I
thought my heart broke with the shame and dishonor. I have lived in many
places since. I have money enough to do as I like--because I do not like
to do very much, perhaps. But I can't forget. I can't forget the shame.
And I trusted him so! I believed in him. He had buried a young wife years
ago, and was old and wise and good! When I see diamonds they burn into me
like live coals. I would have given up my property and worked for my
living, but father made me bind myself with a solemn promise that I would
not do it. But I have sought out many that he wronged, and given them all
my interest but the sum I compelled myself to live on. I have educated
two or three orphans, and I help every month several widows and one or
two helpless people who suffered through him. Father would be glad of
that, if he knew how comfortably I can live on a limited income. I have
made my will, remembering a number of people, and if they die before I
do, I shall keep trace of their children. I do all I can; I would, rather
give all my money up, but it is my father's money until I die."
Mrs. West removed a knitting needle from between her lips and knit it
into the heel she had "turned."
"Where is he--now?" she asked.
"I never saw him after that night--he never wrote to me; I went to him in
prison but he refused to see me. I have heard of him many times through
his brother; he fled to Europe as soon as he was released, and has never
returned home--to my knowledge. I think his brother has not heard from
him for some years. When I said I had not a friend, I did not mention
this brother; he was young when it happened, too young to have any pity
for his brother; he was very kind to me, they all were. This brother was
a half-brother--there were two mothers--and much younger."
"What was his name?"
Mrs. West did not mean to be inquisitive, but she did want to know and
not simply for the sake of knowing.
"Excuse me--but I must keep the secret for his brother's sake. He's the
only one left."
"I may not know the name of the bank then?"
"If you knew that you would know all. But _I_ know that your husband lost
his small patrimony in it--twenty-five hundred dollars--"
"H'm," escaped Mrs. West's closely pressed lips.
"And that is one strong reason why I want to educate your two daughters."
The knitting dropped from the unsteady fingers.
"And I've fretted and fretted about that money, and asked the Lord how my
girls ever were to be educated."
"You know now," said Miss Prudence. "I had to tell you, for I feared that
you would not listen to my plan. You may guess how I felt when your
sister-in-law, Mrs. Easton, told me that she was to take Linnet for a
year or two and let her go to school. At first I could not see my way
clear, my money is all spent for a year to come--I only thought of taking
Marjorie home with me--but, I have arranged it so that I can spare a
little; I have been often applied to to take music pupils, and if I do
that I can take one of the girls home with me and send her to school;
next year I will take all the expense upon myself, wardrobe and all.
There is a cheap way of living in large cities as well as an expensive
one. If Linnet goes to Boston with her aunt, she will be kept busy out of
school hours. Mrs. Easton is very kindhearted but she considers no one
where her children are concerned. If I wore diamonds that Linnet's money
purchased, aren't you willing she shall eat bread and butter my money
purchases?"
"But you gave the diamonds up?"
"I wore them, though."
"That diamond plea has done duty a good many times, I guess," said Mrs.
West, smiling down upon the head in her lap.
"No, it hasn't. His brother has done many things for me; people are ready
enough to take money from his brother, and the widows are my friends. It
has not been difficult. It would have been without him."
"The nights I've laid awake and made plans. My little boys died in
babyhood. I imagine their father and I would have mortgaged the farm, and
I would have taken in washing, and he would have gone back to his trade
to send those boys through college. But the girls don't need a college
education. The boys might have been ministers--one of them, at least. But
I would like the girls to have a piano, they both play so well on the
melodeon! I would like them to be--well, like you, Miss Prudence, and not
like their rough, hardworking old mother. I've shed tears enough about
their education, and told the Lord about it times enough. If the Boston
plan didn't suit, we had another, Graham and I--he always listens and
depends upon my judgment. I'm afraid, sometimes, I depend upon my own
judgment more than upon the Lord's wisdom. But this plan was--" the
knitting needle was being pushed vigorously through her back hair now,
"to exchange the farm for a house and lot in town--Middlefield is quite a
town, you know--and he was to go back to his trade, and I was to take
boarders, and the girls were to take turns in schooling and
accomplishments. I am not over young myself, and he isn't over strong,
but we had decided on that. I shed some tears over it, and he looked pale
and couldn't sleep, for we've counted on this place as the home of our
old age which isn't so far off as it was when he put that twenty-five
hundred dollars into that bank. But I do breathe freer if I think we may
have this place to live and die on, small as it is and the poor living it
gives us. Father's place isn't much to speak of, and James will come in
for his share of that, so we haven't much to count on anywhere. I don't
know, though," the knitting needle was doing duty in the stocking again,
"about taking _your_ money. You were not his wife, you hadn't spent it or
connived at his knavery."
"I felt myself to be his wife--I am happier in making all the reparation
in my power. All I could do for one old lady was to place her in The Old
Ladies' Home. I know very few of the instances; I would not harrow my
soul with hearing of those I could not help. I have done very little, but
that little has been my exceeding comfort."
"I guess so," said Mrs. West, in a husky voice. "I'll tell father what
you say, we'll talk it over and see. I know you love my girls--especially
Marjorie."
"I love them both," was the quick reply.
"Linnet is older, she ought to have the first chance."
Miss Prudence thought, but did not say, "As Laban said about Leah," she
only said, "I do not object to that. We do Marjorie no injustice. This is
Linnet's schooltime. There does seem to be a justice in giving the first
chance to the firstborn, although God chose Jacob instead of the elder
Esau, and Joseph instead of his older brethren, and there was little
David anointed when his brothers were refused."
Miss Prudence's tone was most serious, but her eyes were full of fun. She
was turning the partial mother's weapons against herself.
"But David and Jacob and Joseph were different from the others," returned
the mother, gravely, "and in this case, the elder is as good as the
younger."
It almost slipped off Miss Prudence's tongue, "But she will not take the
education Marjorie will," but she wisely checked herself and replied that
both the girls were as precious as precious could be.
"And now don't you go home to-night, stay all night and I'll talk to
father," planned Mrs. West, briskly; "as Marjorie would say, Giant
Despair will get Diffidence his wife to bed and they will talk
the matter over. She doesn't read _Pilgrim's Progress_ as much as she
used to, but she calls you Mercy yet. And you are a mercy to us."
With the tears rolling down her cheeks the mother stooped over and kissed
the lover of her girls.
"Mr. Holmes is coming to see Marjorie to-night, he hasn't called since
her accident, and to talk to father, he likes to argue with him, and it
will be pleasanter to have you here. And Will Rheid is home from a
voyage, and he'll be running in. It must be lonesome for you over there
on the Point. It used to be for me when I was a girl."
"But I'm not a girl," smiled Miss Prudence.
"You'll pass for one any day. And you can play and make it lively. I am
not urging you with disinterested motives."
"I can see through you; and I _am_ anxious to know how Mr. West will
receive my proposal."
"He will see through my eyes in the end, but he always likes to argue a
while first. I want you to taste Linnet's cream biscuit, too. She made
them on purpose for you. There's father, now, coming with African John,
and there _is_ Will Rheid coming across lots. Well, I'm glad Linnet did
make the biscuits."
Miss Prudence arose with a happy face, she did not go back to the girls
at once, there was a nook to be quiet in at the foot of the kitchen
garden, and she felt as if she must be alone awhile. Mrs. West, with her
heart in a tremor that it had not known since Marjorie was born, tucked
away her knitting behind the school-books on the dining-room table, tied
on her blue checked apron, and went out to the kitchen to kindle the fire
for tea, singing in her mellow voice, "Thus far the Lord hath led me on,"
suddenly stopping short as she crammed the stove with shavings to
exclaim, "His name _was_ Holmes! And that's the school-master's name. And
that's why he's in such a fume when the boys cheat at marbles. Well, did
I _ever_!"
Linnet ran in to exchange her afternoon dress for a short, dark calico,
and to put on her old shoes before she went into the barnyard to milk
Bess and Brindle and Beauty. Will Rheid found her in time to persuade
her to let him milk Brindle, for he was really afraid he would get his
hand out, and it would never do to let his wife do all the milking
when his father bequeathed him a fifth of his acres and two of his
hardest-to-be-milked cows. Linnet laughed, gave him one of her pails,
and found an other milking stool for him.
Marjorie wandered around disconsolate until she discovered Miss Prudence
in the garden.
She was perplexed over a new difficulty which vented itself in the
question propounded between tasting currants.
"Ought I--do you think I ought--talk to people--about--like the
minister--about--"
"No, child!" and Miss Prudence laughed merrily. "You ought to talk to
people like Marjorie West! Like a child and not like a minister."
IX.
JOHN HOLMES.
"Courage to endure and to obey."--_Tennyson._
It was vacation-time and yet John Holmes was at work. No one knew him to
take a vacation, he had attempted to do it more than once and at the end
of his stipulated time had found himself at work harder than ever. The
last lazy, luxurious vacation that he remembered was his last college
vacation. What a boyish, good-for-nothing, aimless fellow he was in those
days! How his brother used to snap him up and ask if he had nothing
better to do than to dawdle around into Maple Street and swing Prudence
under the maples in that old garden, or to write rhymes with her and
correct her German exercises! How he used to tease her about having by
and by to color her hair white and put on spectacles, or else she would
have to call her husband "papa." And she would dart after him and box his
ears and laugh her happy laugh and look as proud as a queen over every
teasing word. He had told her that she grew prettier every hour as her
day of fate drew nearer, and then had audaciously kissed her as he bade
her good-by, for, in one week would she not be his sister, the only
sister he had ever had? He stood at the gate watching her as she tripped
up to her father's arm-chair on the piazza, and saw her bend her head
down to his, and then he had gone off whistling and thinking that his
brother certainly had a share of all of earth's good things position, a
good name, money, and now this sweet woman for a wife. Well, the world
was all before _him_ where to choose, and he would have money and a
position some day and the very happiest home in the land.
The next time he saw Prudence she looked like one just risen out of a
grave: pallid, with purple, speechless lips, and eyes whose anguish rent
his soul. Her father had been suddenly prostrated with hemorrhage and he
stayed through the night with her, and afterward he made arrangements for
the funeral, and his mother and himself stood at the grave with her. And
then there was a prison, and after that a delirious fever for himself,
when for days he had not known his mother's face or Prudence's voice.
The other boys had gone back to college, but his spirit was crushed, he
could not hold up his head among men. He had lost his "ambition," people
said. Since that time he had taught in country schools and written
articles for the papers and magazines; he had done one thing beside, he
had purchased books and studied them. In the desk in his chamber there
were laid away to-day four returned manuscripts, he was only waiting
for leisure to exchange their addressee and send them forth into the
world again to seek their fortunes. A rejection daunted him no more than
a poor recitation in the schoolroom; where would be the zest in life if
one had not the chance of trying again?
John Holmes was a hermit, but he was a hermit who loved boys; girls were
too much like delicate bits of china, he was afraid of handling for fear
of breaking. Girls grown up were not quite so much like bits of china,
but he had no friend save one among womankind, his sister that was to
have been, Prudence Pomeroy. He had not addressed her with the name his
brother had given her since that last day in the garden; she was gravely
Prudence to him, in her plain attire, her smooth hair and little
unworldly ways, almost a veritable Puritan maiden.