LIFE IN THE WOODS.
SIX weeks had passed since the date of our last chapter. The woods
around Hemlock Valley were beginning to put on here and there a dash
of red or a shade of brown, and the autumn-blossoming flowers in the
gardens were in all their glory; the boys were making daily excursions
to the woods to bring home ferns and mosses for the parlour windows.
All the "Agricultural Transactions," "Patent-office Reports," and other
books of that nature were filled with gay autumn leaves in process
of pressing (the only use, by the way, that I ever found for such
volumes), and Mrs. Andrews complained pathetically that she could not
open an atlas or a dictionary without being covered by a shower of
falling foliage.
Marion McGregor was leaning on the gate in front of the house, looking
over the fields toward the pasture, and feeling very disconsolate. She
was more utterly discontented and unhappy than she had ever been even
at Holford, and that was saying a great deal.
We have seen how baseless were all the castles in the air she had built
on Hemlock Valley. Instead of a rude, irreligious, ill-bred household,
she had found a polite, well-ordered family, the older children kind
and helpful to their parents and each other, the younger well governed
and affectionate, and all perfectly obedient and respectful—far more
so, indeed, than she had ever learned to be.
She had never forgotten—I may say she had never forgiven—her first
lesson on that point after her arrival. Some question was being eagerly
discussed at the breakfast-table, and Mrs. Van Alstine had pronounced
an opinion, to which Marion replied in a tone of contempt:
"Nonsense, mother! How can you say so? That has nothing to do with the
matter. You don't know anything about it."
Marion had not intended to show any special disrespect to her mother,
of which, to do her justice, she was incapable. She had spoken to Aunt
Baby in the same way dozens of times, and unless grandfather happened
to hear, nobody took any notice. But now there was a dead silence. Six
pair of indignant dark eyes were turned on her at once, and after a
moment, Mr. Van Alstine said gravely, but in a tone that carried more
weight than a great many scoldings,—
"Marion, my girl, that is not the way to speak to your mother. Don't
ever let me hear such a thing again."
Marion was overwhelmed with shame and confusion, but as usual the
shame and confusion were not directed so much to the fault as to the
impression it had made on others. What would they think of her? How
they would look down on her! They would think she had no breeding at
all. She burst into tears, rose, and left the table, but nobody came to
call her back or took any notice of her till school time.
Then Mrs. Andrews had come to find her.
"I am not coming down," sobbed Marion.
"Nonsense, my dear!" said Mrs. Andrews, kindly but decidedly. "That
would be very silly. There is no use in wasting the whole day because
you have begun it badly. The way to manifest repentance is not by
crying over your fault, but by owning it and trying to do better."
"I don't think I did anything so very dreadful," said Marion, as usual
in arms for her own defence.
"Do you remember how angry you were the other day because Bessy told
you she didn't want you interfering with her Latin lessons?" said Mrs.
Andrews.
"Well, Bessy was very impertinent to me, and she always is impertinent.
She ought to remember that I am her aunt and a great deal older than
she."
"Well, which demands most respect, an aunt or a mother? However, there
is no time to argue the point. I shall expect you in the school-room in
ten minutes."
Marion came down in the required time, but she was very sulky, and went
to her own room again the moment school was over. She never spoke a
word at the dinner-table, but nobody seemed to notice her silence, and
she felt that her offended dignity was all thrown away.
Marion had been disappointed in every way. Idle as she had been in
school for the last two years, she had somehow imagined that she
should be very much in advance of her brothers, and she had made the
most amiable plans for helping them in their studies. But, alas! even
little Rob and Hector were better at parsing English than herself. Bram
criticised her false quantities in Latin without mercy, and even Mrs.
Andrews smiled at some of her translations. Instead of being prepared
to help her brothers, she was obliged to strain every nerve in the
endeavour to keep up with them. The idle and careless habits of study
in which she had lately indulged did not help her at all. It was very
mortifying.
Marion had not forgotten her resolution to help her mother in
housekeeping, but she was as unfortunate in this as in other
directions. She had begun by putting the boys' rooms in order,
beginning with Frank's and Abram's, where she had found stored away
a great quantity of trash, as she called it. There was a long set of
shelves, evidently of domestic manufacture, filled with labelled stones
and specimens of various kinds, and all, it must be acknowledged,
somewhat dusty, while in a large basket in one corner were piled a
quantity of short sticks of wood.
"How silly of Frank to keep this wood up here, when he has no stove!"
thought Marion.
She took down all the contents of the shelves, dusted them, and
restored them in the order which seemed to her best, and then, piling
the wood in the basket, she carried it down and threw it into the
kitchen wood-box. She was busy in the school-room not long afterward,
when Frank came down, followed by Bram.
"Marion, have you been in my room?" he asked, in measured tones, as if
determined not to speak sharply, come what might.
"Yes," answered Marion, all unconscious of the mischief she had done,
and as she thought perceiving an opening for one of those moral lessons
which seemed likely to be wasted by keeping. "I have put it all in nice
order, and I hope you will keep it so. There can be no excuse for such
disorder even in a boy. You certainly don't want a great basket of wood
in your room this time of year."
"Oh!" said Frank, preserving his enforced composure. "And what have you
done with this basket of wood that I didn't want, if I may venture to
ask?"
"I took it down and put it in the kitchen, wood-box, where it ought to
be," answered Marion. "Why should you speak so, Frank? I don't think
that is very kind, after I have just taken so much pains for you."
"Then another time, I wish you would let my room alone," exclaimed
Frank, his temper giving way at last. "Pains, indeed! I wish you had
been a hundred miles off before you touched it. I should think any
idiot would have known better."
"Frank, old boy!" said Bram, warningly.
"Well, I do," said Frank. "It is too bad! After all the pains I
had taken, to go and throw away—" Frank's voice broke down, and he
evidently had much to do not to burst out crying.
"Frank, my son, what is the matter?" said his mother, entering the room
and looking with surprise to see Frank's emotion and Marion's face of
anger. "I hope you haven't been getting in a passion again."
Frank tried to speak, but failed and rushed out of the room.
"What is the matter?" said Mrs. Van Alstine, again.
"There is nothing the matter, only Frank has been making a fuss about
nothing," said Marion, in her most dignified manner; "but I suppose he
will be sustained in it, of course."
"There is a good deal the matter, I think," said Bram, more moved than
was at all usual, for he had the most placid temper in the family.
"Marion has been putting our room in order, and she has jumbled all our
geological specimens together and thrown Frank's native woods into the
kitchen wood-box."
"What, not the collection of native woods he has been making so long?"
said Mrs. Van Alstine. "Not that he was making for Professor G. of the
woods of Pennsylvania? Oh, Marion!"
"Yes, mamma, she has. Frank has had them all seasoned up in the loft
at the factory. We have been busy ever so long planing and polishing
one side, so as to show the grain when manufactured, and yesterday we
brought them all up-stairs to arrange and put the labels on."
"Poor Frank! No wonder he is vexed," said her mother. "He has been
a year making that collection, and it was really very complete and
valuable. Marion, my dear, don't you know I told you not to meddle with
the boys' things?"
"I should like to know how I was to put their rooms in order without
meddling," said Marion, injured, as usual.
"But you were not asked to put them in order, only to make the beds and
lay clean cloths on the bureaus and stands. I hope you have not been
going on so in Harry's room?"
"Harry's room was not in such a state. I only piled up his books and
papers in some kind of order."
"And so lost all the references he has been finding for his essay this
week past," said Abram. "Well, I declare, sis, you have made a good
morning's work."
"It isn't quite so bad as it might be, after all," said Frank,
reappearing with a brighter face. "Maggy had sense enough to see that
so many pieces of wood, all the same size and all carefully polished
on one side, could not be common kindling wood. The dear old soul said
she had put two or three in the stove 'afore she noticed.' But when she
came to look, she saw that, she said, 'They was some of Mr. Frank's
curiosities and nonsense,' and she carefully laid them all on one side.
She shall have the nicest calico dress I can find in Ivanhoe."
"Maggy is a sensible, careful woman," said his mother, looking very
much relieved. "I am glad your collection is saved, Frank, and I am
sure you won't bear malice to poor Marie."
"Poor Marie!" Marion's proud heart swelled. Had it come to that?
"Of course not," said Frank. "Never mind, Marie; what could one expect
but that MeGregors should make raids? We shall have to give you black
mail, as people used to give to your forbear, Rob Roy. Come, Bram,
let's go and put the stones in order."
Marion had read "Rob Roy," but she was too angry to enjoy the joke,
even if it had not been against herself. The moment the boys were gone
she burst forth:
"Well, mother, I must say I think you are rather too bad to take the
part of those rude boys against me."
"Why not? They were right and you were wrong. I told you specially what
I wanted of you; and if you had obeyed, it would have been all right."
"It was just so about Rob's going fishing," continued Marion. "I told
him he should not go because it looked likely to rain, and you let him
go directly. I don't see how I am to manage at all if you do so; and
Cousin Helen is just as bad. If I say a word to the little boys or to
Betsy or Eiley in the school-room, all the thanks I get is, 'Marion,
don't interfere, if you please,' and of course I can't influence them
in the least. I came here to be useful and to help you," said Marion,
with pathetic dignity; "but if that is the way it is always going to
be, I don't see how I can do anything."
"If you want to help people acceptably, you must do it in their way,
and not in yours," said her mother. "It is anything but a help to have
you contradict my directions or interfere with the other children. You
see what a great misfortune nearly happened this morning simply because
you did not obey directions. Only for Maggy's having more observation
and discretion than yourself, the whole of Frank's valuable collection
would have been destroyed."
"Oh, very well!" said Marion, actually trembling with anger. "If Maggy
is to be put over my head as well as the children, I think it is time I
went away. I should like to go directly, if you please. I see plainly
that I am not wanted here."
"You will never be wanted anywhere, Marion, unless you learn a little
Christian humility," said her mother, more severely than usual. "You
are setting a very bad example to Bessy and the other children.
Cousin Helen has complained of you more than once for meddling and
interfering. Unless you try to do better, I shall have to speak to your
father. I can't think what Barbara was about to spoil you so."
Marion burst into tears.
"There is no use in crying," said her mother, with some sharpness, for
she was not well and very busy. "Try to do better another time, that is
all."
Marion retreated to her own room to go though her usual fit of crying,
and then of mortification and vain regret. But, as usual, her regret
was not so much that she had done wrong, as that others would think her
wrong, and, above all, that they would think her silly. It was not "How
could I be so obstinate and self-conceited as not to follow mother's
directions?" but "How silly I was not to see that those were not common
sticks of firewood! Even Maggy, that stupid old Irish woman, knew
better. And I need not have been so angry and have spoken so to mother.
What will they all think of me? Oh dear. There never was anybody
pursued by such an evil fate as I am. I meant to be so amiable and set
such a good example, and now I have lost all chance of ever influencing
those boys."
"Oh, come, sis, never mind any more about the scientific woodpile,"
said Frank, an hour or two afterward, finding Marion leaning on the
verandah railing with a very doleful face. "I am sorry I was so sharp;
but you must admit it was rather aggravating to have my fine collection
that I had been making so long tumbled into the kitchen wood-box. Come,
don't mind anything about it. Don't you want to go up the Cedar Run
with us? We are going after ground-pine and ferns to dress up Stannie's
room. You know she is coming to-morrow. You have never seen the Cedar
Run. There is a dear little waterfall on it; and when Stannie comes, we
mean to have a tea-party up there. Come!"
"I'm sure you are very good, Frank," said Marion, her ill-humour fairly
overcome by his good-nature.
"Fiddle!" said Frank, boy-fashion. "What is the use of laying up
things? Come, put on your oldest and shortest dress, for we are going
'cross lots, and you'll see sights in the way of climbing fences, I can
tell you."
And so this matter seemed happily disposed of, but Marion still felt
very unhappy. She had made herself laughed at, she had shown less sense
than Maggy. The boys would despise her, and her mother would think she
was not a Christian.
I once read in a Roman Catholic book of devotion a direction which has
always seemed to me full of wisdom:
"When you are convicted of a fault, acknowledge it openly and frankly,
repent of it heartily, and then put it out of your mind entirely."
Marion did none of these things. She would not confess frankly even to
herself that she had done wrong in disobeying her mother.
"I suppose I ought to have done as she told me, but then she need
not treat me as a child." And this "but then" spoiled the admission.
Neither was her repentance hearty; and so far from putting it out of
her mind, she kept turning it over and over and imagining a scene in
which she was the aggrieved party and her mother and brothers were
obliged to make acknowledgments to her.
Stanley Andrews came, and proved to be a pleasant fresh, unaffected
girl, ready to please and be pleased, throwing herself into the family
life at Hemlock Valley as if she belonged to it, and making it the
brighter and pleasanter for her presence. Bessy clung to her like a
burr.
Bessy and Marion had not got on well together. She had somewhat
resented and a good deal laughed at Marion's attempt to exact the
respect due to her age and position.
"You are nobody but a school-girl like myself, and I am sure you don't
know so much more than I do," said the uncompromising young woman.
"Of course I'll call you 'aunty' if you want me to, but I think it is
ridiculous, when we are so nearly of an age. Bram and Frank are six
months older than you, so I suppose I ought to call them 'uncles.' I
say, 'Uncle Bram'!"
"Uncle!" said Bram. "How long since, Betsy?"
"Well, Marion says she is 'Aunt Marion,' so I suppose what is sauce for
the 'aunt' is sauce for the 'uncle,' isn't it?" asked Bessy, demurely.
"There is no danger of any want of sauce where you are," said Bram.
"Never mind, Marion; we all know Betsy."
But Marion did mind very much—so much that she carried the matter to
her mother.
"I don't think I would mind, dear," said poor Eiley, who began to wish
that she had left Marion where she was. "You see the children have come
along so near together they have been more like brothers and sisters
than anything else. It may not have been the best way, but we can't
help it now, and I don't think I would try."
Stanley was a year older than Marion. She was in the Senior class at
Round Springs, and would graduate in another year, but she did not
stand on her dignity at all. She walked and rode, gathered specimens
with the older boys, talked metaphysics and philosophy with Harry,
music with Bessy, and dolls with little Eileen Overbeck with equal
willingness and apparently equal pleasure. Her mother would not allow
her to do any lessons in vacation-time except her music, and Stanley
took possession of the piano in school-hours, working hard at exercises
and studies of all sorts, and now and then disporting herself in a
Strauss waltz or a song. She was fully prepared to find a pleasant
companion in Marion, and met her with simple cordiality.
Marion wished to respond, but she was thinking of herself and the
impression she was likely to make, and consequently she was at once
awkward and condescending.
"Aunt Eugenia doesn't seem as well as usual, I think," remarked Stanley
at dinner one day. "She seems nervous and more like being irritable
than I have ever seen her. She didn't even care about the snuff that I
brought her."
"I have noticed a change for several days," said Mrs. Van Alstine. "She
is uneasy all the time, as if she missed something, and she doesn't
have a nap in the afternoon, as she used to."
"That won't do," said Mr. Van Alstine. "We must have the doctor over.
I'll go in and see her after dinner."
Mr. Van Alstine was as good as his word, but Aunt Eugenia would not
hear of the doctor.
"It is nothing, Ezra, only—Well, the fact is, I suppose, I miss my
snuff."
"Your snuff!" said her nephew. "And how happens it that you haven't any
snuff? The Scotchman will go after some directly."
"No, thank you, Ezra. The truth is, Marion has said so much about
its being a bad habit and making me so disagreeable, and that it was
inconsistent in a Christian to use tobacco, that I thought I would try
to do without it."
The red spark shot from Mr. Van Alstine's eyes, and then he laughed:
"If ever I saw such a girl! I believe she wouldn't hesitate to regulate
the solar system if she could only get her hand on the crank. She was
talking to Overbeck the other day on the wickedness of selling the men
tobacco at the store. But this won't do, Aunt Eugenia. I don't say I
think snuff-taking a good habit, and I wouldn't advise young people
to use tobacco in any shape, but I don't think eighty-eight is a good
time to begin to leave it off, especially when one is blind into the
bargain."
"I don't suppose I should have begun it if I hadn't always been blind,"
said Aunt Eugenia, "though the best and the most elegant people took
snuff when I was young."
"To be sure; my mother always did. Come, now, let me fill your
snuff-box and make you comfortable."
"But don't find fault with Marion," said the kind-hearted old lady,
accepting the long used and sorely missed stimulant. "Marion naturally
doesn't know what it is to have no eyes. She means well, I am sure, and
she is very kind in reading to me. She is only a little conceited, and
time will cure that."
"More than a little, I am afraid," said Mr. Van Alstine. "Never fear,
auntie; I shall not be hard upon her, but I have seen for some time
that Marion needs taking down a little. She has sense enough, if she
did not think she had more than any one else in the world."
Nevertheless, Marion thought Mr. Van Alstine was very hard on her.
"See here, my girl, I want to tell you something," said he as he found
her sitting on the verandah with a book. "Did you ever hear how it was
that Mr. Abbott Lawrence made his great fortune?"
"No, sir," answered Marion, all unsuspicious.
"Well, I'll tell you: it was by minding his own business. I'm afraid
you won't make one in the same way unless you begin pretty soon. I am
very glad to have you do all you can for auntie, but don't meddle with
her snuff-box again."
This was all he said, but it was enough to make Marion abandon her book
and betake herself to melancholy musings leaning over the gate. The
prospect was not a very lively one. There was nothing to see but the
horse-barn across the road, where old James was impartially dividing a
piece of meat among his army of cats; the mule-pasture with the road
winding through it which led to the saw-mill; and beyond, unlimited
woods clothing the sides of the valley. A mule-wagon heavily loaded
with bark was coming up the road, another load was being weighed on the
scales opposite the store, and Mr. Overbeck, in his shirt-sleeves, was
attending to the process. There was nobody else in sight. Marion leaned
on the gate and looked up and down the street.
"Oh dear!" she sighed. "I used to think it was stupid and tiresome
at grandfather's, but it is ten times worse here. I might have known
better than to interfere with Aunt Eugenia's snuff-box. Of course,
with such an old lady, how ridiculous it was! Oh dear! I thought I
was going to have so much influence here and do so much good, and now
I wish I had not come. I never can make them respect me after this,
and there is no use in trying. There's Stanley, now. I don't believe
she cares one bit about having an influence or setting an example,
and she can do just what she pleases. She has broken Bessy of saying
'Hallo!' and Eiley of drawling and saying 'Yas-m,' and the boys think
there is nobody like her. I believe it is because she has been to
boarding-school so much. I wish I could go, but I never can have half a
chance."
She looked up as she spoke, and saw Gertrude Van Alstine's carriage
coming over the hill.