THE SKELETON IN THE GARRET.
One beautiful May morning, not long after I first met Clara, I was sent
to Dr. Forest’s with a basket of eggs. As I opened the little gate
leading through the shrubbery and little lawn to the front door, I
perceived Clara standing on the wide upper step, with a watering-pot in
her hand. She was dressed in white, as usual, and was sprinkling some
flowers that grew in a large vase that stood on a pedestal by the steps.
She greeted me pleasantly, and led me into the kitchen, where Dinah, the
fat black servant, relieved my basket of its contents. Mrs. Forest, a
tall, sweet-looking, pale lady, in a white apron, was engaged in making
a vast quantity of little cakes, which Clara told me were macaroons for
her party—a great event which was to take place that afternoon. I had
heard of it, but did not expect an invitation, because I lived quite out
of the village, and knew Clara but very slightly. Seeing all these
delightful preparations, caused me to break the tenth commandment in my
heart, but I was glad that Clara was so happy; and I lingered in that
pleasant kitchen as long as I could, consistently with any degree of
propriety. The twins, now some five years old, were the most prominent
object in the Forest household, if not in the whole village. At that
moment Dinah was picking over raisins, and they kept near her, devouring
all she would give them, and when their importunities failed they
watched their chances, and every now and then succeeded in grabbing a
handful, when they would disappear, and remain very quiet for a few
minutes. Sometimes Dinah would be quick enough to seize the little
depredatory hand and rob it of its booty. When she failed, she “clar’d
to God” there wouldn’t be a raisin left for Miss Clara’s party cake.
The doctor’s family were from the South, where Dinah had formerly been a
slave, though her condition was little better than slavery after the
advent of those imps of twins. The good-natured old servant had loved
the other children very sincerely, and she tried hard to take these also
into her capacious heart, but she never fully succeeded. There was a
feud between her and them, born of their persistent delight in
tormenting her. “Hatching mischief,” she said, was their sole occupation
during their waking hours, and their tricks were told by Dinah to other
servants until the whole village laughed over them.
After amusing the twins awhile I rose to go, following Clara back
through the dining-room to the front door. In the hall she showed me a
long table filled with toy china sets for the amusement, she said, of
the “little girls,” Dr. Buzby cards and other games for the older. I
could not repress exclamations of delight at the prospect of so much
bliss; but when I informed her that I had never been invited to a party
in my life, I had not the remotest intention of “fishing” for an
invitation to hers.
“You never have been at a party!” she exclaimed, quite amazed; and
looking at me from head to foot, her heart seemed to be touched at the
extent and depth of my deprivation. Just then Mrs. Forest came into the
dining-room, and Clara said, “Mamma, I should like to invite one other
girl to my party, if you are willing. I mean this one.” “Certainly, my
dear, if you wish it,” was the pleasant reply, and thereupon, thanking
Clara as well as I could, I left the house, filled with a greater
happiness than I had ever known.
On reaching home I readily gained permission to attend Clara’s
reception, but the question of dress was a serious one, for I well knew
how finely her friends would be arrayed; still I managed as best I
could, and three o’clock in the afternoon found me timidly pulling the
door-bell at Dr. Forest’s. Some other girls arrived before Clara had
disposed of my hat and little cape. We were first ushered into the
drawing-room, where Mrs. Forest was sewing. She did not rise, but smiled
upon us, and addressed to each a few pleasant words.
We soon grew impatient of sitting prim and “behaving” in the
sitting-room, and were greatly relieved when we found ourselves playing
games among the fragrant lilacs and syringas of the garden. Then
followed a game with the innocuous Dr. Buzby cards then in vogue. Clara,
more beautiful than ever, I thought, explained the principles of the
game to me, in a charming, dogmatic manner. I was the only one ignorant
on the subject, and this, with my very plain dress, caused one of the
guests to eye me insolently and ask me if I lived in the woods. Clara
instantly, and in no measured terms, rebuked her guest’s impoliteness,
which had the effect to send her off pouting among the lilacs. I
remember this because it shows the superior nature of Clara Forest in
the most unquestionable way. Children may learn the form of politeness,
but the spirit of it is almost invariably absent, and must be from the
very nature of human development. Man is first the brute, then the
civilizee, and lastly the philosopher; and the child, in its unfolding,
exemplifies these phases just as society does. That Clara was
exceptionally fine in her nature I knew well even then, but I was
ignorant of the cause until long after.
We were much disturbed in our game of Dr. Buzby by Leila and Linnie, the
ubiquitous twins, who vexed and annoyed us in the thousand ways that
little ones have at their command. Finally, to escape from the twins,
Clara led us upstairs, through the doctor’s study, into his bedroom, and
closed the door. This was a plain little room, having a stand, with
several books, at the head of the bed, and over it the doctor’s
night-bell. Clara strictly enjoined us to not so much as touch a single
article in her father’s rooms, on penalty of being instantly obliged,
all of us, to quit our retreat. During our game of cards, Abbie Kendrick
asked Clara why this room was called the doctor’s exclusively.
“Why, because he sleeps here, to be sure,” answered Clara, with a slight
_hauteur_, as if unwilling to discuss family matters with her guests.
She was a very dignified child, this idol of mine—“proud” was the term
girls generally applied to her.
“But does not your mamma sleep here too?” asked Abbie, bold enough to
pursue the subject.
“Certainly not,” replied Clara. “Papa and mamma do not think it proper
to sleep together.”
This piece of information surprised us greatly, but we all accepted the
fact as showing the immeasurable aristocratic superiority of the Dr. and
Mrs. Forest over all the married people we knew. I remember we all
approved the system, agreeing that it was quite proper for girls to
sleep together, and for no others. How wise we were then! Some of us
have slightly modified our views on the subject since we played that
game of cards in the doctor’s room; but we had very fixed and positive
opinions then—all except Clara, who listened silently. We decided that
if we ever married, which, of course, we never would, we should have two
bedrooms, and never, never allow our husbands to enter ours, unless he
were a physician and we happened to be ill!
When the Dr. Buzby cards ceased to amuse us, Clara produced her _piece
de resistence_, which was her play-house in the garret, somewhat
neglected now, for she was approaching the outposts of young ladyhood.
This garret was the one place where the sacrilegious twins had not
penetrated. It was the sanctuary in which she had been in the habit of
taking refuge when hard pressed by the merciless tyrants, to whom she
had always been a patient nurse and victim, for her mother was in
delicate health, and Dinah was almost exclusively occupied with the
housekeeping. To this sanctuary Clara had removed her broken-nosed
dolls, smeared and torn books, and the wrecks generally that she had
snatched from time to time from the grip of the vandals.
We approached this large old garret, under the gable roof, by a rickety
flight of stairs, and on reaching the landing a hideous spectacle
curdled my young blood and riveted my scared, fascinated eyes. It was a
grinning skeleton, suspended to the rafter by a cord and a ring attached
to the top of the skull. The other girls being already initiated,
laughed my terrors to scorn, while one bold miss of ten, Clara’s most
intimate friend, Louise Kendrick, went straight up to the horror, made
faces at it, and then deliberately set it spinning! I shall never forget
the sinking, sickening sensation at my heart as the eyeless sockets and
hideous teeth glared through the dim light at me with every revolution.
Clara, seeing how frightened I was, hastened to reassure me by saying,
as she placed her arm around me—
“It isn’t anything but the bones, you know. We all look like that under
our flesh.” Comforting thought! It required a long time for me to
control myself so that I could enter into the doll-dressing with spirit;
and every now and then, as we cut, and planned, and sewed, especially as
the light grew dimmer, I turned my head over my shoulder, gingerly, just
enough to make sure that the “thing” was not striding toward me. Right
glad was I when we were called down to our weak tea, and over the honey
and hot biscuits I forgot for the time the agony of fear I had endured.
That night, however, the skeleton was “after me” all the time; and my
ineffectual struggles to get my long yellow hair out of its bony hands
woke me many times with agonizing cries. And all this because my young
imagination had been poisoned by ghost stories—the ghost always being
represented by a skeleton partially covered with white drapery. I
believe now in the “inquisition of science”;—that one of its most sacred
functions is to seize and punish any person found guilty of entertaining
the sensitive, unformed brain of the child with the horrors of the
grave, of death, of hell, or any of the unverifiable hypotheses of
theology and superstition, born of the general ignorance incident to the
childhood of the human race.